Edgar Wallace

Whiteside scratched his nose in perplexity.

"The further this case goes, the more puzzled I am," he said. "Here is a man, a wealthy man, who has apparently no bitter enemies, discovered dead in Hyde Park, with a woman's silk night-dress wound round his chest, with list slippers on his feet, and a Chinese inscription in his pocket—and further, to puzzle the police, a bunch of daffodils on the chest. That was a woman's act, Mr. Tarling," he said suddenly.

Tarling started. "How do you mean?" he asked.

"It was a woman's act to put flowers on the man," said Whiteside quietly. "Those daffodils tell me of pity and compassion, and perhaps repentance."

A slow smile dawned on Tarling's face.

"My dear Whiteside," he said, "you are getting sentimental! And here," he added, looking up, "attracted to the spot, is a gentleman I seem to be always meeting—Mr. Milburgh, I think."

Ling Chu nodded.

"It is true, master," he said. "The Little Narcissus, or as the foreigners called her, the Little Daffodil, was my sister. She became a dancer in a tea-house against my wish, our parents being dead. She was a very good girl, master, and as pretty as a sprig of almond blossom. Chinese women are not pretty to the foreigner's eyes, but little Daffodil was like something cast in porcelain, and she had the virtues of a thousand years."

Tarling nodded.

"She was a good girl?" he repeated, this time speaking in Chinese and using a phrase which had a more delicate shade of meaning.

"She lived good and she died good," said the Chinaman calmly. "The speech of the Englishman offended her, and he called her many bad names because she would not come and sit on his knee; and if he put shame upon her by embracing her before the eyes of men, she was yet good, and she died very honourably."

Another interval of silence.

"I see," said Tarling quietly. "And when you said you would come with me to England, did you expect to meet—the bad Englishman?"

Ling Chu shook his head.

That very evening