The Orange-Yellow Diamond Part 29

He walked forward until he came to the cab-rank at the foot of St.

John's Wood Road, where he bundled Melky into a taxi-cab, and bade the driver get away to University College Hospital at his best pace. There was little delay in carrying out that order, but it was not such an easy task on arrival at their destination to find any one who could give Ayscough the information he wanted. At last, after they had waited some time in a reception room a young member of the house-staff came in and looked an enquiry.

"What is it you want to know about these two Chinese students?" he asked a little impatiently, with a glance at Ayscough's card. "Is anything wrong?"

"I want to know a good deal!" answered Ayscough. "If not just now, later. You know the two men I mean--Chang Li and Chen Li--brothers, I take it?"

"I know them--they've been students here since about last Christmas,"

answered the young surgeon. "As a matter of fact they're not brothers--though they're very much alike, and both have the same surname--if Li is a surname. They're friends--not brothers, so they told us."

"When did you see them last?" asked Ayscough.

"Not for some days, now you mention it," replied the surgeon. "Several days. I was remarking on that today--I missed them from a cla.s.s."

"You say they're very much alike," remarked the detective. "I suppose you can tell one from the other?"

"Of course! But--what is this? I see you're a detective sergeant. Are they in any bother--trouble?"

"The fact of the case," answered Ayscough, "is just this--one of them's lying dead at our mortuary, and I shall be much obliged if you'll step into my cab outside and come and identify him. Listen--it's a case of murder!"

Twenty minutes later, Ayscough, leading the young house-surgeon into a grim and silent room, turned aside the sheet from a yellow face.

"Which one of 'em is it?" he asked.

The house-surgeon started as he saw the wound in the dead man's throat.

"This is Chen!" he answered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE 500 BANK NOTE

Ayscough drew the sheet over the dead man's face and signed to his companion to follow him outside, to a room where Melky Rubinstein, still gravely meditating over the events of the evening, was awaiting their reappearance.

"So that," said Ayscough, jerking his thumb in the direction of the mortuary, "that's Chen Li! You're certain?"

"Chen Li! without a doubt!" answered the house-surgeon. "I know him well!"

"The younger of the two?" suggested Ayscough.

The house-surgeon shook his head.

"I can't say as to that," he answered. "It would be difficult to tell which of two Chinese, of about the same age, was the older. But that's Chen. He and the other, Chang Li, are very much alike, but Chen was a somewhat smaller and shorter man."

"What do you know of them?" inquired Ayscough. "Can you say what's known at your hospital?"

"Very little," replied the house-surgeon. "They entered, as students there--we have several foreigners--about last Christmas--perhaps at the New Year. All that I know of them is that they were like most Easterns--very quiet, una.s.suming, inoffensive fellows, very a.s.siduous in their studies and duties, never giving any trouble, and very punctual in their attendance."

"And, you say, they haven't been seen at the hospital for some days?"

continued Ayscough. "Now, can you tell me--it's important--since what precise date they've been absent?"

The house-surgeon reflected for a moment--then he suddenly drew out a small memorandum book from an inner pocket.

"Perhaps I can," he answered, turning the pages over. "Yes--both these men should have been in attendance on me--a cla.s.s of my own, you know--on the 20th, at 10.35. They didn't turn up. I've never seen them since--in fact, I'm sure they've never been at the hospital since."

"The 20th?" observed Ayscough. He looked at Melky, who was paying great attention to the conversation. "Now let's see--old Mr. Multenius met his death on the afternoon of the 18th. Parslett was poisoned on the night of the 19th. Um!"

"And Parslett was picked up about half-way between the c.h.i.n.k's house and his own place, Mr. Ayscough--don't you forget that!" muttered Melky. "I'm not forgetting--don't you make no error!"

"You don't know anything more that you could tell us about these two?"

asked the detective, nodding rea.s.suringly at Melky and then turning to the house-surgeon. "Any little thing?--you never know what helps."

"I can't!" said the house-surgeon, who was obviously greatly surprised by what he had seen and heard. "These Easterns keep very much to themselves, you know. I can't think of anything."

"Don't know anything of their a.s.sociates--friends--acquaintances?"

suggested Ayscough. "I suppose they had some--amongst your students?"

"I never saw them in company with anybody--particularly--except a young j.a.panese who was in some of their cla.s.ses," replied the house-surgeon.

"I have seen them talking with him--in Gower Street."

"What's his name?" asked Ayscough, pulling out a note-book.

"Mr. Mori Yada," answered the house-surgeon promptly. "He lives in Gower Street--I don't know the precise number of the house. Yes, that's the way to spell his name. He's the only man I know who seemed to know these two."

"Have you seen him lately?" asked Ayscough.

"Oh, yes--regularly--today, in fact," said the house-surgeon.

He waited a moment in evident expectation of other questions; as the detective asked none--"I gather," he remarked, "that Chang Li has disappeared?"

"The house these two occupied is empty," replied Ayscough.

"I am going to suggest something," said the house-surgeon. "I know--from personal observation--that there is a tea-shop in Tottenham Court Road--a sort of quiet, privately-owned place--Pilmansey's--which these two used to frequent. I don't know if that's of any use to you?"

"Any detail is of use, sir," answered Ayscough, making another note.

"Now, I'll tell this taxi-man to drive you back to the hospital. I shall call there tomorrow morning, and I shall want to see this young j.a.panese gentleman, too. I daresay you see that this is a case of murder--and there's more behind it!"

"You suspect Chang Li?" suggested the house-surgeon as they went out to the cab.

"Couldn't say that--yet," replied Ayscough, grimly. "For anything I know, Chang Li may have been murdered, too. But I've a pretty good notion what Chen Li was knifed for!"

When the house-surgeon had gone away, Ayscough turned to Melky.

"Come back to Molteno Lodge," he said. "They're searching it. Let's see if they've found anything of importance."

The house which had been as lifeless and deserted when Melky and the detective visited it earlier in the evening was full enough of energy and animation when they went back. One policeman kept guard at the front gate; another at the door of the yard; within the house itself, behind closed doors and drawn shutters and curtains, every room was lighted and the lynx-eyed men were turning the place upside down. One feature of the search struck the newcomers immediately--the patch of ground whereon Melky had found the dead man had been carefully roped off. Ayscough made a significant motion of his hand towards it.