If it had been simply a question of any crime that Mrs. Gertstein had committed Labar would have arrested her there and then, without consideration of his sympathies, for or against, in the case. That, as he had said, was his obvious duty. He was in a sense violating his oath as a police officer in not doing so. And in attempting to question her on a matter which in some measure bore upon the charges that he knew should be brought against her, he was flagrantly outside the law. Any one of his Majesty’s judges would have commented sternly on such a procedure. Yet, long since, Labar had made up his mind to take the chance. Adèle Gertstein might be mad or vicious or both, but she was a less dangerous person to the community than Larry Hughes. Morally he was justified. All the same, although his course would not have been condemned by his Scotland Yard superiors, or by the Public Prosecutor himself, nothing could save him if any disclosure of this thing should come about.

The woman looked up eagerly, snatching at the slightest straw of hope. “Do you mean that if I tell you the truth you will do nothing to me⁠—that no one else will know?”