“It has been a nightmare since yesterday,” she confessed, speaking slowly, as with effort. “If you intend to arrest me you will have to. I know⁠—what you think⁠—I don’t blame you.” She choked back something very like a sob. “I can only tell you I am almost innocent. I can see how black things must look to you; but that is the truth. There are others⁠—I cannot tell you all.”

There is a wholesome rule that a police officer must not question a person whom he knows he will in all probability have to arrest. It is a rule which strictly applied would leave many mysteries unexplained, and detectives have at times to walk warily round it, taking a certain amount of risk.

“You are almost innocent,” he repeated. “What does that mean, exactly? There are other people you are shielding? Come, Miss Noelson, there is nothing to be gained by hanging back. Do you know what this mistaken chivalry may mean? It will save no one. It may mean disgrace⁠—ruin⁠—the prison taint⁠—for you. Why take the chance⁠—the almost certainty?”