It was not until nearly ten o'clock that evening that Valmon Dain completed his preparation for the reception of Willard Lyall.
He had been working steadily through the afternoon in his workshop out at Hendon. It was a fairly large room, high and airy and was built on to the main building as a sort of an annexe with wide benches on three sides. The bench at the top end was fitted out essentially as a chemical laboratory. Back at the other end, against the door were his writing desk and technical library for Valmon Dain recorded the results of each tiny phase of an experiment as he arrived at it. There were ten great shelves of monumentally scientific times, each a standard work of reference on some aspect of Dain's own activities. In front of them was his desk----a roll top.
Dain was sitting at it, writing ; the clock hands neared the hour of ten. His pen jotted neatly over the letter-card.
"TO THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER,
"C.I.D., NEW SCOTLAND YARD,
"Intimation no. 35.
"Ref.: Willard Lyall.
"By post.
"SIR,
"Tonight at midnight, a murder will be attempted at the Hendon resistance of Valmon Dain. The presumptive murderer is Willard Lyall of Greydene, Highgate. The intended victim is Valmon Dain himself. Willard Lyall is the organiser and leader of the silver Arrow group who, you will remember failed to put in an appearance when his group were foiled in their attempt on the Duchess of Renburgh's jewels. { see intimation no.34.}
"The attempt on Valmon Dain's life will not be successful. On the contrary, Willard Lyall will be found dead in the big workshop room at the back of the house . There will be a bullet wound in his head.
"I regret that this intimation will reach you too late for you to take preventive action.
"Before making the report of the murder public, inquiries should be made at Tansy's jewellery shop in Notting Hill. The interesting fact will be elicited that Willard has a complete alibi for his movements tonight. A passable amount of discretion will show how many others are implicated. Tansy is a melter.
"I congratulate you on your skilled action regarding intimation no. 34."
Dain glanced at the clock as he finished his pen printing..
"H'm! Ten o'clock," he muttered. "Ah, well! I prefer a necktie to a length of rope."
He warmed a wax wafer and dropped it deftly at the bottom of the letter-card and while the wax was still warm pressed the ball of his right thumb hard into it.
Then with his lips pressed grimly together, and a cold inscrutable gleam in his eyes. he went out and walked slowly to his garage.
Some of those extraordinary intimations to the overlords of Scotland Yard had been posted from points as far afield as Hitchin, sidcup, Hastings, Crawley, and Bedford. once Dain had even taken a trip as far north as Edinburgh and as far west as Bristol in other to confuse investigations.
Tonight he got in at his car and drove across to willesden and posted the card there.
Before eleven o'clock he was back again in his workshop polishing up his last details. He gave orders to his servants to lock up the house and retire, as he would be working until far into the night, if not all night. His last order was that on no account was he to be disturbed, not even though an imperative message came through from miss Lyall or anyone else at Greydene. Valmon Dain was out to all callers..
Then he switched on every light in the room, arc after arc untill--- the whole place swam in a sea of blinding white light, as fierce and stark as the intensive lightning of a cinema studio.
On his desk was a tiny square box with two small glass discs let into the lid. They were fixed and inanimate, like the unwinking eyes of an owl. One of the discs was white, the other red. He connected a terminal in the box to a delicate thin wire that ran under the carpet to the door. Above it he arranged a scattering of papers, so that only the tell-tale discs were exposed.
He went over to the door and touch it. He was wearing thick rubber gloves, but the moment his hands touched the woodwork, the white disc leapt to light. coincident with it a low humming began in the wall immediately opposite. Nothing could be seen to account for it: there was no movement anywhere, nothing but the suddenly illuminated disc and the suppressed hum, vague and indistinct that seemed to emanate from the opposite end of the room.
Apparently satisfied with his tests, Dain switched off the current and removed his rubber gloves.
His last arrangements were made at the desk. First he opened a drawer and pulled out a revolver. One single bullet he loaded into the curious little snap-chamber at the top of the butt, and then he laid the gun on the left-hand corner of his desk towards the door. He placed it so that the handle was turned away from him.
Next he wrote out a label and grummed it on a box, a strong cardboard box that was just large enough to contain the revolver. A notable fact about it was that it was flat enough to go into a lett-box.
The address on that label was curious. it was written to a mythological person, addressed to a non-existent hotel in Australia. Thus: "To T.Z. Hengel, Esq., Eldorado Hotel, Melbourne Australia."
To the best of his knowledge there was no such person living as T.Z Hengel and he was quite certain there was no such hotel as the Eldorado in Melbourne, for he had verified the fact in a gazetteer..
Having addressed it, he wrote underneath: "If undelivered, return to Valmon Dain, Hendon England."
"That should get rid of an embarrassment for a couple of months at least," he muttered to himself as he slipped the box into a drawer out of sight. "And now to stage a little sideshow for the especial delectation of friend Lyall."
He placed several Little stone pots on the desk and filled them with a varied assortment of crystals and powders. Near to his hand he put a pestle and mortar, with a gaudy mixture of stuffs in it. Just in front of him he laid a huge technical book opened at a subject dealing with an abstruse chemical problem.
"There, I think that ought to suit him nicely."
He dropped a handful of sealing-wax wafers on the table and then settled himself comfortably in his chair to wait.
The minutes ticked by. He lit a cigarette, drew in a few deep puffs, and then crushed it out in an ashtray.