Part 3

“That’s as good a washing-box as any,” Owen said, “when you have only three plates.”

While the water overflowed from the bucket into the sink the three boys sat on some boxes that were stored in the room, and talked of the fire, and the camera, and picture-making, and Owen related some of the things that happened to him.

“The first pictures I ever made,” he said, “were of a railroad train. I took one of the train coming up the track, and one when it was going by. I got them both on the one plate, and it was the worst smash-up you ever saw.”

“I suppose every one makes doubles,” suggested Allan.

“Oh, yes, they say that even big photographers do it sometimes. And it _is_ rough! You see you only make one mistake and lose two pictures.”

“It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” mused McConnell, rather sleepily. McConnell usually went to bed at nine.

When the plates had been immersed in the flowing water for half an hour, Owen stood them on a near-by shelf, resting them against the wall. “They’ll be dry in the morning.”

“And then we can make proofs,” said Allan.

Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Allan was up early the next morning and out to the dark-room to look at his plates. To his great disappointment they were not yet dry. The upper floor of the stable was left without ventilation, and the surfaces of the plates were still moist save for a space of half an inch around the edges.

When Allan consulted his father, Dr. Hartel advised him to open the windows and to place the plates in a current of air. Having done this, Allan started out at once to get the materials for his developing outfit. In view of the fifty dollars that was to come from the plates, Allan thought that he might spend a little more than he first had intended to spend on his dark-room. He determined to divide the money with Owen, but even with twenty-five dollars he could, if he chose, buy a fine new camera and still have money left.

On his way to Owen, who was going with him to the Hazenfield stationers’ where they sold “amateur photographic outfits,” Allan met Cheney, who had seen him at the fire with the camera. Allan did not like Cheney; the truth is, that Cheney did not have a very good reputation in Hazenfield. He had been expelled from the high school, and was what is known as a suspicious and troublesome boy.

“What were you trying to do?” demanded Cheney, “photographing in the dark?”

“The fire wasn’t dark,” returned Allan.

“You don’t mean to say that you tried to photograph the fire!”

“Of course I do.”

“Did you get it?”

“Of course I did.”

“Well,” said Cheney, as if he did not believe the assertion, “I’d like to see ’em.”

“They’re not mine to show, now,” said Allan, with a pride that he could not conceal, even from Cheney. “I sold them.”

“Sold ’em!” exclaimed Cheney. “To who?”

“To the factory people. There’s something about the factory being set afire, and beside that there’s some insurance trouble about where the fire started, and they’ve given me fifty dollars for the plates.”

Cheney gave a long whistle. “Golly!” he cried. “You’re right in it, ain’t yer! Fifty dollars! I didn’t suppose any picture could ever be worth as much as that.”

“You see,” said Allan, “they can use the pictures as proof if there’s any trouble.”

“Proof of what?” Cheney demanded incredulously.

“Proof of which side of the wing the fire started.”

Cheney smiled as if this idea was very amusing. “I hope you get it,” he said, as Allan went on.

Allan felt rather sorry to have said anything to Cheney about the sale of the plates. When he came to think the thing over he could see that the factory people, while they had not said so, might not wish to have the matter known. Allan felt, too, as if he had been boasting, even though Cheney had drawn him into the confession.

He made up his mind not to say a word to any one else, and determined to ask Owen and McConnell not to speak about it. When Owen heard from Allan about his meeting with Cheney and how sorry he was that he had said anything to Cheney, he himself agreed with Allan.

“I shan’t mention it,” Owen assured Allan. “I haven’t mentioned it to any one but mother. She wondered where I had been, of course. I think you had better speak to McConnell.”

“I shall,” said Allan. “Big McConnell would be just the one to spread the thing everywhere.”

“Let us go around to McConnell’s now,” suggested Owen, “and tell him about it.”

They found McConnell sitting in a swing in his yard reading a book. “McConnell is always reading,” said Owen.

“Hello!” called Allan. “What are you reading, McConnell? I’ll bet it is about an Indian, a detective, or a princess.”

“Wrong,” replied McConnell. “It’s about a farmer’s boy.”

“And what does he get to be?” Owen asked.

