Читать книгу Caught by the Camera - Roy J. Snell - Страница 3

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“Say! That was mighty strange!” A short, broad-shouldered, redheaded young man grinned at Jimmie. “The click of a latch!”

“What latch? Where?” Jimmie Drury asked in some bewilderment. He had never seen the man before. They had left the little tenth floor shop at the same moment, but he had not been conscious of the young man, only of a girl and a hundred cameras. For Jimmie, a camera shop was a place of great enchantment.

“So you didn’t hear it?” the young man chuckled. He had a disarming smile, did this young man. Jimmie had played football against just such a fellow once. He had put him down for an easy mark at first. In the end the fellow had jarred him nearly out of his shoes, and smiled all the time.

“Hear what?” Jimmie asked. He was still thinking of that rare assortment of cameras.

“The click of that latch!” There was a suggestion of impatience in the young stranger’s voice. “I suppose you didn’t see the man, either.”

“What man?”

“You only saw the girl.” The stranger laughed.

“Not the girl,” Jimmie corrected. “The cameras. I’m nuts on cameras and that was a grand collection. I could hardly tear myself away.”

“Was it? Well, every man for his line. It was the man who interested me and the click of that latch.”

“The latch?” Jimmie was interested and puzzled.

“They say,—” the stranger spoke slowly, “that a really mean dog can tell when you are frightened by the way you smell. Dogs have a remarkable sense of smell. People give off a fear odor.

“It—” he hesitated. “It’s much the same when you follow certain occupations, if you’ve searched a hundred persons who have something to conceal, you come to know by some strange intuition that certain other people have something they wish to conceal too. The moment I entered that shop,” he nodded over his shoulder to the shop door, “I knew that big man had something to hide.”

“What was it?” Jimmie asked.

“That’s what I don’t know.”

“Don’t know?” Jimmie stared.

“Only that it’s in the center cabinet. There are five doors. It’s the middle door. I noticed the instant I entered that the door of that cabinet was ajar, just a little, not so you could see much, perhaps nothing. But it disturbed the man.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps he’d seen me somewhere before and knew or suspected,—” The young man did not finish, but stood staring at that shop door.

“He’s a queer one,” Jimmie thought.

“The moment I heard that latch click I knew he had sidled over there and closed the door,” the stranger went on, “and I knew that he was at his ease again—and I had my back to him all the time. But I knew. You get that way.

“Say!” The young man’s voice dropped to a whisper. “My name’s Peter Grim.” He put out a hand. Jimmie took it without knowing why. “Will you do something for me?” Peter Grim asked.

“That—ah—depends.”

“Nothing really dangerous,” Peter Grim laughed low. “You’ll get barked at, that’s all. It’s a queer world. Dogs bark at just anybody. Men bark at boys. You won’t mind?”

“Not a bit.” Jimmie grinned.

“O.K. We’ll go back into that shop.” Peter moved a step nearer the door. “I’ll ask for a film, buy one for you, in fact. What shall it be?”

“A—a Margot Trispeed.” Jimmie was thinking, “Here’s luck.”

“O.K. A Trispeed. While I’m getting it from the girl, you wander over to that middle cabinet door and pull it open wide. You’ll get barked at, that’s all. Any boy’d be likely to open that door. The man won’t suspect it’s a trick.”

“Al—all right.” Jimmie’s heart leaped. “It—it’s a go.”

“Sure it is. Just a minute though,” Peter paused. “This thing must not be done too quickly or he’ll suspect something. They keep those high speed films in a darkroom, don’t they?”

“Sure.”

“The girl will have to go for it. That gives us a little time. I’ll ask her a few questions, too. You just wander about the room looking at the cameras, then when I say ‘That’s fine’ to the girl, you open that cabinet door. Get me?”

“Oh sure!”

“Then, in you go.” And in they went.

