"What do you want?"
"I want a little talk with you. What's all this I hear about you asking people to perpetrate crimes for you?"
Sigsbee Waddington's conscience was in such a feverish condition by now that this speech affected him as deeply as the explosion of a pound of dynamite would have done. His vivid imagination leaped immediately to the supposition that this girl who seemed so intimate with his private affairs was one of those Secret Service investigation agents who do so much to mar the comfort of the amateur in crime.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he croaked.
"Oh, shucks!" said Fanny impatiently. She was a business girl and disliked this beating about the bush. "Freddy Mullett told me all about it. You want some one to do a job for you and he turned you down. Well, take a look at the understudy. I'm here, and, if the job's in my line, lead me to it."
Mr. Waddington continued to eye her warily. He had now decided that she was trying to trap him into a damaging admission. He said nothing, but breathed stertorously.
Fanny, a sensitive girl, misunderstood his silence. She interpreted the look in his eye to indicate distrust of the ability of a woman worker to deputise for the male.
"If it's anything Freddy Mullett could do, I can do it," she said. She seemed to Mr. Waddington to flicker for a moment. "See here!" she said.
Before Mr. Waddington's fascinated gaze she held up between her delicate fingers a watch and chain.
"What's that?" he gasped.