“I don’t know yet,” McConnell returned. “Maybe a farmer!” he added, laughing.

Allan then spoke about the fire and the pictures.

“I tell you,” said McConnell, “I haven’t said anything to anybody but the folks at home, and Billy Basset, and the butcher, and—yes, and Mr. Hanford.”

“In that case,” said Owen, “I guess we might as well tell the rest of the town.”

“What do you mean?” McConnell was mystified.

“Only that I thought that maybe we should keep quiet about selling the pictures.”

“I see,” McConnell assented, “until you get the money.”

“Oh, I mean anyway,” said Allan. “Perhaps the factory folks may not want everybody to know, and everybody would know if they heard that they had bought the plates.”

“That settles it!” exclaimed McConnell, “I’ll be quiet. I won’t even tell the postman, and I always tell him everything. Have you printed the proofs yet?”

“No; the plates aren’t dry yet, somehow. We are going down to get the dark-room things, and we shall get some proof paper.”

“I’ll go with you,” McConnell said, pushing his book under the porch seat.

Little Artie, McConnell’s younger brother, came running around the house. “Take my picture taken,” he cried to Allan, who was carrying the camera.

“It’s funny,” laughed McConnell, “but Artie always gets it that way. He has heard us say ‘get your picture taken,’ and he always says ‘take my picture taken,’ or ‘take your picture taken.’”

Artie repeated his request, peering into the finder of Allan’s box. “All right,” said Allan.

“Wait a minute,” called McConnell, “wait till I put him on my wheel.” Artie was lifted up. “Now,” said McConnell.

Artie started when he heard the click of the shutter. “Did you take my picture taken?” he asked.

“Yes,” Allan laughed, “I took your picture taken.”

“Then let me see it,” demanded Artie.

“Not yet, Artie,—to-morrow.”

Artie then went back to a box of sand in which he had been playing.

It took Allan nearly an hour to complete his purchases. He had the advantage of Owen’s advice, in the choice of trays, for instance. Owen had tried lacquered tin, glass, and pressed paper, but liked rubber best. These cost more, but as he only required three, two to be used in developing and a larger one, capable of holding four plates, for “fixing,” Allan felt that he could afford it,—especially with his share of the fifty dollars to come.

Certainly it was great fun to buy these utensils, and the shining glass graduate,—Dr. Hartel had promised Allan a second, large, graduate, as well as a hydrometer and some stopper bottles; the brass-hinged printing frames, the “hypo” and developing chemicals, and the dark-room lamp.

At first Allan had thought of building a dark-room light-box, with red cover glass, in which an ordinary small lamp could be placed; but in view of the probable usefulness of the portable lamp on certain expeditions which he had in mind, he decided to get an ordinary dark-room lamp, and it was a pretty affair. Dr. Hartel had urged Allan to prepare his own developer, at least until he had learned how developers were made up and what properties they had.

All these points had to be talked over, and Mr. Wincher, the stationer, who was an amateur photographer himself, and had on that account come to sell photographic supplies as a department in his store, was patient throughout the selection and offered plenty of advice too.

“Photographers are great fellows for giving advice,” laughed the stationer.

“I’ll need quite a supply of advice, too,” returned Allan.

Owen and Mr. Wincher did not always agree as to what was best to do. When they agreed on any point Allan was likely to accept their decision. When they did not agree, Allan made the best use he could of their judgment. The truth is that Allan had been reading so much about photography lately that he had made up his mind on a great many points. Dr. Hartel had told him that he must experiment on his own account. “What you will learn from these experiments,” he said, “may be worth more to you than the pictures. You must try and learn something from each experiment. This is the only way you will ever really _know_ a thing. We act on the best advice we can get to begin with; then we prove to ourselves that what has been said is true or not true—or, maybe, that it is partly true and partly not true. An Englishman once said that he would like photography better if it weren’t for the pictures. He was taking a scientific view of the matter. He liked the chemical fun better than the picture fun. I think you will not like the picture fun any the less for taking an interest in the chemistry, and the better your chemistry the more you are likely to find to enjoy in your pictures. But chemistry will give you many disappointments. In any case, you will have disappointments—and they will do you good.”

