“ ‘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 this 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 realized 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 realized I was going to the police at last, and 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 happier. ‘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.
“ ‘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 realized 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.