“‘It’s wicked,’ she kept saying, ‘simply wicked that I should be tortured like this, just because I was a fool for a little time.’
“I could see at a glance it wasn’t any good telling her that life doesn’t play a bit fair, and that lots of people are tortured for being a fool for less than an hour. Some of these murderers, for instance, who’re driven half crazy before they strike. But she wasn’t the type of woman to appreciate a point like that, so I just let it go and asked her to tell me what was wrong. It was an ordinary affair enough. She’d got playing about with some young fellow while her husband was away, and now the chap was making trouble. Well, that’s quite a common position, too, though I knew she wouldn’t believe me if I told her.
“‘He’s trying to get money out of me,’ she went on in an incredulous sort of voice, as if she despaired of making me believe in the existence of such a monster. ‘I’ve told him again and again that it’s no good—I haven’t got the money—but he says I can get it out of my husband. Which, of course, is just what I can’t do. As it is, he’s beginning to complain of my extravagance, says I never used to ask for extras like this, and do I think he’s made of money? I’ve sold all my jewellery, and pretended it’s being reset, but I shan’t be able to keep up that pretence for long, and when Harry finds out he’ll start making inquiries, and everything will be ruined.’
“‘You haven’t thought of telling your husband?’ I suggested, and I thought she was going to faint dead away.
“‘He’d kill me,’ she said simply. ‘And though sometimes I feel I wouldn’t mind being dead, I couldn’t bear to think of him being hanged because I’d been a fool.’ She admitted that quite frankly. This fellow—she referred to him as Gerald—had just been a diversion. She was young and not bad-looking, and like a lot of young pretty women she’d got into a mess as soon as her husband took his eye off her. But she insisted that it was Harry who mattered.
“‘He’s real,’ she said. ‘Gerald was only a game. I never meant any harm.’
“I sometimes wonder,” added Field in parentheses, “whether some of these women would do worse if they meant to play the devil generally. Most likely not, seeing the way women are. Well, she’d tried to shake this fellow off, but he was sticking closer than a brother, asking for more and more money.
“‘Have you got any of his letters?’ I asked her, and she said she hadn’t, but if I wanted one there were sure to be more and she’d bring one along.
“‘He never wrote the other kind,’ she went on, ‘though I used to write pages to him. He’s kept all those, and he’s making me buy them back. The worst—I mean, the ones that Harry would think the worst—are the most expensive. I don’t feel as though there were enough money in the world to pay for them.’
“I was sorry for her, of course, but I don’t mind telling you I was a bit disappointed too. Just at first, when she began, I’d got an idea she might be one of those cases that do a fellow a bit of good. These domestic blackmails don’t get you anywhere. I asked her the usual things—how long had she been giving this Gerald money—and she said: ‘Six months. And I can’t give him any more. But lately he’s begun to torture me in a new way. He follows me when I’m out; he hangs round the house, so that the servants must notice him. The other day, when my husband and I were walking together, he came across the street towards us. I thought he was going to speak to me. I think he just wanted my husband to notice him, to warn me that he would have no mercy. He’s cruel and wicked, and you must help me.’
“I asked her for Gerald’s full name, and she hesitated.
“‘I don’t want him to find out I’ve come to you,’ she said.
“‘Your best plan will be to suggest a rendezvous next time he asks for money,’ I told her. ‘Meet him there, and we’ll catch him red-handed.’
“She looked horrified. ‘I couldn’t. My husband might find out.’
“I thought that most probable, but she wouldn’t hear of making a clean breast of it. She wasn’t afraid of a divorce—there would be no question of that, she said—but her life would cease to be worth living.
“‘It would be just a prison for the rest of my days,’ she assured me. ‘And he would turn our child against me. I will never, never do anything wrong again, but somehow you must frighten this man away without Harry finding out.’
“I couldn’t argue about her husband, of course; there are men like that, taking a pride in cutting off their noses to spite their faces, and go about mutilated for ever afterwards.
“‘If you won’t tell your husband and you won’t give me this man’s name, what do you expect us to do?’ I wanted to know.
