We looked about.  Craig had slipped out quietly during the telephone conversation.  Before we could start a search for him, he returned.

“I thought there was something peculiar about the voice,” he explained.  “That was why I wanted a record of it.  While you were talking I got your switchboard operator to connect me with central on another wire.  The call was from a pay station on the west side.  There wasn’t a chance to get the fellow, of course—­but I have the voice record, anyhow.”

Dopey Jack’s confession occupied most of the evening and it was late when we got away.  Carton was overjoyed at the result of his pressure, and eager to know, on the other hand, whether Kennedy had made any progress yet with his study of the photographs.

I could have told him beforehand, however, that Craig would say nothing and he did not.  Besides, he had the added mystery of the new phonograph cylinder to engross him, with the result that we parted from Carton, a little piqued at being left out of Craig’s confidence, but helpless.

As for me, I knew it was useless to trail after Kennedy and when he announced that he was going back to the laboratory, I balked and, in spite of my interest in the case, went home to our apartment to bed, while Kennedy made a night of it.

What he discovered I knew no better in the morning than when I left him, except that he seemed highly elated.

Leisurely he dressed, none the worse for his late work and after devouring the papers as if there were nothing else in the world so important, he waited until the middle of the morning before doing anything further.

“I merely wanted to give Dorgan a chance to get to his office,” he surprised me with, finally.  “Come, Walter, I think he must be there now.”

Amazed at his temerity in bearding Dorgan in his very den, I could do nothing but accompany him, though I much feared it was almost like inviting homicide.

The Boss’s office was full of politicians, for it was now approaching “dough day,” when the purse strings of the organization were loosed and a flood of potent argument poured forth to turn the tide of election by the force of the only thing that talks loud enough for some men to hear.  Somehow, Kennedy managed to see the Boss.

“Mr. Dorgan,” began Kennedy quietly, when we were seated alone in the little Sanctum of the Boss, “you will pardon me if I seem to be a little slow in coming to the business that has brought me here this morning.  First of all I may say that you probably share the idea that ever since the days of Daguerre photography has been regarded as the one infallible means of portraying faithfully any object, scene, or action.  Indeed, a photograph is admitted in court as irrefutable evidence.  For, when everything else fails, a picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably turns the tide.  However, such a picture upon which the fate of an important case may rest should be subjected to critical examination, for it is an established fact that a photograph may be made as untruthful as it may be reliable.”