"That may be the first step to the scaffold--for somebody," he said, with a meaning glance. "Ah--it's extraordinary what little, innocent-looking things help to put a bit of rope round a man's neck! So you took this, Mr. Allerdyke?--took it yourself, you say?" "Took it myself, some eight or nine weeks ago," answered Allerdyke. "I took it in my garden one Sunday afternoon when my cousin James happened to be there. I do a bit in that way--amusement, you know. I just chanced to have a camera in my hand, and I saw James in a very favourable light and position, and I snapped him. And it was such a good 'un when developed that I printed off a few copies." The detective's face became anxious. "How many, now?" he asked. "How many, Mr. Allerdyke? I hope you can remember?--it's a point of the utmost seriousness." "Naught easier," answered Allerdyke readily. "I've a good memory for little things as well as big 'uns. I printed off four copies. One of 'em I pasted into an album in which I keep particularly good photographs of my own taking; the other three I gave to him--he put 'em in his pocket-book." "All unmounted--like this?" asked Chettle. "All unmounted--like that," affirmed Allerdyke. "And now, then, since it seems to be a matter of importance, I can tell you what James did with at any rate two of 'em. He gave one to our cousin Grace--Mrs. Henry Mallins--a Bradford lady. He gave another to a friend of my own, another amateur photographer, Wilson Firth--gave him it in my presence at the Midland Hotel one day, when we were all three having a cigar together in the smoking-room there. Wilson Firth's a bit of a rival of mine in the amateur photographic line--we each try to beat the other, you understand. Now, then, James pulled one of these snapshots out and handed it over to Wilson with a laugh. 'There,' he says, 'that's our Marshall's latest performance--you'll have a job to do aught better than that, Wilson, my lad,' he says. So that accounts for two. And--this is the third!" "And the question, Mr. Allerdyke, the big question--a most important question!--is, how did it come into this man Lydenberg's possession?" said the detective anxiously. "If we can find that out--" "I've been thinking," interrupted Allerdyke. "There's this about it, you know: James and this Lydenberg came over together from Christiania to Hull in the _Perisco_. They talked to one another--that's certain. James may have given it to Lydenberg. But the thing is--is that likely?"