“She said she didn’t really know, but that sometimes she thought she’d kill herself.
“‘I shouldn’t do that,’ I warned her. ‘But, if you should be in earnest, don’t come and tell the police about it first. It’s a criminal offence, see? And you’d be making me accessory before the fact.’
“But it was easy to see she didn’t care about that. I could be sent to prison for five years and she wouldn’t even notice it. Any more than she wanted to proceed formally against this chap who was bleeding her white.
“‘You ought to think of the community,’ I told her. ‘Why, he may be sucking another lady’s blood at this minute.’
“She tossed her head. ‘That’s nothing to do with me. And, anyway, he isn’t. Because he’s been following me about ever since I left my house this morning. That’s why I came in here, because I thought it was the one place where he wouldn’t dare show his face. Even he wouldn’t be brazen enough to storm a police station.’
“Outside the door someone whistled, and then a very tall man, dark and clean-shaven, walked in; he had those deep blue eyes you see in some Irish families, and when he saw the lady he began to laugh.
“‘So this is where you’d got to,’ he said. ‘I must hand it to you for nerve. Putting your head into the lion’s mouth and trusting to his British chivalry not to snap.’
“She stood up; she was a tiny little thing, really, and for a minute I thought she was going to faint. She leaned against my shoulder and one hand clutched my arm. But when I said I’d fetch her a glass of water, she said No, it was all right, she didn’t want anything, I wasn’t to go.
“‘I’ve been telling the police about you,’ she told the new-comer defiantly.
“He only laughed again. ‘Tell me,’ he urged. ‘I always like to learn.’
“‘The officer says you could get seven years.’
“I gasped a bit, because I hadn’t said that, though it might be true. It depends on the judge.
“The man threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said, ‘but you always were fine at telling the tale. All right, Sergeant, go ahead. Make your arrest. Incidentally, you might let me know the charge. That is, if you know it yourself.’
“I said in a wooden sort of voice: ‘This lady wishes to charge you with blackmail,’ and instead of laughing again he turned to my companion and remarked in a soft sort of voice: ‘So I’m a blackmailer, am I? I will say, Fanny, you do think up good stories. How much have I had off you?’
“I was beginning to feel uncommonly foolish; if this lady had been hazing me it might put me a long way back with my superiors if the truth came out, but before I could speak the woman he called Fanny went on in indignant tones: ‘You can’t deny you’ve been following me about all the morning…’
“‘Like hell I have,’ he agreed heartily. ‘Well, wouldn’t you, if she’d pinched a stone worth four thousand out of your house?’ He was talking to me now. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Pendleton Emerald? I’m Pendleton.’ He fished in his pocket for a card. ‘I’m taking this emerald abroad this afternoon, as Fanny knew, and she meant to get her claws on it. I will say one thing, her gang generally does get what it wants. I got a ’phone message thi
s morning calling me up in a ghastly emergency, and off I went hell-for-leather. When I arrived I found my man knew nothing about it, and I realised I’d got Clapham Fanny on my track. This isn’t, I may add, the first shot they’ve made to relieve me of responsibility for the jewel. Of course, you know all about her; so do we. She’s a familiar name to every dealer and fence between Hatton Garden and Amsterdam. I came haring back in a taxi just in time to see another taxi going away from my house. I just caught a glimpse of a lady stepping into it and—well, you can see for yourself she’s not a lady you’d easily forget. I knew I hadn’t a moment to wait; in that taxi were Clapham Fanny—and my emerald. I was so sure I didn’t even stop to open my safe. I knew she’d done that job for me. My man, Baynes, is pretty reliable, but he’s no match for an old-timer like our friend here. She’d sent the message, of course—or one of the gang had. It wasn’t a woman’s voice.’
“He stopped to get his breath, and Fanny said contemptuously: ‘That’s very clever of you, but this is a police station. They know your sort here.’
“‘Well,’ he told her, ‘the proof of the pudding’s in the eating. Where are my blackmailing letters?’
“‘Do you suppose I kept anything so dangerous?’ she asked him. She did look rather handsome in a rage.
