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.”