"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.
Previous Chapter
Related Chapters
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
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
The man they couldn't Arrest Suspected Squealers
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
The man they couldn't Arrest Unknown spy
"You see," continued Lyall ; "it means that somewhere in London there is an UNKNOWN SPY who knows as much about my movements as I do myself. It must be obvious to even the meanest intelligence that he is fully aware of my intentions regarding the Duchess of Renburgh's jewels. It is or ought to be equally obvious that he has already notified the police of my intentions or perhaps I ought to say our intentions. otherwise why should he warn me? And again, why has he warn me and not the others? But chiefly, who the devil is he?"The cold, chill note had gone out of Lyall's voice. His easy assumption of casual detachment fell away and he uttered the last words with a rasping asperity."I've been thinking matters over very closely this morning," he went on, "and I've come to the conclusion that here, I'm this warning is a clue to the biggest mystery we have ever known. here is a connecting link with something that has been gnawing at my thoughts for weeks." He br
The man they couldn't Arrest Another surprise Letter
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
The man they couldn't Arrest Williard Lyall fainted and his gang busted
Mercia halfway through a rippling medley of sharps and naturals stopped with a jerk, her white fingers poised daintily above the keys."What was that?" she said in a puzzle voice to herself. What had seemed just like an unmistakable bump had just sounded in the next room. She thought something must have fallen over but one can never tell with a half a dozen servants busy about the house. They make such queer noises at times, shifting furniture about and doing the myriad things that only servants seem to find necessary to do."That you dad?" she called. And no answering hail came from the next room."Dad are you there?" she called again rising from her stool. And there was silence in the study.Mercia ran in. Her father was lying prone on the floor, his face buried in the thick pile of the carpet almost suffocating."mummy come quickly," she cried through the door."Dad has fainted quickly phone the doctor.
The man they couldn't Arrest Dain's identity discovered by Tansy
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.
Latest Chapter
- The man they couldn't Arrest Landring Dent
- The man they couldn't Arrest Delbury's voice
- The man they couldn't Arrest A man like Valmon Dain is too hot for me.
- The man they couldn't Arrest Count Lazard
- The man they couldn't Arrest Dain's single weakness
- The man they couldn't Arrest The Cryptic message for Williard Lyall
- The man they couldn't Arrest How does he know that I'm here???
- The man they couldn't Arrest Daddy! Murdered?
- The man they couldn't Arrest Becoming more complicated