“‘Even more to the point,’ the fellow went on, ‘where’s my emerald?’
“‘I don’t believe you ever had an emerald,’ she scoffed. ‘It was clever of you to follow me in here, when you realised I was going to the police at last, to try and spoil things, but you lose this time.’
“‘Do I?’ If he was bluffing, he was a remarkably cool card.
“‘If I’d stolen your emerald do you think I’d be in a police station?’
“‘Ever hear the story of the cockroach that was set before the tortoise as a bonne bouche? It took one look at the tortoise and gave one leap and concealed itself under the creature’s armpit—the safest hiding-place it could find. I don’t want to sound rude, Fanny, comparing you with a cockroach, but—well, you see my point?’
“‘Perhaps the Sergeant’s a bit quicker than I am,’ Fanny retorted.
“‘Oh, come off it,’ said my fine gentleman. ‘Hand over that emerald—unless you want to get about five years.’
“Fanny faced him with her chin in the air, her hands gripped round the neck of a little black silk bag she was carrying. ‘I haven’t got your emerald,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about your emerald. I don’t even like emeralds. They’re unlucky stones. This is simply another of your crooked attempts to get a living.’
“‘My dear, be a sportsman,’ Mr. Pendleton urged her. ‘You haven’t been out of my sight since you left my house, except for a second when I got caught in a traffic jam. It isn’t likely the taxi-driver has the stuff; you wouldn’t let it out of your sight. Therefore, you have it on you. Hadn’t you better confess you’re beaten? If you won’t listen to reason,’ he added regretfully, ‘I shall have to charge you, and you’ll be searched, which will be most humiliating. You do see that, don’t you?’
“However, she stuck to her guns that she knew nothing about the thing and hadn’t got it, though she was more frightened now. I could feel her trembling.
“‘All right,’ said Mr. Pendleton. ‘Then I’ll charge you with the theft.’ And he turned to me.
“I hadn’t any choice. I had to have her searched, and off she went with a woman searcher, and I felt pretty uncomfortable altogether.
“I didn’t gather that my companion felt much more happy. ‘I don’t like this,’ he told me. ‘I’ve a lot of admiration for that girl. She takes chances and she generally brings them off. Silly of her not to admit she had the stone.’
“I wasn’t feeling quite so certain myself; after all, he hadn’t stopped to examine the safe. It looked to me uncommonly as though he’d walked into the trap Clapham Fanny had laid for him, and that at this very moment the rest of the gang was making its getaway with the emerald. But I had the sense to say nothing about that.
“‘If it turns out that you’re mistaken you’ll find yourself in a tight pair of shoes,’ I suggested, but he only laughed and offered me his cigarette-case.
“‘She’s got it all right,’ he said. ‘She hoped I’d weaken, that’s all. Just you wait.’
“Well, we waited, and presently the searcher came in and said she’d examined Fanny from top to toe, and the only jewel she had was the big paste diamond on her left hand.
“Well, thought I, this about cooks the goose, and then Fanny herself came in. She was in a towering rage, no doubt about that. Her eyes were burning and she said, in the sort of voice that makes husbands remember there’s a job of work they left unfinished at the other end of the town: ‘Well, Mr. Pendleton, and what happens now? Perhaps I can’t give you in charge for blackmail, but I can give you in charge for slander, and false accusation, and I hope it ruins you.’
“My gentleman hadn’t turned a hair. He was still leaning against the door, with his hands in his pockets, and all he said was: ‘Then, if you haven’t got it on you—and I must take the searcher’s word for that—it’s somewhere in this room. The point is, where?’
“He didn’t move, but I could see his eyes going round to every possible place. ‘There’s no need to look on the picture rail,’ I told him. ‘The lady hasn’t been alone for a minute, and all the time she was here she was talking to me.’
“‘You remaining stationary,’ he suggested. ‘Well, that narrows the field certainly.’
“It seemed to me it narrowed it so much it was scarcely a blade of grass, let alone a field, but before I could say so he’d dashed forward and caught me by the arm. While I was wondering what the game was he’d plunged his other hand into my pocket, and when he brought it out there was something in it, something that seemed to fill the room with a bright light. I hadn’t had much to do with jewel crimes, but even if I had the Pendleton Emerald would probably have dazzled me just the same. Like a green fire it was, as he stood there, flashing it this way and that.
