Shattering Glass. John Russell Fearn

them.”

      The typewriter began clicking. Perry shifted his gaze a trifle and found Moira Trent looking at him.

      “Not very talkative, are you?” Perry asked genially.

      She gave a brief, troubled smile and glanced about her. Then she sighed. “It’s this place. A police station is no place to talk. Doesn’t give you any inspiration.”

      Finally the clicking of the typewriter ceased and the constable walked forward with two separate statements in duplicate and laid them on the counter.

      “This is what each of you said,” he explained. “If you’ll just sign ’em and put your addresses....” He took a pen from the rack and held it for the girl. She took it and wrote “Moira Trent” with as many curves as a chorine. Perry scribbled his signature.

      “That all?” he asked pleasantly.

      “Er—not quite. I’d like to know your address, Miss...er...Trent?”

      “I haven’t got one yet,” she answered. “I only arrived in London late this evening.”

      “But you must be going somewhere?”

      “I have a place in mind, certainly, but until I get there and can be sure of a room, I can’t truthfully call it an address, can I?”

      “Then where,” the constable asked, “did you come from?”

      A fraction’s hesitation, then—“Bristol.”

      The red, freckled hand wrote “Bristol” and added in parenthesis—“Of no fixed abode.”

      “Confound it,” Perry objected, “you make her sound like a tramp!”

      “Sorry, sir, but in the legal sense that’s what she is without an address. And there’s something else, Miss Trent. I’d like to know what you’ve got in that bag....”

      “Well, I—”

      “I’ll handle this.” Perry interrupted and to the constable he said calmly, “You’re exceeding your duty, officer. We are only witnesses, not suspects.”

      “That, sir, I grant. But I am entitled to ask the young lady, and I’m doing it. It’s merely to help. If you refuse, miss,” he told her, “you’ll be quite within your rights—but we can always take the necessary steps to get in touch with you, and the suitcase, should we wish.”

      “Don’t do it,” Perry instructed her but she only smiled slightly.

      “It doesn’t really matter.” With a quick movement she snapped open the lid. She waved a hand to it and said: “Please don’t embarrass me too much.”

      The constable peered into the case. So did Perry. It was filled with lacy feminine trifles and at one end were half a dozen thick books, which evidently accounted for the weight. The constable pushed his hand in the miscellany of garments and stirred them slowly as though he were mixing a pudding. But he didn’t miss a single corner. Then he picked up the books, examined them carefully, dropped them back into the case.

      “Mmm—all right,” he said finally and sounded most disappointed.

      Perry picked up the suitcase and followed the girl out of the police station. The constable watched them go. Then he picked up the statements and went across to the private office. He knocked on the door and a bass voice responded.

      At the desk in the center of the office sat Divisional Inspector Latham and the station inspector, a worried looking individual with thinning hair.

      “Reports from the only witness and part-witness, sir,” the constable announced.

      The divisional inspector looked at them and sighed.

      “When we received your message—” he looked at the constable—“I thought we had a good chance of tracing the Farrish gang. That’s why I took charge personally—but now it seems that I was wrong. The Farrish gang would never let a woman interfere with their plans. They’d have killed her first.”

      “Then maybe the woman’s lying sir,” the constable suggested.

      “No, she wasn’t lying,” Latham said. “Before I came here I had Millington, the jeweler, visit the store and look over the stock. Nothing had been taken except the object used to smash the window, and that tallies with the girl’s statement. Though why on earth the thieves took the trouble to retrieve the smasher and left thousands of pounds worth of jewelry behind is something I don’t understand. The only damage apart from the window, was two cut-­glass rose bowls smashed to bits. It’s queer—infernally queer. “It doesn’t smell like the Farrish crowd to me.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      MEETING

      AT the end of the little alley in which stood the police station, Perry Lonsdale and Moira Trent came to a stop.

      “What,” Perry asked, pulling out his cigarette case “happens now, Miss Trent?”

      “I’d certainly like a meal,” she admitted slowly, “and something hot to drink. But let it be somewhere quiet where we can sort of creep in and be left undisturbed.”

      “I know of a place,” he said presently. “Bill’s Hash House. Best meal in London and only about a quarter of a mile from here. Come along.”

      He could not be sure, but he fancied he saw a look of intense gratitude directed towards him. Picking up the suitcase, he took the girl’s arm and they strolled down the main street.

      “I never expected to run into a smash and-grab within my first few minutes of arriving in London,” Moira said.

      “I never expected to be bumped into by a running girl when I left the mortuary,” Perry answered.

      “Mortuary?”

      “Sorry—Bachelors’ club. Little difference. I’d show you what I mean only you’re the wrong sex—Say, are you a bachelor girl?” he asked, in a sudden kindling of anxiety.

      “Yes I’ve no attachments at all...now.”

      The last word left a hangover of question marks in Perry’s brain, but he did not force the pace.

      “No parents either?”

      “No. They died in an accident when I was very young. Until I was eighteen I lived with an aunt—then I went my own way.”

      Silence again, save for their echoing footfalls.

      “You’ve been very kind to me, Mr. Lonsdale,” the girl said presently, and again there was that glance of gratitude. “I’d like you to know that I really appreciate it.”

      Perry smiled. “That’s all right. Only too glad. I’m just wondering about something, though. Funny how things come back to you after a while. To where were you running when you bumped into me?”

      “I suppose,” the girl said, reflectively, “it was a kind of panic. I simply wanted to get away from that spot. I’m like that in some things. Cool as can be when there is real danger, but when it’s past I go to pieces.”

      The little cafe was the only building in the quiet side street that had a lighted window. Perry opened the door and the girl preceded him into an aroma of warmth and food. A man of monstrous girth cast aside the evening paper and rose from behind a pile of cake stands.

      “Well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Lonsdale!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you, sir, for—”

      “Two years, Bill.” Perry told him genially, strolling across to the counter “Seems like two centuries to me.... Oh blast my manners! This is Miss Trent a friend of mine. Here we have Bill himself,” he said to the girl. “The minister of the interior.”

      The girl glanced around the empty dining room then, somewhat to Perry’s wonderment, chose a distant partition-table farthest from the door.

      “This,”