The room they entered was small. Its walls were lined with cameras. There were tall moving picture cameras, and some so small you could slip them into your pocket. Candid cameras, a whole battery of them,—German, Swiss, French and American makes, occupied the north wall. Speedy cameras and slow cameras, portrait cameras,—they were all there. With permission to examine them, Jimmie would gladly have spent hours here.

Truth is, he had already spent many happy moments here. That was before he had become acquainted with this mysterious Peter Grim. Now, to hold his mind steady, he thought back over that joyous interlude.

For the first quarter hour of his previous visit he had been free to look about him quite undisturbed. There were but two persons in the room, a girl in her late teens and a gray-haired man who wore spats and carried a gold-headed cane.

The girl had caught Jimmie’s eye at once. She had the largest, blackest eyes he had ever seen, and the blackest hair. She might, he thought, be Italian, yet he doubted it. She had moved almost languidly, and she spoke with a drawl. Still, young as she surely was, she knew cameras. In this small room Jimmie could not but hear her talking to the old man.

“This,” she was saying, “is a Swiss make. It is fast and very accurate. Surely your son would prize it.”

“Grandson,” the gray-haired man corrected. “Yes, I am sure he would like it. But our American cameras,—what of these?”

“Oh, yes. There are several,” she replied. “Some are very fine. Here is one.” She spoke low as if revealing a secret. “A very unusual camera. Only a few were made. There is some trouble about the patents. Perhaps others will be made later. We have this one. Only one.” She spoke softly. “It is two hundred and ten dollars. But it is truly worth it. See,——”

She opened up the camera, demonstrated the speed of the shutter, and spoke of the accuracy of the lens, and the dependability of all parts.

“Built like a watch, a very fine watch,” she murmured. “It will last as long as the boy lives.”

“Very well,” said the man. “Wrap it up. I’ll take it.” He pulled out a roll of bills.

Jimmie envied this man’s grandson, whoever he might be. He had heard of this suppressed model, had longed to possess one, but until now had never seen one.

“And what can I show you?” The girl had said to him, after the man was gone.

“On—only a film.” Jimmie had drawn his small camera from under his jacket. “A color film for this.”

“Oh, yes. I will get it.” She had disappeared into a cabinet affair, like a magician doing a trick. She had reappeared a moment later with the film all wrapped up.

Jimmie had paid for the film. “You have some keen cameras here.” He felt no desire to leave.

“Yes. This is a remarkable shop. Of course,” she added with a rare smile, “it’s not mine, so I can say that. Do you like cameras?”

“I’m keen for them.” Before Jimmie knew what he was doing he was telling of his exploits with his camera as an amateur detective, how he had helped catch the Bubble Man, and solve the Golf Club robberies.

He was beginning to feel that he had told too much and was planning a retreat when Peter Grim had entered the place. After that all had been changed. The girl was all business again. A big man, apparently connected with the shop, had entered and begun rearranging the motion picture cameras.

All this Jimmie recalled as his heart beat a tattoo against his ribs and he waited for his cue from Peter Grim that would tell him to open that cabinet door.

After looking at a candid camera here and a large movie projector there, he glided toward the cabinet. Finding the big man’s eyes fixed upon him he took another turn about the room.

Then, just as the big man looked away, he caught Peter Grim’s words:

“That’s fine.” His heart leaped. His hand went up. He pressed the latch to that door. He would have sworn there was not a sound as the door opened. But, with a roar and a bark, for all the world like an English mastiff’s, the big man began a familiar foreign ejaculation, broke off half way, then roared:

“What do you do? Make that door shut!”

As the latch clicked once more, seeming to realize that he had, perhaps, made a mistake, the big man said to Peter Grim with an expressive groan:

“These terrible boys! What is one to do?”

“Bark at ’em,” said Peter Grim with a rare grin.

At this Jimmie bolted through the door, caught an elevator, and descended to the ground floor. There, breathing more easily, he waited for his strange new acquaintance, Peter Grim. And all the time he was thinking “Who is this Peter Grim? He said, ‘When you follow a certain occupation.’ What is his business? And why should he care what’s in that cabinet? For that matter, why should the big man care if he knows?”