Mr. Milburgh had a little house in one of the industrial streets of Camden Town. It was a street made up for the most part of blank walls, pierced at intervals1 with great gates, through which one could procure2 at times a view of gaunt factories and smoky-looking chimney-stacks.
Mr. Milburgh's house was the only residence in the road, if one excepted the quarters of caretakers and managers, and it was agreed by all who saw his tiny demesne3, that Mr. Milburgh had a good landlord.
The "house" was a detached cottage in about half an acre of ground, a one-storey building, monopolising the space which might have been occupied by factory extension. Both the factory to the right and the left had made generous offers to acquire the ground, but Mr. Milburgh's landlord had been adamant4. There were people who suggested that Mr. Milburgh's landlord was Mr. Milburgh himself. But how could that be? Mr. Milburgh's salary was something under L400 a year, and the cottage site was worth at least L4,000.
Canvey Cottage, as it was called, stood back from the road, behind a lawn, innocent of flowers, and the lawn itself was protected from intrusion by high iron railings which Mr. Milburgh's landlord had had erected5 at considerable cost. To reach the house it was necessary to pass through an iron gate and traverse a stone-flagged path to the door of the cottage.
On the night when Tarling of Scotland Yard was the victim of a murderous assault, Mr. Milburgh unlocked the gate and passed through, locking and double-locking the gate behind him. He was alone, and, as was his wont6, he was whistling a sad little refrain which had neither beginning nor end. He walked slowly up the stone pathway, unlocked the door of his cottage, and stood only a moment on the doorstep to survey the growing thickness of the night, before he closed and bolted the door and switched on the electric light.
He was in a tiny hallway, plainly but nicely furnished. The note of luxury was struck by the Zohn etchings which hung on the wall, and which Mr. Milburgh stopped to regard approvingly. He hung up his coat and hat, slipped off the galoshes he was wearing (for it was wet underfoot), and, passing through a door which opened from the passage, came to his living room. The same simple note of furniture and decoration was observable here. The furniture was good, the carpet under his feet thick and luxurious7. He snicked down another switch and an electric radiator8 glowed in the fireplace. Then he sat down at the big table, which was the most conspicuous9 article of furniture in the room. It was practically covered with orderly little piles of paper, most of them encircled with rubber bands. He did not attempt to touch or read them, but sat looking moodily10 at his blotting-pad, preoccupied11 and absent.
Presently he rose with a little grunt12, and, crossing the room, unlocked a very commonplace and old-fashioned cupboard, the top of which served as a sideboard. From the cupboard he took a dozen little books and carried them to the table. They were of uniform size and each bore the figures of a year. They appeared to be, and indeed were, diaries, but they were not Mr. Milburgh's diaries. One day he chanced to go into Thornton Lyne's room at the Stores and had seen these books arrayed on a steel shelf of Lyne's private safe. The proprietor's room overlooked the ground floor of the Stores, and Thornton Lyne at the time was visible to his manager, and could not under any circumstances surprise him, so Mr. Milburgh had taken out one volume and read, with more than ordinary interest, the somewhat frank and expansive diary which Thornton Lyne had kept.
He had only read a few pages on that occasion, but later he had an opportunity of perusing13 the whole year's record, and had absorbed a great deal of information which might have been useful to him in the future, had not Thornton Lyne met his untimely end at the hands of an unknown murderer.
On the day when Thornton Lyne's body was discovered in Hyde Park with a woman's night-dress wrapped around the wound in his breast, Mr. Milburgh had, for reasons of expediency14 and assisted by a duplicate key of Lyne's safe, removed those diaries to a safer place. They contained a great deal that was unpleasant for Mr. Milburgh, particularly the current diary, for Thornton Lyne had set down not only his experiences, but his daily happenings, his thoughts, poetical15 and otherwise, and had stated very exactly and in libellous terms his suspicions of his manager.
The diary provided Mr. Milburgh with a great deal of very interesting reading matter, and now he turned to the page where he had left off the night before and continued his study. It was a page easy to find, because he had thrust between the leaves a thin envelope of foreign make containing certain slips of paper, and as he took out his improvised16 book mark a thought seemed to strike him, and he felt carefully in his pocket. He did not discover the thing for which he was searching, and with a smile he laid the envelope carefully on the table, and went on at the point where his studies had been interrupted.