As the boys were all eager to see proofs of the fire negatives, they hurried back to the stable with their bundles, McConnell asking leave to carry the camera.

“There is one thing I like about this sort of printing,” said Owen, “and that is that you don’t have to have ink. I always get mussed up so with my ink press.”

“But when you get the thing started,” said McConnell, “you can print quicker on the printing press.”

“I believe you can get mussed up in photography, if you want to,” suggested Allan.

V.

THE DARK-ROOM MYSTERY.

WHEN the boys reached the coach-house, the plates were found to be quite dry, and after unpacking a printing-frame and slipping from the stiff paper envelope a sheet of printing paper, the first of the fire negatives was soon in the sunlight on a front window-sill.

Allan watched the progress of the printing with excited interest, opening the back of the frame at frequent intervals for a glimpse of the slowly deepening image on the paper.

“That negative wouldn’t take long to print,” Owen said, “if I hadn’t developed it so long trying to bring out everything.”

The negative had not looked much like a picture to Allan, and, indeed, the first plate, made as a “snap-shot,” showed the strongest lights of the fire scene and very little else. Yet the print gave a meaning to the dark parts of the picture which were blank in the plate.

“It does show the fire; doesn’t it?” exclaimed Allan.

“Yes,” said Owen, “and it shows that it began on the east side of the wing.”

The second plate was much clearer.

“The fire’s halfway across in that,” remarked McConnell.

The third plate, showing the fire at its worst, revealed even the outlines of the factory. The flames were not so sharply defined as in the quick exposure of the first plate, but the blur made by the yellow tongues of fire was, perhaps, one advantage, and in every other respect the “time” pictures, as Owen called them, were much the better.

Allan unpacked the “toning solution,” and with Owen’s help toned and fixed the three prints. Owen waited until the prints were getting their last rinsing. “Now,” he said, “I guess you are pretty well started, Allan.”

“Yes,” replied Allan; “and I don’t know how I ever should have got along without you, Owen.”

“Oh,” laughed Owen, “you only would have said mean things about the man who wrote the directions! But you’re not through yet! There are more chances for making mistakes in photography than in anything I know of.”

After running into the house to show the wet prints (on a piece of blotting paper) to his mother and Edith, Allan set to work on the dark-room. McConnell helped for most of the day, whistling loudly while he worked, and telling Allan a story he had read about a pirate who got shipwrecked.

Before supper-time the dark-room began to look like a real photographer’s den. With an arrangement which he had made for the window, and the strips of cloth around the door, Allan could have the room absolutely dark in the brightest daylight. There already was a long shelf in the room, and an old chest of drawers. After planning a place for everything, Allan made strong resolutions to keep everything in the places he had chosen for them. And he felt much pleased at the way his packages and bottles looked when spread out on the shelf. He scarcely could wait for his father to come in and survey the outfit.

“You have done very well, Allan,” said the Doctor, “but you must keep this up; especially, you must keep everything clean, for you will be working in the dark in more senses than one if your bottles and graduates and trays are not clean. Rinse everything after using it, and before putting it away. When your plates act queerly you want to know where the trouble is,—whether in the plates, in the camera, in the time, or in the developer.”

Allan said he meant to be very careful, and he put some of his plans into practice when he developed the picture of Artie on the bicycle.

“I tell you, McConnell,” said Allan, as his companion was going home, “when you get your camera, we can use this dark-room together.”

“Well,” said McConnell, pleased at being made a partner in so interesting an institution as the dark room, “then I think I ought to chip in some trays and things for myself; don’t you think so, Allan?”

“All right!” laughed Allan. “One tray and a plate-lifter.”

It was that evening, a little after nine o’clock, when Allan and Edith were studying and discussing the fire pictures, that the factory superintendent came to the door. Mrs. Hartel ushered him into the room.

“Are the plates ready?” he asked. “I couldn’t get over any sooner.”

“Yes,” Allan answered, “they’re ready. We were just looking at the prints.”

