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2024-10-29 19:42:56"But that brings me to a point. I am going down to Brighton early next. The Government are conducting some experiments in connection with a night range-finding instrument I submitted to them a few weeks ago. it will be quite interesting. Battleship firing all over the place, destroyers zipping along out of the darkness and letting fly with white-head torpedoes at illuminated targets, giant explosions shaking the sky. would you all care to come with me?"
"Oh I'd love to ." Mercia's delight was obvious.
"You will be my guests on board the official yacht. you can all come down in my car : start away from here about eight. By half-past ten we can be on board and heading out to the sea. firing begins at midnight. By four in the morning you can be safely tucked up in bed in Greydene here, or I can book you a suite if rooms at Brighton."
"It all sounds too thrilling for words."
"Can I make it a definite date then?"
"So far as i am concerned, yes by all means. And I think mother would be delighted to come too. it isn't every day one gets the chance of seeing the Navy doing things in its own little duck-run, is it?". Mercia's eyes were sparkling at the thought of a really novel and exciting adventure.
"And your father-----wont't Mr. Lyall come too?"
"Well, I can hardly speak for dad: I don't know what his arrangements are. He goes out sometimes to his bridge parties. Positively indecent, some of the hours he keeps. come crawling home with the milk sometimes without it, if his luck's been out. But old dad doesn't mind: he"s a good loser."
Mercia was looking smilingly up at the ceiling when she said that. But it would have been all the same had she been looking directly in his eyes. valmon Dain took it without the flickering and eyelid.
"perhaps he----he might be persuaded," he said in a soft smooth voice. "I'd hardly like to take his two very precious ladies away to see battleship firing off big guns at night unless he were there with you. Don't you think?"
" Just half a moment. He's having a few practice shots on his own at the table. I'll go and fetch him. perhaps your silver tongue may be able to paint the picture if a night at sea so engagingly that he will come even at the expense of his beloved bridge. it's his only vice, so we have to indulge him a little in it." she ran gaily out of the room and returned in a few moments dragging her father behind.
Lyall was smiling good naturedly, and he winked at Dain as father do wink when they presume a common understanding among men where vivacious daughters are concerned.
"Here he is ," said Mercia peremptorily. "A trifle recalcitrant, but still here he is. Now Mr. Dain, you just tell pops all you've told me and if he isn't as excited and eager as I am, I'll never let him play bridge again as long as I live."
Lyall shook hands with him warmly.
"What's all this good news Mr. Dain?" he inquired . "Mercia has grabbed a string of exciting incoherences me , but I'm afraid i didn't quite gather all she inferred."
valmon Dain explain in full detail and extended his investigation to him to join them.
Lyall looked thoughtful.
"I'm," he muttered. "Battleship practice, eh? using one of your extraordinary inventions? sounds awfully interesting but when do you say it it?"
"on Monday."
"That is, beginning at midnight on Monday?"
"Yes. I'll call for you here at eight o'clock in the car."
"And we won't be getting back back untill---?"
"About four in the morning."
"Tuesday morning?"
"Naturally."
"I'm awfully sorry, Mr Dain. I'd thoroughly enjoy such a unique trip , but I------er-----I'm afraid i can't manage it. The ladies can accompany you with all the pleasure in the world."
"Oh, but really dad!" Mercia was pouting.
"I'm sorry my dear but I can't help it. To accompany you would mean breaking another engagement. And I have made it a rule never to break a previous engagement in order to keep a subsequent one."
"Then I too am sorry Mr Lyall and I think you will regret having missed a very interesting trip," said Dain.
"I'm sure I shall . But there it is a promise is a promise."
"Can't you break it just this once dad?" asked Mercia.
"This," said Lyall grimly, " happens to be the 'once' when I can't." Dain was watching him with eyes that were cold as marble of ice. Lyall flushed perceptibly when he made his answer.
For two electric seconds the men looked hard into each other's eyes. then Valmon Dain, with a shrug and a slight rising if the eyebrows looked away.
He pretended a very natural regret, a regret into which was fused just a little carelessness. Lyall hadn't said very much but what e had said was uttered in such a tone of frigid finality that Dain had no need to look further than the end of his nose for the answer to the questions that were drumming in his head.
"I'm sorry ," he said standing up. "it's dreadfully late and I won't detain you any longer."
"can I phone and get you a taxi?" asked Lyall smoothly.
"No I have one waiting outside."
"Doest this mean that you won't be taking us?" asked Mercia with a pout of disappointment.
"I'm afraid so ," said Dain gravely. "I really wouldn't care to take you unless Mr Lyall come too. But perhaps we can fix up some other interesting expedition----one night when Mr Lyall is not-----er-----playing cards."
He made his graceful adieus and drove back to the city with his head in a whirl of doubt, incredulity and cynical bitterness.
