"But have you never observed that a man actually taken by surprise never shows it in a flashlight photograph? The flash comes and goes too quickly for such an one to put on an appropriate expression for the camera to catch. It is the man who is, as you put it, all keyed up in expectation of the flash who looks startled in the picture."
Crane took another look. "Something in that, maybe," he grudged.
"Consider then, these other anomalies: Not only am I represented as being idiot enough to go a-burgling in evening dress—"
"But you claim you didn't know what you were doing when all this happened."
"What I claim is, if it is fair to assume a rap on the head caused me to revert to foregone ways of knavery, it is only fair to assume further that I would have displayed at least a little reverence for the principles of common sense that formerly guided my errant footsteps. The succès fou of the Lone Wolf in pre-War Paris did not result from the expenditure of a medium of mental effort. That one never touched burglar's tools, far less carried a kit of them, once he had served out his apprenticeship. If he could solve the secret of a safe by ear—as the fellow in this amusing picture would have us believe he can—why burden himself with tools which, if found upon him, would spell his damnation in the esteem of the police? Finally, we are asked to believe not only that the Lone Wolf neglected to search for burglar-alarm wiring on this occasion—and if he had taken that first precaution of all competent cracksmen he could hardly have overlooked the wire which led to the flashlight—but that after the flash had gone off in his face he proceeded methodically to open the safe, abstract what valuables it contained, and make good his escape!"
"Well!" Crane argued in the last ditch—"but we've always been told the Lone Wolf was a cool hand."
Lanyard laughed aloud. "But I am in a position to assure you the coolth of that hand would have been nothing compared with the coldness of his feet, had anything like this ever happened to him; I have my low pride, my friend, and while I will never admit the Lone Wolf was a white-livered cur, I am free to confess that, in circumstances such as must have attended the taking of this photograph, he would have tucked tail between legs and ingloriously have run for cover without an instant of needless delay."
"I don't know," Crane reluctantly conceded. "All you say sounds reasonable enough, and I've got a mean feeling I was the world's prize dumbell not to think of your arguments before. But admitting all that—where does it get us?"
"To the point I promised to bring you to, where you are obliged to admit I may not have been the author of those recent robberies attributed to the Lone Wolf."
"And where do we go from there?"