The Man They Couldn't Arrest

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 any certitude the events leading up to the er----- Tuesday morning of last week------ Monday night and Tuesday morning?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Had your husband any intention of going out that night, do you remember?"

"Yes. He put off an invitation from Mr. Dain for that night because of a previous appointment elsewhere."

Delbury pricked up his ears.

"That is rather significant, Mrs. Lyall," he said hopefully. "And what was the previous appointment?"

"I hadn't the slightest idea----- bridge probably."

"Oh! Mr. Lyall was in the habit of staying away occasionally to play bridge, eh?"

"yes. not very often though."

"was he away all night?"

"oh yes."

"And Mr. Lyall had a bridge engagement booked for Monday night?"

"Yes."

"That was the night Mr. Dain's gunnery invention was being tested for night effects at sea, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Mr. Dain extended us all an invitation to go down and witness the experiments."

"Yes---- and it was also the night of the raid on the duchess of Renbergh's jewel's," said Delbury grimly. "But tell me, Mrs. Lyall, did your husband keep that appointment?" .

"No. for some reasons or other he stayed at home that night."

"Did he give any reason?"

"No. It is not my habit to inquire reasons for the little every day occurrences of my husband's life.

"Quite so. wouldn't it surprise you to know that your husband received a warning, a very deliberate warning, not to leave his house that night if he valued his life?"

"It would astonish me. He never did receive anything so ridiculous."

"The actual document is in my possession at this very moment," Saud Delbury, without a quiver. "I found it myself in your husband's wallet."

"But---- but when?" gasped Mrs. Lyall. The blinding significance of that fateful telegram had just flashed across her startled memory.

"Two hours ago at Hendon," said Delbury. "Here it is, if you care to see it. perhaps you can ȧssist me by recognizing the writing."

He handed over the post card. Both women examined it with fingers that shook. The thing looked terrible in it's mute significance. They read it . Mrs. Lyall shuddered.

"Can you recognize it?" asked the detective softly.

Mercia shook her head. "I've never seen writing like that before," she said, with conviction.

"It isn't Mr. Dain's by any chance?"

"I don't think so. He never wrote in print to me. I've never seen him use anything but quite ordinary handwriting. I can give you a few examples of his writing, if they would be of any ȧssistance to you."

"I'll be much obliged if you would, madam."

"Mr. Delbury," said Mrs. Lyall, after a little pause, "something happened here on Sunday morning, something so unusual that I think you ought to know about it."

The detective raised his eyebrows. "Yes?" he said, with his pencil poised above his opened notebook.

"A telegram came for my husband. He was out when it came. That in itself was very unusual, for it was his invariable rule not to leave home until ten o'clock at the earliest; often it was Eleven or even half past before he went to the city."

"Have you any idea where he went?" asked Delbury.

"No. The telegram came just before he got back home having once gone out; I've never known him get home again until nearly dinner time at the very least. The telegram was waiting on a tray for him here in his study. He went in, and a few minutes later Mercia heard a crash."

"Here in this room?"

"Yes. she rushed in, and there was Mr. Lyall in a dead faint on the floor with the telegram in clutched in his hand."

"What was the content if that telegram, Mrs. Lyall?"

"It was a most cryptic thing. Let me see now, let me get the exact wording. oh yes, I've got it: "your decision to stay in on Monday night was a wise one--- from almost every point of view.' That's was it. so far as I can remember, those were the identical words."

Delbury looked away from the two stricken women.

"Ladies," he said, "If Mr. Lyall had gone out on Monday night he would have been in gaol by now. He would have been arrested with the rest of a combination of criminals known at the Yard as the Silver Arrow Group. We collared them all that night. Mr. Lyall would have been among them. And, ladies, Valmon Dain knew it!."

The two women, their faces stricken with a. unearthly whiteness, looked first at each other and then at the detective, with only the look of anguished, horror in their eyes to show the full depths of their misery.

Mrs. Lyall, with her arms outstretched shakily before her, stumbled blindly to a chair and collapsed upon it. in that moment she was tasting the bitterest dregs if the cup of his life, suffering all the highest refinements of torture that a cultured nature alone can feel. Ahead of her along life's causeway was nothing but the utter blackness of shame, the killing helplessness if humiliation pilled on humiliation. in that awful flash if enlightenment she saw no hope but the relief of death, no sanctuary but the blessed escape of eternal peace. it was a vista that held no spark of hope, nothing but the degradations of it all----- and the whispering tongues and the pointing fingers, always those damnable pointing fingers, with the smirk and the sly wink behind them.

Mercia went over to her quietly and took her mother's hand in hers.

Delbury, without another word, turned and walked silently out of the house.

outside, in the fresh wind and the sunshine, Shaughnessy was just finishing off his notes, after a long cross examination of the servants. The Irishman, with a single, shrewd glance, saw that his chief had just got through a very unpleasant ten minutes.

"Tough time, Chief?" he asked, closing his notebook.

"Hellish!" said Delbury gruffly. "Mick, if ever you want to see the pitiful spectacle of the two good, decent women flung down to the very lowest depths hell has to offer, just go in and peep at those two in that study room. sights like that are enough to make a man take to the land,."

He led the way down to the car.

"Where to, sir?" asked the chauffeur.

Headquarters," snapped Delbury. "Abd drive like old Harry. I want to get out after Valmon Dain.. I'll have a net out for him across London before nightfall that a fly couldn't crawl through."