d, what do you want?" he asked. "It is true I am Mr.
Milburgh, but when you say that I have committed murder you are telling
a wicked lie."

He had gained some courage, because he had expected in the first place to
be taken immediately to Scotland Yard and placed in custody. The fact
that Tarling's flat lay at the end of the journey seemed to suggest that
the situation was not as desperate as he had imagined.

Ling Chu, turning suddenly upon Milburgh, gripped him by the wrist,
half-turning as he did so. Before Milburgh knew what was happening, he
was lying on the floor, face downwards, with Ling Chu's knee in the small
of his back. He felt something like a wire loop slipped about his wrists,
and suffered an excruciating pain as the Chinaman tightened the
connecting link of the native handcuff.

"Get up," said Ling Chu sternly, and, exerting a surprising strength,
lifted the man to his feet.

"What are you going to do?" said Milburgh, his teeth chattering with
fear.

There was no answer. Ling Chu gripped the man by one hand and opening the
door with the other, pushed him into a room which was barely furnished.
Against the wall there was an iron bed, and on to this the man was
pushed, collapsing in a heap.

The Chinese thief-catcher went about his work in a scientific fashion.
First he fastened and threaded a length of silk rope through one of the
rails of the bed and into the slack of this he lifted Milburgh's head, so
that he could not struggle except at the risk of being strangled.

Ling Chu turned him over, unfastened the handcuffs, and methodically
bound first one wrist and then the other to the side of the bed.

"What are you going to do?" repeated Milburgh, but the Chinaman made no
reply.

He produced from a belt beneath his blouse a wicked-looking knife, and
the manager opened his mouth to shout. He was beside himself with terror,
but any cause for fear had yet to come. The Chinaman stopped the cry by
dropping a pillow on the man's face, and began deliberately to cut the
clothing on the upper part of his body.

"If you cry out," he said calmly, "the people will think it is I who am
singing! Chinamen have no music in their voices, and sometimes when I
have sung my native songs, people have come up to discover who was
suffering."

"You are acting illegally," breathed Milburgh, in a last attempt to save
the situation. "For your crime you will suffer imprisonment"

"I shall be fortunate," said Ling Chu;