"Is it?" asked Thresk. "Surely that photograph was taken a long time ago." "Nine years. But he was at the same game. You have got the proof in your hands. There's a group of nine men--Salak and his eight friends. Well, of his eight friends every man jack is now doing time for burglary, in some cases with violence--that second ruffian, for instance, he's in for life--in some cases without, but in each case the crime was burglary. And why? Because Salak in the centre there set them on to it. Because Salak nine years ago wasn't the big swell he is now. Because Salak wanted money to start his intrigues. That's the way he got it--burglaries all round Bombay." "I see," said Thresk. "Salak's in prison now?" "He's in prison in Calcutta, yes. But he's awaiting his trial. He's not convicted yet." "Exactly," Thresk answered. "This photograph is a valuable thing to have just now." Ballantyne threw up his arms in despair at the obtuseness of his companion. "Valuable!" he cried in derision. "Valuable!" and he leaned forward on his elbows and began to talk to Thresk with an ironic gentleness as if he were a child. "You don't quite understand me, do you? But a little effort and all will be plain." He got no farther however upon this line of attack, for Thresk interrupted him sharply. "Here! Say what you have got to say if you want me to help you. Oh, you needn't scowl! You are not going to bait me for your amusement. I am not your wife." And Ballantyne after a vain effort to stare Thresk down changed to a more cordial tone. "Well, you say it's a valuable thing to have just now. I say it's an infernally dangerous thing. On the one side there's Salak the great national leader, Salak the deliverer, Salak professing from his prison in Calcutta that he has never used any but the most legitimate constitutional means to forward his propaganda. And here on the other is Salak in his garden-chair amongst the burglars. Not a good thing to possess--this photograph, Mr. Thresk. Especially because it's the only one in existence and the negative has been destroyed. So Salak's friends are naturally anxious to get it back." "Do they know you have it?" Thresk asked. "Of course they do. You had proof that they knew five minutes ago when that brown arm wriggled in under the tent-wall." Ballantyne's fear returned upon him as he spoke. He sat shivering; his eyes wandered furtively from corner to corner of the great tent and came always back as though drawn by a serpent to the floor by the wall of the tent. Thresk shrugged his shoulders. To dispute with Ballantyne once more upon his delusion would be the merest waste of time. He took up the photograph again. "How do you come to possess it?" he asked. If he was to serve his host in the way he suspected he would be asked to, he must know its history. "I was agent in a state not far from Poona before I came here." Thresk agreed. "I know. Bakuta." "Oh?" said Ballantyne with a sharp look. "How did you know that?"