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Good Lord!" he muttered under his breath; what a perfectly appalling situation. Lyall, Willard Lyall a member of the silver Arrow Group and father of Mercia! And I've sent him to pentonville. I've shut him up in a penal cell just as surely as though I turned the key in him myself. the Yard will act on intimation no 34 with absolute certainty. they always have acted on my cards ever since intimation no 4 anyway, when even officialdom began to realise that.....phew! Delivery and Shaughnessy have already got the net out. they're closing in on Lyall as surely as darkness closes over the day."He tried to untangle the maze, but his jaded brain could find no pin-point of light. The posting of that letter had amassed around him a mountain of such unscalable difficulties that he felt himself getting tinier and more abjectly helpless with every minute that passed.In moments of crisis, a man is apt to resort to panic measures and in so doing it is just possible that
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" Yes, I dare say," said Delbury snappishly; "but that won't bring us any nearer to getting our hands on the ghost, will it?""Ahhhr! leave the man alone. it's after doing you a good turn, he is" snorted Shaughnessy.There was silence for a minute, and then Delbury declared his unbelief in the existence of this newcomer, Lyall."Who is he?" he demanded. "Eh? Who is he? Is he the new leader of this gang of ruffians, or Is he just one of the mob? I've searched every file in the records and there isn't a trace of a Lyall big enough to be in with the silver Arrows. The only one recorded at all isn't in the possibilities. He's doing a four years stretch in pentonville and won't be out till next year.""I'm game to bet that there is a Lyall in that bunch when we get the handcuffs on 'em , anyway." said Shaughnessy grimly."thirty-four times the ghost has come through with the goods. and we've landed 'em every time. I'm game
The man they couldn't Arrest A warning for Williard Lyall
Willard Lyall came down to breakfast and glanced at his mail. it was a fairly large pile, but nothing more than usual. Mercia often twitted him with the fact that he seemed to do most of his business by correspondence at home.He tossed one or two letters aside, matters of small moments, thrust one or two others into an inside pocket without opening them and then picked up a plain post-card. it was addressed to him in neat, upright capitals and note the London post-mark across the stamp. The date of posting was blurred and scarcely decipherable. He turned it over in curiously . on the reverse side also in black print letters, was a single sentence.A slow frown spread over his face as he read it. His hand shook and he dropped the card suddenly to the table. There was a sickly, unhealthy pallor crawling slowly over his skin, but the dark brows had come down over his eyes like a thunder cloud. He read the extraordinary thing again and a lo
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Throughout breakfast Lyall was very quiet and uncommunicative. To cover his very unusual mealtime restraint he pretended a deep absorption in his morning papers. As soon as he had left the house, Mercia and her mother exchange meaning glances. "Dad seems very reserved this morning mum," said Mercia. "Probably worried about business affairs, my dear," said Mrs. Lyall. "You will come to know men in times as well as I do. And I think I know Willard very well. When a man is having a harassing time in the city, he resorts to silence." Mercia shrugged."I don't think it's mere worry," she said quietly. "I've seen dad when he has had worry before. I've seen him when he has been like a bear with a sore head. But I've never seen him like he was this morning when I came into the breakfast room. I know dad, and it seemed to me that he had received some awful shock."Mrs. Lyall looked very perturbed."A shock
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Two miles away In an office high up among the roofs in kingsway, Valmon Dain removed a contact key from a red-lit dial and mopped his forehead."So!" he muttered, and dabbed at his forehead again. "murder, is it? eh? Well that is a word that is guaranteed to put a different colour on anything."He sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair and lost himself in a teeming intensity of thought.His mind had gone on ahead of the days and he too was standing in the black darkness of the area by the kingsland mews. He saw the dark figures slinking along from shadow to shadow, elusive as the ghost of flitting bats. saw them mustering in the silence and waiting, waiting for the man who would not be there.And then the sudden uprising of other shadows from the blackness avenging shadows which advanced with malignant swiftness from nowhere. the quick sharp scuffle, and then the fierce passionate denunciation of Willard Lyall, the traitor, the m
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Dain read all about the affair while traveling to his office. He got back from his Brighton engagement some time after midday and went on from Victoria by tube. He slipped unobtrusively into an end seat and began to read. He wasn't at all elated, or even concerned about the test performance of his new gun sights he has already satisfied himself as to their complete perfection before even getting into communication with the Admiralty.And then a ghost of a smile played on the corners of his mouth as he took out his pocket-book. The train had stopped at a station and had filled up. There were strap-hangers pressing against his knees ; one succeeded in treading on his feet-- a man with a villainously dirty countenance and ghastly cast in his eye.Dain looked up in mild remonstrance."sorry guv," said the unwashed one and took a fresh grip on his strap.Dain smiled a frosty acknowledgement and resume his attention to his pocket-book.
