She had been married to Gertstein for seven years. Two years before their marriage she had been introduced to Larry Hughes. She believed him then to be, as she had believed up to that day, a wealthy man about town, and nothing worse. She had been fascinated, infatuated, by him, and there had been an affair--she insisted that it had been nothing but a sort of glorified flirtation, but, though Labar drew his own conclusions, in which love letters of the most ardent description had been exchanged. The episode drew to a close when he went abroad some eighteen months later. She had married Gertstein and she had seen no more of Hughes until it might have been eighteen months or two years ago, when she met him accidentally at a race meeting. "Did you meet on the old footing?" asked Labar, bluntly. "Oh, no, no," she protested with some slight symptom of colour in her pale cheeks. "We were simply old friends." "And it was after this that the blackmail started?" She assented. It had begun with a simple demand for a hundred pounds, which was accompanied by one of her long-ago letters to Larry Hughes, and the intimation that the rest of the correspondence was in the possession of the writer, and that failing her compliance it would be sent to her husband. "You did not go to your husband or take any advice about it?" "I dare not. I thought the man would be satisfied with his hundred, and that would be the end of it." Labar grunted. She went on with her recital. The money was sent to "James Smith," at what was, as she had taken the trouble to find out, an accommodation address at Kennington. After she had conceded the first demand, others came with growing frequency and for increasing amounts. Always they had to be paid in cash, and always they were sent to varying addresses and varying names. At first she had been able to satisfy the blackmailer without great inconvenience to herself, but the time came when she was put to considerable stress. She sold her personal jewels, and replaced them with paste. She had dabbled with moneylenders. She had plunged on race meetings. "What about Hughes?" broke in Labar at this point. "Didn't you say anything about this to him?" "Yes. He urged me to refuse, and to go to the police or my husband. I have asked him to help me out once or twice, but he made difficulties. However, I have had about a couple of thousands out of him." "I see. You didn't know that most of that was going back into his own pocket. Tell me of this forgery."