Читать книгу What the Dark Room Revealed - Roy J. Snell - Страница 4

Table of Contents

“I’ll tell you about that later,” Tom said as Jimmie aimed his camera at the lock. “By the way.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “How many shots do you have in your camera?”

“Thirty.”

“Good. If you get a chance, take two or three of Marie Dawson and her rich husband. I’m fairly well convinced that this robbery is not faked, but you never can tell. I’d like an opportunity to study their expressions at my leisure.”

“I’ll have a try at it,” Jimmie murmured low.

“All right,” Tom said, after Jimmie had completed two shots of the door-lock. “Now something else. See the glass top of that writing-desk? I want a shot or two of that.”

Stepping to the table he lifted the glass to a rakish angle.

“What’s the good?” Jimmie held back. “You can’t shoot at thin air. That’s plate glass, clear as fresh water.”

“Not quite,” said Tom, tipping it to a different angle. “See that sort of half-circle in the fine dust that settled on the glass since it was last dusted?”

“That’s right! There is something!” Jimmie exclaimed low.

“Important too if only we get it,” Tom whispered. “It’s the mark of a man’s hand as he rested on it—just the lower part of his hand—on the glass. He was wearing a glove. Of course he’d do that. Didn’t want finger-prints to show. He left his signature all the same, if only we can read it.

“You see,” he went on, “There’s a smart fellow over in Europe who discovered that the little clusters of pores in the palms of our hands are different in each individual. He has done wonders with just such marks as this. Of course, it wouldn’t be admitted as evidence in court, but it may give us a clue that will lead to other discoveries. I’ll turn it at different angles. You take three shots. Then I’ll dust some powder over it and you take three more.”

“Perhaps it’s HIS palm,” Jimmie nodded toward Dawson’s dressing room.

“No,” said Tom. “I asked about that. They came in late. They have been here only this one night. They went right to bed.”

Three shots of the glass were made. When the powder had been dusted on, Jimmie imagined he could see real marks on the glass. The camera he knew would “see” these more clearly than any human eye.

“Well, have you taken your pictures?” asked a feminine voice. Jimmie found himself facing Marie Dawson. Even in street clothes she was very attractive. And yet the boy failed to be impressed. There was about her an air of boldness or disdain, Jimmie could not tell which. It gave him a feeling of distrust. It seemed to say to him “Be on your guard, young man.” Nor was the attitude of her big, blustering husband the least bit reassuring. “A man and woman of the world.” He had heard that expression often. Knowing very little of its meaning, he felt nevertheless that it might fit this pair very well. “And yet,” he told himself, “I must not make snap-judgments. I’ll just wait and see.”

“There’ll be a reward for you my lad,” said Dawson. “If your pictures help catch the thief you’ll not need to caddy for a long time to come.”

“I want you to caddy for me some time,” said Marie, with a smile. “But please don’t take a picture of me making a bad shot.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll not do that,” said Jimmie, feeling more at ease.

Tom Howe made two or three excuses for detaining the pair. When at last they were gone he turned to Jimmie to whisper:

“Did you get them?”

“Three shots apiece,” Jimmie grinned.

“Great stuff! And I who knew you were trying, never guessed you had taken one picture. Jimmie my boy, you’ll be famous yet!” Tom exclaimed.

Closing the door softly, Tom took a turn about the room. Then holding up five fingers he repeated his words of an hour ago “It’s an inside job. Five men and one woman. Which will turn out to be the thief?”

“You see, Jimmie,” said Tom, leading the way to the window, “We’re on the third floor. There are no fire escapes and no roofs below. You couldn’t even imagine a person entering by the window. Besides, there is evidence enough that he did enter by the door to this room.”

“But the thief may have gotten in from below and come up by the stairs,” suggested Jimmie.

“He’d have to get in first,” said Tom. “All the lower windows were locked. None has been disturbed in any way.”

“There’s the door!”

“Yes.” Tom laughed low. “And it stood ajar in the morning.”

“Ajar!” Jimmie exclaimed. “Well then——”

“Didn’t mean a thing,” Tom broke in. “That’s what old Utter wanted to tell me. There’s some sort of a trick electrical alarm attached to the door. It sets off a loud buzzer in the room where some of the grounds-keepers sleep. It doesn’t go off until the door is open six inches. It wasn’t open that far—so-o,” Tom drawled. “No one went out of that door. No one could with that alarm in good order, without setting it off, and no one came in either.

“So you see, Jimmie,” he went on, “Leaving that door ajar was just a ruse to make people think it was an outside job. The fellow, whoever he was, didn’t know about that alarm. There were just six people in the house at the time of the robbery. One of them took the jewels.”

“Who—who were they?” Jimmie demanded, growing excited.

“The names are, George and Marie Dawson, Roger Hardy, Ned Hunter, Ogden Renard and Jack Nevers.”

