it got into that room. I know that
it was safe a fortnight ago because I took it to a gunsmith to be oiled."

"Where do you keep it as a rule?"

"In the cupboard with my colonial kit," said Tarling. "Nobody has access
to my room except Ling Chu, who is always there when I'm out."

"Ling Chu is your Chinese servant?"

"Not exactly a servant," smiled Tarling. "He is one of the best native
thief catchers I have ever met. He is a man of the greatest integrity and
I would trust him with my life."

"Murdered with your pistol, eh?" asked the Commissioner.

There was a little pause and then:

"I suppose Lyne's estate will go to the Crown? He has no relations and no
heir."

"You're wrong there," said Tarling quietly.

The Commissioner looked up in surprise.

"Has he an heir?" he asked.

"He has a cousin," said Tarling with a little smile, "a relationship
close enough to qualify him for Lyne's millions, unfortunately."

"Why unfortunately?" asked Mr. Cresswell.

"Because I happen to be the heir," said Tarling.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MISSING REVOLVER

Tarling walked out of Scotland Yard on to the sunlit Embankment, trouble
in his face. He told himself that the case was getting beyond him and
that it was only the case and its development which worried him. The
queer little look which had dawned on the Commissioner's face when he
learnt that the heir to the murdered Thornton Lyne's fortune was the
detective who was investigating his murder, and that Tarling's revolver
had been found in the room where the murder had been committed, aroused
nothing but an inward chuckle.

That suspicion should attach to him was, he told himself, poetic justice,
for in his day he himself had suspected many men, innocent or partly
innocent.

He walked up the stairs to his room and found Ling Chu polishing
the meagre stock of silver which Tarling possessed. Ling Chu was a
thief-catcher and a great detective, but he had also taken upon himself
the business of attending to Tarling's personal comfort. The detective
spoke no word, out went straight to the cupboard where he kept his
foreign kit. On a shelf in neat array and carefully folded, were the thin
white drill suits he wore in the tropics. His sun helmet hung on a peg,
and on the opposite wall was a revolver holster hanging by a strap. He
lifted the holster. It was empty. He had had no doubts in his mind that
the holster would be empty and closed the door with a troubled fro