XXIX

“Good Lord, Yeh Ling, you gave me a fright! What a creeping old devil you are.”

“I came to see whether the dinner was successful,” said Yeh Ling softly. His hands were covered in his wide sleeves, a little black skull cap was pushed on the back of his head, his shabby silk suit and white soled slippers seemed remarkably out of place in that very modern setting.

“It was a great success, Yeh Ling,” said Tab, “wasn’t it?”

He turned to the girl and she nodded and her eyes met Yeh Ling’s and for the fraction of a second, held them.

“I think I’ll go,” said Rex awkwardly and gripped the girl’s hand again. “Goodnight, old man, you are a lucky old thief.” He wrung Tab’s hand and was gone.

“Was the wine to your liking?” said Yeh Ling’s soft voice.

“Everything was beautiful,” said Ursula. There was a touch of colour in her cheeks that had not been there before. “Thank you, Yeh Ling, you gave us a wonderful feast. We shall be late for the theatre, Tab,” she said, getting up hurriedly.

She was very silent in the car that drove them to the Athenaeum and Tab felt a little of the gloom which had suddenly come into their festivity.

“Yeh Ling is a creepy sort of fellow, isn’t he?” he said.

“Yes, I suppose he is,” was her reply and that was all she said.

Ten minutes later she was sitting in a box, intent upon a stage which she had once adorned and seemingly oblivious to everything except the play. Tab decided that she was a little temperamental and loved her for it.

Going out to smoke between the first two acts (she insisted upon his going) he saw Carver standing by a tape machine in the vestibule of the theatre. His attention was concentrated on a very prose account of a yacht race which was coming through, but he saw Tab out of the corner of his eye and signalled him.

“I am going home with you tonight,” he said surprisingly. “What time will you leave Miss Ardfern?”

“I am seeing her to her hotel immediately after the show.”

“You are not going to supper anywhere?” asked the other carelessly.

“No,” said Tab, “why do you ask?”

“Then I will be waiting at the Central Hotel for you. I wish to see you about a nephew of mine who wants to become a newspaper reporter. Perhaps you can give me a few hints.”

Tab glanced at him suspiciously.

“I have suspected you of many weaknesses, but never of nepotism!” he said. “You told me a few weeks back that you hadn’t a relation in the world.”

“I have acquired a nephew since then,” said Carver calmly, his eyes still upon the tape, “it is a poor kind of detective who can’t discover a nephew or two. I may fall down on a murderer, but when it comes to unearthing distant relations, I am at the top of my class. You will find me somewhere in the shadows of the Central,” he added.

Tab did not see the detective again until he had left the girl in the vestibule of her hotel. Coming out into the street, Carver, true to his word, appeared from the night and took his arm.

“We will walk home. You don’t take enough exercise,” he said. “Lack of exercise is bad for the old, but it is fatal for the young.”

“You are very chatty this evening,” said Tab. “Tell me something about your little nephew.”

“I haven’t a nephew,” said the detective shamelessly, “but I am feeling kind of lonely tonight. I have had a very disappointing day, Tab, and I want to pour my woes into a sympathetic ear.”

“Faugh!” said Tab.

Carver showed no inclination to find a sympathetic listener, even when they were back at the flat, and he had a modest whiskey and soda before him.

“The truth is,” he said at last, in answer to a direct question, “I have reason to believe that I am being most carefully watched.”

“By whom?” asked the startled Tab.

“By the murderer of Trasmere,” said the detective quietly. “It is a humiliating confession for a man of my experience and proved courage to make, but I am afraid to go home tonight, for I have a large premonition that our unknown friend is preparing something particularly startling in the way of trouble for me.”

“Then you really want to stay the night here?” said Tab as the fact dawned upon him.

Carver nodded.

“Your instinct is marvellously developed,” said he. “That is just what I want to do, if it is not inconvenient. The fact is, I had not the moral courage to ask you before. It isn’t very pleasant to admit⁠—”

“Oh shush!” said Tab scornfully. “You are no more scared of the murderer than I am.”

“I am more accessible to him in my own lodgings,” said the detective and that sounded fairly true. “If I stayed in a hotel I should be even more accessible, so I am going to make use of you, Tab. How do you feel about it?”

“You can bring your belongings and stay here until the case is over,” invited Tab. “I don’t think that Rex’s old bed is made up.”

“I prefer the sofa, anyway. Luxury enfeebles and vitiates a man as it enfeebles and vitiates a nation⁠—”

“If you are going to be oracular, I am retiring to bed,” said Tab.

He went into his room, brought out a rug and a pillow and threw them on to the broad settee.

“I’d like to say,” said Carver, as Tab was leaving him for the last time, “how surprisingly good you look in evening kit. The difficulties of making a reporter look like a gentleman must be almost insuperable, but you have succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations.”

Tab chuckled.

“You’re indecently humorous tonight,” he said.

He hadn’t been in bed five minutes before the light went out of the sitting-room. Mr. Carver was apparently settling himself to sleep.

Tab’s dreams were happy, but they were strangely mixed. Within five minutes of his head touching the pillow, he was carrying Ursula through her scented garden and his heart was full of gratitude to providence that this great and wonderful prize had come to him. And then in his dream he began to feel uncomfortable. Glancing over his shoulder he saw the sinister figure of Yeh Ling watching him and he was in the garden no longer, but on the slope of a hill flanked by two huge pillars, and Yeh Ling stood at the entrance of his queer house arrayed in dull gold brocade.

“Bang.⁠ ⁠… Bang!”

Two shots in rapid succession.