All trace of the fog of the night before had disappeared when Tarling looked out from his bedroom window later that morning. The streets were flooded with yellow sunshine, and there was a tang in the air which brought the colour to the cheek and light to the eye of the patient Londoner.

Tarling stretched his arms and yawned in the sheer luxury of living, before he took down his silk dressing-gown and went in to the breakfast which Ling Chu had laid for him.

The blue-bloused Chinaman who stood behind his master's chair, poured out the tea and laid a newspaper on one side of the plate and letters on the other. Tarling ate his breakfast in silence and pushed away the plate.

"Ling Chu," he said in the vernacular of Lower China, "I shall lose my name as the Man Hunter, for this case puzzles me beyond any other."

"Master," said the Chinaman in the same language, "there is a time in all cases, when the hunter feels that he must stop and weep. I myself had this feeling when I hunted down Wu Fung, the strangler of Hankow. Yet," he added philosophically, "one day I found him and he is sleeping on the Terrace of Night."

He employed the beautiful Chinese simile for death.

"Yesterday I found the little-young-woman," said Tarling after a pause. In this quaint way did he refer to Odette Rider.

"You may find the little-young-woman and yet not find the killer," said Ling Chu, standing by the side of the table, his hands respectfully hidden under his sleeves. "For the little-young-woman did not kill the white-faced man."

"How do you know?" asked Tarling; and the Chinaman shook his head.

"The little-young-woman has no strength, master," he said. "Also it is not known that she has skill in the driving of the quick cart."

"You mean the motor?" asked Tarling quickly, and Ling Chu nodded.

"By Jove! I never thought of that," said Tarling. "Of course, whoever killed Thornton Lyne must have put his body in the car and driven him to the Park. But how do you know that she does not drive?"

"Because I have asked," said the Chinaman simply. "Many people know the little-young-woman at the great Stores where the white-faced man lived, and they all say that s............