o have your statement, that's all."

"But I haven't had any trouble with my husband!" she said. Her amazement
made her voice shrill. "My husband and I are living together in perfect
happiness. You've made a mistake."

"No chance," he said, and suddenly his manner changed from the
sympathetic to the accusing. "Mrs. Propbridge, we have exclusive advance
information from reliable sources--a straight tip--that the proof
against you is about to be turned over to your husband and we've every
reason to believe that when he gets it in his hands he's going to sue
you for divorce, naming as corespondent a certain middle-aged man. Do
you mean to tell me you don't know anything about that?"

"Of course I mean to! Why, you're crazy! You're--"

"Wait just one minute please," he interrupted the distressed lady. "Wait
until I get through telling you how much I know already; then you'll see
that denials won't help you any. As a matter of fact we're ready now to
go ahead and spring the story in next week's issue, but I thought it
was only fair to come to you and give you a chance to make your defense
in print--if you care to make one."

"I still tell you that you've made a terrible mistake," she declared.
Her anger began to stir within her, as indignation succeeded to
astonishment. "How dare you come here accusing me of doing anything
wrong!"

"I'm accusing you of nothing. I'm only going by the plain evidence. I
might be lying to you. Other people might lie to you. But, madam,
photographs don't lie. That's why they're the best possible evidence in
a divorce court. And I've seen the evidence. I've got it in my pocket
right now."

"Evidence against me? Photographs of me?"

"Sure. Photographs of you and the gray-haired party." He reached in a
breast pocket and brought out a thin sheaf of unmounted photographs and
handed them to her. "Mrs. Propbridge, just take a look at these and then
tell me if you blame me for assuming that there's bound to be trouble
when your husband sees them?"

She looked, and her twirling brain told her it was all a nightmare, but
her eyes told her it was not. Here were five photographs, enlarged
snapshots apparently: One, a profile view, showing her standing on a
boardwalk, her hand held in the hand of the man she had known as
Valentine C. Murrill; one, a quartering view, revealing them riding
together in a wheel chair, their heads close together, she smiling and
he apparently whispering something of a pl