"Lunched at the London Hotel and dozed18 away the afternoon. Weather fearfully hot. Had arranged to make a call upon a distant cousin--a man named Tarling--who is in the police force at Shanghai, but too much of a fag. Spent evening at Chu Han's dancing hall. Got very friendly with a pretty little Chinese girl who spoke19 pigeon English. Am seeing her to-morrow at Ling Foo's. She is called 'The Little Narcissus.' I called her 'My Little Daffodil'--"
Mr. Milburgh stopped in his reading.
"Little Daffodil!" he repeated, then looked at the ceiling and pinched his thick lips. "Little Daffodil!" he said again, and a big smile dawned on his face.
He was still engaged in reading when a bell shrilled20 in the hall. He rose to his feet and stood listening and the bell rang again. He switched off the light, pulled aside the thick curtain which hid the window, and peered out through the fog. He could just distinguish in the light of the street lamp two or three men standing22 at the gate. He replaced the curtain, turned up the light again, took the books in his arms and disappeared with them into the corridor. The room at the back was his bedroom, and into this he went, making no response to the repeated jingle23 of the bell for fully17 five minutes.
At the end of that time he reappeared, but now he was in his pyjamas24, over which he wore a heavy dressing-gown. He unlocked the door, and shuffled25 in his slippers26 down the stone pathway to the gate.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Tarling. You know me," said a voice.
"Mr. Tarling?" said Milburgh in surprise. "Really this is an unexpected pleasure. Come in, come in, gentlemen."
"Open the gate," said Tarling briefly27.
"Excuse me while I go and get the key," said Milburgh. "I didn't expect visitors at this hour of the night."
He went into the house, took a good look round his room, and then reappeared, taking the key from the pocket of his dressing-gown. It had been there all the time, if the truth be told, but Mr. Milburgh was a cautious man and took few risks.
Tarling was accompanied by Inspector28 Whiteside and another man, whom Milburgh rightly supposed was a detective. Only Tarling and the Inspector accepted his invitation to step inside, the third man remaining on guard at the gate.
Milburgh led the way to his cosy29 sitting-room30.
"I have been in bed some hours, and I'm sorry to have kept you so long."
"Your radiator is still warm," said Tarling quietly, stooping to feel the little stove.
"Isn't that clever of you to discover that?" he said admiringly. "The fact is, I was so sleepy when I went to bed, several hours ago, that I forgot to turn the radiator off, and it was only when I came down to answer the bell that I discovered I had left it switched on."
Tarling stooped and picked the butt32 end of a cigar out of the hearth33. It was still alight.
"You've been smoking in your sleep, Mr. Milburgh," he said dryly.
"No, no," said the airy Mr. Milburgh. "I was smoking that when I came downstairs to let you in. I instinctively34 put a cigar in my mouth the moment I wake up in the morning. It is a disgraceful habit, and really is one of my few vices," he admitted. "I threw it down when I turned out the radiator."
Tarling smiled.
"Won't you sit down?" said Milburgh, seating himself in the least comfortable of the chairs. "You see," his smile was apologetic as he waved his hand to the table, "the work is frightfully heavy now that poor Mr. Lyne is dead. I am obliged to bring it home, and I can assure you, Mr. Tarling, that there are some nights when I work till daylight, getting things ready for the auditor35."
"Do you ever take exercise?" asked Tarling innocently. "Little night walks in the fog for the benefit of your health?"
A puzzled frown gathered on Milburgh's face.
"Exercise, Mr. Tarling?" he said with an air of mystification. "I don't quite understand you. Naturally I shouldn't walk out on a night like this. What an extraordinary fog for this time of the year!"
"Do you know Paddington at all?"
"No," said Mr. Milburgh, "except that there is a station there which I sometimes use. But perhaps you will explain to me the meaning of this visit?"
"The meaning is," said Tarling shortly, "that I have been attacked to-night by a man of your build and height, who fired twice at me at close quarters. I have a warrant--" Mr. Milburgh's eyes narrowed--"I have a warrant to search this house."
"For what?" demanded Milburgh boldly.
