“Yes. I see. An old fool and a young woman. Well you can leave my feelings about Adèle out of the question. I’ve kept my eyes shut⁠—wilfully shut. If she broke her neck tomorrow I wouldn’t care. You could shut her up in prison for life and it would not hurt me.” He spoke with level and dispassionate evenness. “But my name is my concern, and my wish is that it shall not be dragged in the dirt. I have been a nobody, Mr. Labar. I was born in Petticoat Lane, and my father was an old clothes dealer. What I am now I have made myself. I have friends among the highest in this and other lands. The name of Gertstein might have been among the peers of the realm had I wished. I have built it up. And it is because that woman bears my name that I will not fold my hands and watch it become the sport of every muck rake in the world. I would sooner see her dead at my feet.” His bitterness appeared the more strange and deadly to Labar, because he seemed to have complete control of himself. It was as though he was speaking on behalf of some other person. The inspector shook his head slowly.