It was not until nearly ten o'clock that evening that Valmon Dain completed his preparation for the reception of Willard Lyall.
He had been working steadily through the afternoon in his workshop out at Hendon. It was a fairly large room, high and airy and was built on to the main building as a sort of an annexe with wide benches on three sides. The bench at the top end was fitted out essentially as a chemical laboratory. Back at the other end, against the door were his writing desk and technical library for Valmon Dain recorded the results of each tiny phase of an experiment as he arrived at it. There were ten great shelves of monumentally scientific times, each a standard work of reference on some aspect of Dain's own activities. In front of them was his desk----a roll top.
Dain was sitting at it, writing ; the clock hands neared the hour of ten. His pen jotted neatly over the letter-card.
"TO THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER,
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The man they couldn't Arrest Williard Lyall arrived
suddenly he stiffened. The little disc had blazed to light ."Ah! our visitor is at the garden gate," he said gently . He folded his arms on the desk and his head lolled forward. To all appearances, Valmon Dain had fallen asleep in his chair. But one eye steady and unwinking, stared at the little box on the table waiting for the white light to flash out, telling him that Willard Lyall was at the laboratory door.A face peered in at the window, a face that slid cautiously inch by inch into full view behind the glass. It was Lyall. There was a frown of disappointment on his forehead ; he had not expected to find Dain still up.But the frown gave way to a slow smile of satisfaction when he saw all that was in the room. Fate seemed to have played Dain right into his hands.With a quick All-embracing look, he inspected the interior of the workshop. The face moved from the window, and for a tense, long-drawn-out minutes the
The man they couldn't Arrest Lyall self suicide
His deep-voiced command rumble through the silent room, but Dain did not move. To the casual eye he was far away in the dream realms of exhausted sleep..Lyall waited a moment or two and then poke him gently in the ribs with the gun-barrel."Valmon Dain----wake up!" he said again, and his voice held something of the relentlessness of the killer in it.Dain stirred uneasily and mumbled something drowsily. Lyall prodded him again, and he raised his head blinking. He started to yawn and peered round, seeming surprised to find himself in the ferocity of the laboratory lights.Then his eyes encountered Lyall. He seemed to see him suddenly and with comic unexpectedness. His yawn stopped slowly. For a moment, his puzzlement increased. a deep wrinkle cutting a black furrow across his forehead. Then he relaxed with a smile half sheepish , half amused."Oh!, it's you, is it?" he said. "Lord, how you did startle me! And how
The man they couldn't Arrest Lyall self suicide 2
Lyall cut in with a rasp of anger. "cut that out! I've not come here to listen to damnfool sermons from such a model of saintly rectitude as you. I get my living in the way that best suits me! you're fighting for time, you hound. that's all you're doing . you've got a warning through with one of your confounded Inventions. you----"Dain held up his hand in gentle depreciation..I assure you there is not another soul in this house except ourselves who is aware of your presence here," he said. "I think I am intelligent enough to be able to look after myself. I have no need of outside protection. my knowledge of your movements is such that, had I wished I could have had the house surrounded by special police from the Yard---- hours before you were due to arrive. At least you will admit that." "I'm admitting all that!" snarled Lyall savagely. "And I want to know how it's done! That's what am here for, talking to you instead of putting a bullet thr
The man they couldn't Arrest Lyall self suicide 3
"it's not for me to be brave. That's for you. Have told you a dozen times. you never spoke a truer word in your life than when you said it was going to be a case of suicide.""Bah! You can't get my nerves on the jump. I've been in the game too long. Do you think you're going to get away with it by ranting a sermon at me or trying to pump me up with fear? Not in this life, Valmon Dain." "What do you want? mercy? It would be useless to you.""Lyall stood back, breathing heavily."Mercy?" he stormed. "I don't want mercyIt isn't yours to give. mercy is mine, I-----""Mercy is neither yours nor mine, Mr Lyall. The police are already informed.""The police!-----What?" he gasped."Are already informed. At least, they will be by the time the morning Dawns. The Yard was communicated with by the last post tonight. A simple letter-carded, undated, unsigned. just such a card as I have dispa
The man they couldn't Arrest Left it too late
Delbury of Scotland Yard, was a machine made model of all that is just and proper in a force the discipline of which is second only to that of the fighting services. Three minutes to eight every morning of his life saw him swinging off his tram in the shadow of Big Ben. The next three minutes saw him walking the three hundred steps from the tramline to the entrance under the great gloomy arch. The clamorous strokes of eight o'clock saw him hanging his hat up on his own private peg. His subordinates dubbed him 'Old Punctuous," a nickname bestowed on him by his unimpressed Irish second in command. Shaughnessy had only arrived ten minutes before his chief. But in that time he had scrambled through an immense amount of work. A trifle excited and not a little perturbed he met Delbury at the door."Chief, there's the devil of a stew been brewing overnight," he said hurriedly. "I've been getting a line on it, but we're a bit patchy on information yet. Murder job.
The man they couldn't Arrest Investigation
Delbury was still in a bit of a mental fog, but he fastened on to that fact like a leech. There was some personal connection between the sender of those intimations and this murder.Shaughnessy went out and got the system busy. In five minutes the organization had slid into motion. The whole of the internknit workings of the Yard were proceeding swiftly and smoothly about their job of blocking up the exits of the country and notifying the police forces of every town throughout the kingdom."The car ready?" asked Delbury, stricken his head out of the door."Waiting outside," said Shaughnessy, coming back."Right, out you go. I'm starting in five minutes. Must go along and see the chief. He knows all about it, I suppose?""Sure; I phoned him at his house. He came straight down.Wants to see you about it before you go."Delbury hurried round to the great office on the first floor.&n
The man they couldn't Arrest Investigation 2
Shaughnessy bent down and whispered to his senior."Looks like he came in through that window, chief," he said.Delbury, who was busily examine the contents of the wallet, shrugged and told his second to go over and have a look at it.But as Harper walked across he was cut short by an expression from Delbury in which amazement, incredulity and utter bewilderment were all blended. "Great heavens, Mick, look here!"Delbury had just open a concealed flap in the wallet and taken something out.Shaughnessy picked the card up."That's the thirty-sixth I've seen like that," he said quietly.."And it's the first one that wasn't addressed to the Yard,"Delbury flicked the card over. It was addressed to Willard Lyall, Esq., at his house at Highgate. The post-mark was a smudgy bodge of ink and indecipherable.Shaughnessy took it again and studied it critically. His special
The man they couldn't Arrest Strange phone call
"Not a spot," said Harper disgustedly. "There's millions of finger marks here, but they're all blanks. It looks to me as though Valmon Dain always worked in rubber gloves." "Now that's dammed odd," said Delbury in a puzzled voice."Look! The dead man is wearing rubber gloves."They gaze at the rubber shod hands and racked their brains to elucidate the new point of conjecture."What do you make of it, Mick?" he asked helplessly."Never saw such a case for red herrings in all my life," declared the Irishman helpfully. "Everything's right and everything's wrong-----and nothing's right at all, bedad."Delbury wasn't listening to him. His eyes were fixed in a rigid stare at a point in the wall five feet above the chemical bench.."Look----What's that?" he queried in a strained voice. "Up there in the wall---look."Harper was about to jump up on the bench and investigate wh
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