FANNY HAS A VISITOR
No. 280 Coram Street was an apartment house, and Mrs. Fanny Weldon
occupied two rooms, one facing Coram Street and one a side turning.
She lived well and she paid well, gave little or no trouble, and the
breath of scandal did not touch her name. Not noticeably. She was in
truth the star boarder, and her landlady would have gone very far to
oblige Fanny, always providing that the fair name of 280 was not
assailed.
This woman crook had spent a busy night, yet sleep refused to come to
her in the day, and she rose at three in the afternoon and busied
herself with those occupations which women of all kinds find
interesting. She had a hat to trim, some dainty silk to iron, a little
mending and a little darning.
“You were up late last night, Mrs. Weldon?” said the landlady,
bringing her tea with her own hands.
Fanny nodded.
“To be exact, I wasn’t in bed all night,” she said. “I went to a
dance. What time is it?”
“Six o’clock. I thought you were sleeping, and as you didn’t ring, I
didn’t disturb you.”
“I’m going to bed early to-night,” said Fanny, yawning. “Is there
anything fresh?”
“No, my dear,” said the landlady, professionally maternal. “We’ve got
a new young gentleman in the opposite room,” she jerked her thumb at
the door. “A gentleman from Manchester, and very quiet. Mrs. Hooper
made some trouble about the dinner.” She retailed grisly gossip of the
boarding house.
“Send me up something cold on a tray,” said Fanny. “I am going to bed
early. I have a very important appointment to-morrow.”
She was looking forward to her appointment with Larry Holt in no great
spirit of enthusiasm.
It was half-past seven when the woman undressed slowly and went to
bed. She was deadly tired, and she fell asleep almost before her head
touched the pillow. The dreams of evil-doers are no more unsound as a
rule than the dreams of the pure and virtuous. But Fanny was
over-tired and dreamt badly--ghastly dreams of monstrous shapes; of
high buildings on the parapet of which she was poised, ready to fall;
of men who chased her armed with long bright knives--and she turned
and twisted in her bed restlessly. Then she dreamt she had committed a
murder: she had murdered Gordon Stuart. She had never heard of Gordon
Stuart until Larry had mentioned his name, but she pictured him as a
weak youth.
And now the day of doom had come, she dreamt, and they brought her
from the cell with her hands strapped behind her, and she paced slowly
by the side of a white-robed clergyman into a little shed. And then a
man, an executioner, had stepped out, and he had the mocking face of
Blind Jake. She felt the rope about her neck, and tried to scream, but
it was choking her, choking her. She woke up.
Two hands were about her throat, and in the reflected light from a
street lamp outside she looked up into the sightless face of Blind
Jake. It was no dream, it was reality! She tried to move, but he held
her so that she was powerless. One of his knees pressed on her and he
was talking softly, a sibilant whisper, meant only for her ear.
“Fanny, you gave me away,” he whispered. “You gave me away, you devil!
Poor old Blind Jake! You tried to put him into jug, you did! I know
all about it. I’ve got a little pal at Todd’s who told me. And now
you’re going out, d’ye hear?”
She was choking, choking; she could not articulate, she felt her face
going purple and the cruel hands tightening. And then the light
switched on, and the “man from Manchester” who had occupied the
bedroom on the opposite side of the landing, and who had waited
throughout the night listening for the stealthy tread of Blind Jake,
knowing that he would come after he had learnt he was betrayed--Larry
Holt, a long Browning in his hand, covered the strangler.
“Put up your hands, Jake,” he said, and Blind Jake turned round with a
low growl like the snarl of a tiger at bay.