“The prints? Oh, yes!” And the superintendent studied the pictures with great interest. “Great!” he exclaimed, his bushy head bent close to the prints in the light of the centre-table lamp. “Wonderful! They’re awfully dark, but you can see plainly where the fire was, and how it worked across. Yes, sir, those pictures may be useful. I’ll have the check sent to you to-morrow, my lad.”

“I’ll go out and get the plates,” said Allan.

While Allan was gone the superintendent told Edith and Mrs. Hartel how they had been clearing up the mess at the factory during the day. “Of course,” he said, “we have to leave the wing alone until the appraiser comes, and we settle the row with the insurance company. The naphtha cans weren’t near the fire; that is, they were on the other side of the partition when it started.”

“Do they still think some one set it afire?” asked Edith.

“Well, the factory folks themselves don’t think so. We think it started in the packing room, in some rubbish. Fires often start that way. The man they say did it—”

The superintendent got up from his chair when he saw Allan returning. “You’ve got the plates there, have you?”

“No,” answered Allan, his face pale and perplexed. “They’re gone!”

“Gone!” exclaimed Mrs. Hartel and Edith together.

“What do you mean?” asked the superintendent.

“I left them standing in a safe place,” said Allan, “and they are not there. I have looked everywhere.”

“Great Scott!” ejaculated the superintendent. “They couldn’t be stolen, could they?”

“Surely not,” said Mrs. Hartel. “Are you sure, Allan, that you didn’t carry them in here?”

“Think a minute,” said the superintendent, with his hand on Allan’s shoulder. “Perhaps you put them in some special place. I often do that—and then forget where the place is.”

“I know I left them there,” Allan persisted, “for I looked at them before I came in to-night. I had them in a place I had arranged for negatives.”

The superintendent sat down again. “Have you told anybody about this thing?—I forgot to tell you not to.”

Allan declared that he had spoken to but one boy about it, and he enumerated those who knew about it through Owen and McConnell. “The only one I spoke to,” said Allan, “was Cheney.”

“Cheney!” cried the superintendent. “Sam Cheney’s boy?”

“Yes,” said Allan, mystified.

The superintendent gave a peculiar grunt. “Do you know,” he demanded, drawing his eyebrows together, “that it is Sam Cheney who has been suspected of starting the fire?”

Allan looked amazed and shook his head.

“You don’t suppose that Cheney boy could have stolen them, do you?” asked Mrs. Hartel.

“Why not?” the superintendent demanded.

Allan was staring at the lamp. “I believe they are stolen!” he cried. “I remember that I locked that door to-night—and it was unlocked when I went up for those plates just now.”

Dr. Hartel appeared at this moment, and the superintendent blurted out, “Doctor, I guess we’ve got a case for the police here.”

“The police?” The Doctor looked his astonishment.

“It looks as if the Cheney boy had stolen those plates.”

“Stolen them?” The Doctor listened to Allan’s story, and questioned him closely. “It does look like it,” the Doctor admitted.

“I guess there’s no doubt of it,” the superintendent went on. “I guess, though, that we had better not say anything about it just now. I’ll quietly have Detective Dobbs put on the case.”

“I’m very sorry this has happened,” said the Doctor, much annoyed.

“Well, so am I,” added the superintendent, “and I don’t suppose, Doctor, that you are willing to let the thief go.”

The Doctor shook his head. “I’m not willing to let the plates go.”

“But we have the prints,” interposed Allan.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, hopefully.

“I’ll go over and see the chief now,” said the superintendent, and he went away with a hurried “Good night!”

VI.

DETECTIVE DOBBS.

ALLAN looked dazed when the superintendent had gone. They all looked dazed.

“I am wondering,” said Dr. Hartel, “whether Cheney was sent to do this by his father, or whether, knowing that his father was suspected, he did the thing on his own account.”

“But we don’t know that Cheney did it,” said Mrs. Hartel.

“True,” the Doctor replied, “but the chances are much that way. Allan,” the Doctor continued, “we had better go out and look over the place again.”

“A cat might have knocked them down,” suggested Mrs. Hartel, as they were leaving.

But there could be no suspicion of a cat. There were no broken fragments anywhere. The only negative in the rack was that of Artie on the wheel.