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Lazard deftly charged the weapon with three small needles, which he took from a little gold ornament on his watch-fob. The needles were extremely thin, and about three-quarters of an inch long. They were wet when he lifted them from the little trinket, and he exercised scrupulous care in the way he handled them. He did not touch them with his fingers, but fed them into the tube with a pair of tweezers. Then he fitted a rubber shield over the trigger and slipped it back into his pocket. The cab was already half-way up Kingsway. He carefully wiped the gold trinket on a piece of cotton-wool, and burned the wool on the floor of the cab. It burned with a bright blue flame that flared up instantly, burned fiercely for a second, and as quickly died. He tapped the window, and the cab pulled in to the kerb. "I don't exactly know where Denburh House is, sir," said the driver apologetically. "All right; you've passed it. I'll walk back," said the Count, and paid him off
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Dain tried a new series. At his tenth attempt he fell headlong into it. His hands were as near to trembling with excitement as ever they had been in his life as he reached out for his headphones. There was not the faintest doubt about the identity of that wheezy guttural voice. It was Tansy's. And he was talking half-earnestly, half-awakely, to another voice, a voice which was remarkable for its cold, inscrutable imperturbability. Dain glanced up at his dails to see into whose house the connection was made. He gasped with unbelief, and then came the realization that he knew that quiet voice, that voice with it's timbre of utter aloofness from emotion or excitement. It had a personality of it's own. It seemed to give out the impression that nothing could shake its serene imperturbability. If all London collapsed in the night, if the stars burst or the heavens fell, that voice would be heard discussing the matter with the cold detachment of an histori
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Mercia turned the scale in their own favour by substantiating her mother's declaration. "Surely you have told us horrors enough to know that we shouldn't be squeamish about hearing the rest?" she said bravely. "That a mystery exists and a very sinister one is obvious to even the meanest intelligence. If you won't tell us, Mr. Delbury, you leave us no other alternative than to make personal application to Scotland Yard itself, a recourse which would be extremely unpleasant for me to take, but one which I should not have the slightest hesitation in doing." "Delbury sighed and brushed his fingers through his hair."Very well, ladies," he said, in a tone of regretful resignation. "But whatever I tell you, I insist, is told you with the underlying proviso that it may not be true."Mrs. Lyall inclined her head the merest fraction."perhaps you could help me in the matter," said Delbury, running swiftly over his notes. "can you remember with
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"Give me that telephone," said Mercia quietly."You're going to play the game straight---- by me?" Asked Delbury, with a searching look into her eyes."I am going to play straight--- by my father," replied Mercia, in a voice so faint that the detective barely heard it.He surrendered the telephone in silence."is that you, Mr. Dain? Mercia speaking. You wanted to speak to me," she said, striving to master the quiver in her voice."Yes, this is Valmon Dain, here," The voice at the other end was unemotional, almost coldly precise. Mercia felt an inward shudder at the cold austerity of it. Dain, even in the midst of tragedy, with the black shadow of the law looming great and omnipotent above him, was still the man of frosty restraint, the man with his thoughts and feelings under icy control. "I cannot talk to you personally," he went on steadily. "Something has happened which, were I to show myse
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"Daddy? murdered?" Mrs. Lyall scarcely breathed the words. A mist of utter incredulity had clouded her brain. she could not bring herself even to associate the two words, much less to believe them. The detective had made a ghastly mistake. something was ludicrously, shockingly wrong. "But- but, Mercia," she gasped. "In God's name, tell me what he told you. Daddy murdered- why, the very idea of it is imbecilic. who on earth would want to murder him? Why it's absurd; the man's mad." And all the time she spoke the devil's of doubt were gnawing at her very heart. The whole mass of that doubt were nights mysteries were piling up their forces in her brain to convince her that something very dreadful had happened. "I---- I believe it, mumsy." Mercia spoke dully, her eyes still looking fixedly ahead at the opposite wall. "I think I believed it the moment I opened my eyes this morning. There seemed to be something in the in the air. I couldn't sleep. I d
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"why not?""well, I knew that he had gone out to Hendon, you see.""oh!" Delbury looked his surprise. "And how did you know that?" he asked. "A man rang up---- somebody I've never seen or heard of before rang up and asked me if dad had got home yet from Hendon. That was the first I knew that he had not gone to bed all night.""What?" Delbury jumped. "A man rang up?" he snapped."Who was it?""I don't know. I'd tell you if I did. A coarsely spoken man; he referred himself as the gent from Notting hill." "Good Lord! Tansy," breathed Delbury. "so that's where he got the wire from. miss Lyall, do you know that by answering that telephone you have let one of the worst criminals in London slip through our fingers?""I wasn't aware of it, but I couldn't help it even if I did. But in what way does all this concern my father? I think I have answered quite enough of your questions. And really I cannot tax my anx
