Sure enough, it was a familiar photograph of Hosley, and I knew the photographer who took it. But this picture was on a small card with no photographer's name on it. It might have been cut down from a larger photograph. At any rate, it was the usual size of the Rogues' Gallery police portraits, and was stamped and written upon the back like the official pictures of criminals. It made Jim look like a thief, and the plate must have been carefully retouched to order. You can buy anything in New York, thought I. [Illustration: "I CAME TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU, MR. TESCHERON."--_Page_322.] "Do you believe that is a real Rogues' Gallery picture?" I asked. "Certainly. Here's a dozen of 'em from as many different cities. If you'd gone to the expense I did to get them, you would think they were genuine. Oh, there's no question about it. Strange, how you could be fooled like that! Lived with him for ten years, didn't you, and all the while he was married to that woman down-stairs and was kiting around the country for months at a time, raising hell in Michigan and Arizona along the Mexican border. I think he was planning to do away with you the same as he did with her. It's lucky I broke in when I did and knocked his little plans in the head, so far as my family was concerned." The murder of myself, of course, was a small matter. "All of these pictures are forgeries," I interrupted. "The photographer where Hosley had his picture taken probably has his price." "What? You still doubt? Well, you are a crazy man. That fellow Hosley was a great hypnotizer of women and weak men." I did not become angry at this sneer. No, I was resolved to be patient. I wanted to get him in a frame of mind where he would turn on himself and say, "There's no fool like an old fool." "This thing was about to come out through the coroner's office, but I settled as soon as I read the first newspaper item--here it is." He handed to me a clipping which Smith had used to clinch the payment of what he (Smith) called bribe money. "Anybody could make one of those on a small printing-press as easy as they can make a camera lie or lie themselves. That clipping was manufactured, just as that woman in the flat below ours was made to order." I didn't lose my temper as I made this statement. "But the death notice was in the papers giving the name and proper address. See, here it is, Browning, and your number. Oh, you are hypnotized yet!" I was indeed surprised at the cleverness with which the Smith conspirators, including Obreeon, had planned to land this big fish--for such he truly was. He never sold a bigger one than himself. They had worked in the dark and could fool him every time by clouding his judgment with fear. "You spoke of expense, Mr. Tescheron. Would you mind telling me, to satisfy my curiosity, just how much this thing has cost you?" "Why, you are not thinking of paying it, are you?"