“And you found the door unlocked?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes,” Allan said confidently. “At first I didn’t think anything of it. But I remember distinctly now that I locked it, and I remember thinking that it was foolish to bother locking it.”

The Doctor shook his head. “It is too bad. I am sorry about Cheney.”

Before going back to the house Dr. Hartel made some suggestions as to the keeping of the chemicals, as to guarding the floor from drippings of the hypo, as to pouring from the bottles, as to keeping the place free from dust, and so on.

Father and son were seated talking over photographs and the fire and Cheney, when a sharp rap sounded on the door at the foot of the stairs.

“Come in!” called the Doctor from the top step.

A lank man with a bristling red mustache came up the steps.

“Is this Dr. Hartel?” asked the man.

“Yes,” replied the Doctor. “I do seem to be wasting a good deal of my time out here just now.”

“The chief sent me over,” said the man, “to see you about some pictures that were stolen.” As he reached the top step the man looked questioningly at Allan.

“This is my boy,” Dr. Hartel said. “He took the pictures—I mean that he _made_ them,” laughed the Doctor. “You are Dobbs, are you not?”

“Yes,” said the man. “I wish you would tell me what you know about it.”

He was a ruddy-faced man. His mustache stood out like the hairs of a brush, and he had a little red scar over his right eye. When he smiled Allan liked him at once. Allan remembered that he often had seen him down by the railroad station.

They told the detective all they knew and he listened attentively. Then he looked about the rooms, and seemed much interested in everything he saw in the dark-room. He held up to the light the negative of Artie on the bicycle, and laughed over it.

“I have a kid about that size,” he said. “I wish you’d photograph him sometime.”

“I will,” said Allan.

“My boy Sporty,” said the detective, “is great. Why, sir,” said Dobbs to the Doctor, “that kid got a hold of my nippers the other day and got them on the necks of our cat and the cat next door. You never saw such a thing in your life. Scott! wasn’t there a row!”

At the thought of the handcuffed cats—that is to say, the neckcuffed cats—the Doctor and Allan joined in the detective’s jolly laugh.

Presently the Doctor, wishing to get back to the question of the plates, ventured to ask Dobbs what he thought about the situation.

“Oh,” said Dobbs, stooping to pick up a burnt match from the floor, “I guess Cheney did it; though his father didn’t have anything more to do with that fire than I had. Say,” continued Dobbs, turning to Allan, “how do you light your lamps here?” The room was lighted now by a small, ordinary lamp which Allan had borrowed from the kitchen.

“Why, with a match,” replied Allan.

“Will you let me see one of your matches?” asked Dobbs.

Allan took a match from the little tin safe he had tacked up beside the sink, and handed it to Dobbs. As he did so he noticed for the first time that Dobbs had a burnt match in his other hand.

“Then you don’t throw your burnt matches on the floor,” said Dobbs.

“No,” said Allan, perplexed at the statement, “I always put my burnt matches in here;” and the Doctor smiled as Allan indicated another tin box on the corner of the shelf. It was this sort of care of which he had sought to teach Allan the importance.

“I believe you,” said Dobbs, “for this isn’t your match.” Dobbs was holding up the burnt fragment he had picked from the floor.

The Doctor and Allan, coming closer, saw that the two matches certainly did not have the same sort of stem.

“Then that,” said the Doctor, pointing to the partly burnt match, “belonged to the thief, whoever he was.”

“Looks so,” said the detective, briefly, studying the matches, or seeming to. Then “Wait a moment,” he said, stepping across the room, and he picked up another fragment of a match. It was almost completely burnt, but the fragment showed that it had been of the same form as the first piece. “He lighted two matches, you see; this one burnt out on him before he found the plates. Then he struck this other one.”

Allan’s eyes stared. He never should have thought of these things.

“Oh, I wish you had been around to get a picture of those cats with the handcuffs on,” said Dobbs, as if that subject was much more interesting. Then he slipped the two fragments of matches into his vest pocket, and when he was going he said: “I don’t suppose we’ll get down to the fine points on this thing—what you want is to get the plates back if they haven’t been broken or thrown into the river. I’ll be around again in the morning.”