Mrs. Clayton had turned very pale and was trembling visibly. “This is a strange beginning, Mr. Carter,” she replied. “What do you expect me to disclose?” “Only the truth, Mrs. Clayton.” “About what?” “Your son’s double,” said Nick. “The man who so resembles Chester Clayton that he could perpetrate the crime committed this morning. Who is this man? What do you know about him?” The woman’s fine face hardened perceptibly. She appeared to nerve herself to meet a threatening situation, to oppose with tooth and nail, if necessary, the disclosures the detective evidently was determined to evoke. She drew up a little in her chair, replying more coldly: “That seems quite impossible, Mr. Carter. What put that into your head?” “You did,” said Nick quietly. “I did?” “Yes.” “Impossible! When?” “When you met your son this morning, Mrs. Clayton, and fainted upon learning that the robbery was committed by a man so like him that--but you could not say more,” Nick broke off. “You fell to the floor in a faint.” “That is true, I admit, Mr. Carter----” “And you also must admit, Mrs. Clayton, that the circumstances and your own words permit of no other interpretation,” Nick interrupted, more impressively. “But----” “Oh, I am not going to argue that point with you,” Nick again insisted. “I am going to make you see the matter just as it stands. Your son’s reputation and liberty are at stake. So is my reputation as a detective. Only the truth can save him. Unless you are willing to aid me by disclosing it, I shall have no alternative but to drop the case entirely and let others try to pull him out of the fire. If they fail----” “Wait! You have said enough, Mr. Carter.” Nick would not have done what he threatened, but he detected in the changed face of the woman that the threat would prove effective. For Mrs. Clayton, though ghastly pale and with trembling lips as gray as ashes, took on a look of sudden determination, that of a woman who felt herself driven to the wall. “I will tell you the truth,” she added, more firmly. “You may safely do so,” Nick now said kindly. “It will go no further.” “I shrink from it. Mr. Carter, chiefly for the sake of one man.” “Your son?” “Yes. I implore you to keep the truth from him, if that will be possible. I have kept it from him all his life.” “I will endeavor to do so,” Nick assured her. “I will tell you with few words, then, my unfortunate history,” Mrs. Clayton said, more calmly. “I was an English girl and lived in an outskirt of London. I was married when I was nineteen to a man I did not love, but who so had involved my father in financial difficulties that I became his wife in order to save my father from bankruptcy and dishonor.” “I can appreciate the sacrifice,” Nick said gravely. “My father died within a year,” Mrs. Clayton continued. “He and I were all that were left of our family. Three months later, Mr. Carter, I became the mother of twin boys.”