“Blackie Nevers, they call him,” said Jimmie. “A slim man with jet black hair and eyes. He’s like a clock spring. A fine shot at golf and with a pistol, they say. I’d hate to meet him in the dark, if he didn’t like me. But he doesn’t belong to the club.”

“None of them do except Ned Hunter.”

“And Ned is a prince of a fellow,” Jimmie exclaimed enthusiastically. “Used to be a caddy. He’s rich now but he treats you fine. All the fellows love him. One thing’s sure, he didn’t take the diamonds.”

“This,” said Tom, “is not going to be a case of throwing some people out at the start. We’re going to assume that any one of them may be guilty. Come on, let’s get down out of here.”

As they made their way down stairs, out on the drive, and past the caddy-house to a spot where they could see the first teeing off green with the rolling field of green beyond, Jimmie was thinking of the six people.

Blackie Nevers was known about the course. He often played as a guest. Rumor had it that he had twice applied for membership, and twice been rejected. Why? Jimmie did not know.

Roger Hardy had a spacious summer home just over the fence from the seventh green. It was known that he too would gladly have joined the club but for reasons best known to himself,—and a few others, he had never applied.

Ogden Renard was one of those middle-aged sporty persons who always wears knickers and suits imported from Scotland, and who never feels dressed without his cane.

“A queer lot to be playing round with your hero, Ned Hunter,” said Tom when Jimmie had told him all he knew about them.

“Must be working up some sort of a deal with this Hunter. I’ve been told that this is not so much a golf club as it is a social club where millionaires meet to sell one another steel mills, automobile factories, department stores, and other little odds and ends,” he concluded, with a chuckle.

“Boy!” he exclaimed. “It must be grand to belong to such a club and to be forever pulling off big deals,—that is,” he added quietly, “if they’re the right sort of deals. If I were Ned Hunter I’d want a rabbit’s foot for luck when I traveled in such company.”

“Oh, I guess they’re all right,” Jimmie replied, soberly. “Anyway I hope so.”

“Look here, Tom,” he exclaimed suddenly. “I’ve just got to get in on this thing in a,—well,—you might say—a big way.”

“That’s fine,” said Tom. “I want your help. But what of school?”

“I’ll not neglect school.”

“And football?”

“That’s just it.” Jimmie’s face clouded. “I’m out. The Doc says I’ll have to take a year off. Nothing very serious, but— So you see, Tom,” the boy’s voice rose, “this case is a break for me, sort of gives me a new interest in life, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I do,” said Tom.

“And Tom!” Jimmie exclaimed, “I’ve got an idea!”

“Let’s have it.”

“See that bird flying over the ninth green?”

Tom shaded his eyes. “Yes, sure I do. Queer sort of flier, sort of goes up and down as if he were pumping his way along.”

“That’s just it,” Jimmie’s voice picked up. “That’s how I know he’s a yellow-hammer. Over there’s another big bird circling high——”

“A crow?”

“Nope. A hawk. Crows don’t circle that way. Each bird has his own motions. A swallow circles, but not high up. A robin goes up into a tree like a boy climbing stairs.

“And folks are like birds,” Jimmie added. “They have motions you can tell them by even a long way off. The way they walk, sit down, get up, swing their arms, kick out with their feet, mop their brows, all these give them away.

“And Tom, I’m going to study those six people who were in the guest house last night when the diamonds were stolen until I’d know any one of them at a distance anywhere. Something tells me there’ll be more things happen. Nearly always they do. Big things like this don’t happen alone. It’s only a hunch, but some way I feel that if I study these people one by one, take pictures of them in all sorts of positions, take short shots of their movements on the greens, and all that, sooner or later I’ll catch the right person in the wrong place, and then I’ll have our man.”

“And the reward,” said Tom.

“Perhaps,” Jimmie agreed. “But Tom, what do you think of it?”

“Grand idea,” said Tom. “Of course, the same thing has been done by detectives before, but not with cameras.”

“Cameras,” said Jimmie. “That’s the big difference—you don’t have to trust memory. The camera preserves it all for you.”

Jimmie was quiet for just about a minute. Then he burst out, “But Tom, what’s that business of the door-lock? You scraped it. What for?”

“That was queer,” said Tom. “The fellow who opened that door by sliding something thin under the door-jamb was no professional. Professionals carry steel tools for that job. This fellow used a paper-knife, a spatula, or something. It was plated, I think, with gold. It scraped off on the lock and stayed there. There were two sharp spots on the lock. They must have scratched two lines through the thin plating of the knife. Find that knife, or whatever it was, and you’ve found your man. I’ll know whether the scrapings are gold tomorrow.”

“There’s so little of it,” said Jimmie. “How can you tell?”

“I’ll have these scrapings turned to gas in a tiny electric furnace, then look at the gas through the spectroscope. If the spectrum shows it to be gold, then gold it is. You see,” he laughed, “The scientific detective takes his cues even from a study of the starry heavens.

“And now,” he exclaimed, “I must get back to the city. I’ll be seeing you.” He hurried away.