Tarling started. He knew of the _Hong_ to which the man referred. It was the little red slip of paper bearing the Chinese characters which was found upon Thornton Lyne's body that memorable morning in Hyde Park. "Yes, yes," he said eagerly. "What happened then?" "He put the envelope in his pocket and went out. I heard him walking along the passage, and then I crept out from my hiding place and I also looked at the desk. I put the revolver down by my side, because I wanted both hands for the search, but I found nothing--only one little piece book that the master uses to write down from day to day all that happens to him." "A diary?" thought Tarling. "Well, and what next?" he asked. "I got up to search the room and tripped over a wire. It must have been the wire attached to the electric light above the desk, for the room suddenly became dark, and at that moment I heard the big man's footsteps returning and slipped out of the door. And that is all, master," said Ling Chu simply. "I went back to the roof quickly for fear I should be discovered and it should bring dishonour to you." Tarling whistled. "And left the pistol behind?" he said. "That is nothing but the truth," said Ling Chu. "I have dishonoured myself in your eyes, and in my heart I am a murderer, for I went to that place to kill the man who had brought shame to me and to my honourable relation." "And left the pistol behind?" said Tarling again. "And Milburgh found it!" CHAPTER XX MR. MILBURGH SEES IT THROUGH Ling Chu's story was not difficult to believe. It was less difficult to believe that he was lying. There is no inventor in the world so clever, so circumstantial, so exact as to detail, as the Chinaman. He is a born teller of stories and piecer together of circumstances that fit so closely that it is difficult to see the joints. Yet the man had been frank, straightforward, patently honest. He had even placed himself in Tarling's power by his confession of his murderous intention. Tarling could reconstruct the scene after the Chinaman had left. Milburgh stumbling in in the dark, striking a match and discovering a wall plug had been pulled away, reconnecting the lamp, and seeing to his amazement a murderous-looking pistol on the desk. It was possible that Milburgh, finding the pistol, had been deceived into believing that he had overlooked it on his previous search. But what had happened to the weapon between the moment that Ling Chu left it on Thornton Lyne's private desk and when it was discovered in the work-basket of Odette Rider in the flat at Carrymore Mansions? And what had Milburgh been doing in the store by himself so late at night? And more particularly, what had he been doing in Thornton Lyne's private room? It was unlikely that Lyne would leave his desk unlocked, and the only inference to be drawn was that Milburgh had unlocked it himself with the object of searching its contents.