CHAPTER XII.

FANNY WELDON TELLS THE TRUTH

He lifted the telephone, and presently:

“Send the first two officers in the building,” he said, “and a messenger, quick!”

The girl was watching interestedly. Now she saw the real Larry Holt, the man of whom it is said by the Commissioner that “he slept trailing.” At his request, she stood outside the open door whilst he conducted an investigation. The light jemmy which the intruder had used he had not troubled to take away. It lay on the floor, and he picked it up with a piece of paper and carried it to the light.

A short thread of cotton adhered to its rough end which meant that its user had worn cotton gloves to avoid finger prints. His only hope was the tray. It was a flat glass tray with wicker sides and handles, and he knew that if the gloves came off anywhere it would be here; for a person unaccustomed to working in gloves would remove them to examine the smaller objects. And his surmise was right. When he breathed on the polished back of the gold watch, a distinct thumb print was visible.

By this time two officers had arrived.

“Is there a man on duty in the print department?” asked Larry.

“Yes, sir,” replied the officer.

“Take this watch down. Hold it by the stem. If he cannot bring up the print by powder I want it photographed and verified within the next hour.”

The burglar had made another _faux pas_. Larry had pulled out the waste-paper basket without disturbing its contents and had taken out three screwed-up pieces of paper, two of which proved to be nothing more important than memoranda in Diana’s writing. The third, however, was a plan of the room, drawn in ink by a skilful hand, the cupboard being marked and the positions of the desks shown.

“They thought there were three cupboards here,” said Larry, pointing. “There is one supposed to be on the left of the fireplace,” he looked up and raised his eyebrows. “By Jingo, they’re right!” he said. “And another behind the door.” He looked and nodded. “They know this room much better than I do, Miss Ward,” he said, and looked at the paper again. “The man who drew this has a knowledge of architectural drawing,” said he. “I think we’d better have a safe and a bodyguard,” he added bitterly.

Somebody appeared in the doorway. It was Sir John Hason, who sometimes returned to his office at night to take advantage of the quiet and freedom from interruption which the evening hours afforded.

“What has happened, Larry?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said Larry airily, “only a burglar has broken into Scotland Yard! Don’t you think we ought to send for the police?” he asked sardonically, and Sir John grinned. But the smile came off his face instantly.

“They haven’t taken the Stuart clues, have they?”

“The only clue that matters,” replied Larry. “It would be a good idea if we brought some Boy Scouts into this building to look after our movable property!”

“I like you when you’re funny,” said the Commissioner, but he was serious. “We’ll have the doorkeeper up.”

The doorkeeper, when he came, could give no satisfactory explanation, except that he had thought it was Miss Ward who had passed. It was the practice to call the number of the room when its occupants came in for duty, and this was also the custom after office hours. The visitor had said “47,” and had been allowed to pass unchallenged.

“There have been no strangers here, have there?” asked Larry.

“No,” said the girl, and then: “There was a blind man here this afternoon: you remember, you wanted to see the instruments these poor people use, and I asked the little old man who sells matches on the Embankment to come up.”

Larry remembered.

“At any rate, he couldn’t have made a plan of the room,” he said.

“The system seems to be a little bit groggy,” said Sir John when the doorkeeper had gone. “We can’t really blame this man. It is our own fault.”

“There’s hardly enough light in the main hall to read a newspaper placard,” complained Larry. “Here is the finger-print gentleman.”

The officer who came up had a broad smile: the smile of a man who had justified his hobby.

“Got it first time, sir,” he said. “Fanny Weldon, 280 Coram Street. Here’s her record.” He handed the card to Larry.

“Twice gaoled for impersonation,” he read. “That’s the woman. But how did she come into this game?”

The officer who had taken the watch away, and who now restored it, supplied the information.

“Fanny’s a queer woman, sir,” he said. “She hasn’t a spark of originality, and she’s had all her trouble through helping other people in their schemes. Big Joe Jaket employed her to impersonate Miss Lottie Home, the actress, about two years ago; and then she was employed by somebody else to impersonate a barmaid whilst the landlord was away, when the Mannic gang cleared out three thousand from the Hotel Victor Hugo.”

Larry was sitting at the table, his chin in his palm, thinking.

“That is what has happened,” he said. “These people have got track of all the crooks in London, and it’s just as likely they’ve employed Fanny. No. 280 Coram Street, I think you said? We’ll see what Fanny has to say for herself.”

He did not see Fanny until daylight. No. 280 Coram Street was a corner house, apparently rented out in rooms. Soon after daybreak a cab drew up to the kerb outside the door and a woman stepped out and paid the driver. As she walked to the door, Larry came behind her and took her arm. She turned round with an exclamation of fright. She was a pretty woman with a shrewish mouth.

“Here, what are you doing?” she asked in alarm.

“You’re coming for a little walk with me,” said Larry.

“Is it a cop?” she asked, going pale.

“A fair cop,” said Larry, and, still holding her elbow, led her to the nearest police station, where Diana and his officers were waiting.

On the way to the station she bewailed her fate.

“This comes of being obliging,” she said bitterly. “What’s the charge?”

“Sacrilege,” said Larry solemnly, and she was astonished.

“Sacrilege? What do you mean? Breaking into a church or something?”

“Breaking into Scotland Yard,” said Larry.

She drew a long breath.

“Then it _is_ a cop!” she said.

“You’ve said it,” replied her captor.

They put her in the steel pen, but not before she had been searched by one of the woman attendants. The search produced £150 in bank-notes, which Fanny, who had now recovered her good spirits, insisted should be counted.

“I’ve lost things in police stations before,” she said significantly.

She was not taken to the cells, but in a little waiting room Larry and Diana interviewed her. And the presence of Diana was a source of great interest to the prisoner.

