“But, Jameson,” argued Carton, “I repeat—­they are false.  It is a plot of Dorgan’s, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner, for his life.  And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter.  Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters.  That’s what makes the thing so dangerous.  Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I’m afraid the harm will be done.  I can’t reach all the voters in time.  Ten see such a charge to one who sees the denial.”

He looked from one to the other of us helplessly.  “If we had a week or two, it might be all right.  But I can’t make any move to-day without making a fool of myself, nothing until they are published, as the last big thing of the campaign.  Monday and Tuesday morning do not give me time to reply in the papers and hammer it in.  Even if they were out now, it would not give me time to make of it an asset instead of a liability.  And then, too, it means that I am diverted by this thing, that I let up in the final efforts that we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign.  That in itself is as much as Dorgan wants, anyway.”

Kennedy had been, so far, little more than an interested listener, but now he asked pointedly, “You have copies of the pictures?”

“No—­but I’ve been promised them this morning.”

“H’m,” mused Craig, turning the crisis over in his mind.  “We’ve had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new.  I’m not surprised that you are alarmed, Carton,—­nor that Walter suggests buying them off.  But I agree with you, Carton—­it’s best to fight, to admit nothing, as you would imply by any other method.”

“Then you think you can trace down the forger of those pictures before it is too late?” urged Carton, leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the jury.

“I haven’t said I can do that—­yet,” measured Craig with provoking slowness.

“Say, Kennedy, you’re not going to desert me?” reproached Carton.

Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton’s shoulder.

“I’ve been afraid of something like this,” he said, “ever since I began to realize that you had once been—­er—­foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby.  My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan’s purpose just as well.  Photographs,” he added sententiously, “are like statistics.  They don’t lie unless the people who make them do.  But it’s hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either, in an election.  I—­I don’t know that I’d desert you—­if the pictures were true.  I’d be sure there was some other explanation.”

“I knew it,” responded Carton heartily.  “Your hand on that, Kennedy.  Say, I think I’ve shaken hands with half the male population of this city since I was nominated, but this means more than any of them.  Spare no reasonable expense and—­get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up—­Langhorne—­anybody.  And, for God’s sake get it in time—­there’s more than an election that hangs on it!”