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
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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
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"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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"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
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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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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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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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