“You’ve brought your young lady along, I see?” she said flippantly. She was _gamine_ right through, despite her smart clothes and her elaborate jewellery. “Is this the lady I ‘took off’?”

“She’s the identical lady,” said Larry. “Now, Fanny, I’m going to talk to you like a father.”

“Go ahead and don’t mind me,” said Fanny recklessly. “But I can tell you that I’ve been going straight for months,” and Larry grinned.

“I should like to draw a line alongside that straight course of yours,” he said. “It’d be a bit bumpy. Fanny, I’m going to give you a chance. And I shall be perfectly frank with you. Scotland Yard doesn’t want the world to know that a female hook has broken in under its nose and pinched certain articles of value.”

The woman laughed softly, and, catching Diana’s eye, winked.

“It takes a woman to do that sort of thing, eh, dearie?” she asked. “Proceed with your story, Mr. Busy Fellow. But if you think I’m going to give anybody away, why, you’re making a mistake.”

“You will give away just what I want you to give away,” said Larry sharply. “You are going to tell me who employed you to do this job.”

She shook her head.

“You will also tell me who was the man to whom you handed the stuff, and where.”

Again she shook her head, but she was in a good humour.

“There is no use in asking me questions,” she said. “I’m not going to answer. You can put me into the cell just as soon as you like, and save yourself a lot of trouble.”

“I’ll put you into the cell after I’ve charged you,” said Larry quietly, and the woman looked up sharply.

“You have charged me with breaking and entering,” she said.

“That is not the crime which I shall bring against you,” said Larry. “If I get no satisfaction from you now I shall take you back to the pen and charge you with being an accessory to the murder of Gordon Stuart on the night of the twenty-third of April.”

She looked at him, speechless.

“Murder?” she repeated. “Good Gawd! You don’t mean that I’m in----”

“You’re in bad,” said Larry. “You’re assisting murderers to escape the processes of justice. You were employed to steal a very important clue which the police held, and which might have led to the conviction of the murderer--and that is sufficient offence to bring you under the gravest suspicion.”

She was serious now.

“Do you mean that?” she asked.

“I do indeed,” said Larry earnestly. “See here, Fanny, I don’t want you to think I’m kidding you. I’m giving it you as straight as it’s possible for one human being to give a thing to another. You went out to steal the clue which might have led to the arrest of the murderers.”

“What is your name?” she asked.

“I am Inspector Larry Holt,” and she gasped.

“Suffering Moses! Then I _am_ in bad!” she said. “I thought you were abroad. Now, Mr. Holt, I’ll tell you. I’ve heard a lot about you, and I’m told that you always play straight with a hook. I knew nothing about this job until yesterday afternoon, and then I had a telephone call asking me to meet Big Jake, or Blind Jake as they call him.”

“Blind Jake?” repeated Larry, to whom the name was new, and then he recalled the blind match-seller on the Embankment who had come to his office--but it could not be he. Diana had said he was a small man.

“Your men know all about him, Mr. Holt,” Fanny hesitated. “He’s a wicked man. Now, that sounds funny coming from me; but if you know what I mean, he’s just wicked. I’m scared to death of Blind Jake, and there isn’t a hook in London who isn’t. He’s been inside twice: once for unlawfully wounding and once for being in possession of property. There used to be three of ’em, all hooks together, and all blind! We used to call ’em the Blind Eyes of London, because they could get about quicker than you, and in a fog they’d beat the best detectives that ever lived, because fog never means anything to them. Blind Jake used to be the boss of the three, and then one of ’em disappeared and I heard he was dead. We never heard much about them for twelve months, and then Blind Jake turned up again with yards of money. I believe he is working for a big boss.”

“Well, you met Blind Jake?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “He gave me the plan----”

“Not his own--he couldn’t draw,” interrupted Larry.

“Not him,” said the woman contemptuously. “No, he brought the plan with him. I’ve got it somewhere. Maybe it’s in the bag you’ve taken.”

“Don’t worry about the plan,” said Larry. “I found that in the office.”

“Well, Blind Jake told me how to go about it, said he would give me a coat and a hat that this young lady always wore when she went to the Yard, and I got instructions that I was to say ‘47’ when I went into the room, and run upstairs quick.”

“What were you told to get?”

“A little roll of brown paper,” said the woman. “They told me where it was and almost how it was placed in the tray.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t guess how they knew.”

“I can,” said Larry, and turned to the girl. “The little old match-seller recovered his sight! Where can I find Blind Jake?” he asked the woman.

“You won’t find him,” she said, shaking her head. “He never comes out by day--at least, very seldom.”

“What is he like in appearance?”

“Very big and as strong as an ox.”

Diana uttered an exclamation.

“Has he a beard?” she asked.

“Yes, miss,” said the woman. “A little grayish kind of beard.”

“It was the man on the stairs,” said Diana. “I am certain of it.”

Larry nodded.

“Well,” he said, addressing the woman, “when did you hand over the stuff?”

“About two o’clock this morning. That was the time he said I was to meet him at the lower end of Arundel Street in the Strand, near the Embankment. And a pretty fine temper he was in, too.”

“Do you know where he lives?” asked Larry.

She shook her head.

“Years ago they used to live in Todd’s Home,” she said. “That’s an institute in Lissom Lane, Paddington, where they used to look after the blind hawkers. But I don’t think he’s there now.”

Larry took the woman back to the charge room.

“You can release her on my recognizance,” he said. “Fanny, you will report to me to-morrow morning at Scotland Yard at ten o’clock.”

“Yes, sir,” said Fanny. “What about my money?”

Larry thought a moment.

“You can take that,” he said.

“If anybody tells me,” said Fanny, as she collected and counted her notes with offensive care, “that the police are dishonest, I shall have something to say.”