To the chief commissioner,
``C.I.D. , new Scotland Yard,
``Intimation no. 34.
``Ref.:. The silver Arrow Group.
``per midday post.
``SIR,
"on Tuesday next a deliberate attempt will be made to steal the Duchess of Renburgh's jewel collection, at present housed at Thorne Lodge, park Lane. the raid is timed for 2.30 a.m.
Entry will be made through the big kitchen window at the back. the glass will be cut and the entire pane removed. this will eliminate all possibility of contact with burglar alarms. positions of all alarms are known. Thieves concerned are the surviving members of the silver Arrow Group. there is also one other, but, except that is mame is Lyall, he is unknown to me.
"acknowledge through usual channels, otherwise copy of this intimation will be forwarded to her grace."
Valmon Dain finished writing and sat back in his chair, thoughtfully scanning the document. it was a letter-carded, undated and unsigned, just a plainly printed card on which the square if writing stood out as neat and compact as a block of letterpress. Dain wrote in a meticulously neat hand, using a print script, every letter being distinct and separate.
His long, brown fingers pulled slowly at his chin as he read, and a deep frown of concentration creased across his forehead.
Judged on certain standards, Dain was a strikingly handsome man. There was a touch of the hawk about him, a he-hawk whose hunting ground was the granite heights of the back block ranges. He was very dark, with a skin tanned to a healthy bronze. There were times when he seemed to his real self behind a mixture of aggression and reserve --two very opposite characteristics which,in him, seemed to blend in some indefinably natural way. His black hair, strong and lustrous, was brushed back from his temples, and the lines on his face were so deeply cut that they might have been tooled out with a chisel. his eyes, too were a contradiction. They were brown and warm with something almost like a caress in them. and yet they were pitilessly cold.
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The man they couldn't Arrest Dain's Invention
He put the card down gently and stared at it for some seconds. Then with some actions as deft and precise as those of an automatic machine, he addressed it in the same upstanding print letters and sealed it, pressing the ball of his right thumb firmly into the warm wax.He glanced across at a photograph on the polished surface of his desk, the photograph of an unusually charming-looking girl, who peeped out at him with merry impudence from behind a mass of flowers held to her breast. It was signed "Happy memories, Mercia Lyall." Just for a moment the hand that held the envelope trembled perceptibly and the frown on his forehead intensified till the deep brows almost hid his eyes. then with a sudden shrug and an irritated click of the tongues he stuffed it into his pocket and called for his car. Valmon Dain, even among a crowd of unusual men, would have stood out prominently as an exceptionally curious study. To begin with, he was admitt
The man they couldn't Arrest Dain's Invention 2
Johannesburg, harassed by the ever -growing mountains of quartz dust sweeping over the city sent for him and his investigations resulted in a formula for the after treatment of quartz waste which cut three Shillings a ton off the overhead costs of the Rand and stemmed the rising tide of dust.And they were only a few of Dain's achievements. sitting back among his retorts and tubes, coldly exact in all he put his mind to, he invented a new bleach which was whiter than white dye. plumbers knew him as the man who had hardened iridium to such a degree that it could cut glass. aviators mentally blessed him as the man whose automatic stabilisers made flight almost fool proof and robbed night flying of ninety percent of its terrors. That made the tally of Dain's attainments, a solid, brilliant roll of honourable work done. Not bad for a man still standing on the threshold if the thirties.And yet there was one invention, the greatest achievement of a
The man they couldn't Arrest Dain's Invention 3
even they had no knowledge of the amazing transformation that had been effected in their own property. the place was no longer an office with a tiny annexe. it was a Network of shinning wires and little polished dials set row on row all round the walls. Dain himself had carried up the various fittings an inconceivable number of journeys , and had assemble them with a patience that was as precise and unflagging as the skill employed in their making.And the thing had grown on him. only Dain himself knew how tremendously this hobby of his had become his dominating master. imperceptibly at first, but with a dreadful surety it had come to be the be-all and end-all of his existence. Very slowly his old haunts ceased to know him. his own home out at Hendon became little more to him than an occasional bedroom. Dain was a sporadic lodger in his own house. Equally slowly he became more and more Mr. Landring Dent, of the top floor offices in kingsway.That was Valmon
The man they couldn't Arrest The suspicious Lyall
Theatre crows were pressing along Piccadilly and sdown through the Haymarket, pouring into buses and tubes and taxis. Dark massy clouds were sailing in sullen sqaudrons across the moon and there was a warm smell of rain in the air."Rather a good show, wasn't it? I thought that new girl was awfully clever----wonderfully versatile for a newcomer."A tall and very beautiful girl, with a mass of shinning brown hair crowning the clear contour of her face, glance up at her mother for confirmation as they made their way to the car park behind Leicester Square."very clever indeed, Mercia. and quite charming she actually contrived not to look ugly even when singing the highest of her top notes. A decided accomplishment".Both women were beautifully gowned , the younger one in a swathing miracle of silver tissues which in the electric glare of the great arc lamps, flashed an occasional glint if powder blue. her mother was dre
The man they couldn't Arrest Visiting Lyall's Family
He put his headphones on again and connected his contract key with another little nickel dial on which the single ting of a bell had just sounded. For many seconds he listened with straining intentness, his left hand fiddling about abstractedly among the mass of cross-connecting wires by his shoulder.Then he muttered, "Bah!-----nothing but a sheaf of drunk and disorderly is!"He pulled off his phones, tossed them on to a baize-covered table, and went out. patent locks clicked into place as the door closed behind him.He hurried downstairs and let himself out into the fresh windy sweep of kingsway."Taxi," he called, as a driver looked inquiringly at him from the kerb."Where to sir?" The driver reached behind to open the door."Greydene---Mr. Willard Lyall's house, Highgate," He said as he climbed in. "it's just off the main road. I'll stop you when you get there."For some minutes, Dai
The man they couldn't Arrest Convincing Mr. Lyall
"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, y
The man they couldn't Arrest Confirming Lyall's Identity
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
The man they couldn't Arrest The ghost information
" 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
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