The Man They Couldn't Arrest

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 historian, divorced by countless eras of time from the subject under his notice.

He had heard it before. He had even made personal contact with it in connection with the foreign rights of one of his greatest inventions.

It was the voice of the Count Lazard, the most sought after representative of all the Continental Chancellor's. He was a leader of fashion, the close friend of cabinet Ministers, a figure of grace and importance at every function big enough to be worth his while to attend. Hostesses in the highest fights of the social world communicated with him before fixing definite dates for their receptions. He was a power in the very seat of power, a diplomat of the highest order.

He was talking now with suave moderation, but Dain, who had personal contact on which to base his knowledge, knew that there were icicles cracking about in its delectable smoothness.

"Before we proceed any further with this matter," Lazard was saying, "I wish you to know that I think you were unforgivably foolish in communicating with me here at this address. No, no, please don't interrupt. I will listen to you afterwards. I am quite sure you have a great deal to tell and that you consider it a matter of grave urgency. That does not dispense with the fact that in coming here and being seen by the servants you have committed a serious blunder. You have established a definite evidential link. Do you realize that? You say the police will be making inquiries for you at any moment. That probably means the publication of your photograph in the papers. And servants are quite earnest students on the daily news."

There was a few seconds' pause and then the count's voice came again.

"The servants must be put off the trail, their possible suspicions allayed. In a moment on two I will ring for my secretary and will tell him to reward you with five pounds ostensibly for returning to me a document which you found. You understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Tansy, cringing and more than a little scared

"You found it near a seat in the Green Park it is my habit to walk there before lunch unless the weather is inclement. It was in an official envelope bearing this address. Of your honesty you brought it to me here. That, I think is all we need say on that topic. Except this: In future, never show your face in St. James's square as long as you live. In matters of extreme urgency there are other ways of communicating with me. I am waiting now to hear the reason for this most ill-advised call."

"Well, Guv'nor, I wouldn't have come here,. honest I wouldn't, but I was at me wits' end. I didn't know what to do nor where to turn. All I know is that I've got to cut and run. And I thought, before I got away down to a safe dive I know down east of the pump, I ought to come and warn you. I'm risking me neck doing it."

"Warn me?" queried the Count with infinite softness.

"Yes, Guv'nor. There's been hell to pay during the night.

Another one of your gentlemen has been nabbed. That's the seventh in three months."

"Another-who?"

"Mr. Lyall, sir. But he got more than he bargained for.

The law won't ever get their maulers on him again. He's dead. Finished off as cold as mutton."

"Indeed! And where, pray, did all this happen?"

"Hendon, sir. Mr. Valmon Dain's house. I'm not pulling any long bows, sir, nor I'm not exaggerating; I know better than to do anything like that with you; but I'm fair flummoxed. I don't hardly know how to tell you a quarter of what I know. I know so much."

"Have a drink and then begin, quietly, at the beginning," murmured Lazard; and in a few moments Tansy was struggling with an outline of his story.

"But, just a moment, do you mean Valmon Dain, the Valmon Dain, the world-famous inventor?" Count Lazard interposed at last. .

"Yes, sir. I recognized his picture in the paper that morning."

Lazard was startled into a mild "Extraordinary!"

Dain could only hear, he couldn't see what was going on in that stately room.

Lazard's eyes had slowly taken on a keen, hard glitter and he was staring at something on his desk a shiny black telephone instrument.

He leaned forward and fixed the jeweller with a critical gaze. "you say there are a great many telephone wires on the roof of his office?'' he said quietly.

''Yes, sir, a regular network of them.''

Lazard glanced back at the innocent little instrument on his desk, and his finger-tips were pressed together so that they were white and bloodless.

"I wonder!'' he muttered.

Tansy looked at Lazard in puzzled surprise. The count seemed to be ignoring him; all his concentration was fixed on the silent telephone. Tiny crow's-feet crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes, and into his face had come the malignant look of the killer.

He raised his finger quietly for silence, and reached out slowly to the telephone. Gauging his distance to the instrument, he pounced. In one single snap-fire action he had snatched off the receiver and was ramming it hard against his ear. He listened with an intensity that might have damaged the drums of his ears.

But from the other end was nothing but a silence, nothing but a sheer absence of sound, unbroken by any one of those little hissing and guttering that tell of a receiver off at the other end.