After a pause, during which she regarded me with a stern but not altogether unfriendly eye, the good lady spoke again, this time almost pityingly: "An accomplice of criminals and blackmailers! What brought you to it, young man? Drink--debt--gambling--or worse? Come, now, I don't want to be hard upon you. Make a clean breast of it, and I'll do what I can to help you back to an honest life. You have already confessed the falsehood of your story, and if----" "I have done nothing of the sort," I interrupted indignantly. "My story is perfectly true--every word of it; and if you'll let me----" "Your story perfectly true!" she thundered. "Why, you told me just now, with your own mouth, when I was going to send for the police--and that reminds me: I'll ring the bell and send for them now--that you knew they wouldn't believe it. If you're not the----" "I know they won't believe it, because I've already told them," I cut in. "I see a telephone bell in the corner there. Ring up Inspector S----, of New Scotland Yard, or the Superintendent at ---- Station, and ask them whether I haven't already been to them with the identical story. They don't believe me now, because they don't want to; but when the inquest is held and the facts come out, they'll find, and you'll find, that every word I have said is perfectly true. Or," I added--for she had actually rung the bell when threatening to send for the police, and the servant had come to the door in response--"or send out and buy an evening paper. You'll find the fact of the finding of the three bodies off Canvey Island, just as I have told you." "You can go, Metcalfe," she said to the waiting servant. "I shan't want you at present." Then she turned to me again. "I don't know what to do," she said undecidedly. "If I let you go, and your story turns out to be a lie, you'll have decamped of course when you're wanted. If I hand you over to the police, you'll be in safe keeping and----" "It will mean a night in gaol, if you give me in charge at this hour," I interrupted, "in which case I shall certainly bring an action against you for false imprisonment." "Yes," she said meditatively, walking over to a side-table and turning over some books as she spoke. "Yes, I suppose you would; and if your story is true I'm not sure that I should blame you if you did, for no one likes to be imprisoned when they've only told the truth. For the matter of that, I don't know that I shouldn't dislike the publicity of an action for false imprisonment more than you'd dislike the imprisonment; and my brother--there's no escape from _that_ fact--would be furious with me for getting my name and his into the papers. I didn't believe a word of your story when I first heard it, but looking at you more closely, I must say that you don't look or talk like a liar, and I've a good mind to follow my instincts and trust you, after all."