“‘I ought to have guessed when I saw you standing so much nearer the law than is normal or safe,’ he teased the girl. ‘It was very long-sighted of you. I suppose you thought I’d never look for you in here; and then, when you realised I wasn’t altogether a fool, in spite of my appearance, you disposed of the emerald in the one place where no one would think of looking for it. Oh, you’re a very pretty cockroach, my dear. Well, what’s the next move?’
“I admired the woman then; she must have known she was on a hot spot, but she didn’t turn an eyelash.
“‘You can have me arrested—if you dare,’ she said. ‘Though it mightn’t be too comfortable for the Inspector here. After all,’ and here she burst out laughing, ‘nobody saw me park the jewel.’
“He roared at that. ‘Jolly for you, Inspector,’ he said.
“I didn’t altogether like the way things were shaping.
“‘Do you wish to make a charge?’ I asked him.
“He shook his head. ‘Haven’t the time. I told you this jewel has to accompany me out of England this afternoon.’
“‘It doesn’t take all day to make a charge,’ I assured him in my driest tones.
“‘I’m afraid, if I do make it, I may never live to make anything else,’ he explained. ‘Fanny has a husband—and even a public school education doesn’t seem to give these gangmen any respect for the police.’
“He grinned, said, ‘So long, Fanny,’ and to my disgust out she went a good deal cooler than when she came in.
“I was properly angry now. ‘You’d no right to do that, sir,’ I told him. ‘She may be robbing someone else’s safe within the hour.’
“‘That’s their luck,’ he said.
“‘You ought to have given her in charge,’ I insisted.
“‘That’s her luck,’ he told me. ‘I mean, her husband’
s her luck, of course.’
“‘There ought to have been an arrest,’ I said again.
“‘That’s your luck.’ He’d gone before I’d properly understood what he meant. I was beginning to think: ‘That’s life; just a lot of beginnings that don’t lead anywhere,’ when one of my colleagues came in with some photographs in his hand.
“‘Keep a look-out for these,’ he said, putting them down. ‘Some gang got away with the Pendleton Emerald this morning. Old Sir Joseph’s foaming at the mouth, and seeing what a squat bald little chap he is, it isn’t safe for him to work overtime at that game. It seems it’s worth a lot of money—four thousand, the experts say—and he was got out of his house by a trick this morning, and then the thieves turned up as calm as you please, on a pretext of answering some advertisement, tied up the butler, and picked the lock of the safe as easy as kiss your hand.’
“‘Do they know who the chaps were?’ I asked.
“‘A man and a woman. Here are the pictures. Someone saw them in this part of London. How they got away with it in broad daylight takes some explaining. One thing, you’d know him again.’
“He put the pictures on my desk. Hers wasn’t very flattering, but I’d have recognised his anywhere, that tall dark fellow, with the big shoulders and long chin. I suppose she thought someone had hit her trail, so in she came, parked the jewel as calmly as you please in case questions were asked, and then he popped along to warn her the coast was clear. It was all very prettily done.”
“Did they get them?” someone asked.
Field shook his head. “I did hear the emerald was seen round the neck of a lady in Central Europe some time afterwards, but that might be just gossip. Anyhow, Sir Joseph died of apoplexy within the month, so it wouldn’t have been much use to him.”
We all felt a bit delicate about putting the final question. Finally, the barmaid, braver than the rest of us, or perhaps just more curious, asked: “And what happened when the story came out?”
Field looked at her disapprovingly. “When you’re as old as I am,” he told her, “you’ll understand there’s times when it’s positively unhealthy to know more than your superiors. Gives them a wrong impression, and an ambitious man—and I was ambitious in those days—doesn’t make mistakes like that. But it’s an odd thing,” he wound up, pushing his tankard across the counter, “and I daresay these new-fangled psychologists would find some indecent reason for it, but since that time I’ve never been really partial to a tortoise.”
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