"For a revolver or an automatic pistol and anything else I can find."
Milburgh rose.
"You're at liberty to search the house from end to end," he said. "Happily, it is a small one, as my salary does not allow of an expensive establishment."
"Do you live here alone?" asked Tarling.
"Quite," replied Milburgh. "A woman comes in at eight o'clock to-morrow morning to cook my breakfast and make the place tidy, but I sleep here by myself. I am very much hurt," he was going on.
"You will be hurt much worse," said Tarling dryly and proceeded to the search.
It proved to be a disappointing one, for there was no trace of any weapon, and certainly no trace of the little red slips which he had expected to find in Milburgh's possession. For he was not searching for the man who had assailed36 him, but for the man who had killed Thornton Lyne.
He came back to the little sitting-room where Milburgh had been left with the Inspector and apparently37 he was unruffled by his failure.
"Now, Mr. Milburgh," he said brusquely, "I want to ask you: Have you ever seen a piece of paper like this before?"
He took a slip from his pocket and spread it on the table. Milburgh looked hard at the Chinese characters on the crimson38 square, and then nodded.
"You have?" said Tarling in surprise.
"Yes, sir," said Mr. Milburgh complacently39. "I should be telling an untruth if I said I had not. Nothing is more repugnant to me than to deceive anybody."
"That I can imagine," said Tarling.
"I am sorry you are sarcastic40, Mr. Tarling," said the reproachful Milburgh, "but I assure you that I hate and loathe41 an untruth."
"Where have you seen these papers?"
"On Mr. Lyne's desk," was the surprising answer
"On Lyne's desk?"
Milburgh nodded.
"The late Mr. Thornton Lyne," he said, "came back from the East with a great number of curios, and amongst them were a number of slips of paper covered with Chinese characters similar to this. I do not understand Chinese," he said, "because I have never had occasion to go to China. The characters may have been different one from the other, but to my unsophisticated eye they all look alike."
"You've seen these slips on Lyne's desk?" said Tarling. "Then why did you not tell the police before? You know that the police attach a great deal of importance to the discovery of one of these things in the dead man's pocket?"
Mr. Milburgh nodded.
"It is perfectly42 true that I did not mention the fact to the police," he said, "but you understand Mr. Tarling that I was very much upset by the sad occurrence, which drove everything else out of my mind. It would have been quite possible that you would have found one or two of these strange inscriptions43 in this very house." He smiled in the detective's face. "Mr. Lyne was very fond of distributing the curios he brought from the East to his friends," he went on. "He gave me that dagger44 you see hanging on the wall, which he bought at some outlandish place in his travels. He may have given me a sample of these slips. I remember his telling me a story about them, which I cannot for the moment recall."
He would have continued retailing45 reminiscences of his late employer, but Tarling cut him short, and with a curt21 good night withdrew. Milburgh accompanied him to the front gate and locked the door upon the three men before he went back to his sitting-room smiling quietly to himself.
"I am certain that the man was Milburgh," said Tarling. "I am as certain as that I am standing here."
"Have you any idea why he should want to out you?" asked Whiteside.
"None in the world," replied Tarling. "Evidently my assailant was a man who had watched my movements and had probably followed the girl and myself to the hotel in a cab. When I disappeared inside he dismissed his own and then took the course of dismissing my cab, which he could easily do by paying the man his fare and sending him off. A cabman would accept that dismissal without suspicion. He then waited for me in the fog and followed me until he got me into a quiet part of the road, where he first attempted to sandbag and then to shoot me."
"But why?" asked Whiteside again. "Suppose Milburgh knew something about this murder--which is very doubtful--what benefit would it be to him to have you put out of the way?"
"If I could answer that question," replied Tarling grimly, "I could tell you who killed Thornton Lyne."
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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demesne
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| n.领域，私有土地 | |
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adamant
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| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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radiator
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| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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moodily
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| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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expediency
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| n.适宜；方便；合算；利己 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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shrilled
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| （声音）尖锐的，刺耳的，高频率的( shrill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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pyjamas
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| n.（宽大的）睡衣裤 | |
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shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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auditor
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| n.审计员，旁听着 | |
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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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retailing
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| n.零售业v.零售(retail的现在分词) | |
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