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2024-10-29 19:42:56Delbury 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.
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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
The man they couldn't Arrest Strange phone call 2
"What on earth do you mean?" asked Mercia irritably."Well, if you must have it in so many words, miss. did he come home last night?" "Mr. Notting hill, you are too perfectly ridiculous for words. Is it your usual procedure to ring up complete strangers at ludicrous hours of the morning and inquire if the owner of the house has been out all night?" Mercia's tone was sarcastic to the point of being politely chilly.. "Miss, if only you knew how urgent it was you wouldn't stand there being snappy like that." There was a whine almost of apprehension in the throaty voice. "will you please answer me?" he added earnestly. "Did he come home safe and sound last night?" "Mr. Lyall didn't go out last night," snapped Mercia sharply. "Didn't he? You can take my word for it, lady-----he did!"Mercia whitened. she felt her skin prickle all over with a sudden horrible feeling of dread. Th
The man they couldn't Arrest The other man got him
Hello! Are you there? I say you shall answer me or I swear I'll tell the police every word you've told me. I could recognize your voice again anywhere. And I will tell them every single thing--- I will, I swear it. What has happened? You are trying to hide something from me. Either that or you are afraid to tell me what you know. What is it? What is all this absurd mystery?" "Absurd lady?" The voice grunted horribly. "You'll find it ain't nothing absurd--- not when you get the news. you'll be putting the blinds up at Greydene inside an hour--- and you can lay your life on that. It ain't up to me to break nasty news to a lady--- and I ain't no hand at it in anyway. But if Mr. Lyall never got home from Hendon last night, it means that the other man got him." "What----what on earth do you mean?" Mercia felt her whole body drain white. It was as though the blood had fallen out of her, leaving her a cold bloodless thing, a mere form cast in marble. Hend
The man they couldn't Arrest The bird flown
Delbury and Shaughnessy climbed out of their car in the Notting Hill backwater. A hurried inspection of the local directory had soon located the jewellery shop that admitted to the proprietorship of one Tansy. They glanced up and down the road. There was no traffic, and only a solitary pedestrian or two hurrying to work broke the monotonous emptiness of the street. "Looks a likely sort of a hole for a jeweller's," said Shaughnessy grimly. "It's meself that's thinking Mr. Tansy has a turnover of tuppence an hour---no less!""Looks good to me," assented Delbury. "The Ghost says he's a smelter and you can stake your buttons on it he's right. Jump around the back. Criminal aren't early risers, as a class. He's still in bed yet. Round you go and hang on to him like a limpet if he tries to make a bolt." Delbury gave his man five minutes grace and then banged thunderously on the knocker. The echoes of it clanged through the house; and
The man they couldn't Arrest Bad news is always difficult to accept
They had not been five minutes in that room before they realised they had stumbled upon a place for which they had been scouring London for many years. "This chap Tansy is cute," admitted Delbury; darn cute. I've been looking for this workshop all over south London, I'd have sworn all the melting was being done on the other side of the bridges. Look here----and here." Parcels of jewellery were lying about openly on the benches. It was obvious that the fence had opened out his entire stock, taken the most negotiable of the best and bolted in panic with as much as he could carry. "There's a phone over there, look--- ring up the yard. Tell them to send another man along to look out for this place or better ask for two . There's far more than one will be able to catalogue. Gosh, the stuff is as thick as leaves in autumn." Shaughnessy did the phoning while Delbury searched the rest of the house. He scoured
The man they couldn't Arrest The stock exchange
"The other two do not matter," he said, looking her full in the eyes again. "But the third is ---- yourself."Mercia flushed a sudden scarlet eyes which a moment before had been alight with pent-up anxiety and repressed emotion blazed in an instant into hot indignation."Arrest me?" she cried. "What do you mean? How dare you suggest such a thing?"Delbury made a gesture of restraint."For your own good, madam, I must ask you not to get excited," he said. " this is a very grave matter and one which is as distasteful to me as it must be to you. I ask you to believe that, in all fairness to me. I will not detain you any longer than I can possibly help. As soon as I have obtained from you such information as I require I will answer as many questions of yours as you wish. also your mother can be present when I tell you." Mercia subsided; she sat down and folded her hands in her lap, but she regarded the detective with an a
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Landring Dent
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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Delbury's voice
Dain rested for a few minutes from the pressing grip of his headphones, and then plugged in on a combination he knew by heart. He had got the pitch in on a combination he knew by heart. He had got the pitch of his instrument so perfectly attuned to that particular room that he got a first-class result without further experiment. In a moment there were voices in his headphones-three of them, talking rapidly. He recognized them all. They were Delbury, Shaughnessy, and the Chief. Dain pulled a notebook over and took a verbatim note of all that he required. "I'm asking for a warrant right now, chief." The voice was Delbury's vibrant with conviction. "You're satisfied about Dain?" "Absolutely. I wasn't at first, but I am now. I'm certain that as soon as we've arrested Dain we shall begin to get a start on the solution to the mystery of the Ghost. It's all wrapped up in this plain as a
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A man like Valmon Dain is too hot for me.
The only break in the chain of silence was when, in a few seconds, the clear treble of the telephone girl's voice came on at the exchange with her businesslike "Number please?" Lazard pulled the instrument nearer to him. "This is the Count Lazard speaking," he said suavely. "I'm sorry to trouble you, miss, but I think there must be something wrong with my telephone. Has anyone been trying to ring me up?" "I couldn't remember offhand, sir, but I don't think so," replied the girl politely. "Nobody has called me and failed to get through?" "No, sir; not during the last hour, at least." "Just one more question, miss. Could you tell me if there is a crossed wire on your switchboard-one which throws a connection across to my line from another exchange?" "Just a moment, s
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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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Dain's single weakness
Valmon Dain waited until the sound of Delbury's voice ceased in the study. All that came to him after that was the sound of quiet weeping, heart broken sobs that came gently over the whispering wires. And he knew that Delbury had gone. He glanced at his watch. "Time for a morsel of lunch," he muttered. "Delbury will be twenty minutes at the very least before he gets back to the Yard-probably half an hour before he's through to the chief." He opened a glass of tongue and ate with his headphones still on. He had fixed up a little electric-cooker in a corner above one of the purring dynamos, not a very elaborate contraption but quite sufficient for the simple needs of a man who was condemning himself to solitary companionship for the next few weeks. He made a mental note to take out a suitcase with him and lay in a safe supply of provisions. The ante-room outside he was already rearrangi
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The Cryptic message for Williard Lyall
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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How does he know that I'm here???
"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
- The man they couldn't Arrest
Daddy! Murdered?
"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
- The man they couldn't Arrest
Becoming more complicated
"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
