"Policemen!"
"Yes."
Tears suddenly filled the eyes that looked into his. Two small hands clasped themselves in a passionate gesture of appeal.
"Don't turn me over to the bulls, mister! I only did it for ma's sake. If you was out of work and starvin' and you had to sit and watch your poor old ma bendin' over the wash-tub...."
"I haven't got a poor old ma," said George curtly. "And what on earth do you think you're talking about?"
He stopped suddenly, speech wiped from his lips by a stunning discovery. The girl had unclasped her hands, and now she flung them out before her: and the gesture was all that George's memory needed to spur it to the highest efficiency. For unconsciously Fanny Mullett had assumed the exact attitude which had lent such dramatic force to her entrance into the dining-room of Mrs. Waddington's house at Hempstead earlier in the day. The moment he saw those out-stretched arms, George remembered where he had met this girl before: and, forgetting everything else, forgetting that he was trapped on a roof with a justly exasperated policeman guarding the only convenient exit, he uttered a short, sharp bark of exultation.
"You!" he cried. "Give me that necklace."
"What necklace?"
"The one you stole at Hempstead this afternoon."
The girl drew herself up haughtily.