Part 4

And Dobbs did come around in the morning. “You haven’t forgotten about Sporty, have you?” was the first thing he said to Allan. He seemed to have forgotten about the plates, but when he saw Dr. Hartel he remarked that he had been looking into the business.

“What beats me, Doctor,” he said, “is why the Cheneys should steal those pictures. If the factory people were right, and the fire did start on the east side of the wing, then Cheney couldn’t have anything to do with the fire. The factory people don’t think he did. It’s the fire marshal who’s raising the row. So you see that the pictures help Cheney as much as they help the factory people. If Cheney has stolen or smashed those plates,—I mean the father,—he has removed very good evidence, as I understand it, that he is innocent. I tell you he didn’t have anything to do with it. He was sore on the factory management, but he wouldn’t be such a fool. That fire started in the east of the wing, nowhere near the naphtha.”

“Then why should the boy have taken the plates?” demanded the Doctor.

“I can’t see,” replied Dobbs, “unless the father or the boy, or both, got it into their heads that these pictures might be used against Cheney in some way. It was a crazy notion.”

“Have you any further clews?” asked the Doctor.

“No, I can’t say I have. But I threw out a hint in the Cheney direction that may do some good. The old man is over at Westwall, but I saw the boy. The little rascal actually stumps me. I can’t tell whether he did it or not. But I left something there to soak through his thick young skull. It may work.”

Dobbs’s attention again turned to the camera. “I was saying, Doctor, that I wish your son would take my boy, Sporty.” A happy idea seemed to strike Dobbs. “I tell you what I’ll do!” he exclaimed. “If you’ll make a picture of Sporty, I’ll take you to New York with me to-day.”

“I’d like to go,” Allan admitted.

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” said the Doctor.

“Is it a bargain?” asked Dobbs.

“Yes, it’s a bargain,” laughed Allan.

“You see,” said Dobbs, as they walked down toward his house a little later, “I’ve got to go down to New York anyhow, and you might as well run around with me. I dare say you’d like to see police headquarters, and some other places, anyway. There are lots of things to photograph down there.”

Dobbs lived in a little wooden cottage near the bank of the Hudson. It was painted a bright blue. Allan thought there was something peculiar about the house, and he became fixed in this opinion after seeing more of it. There was a stretch of tree-grown ground back of the house. In the front garden three stalks of corn and four sunflowers were ripening. In the hallway was a big iron dog, painted blue like the outside of the house—with some of the left-over paint, Allan guessed. In the back parlor were five canaries in cages, all singing in a great clatter of high notes; and a small, but very hoarse-voiced red and green parrot in the corner shouted, “Hello Central!” when he saw Dobbs and Allan. Mrs. Dobbs, a fat little woman, sat sewing at a window, with a white cat in her lap.

“Where’s Sporty?” asked Dobbs.

“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Dobbs. “He bothered me to let him paddle, so I put on his trunks and turned him loose.”

“Probably he’s drowned then,” said Dobbs.

But Mrs. Dobbs only laughed softly, and went on with her sewing.

Allan and the detective found Sporty down at a little inlet of the river near the house. He wore red-striped bathing trunks, and was sailing a boat, which he pushed into her proper course with a long stick.

“Say, Pop,” Sporty called out, when he saw his father, “I wish you’d buy me a steamboat.” Then Sporty noticed Allan and the camera, and looked curiously at the black box.

“Sporty,” said Dobbs, “you’re going to have your picture taken.”

“Am I?” Sporty peered again at Allan. “Must I put on my Sunday clothes?”

“No, Sporty,” said the detective, “no clothes will do. You’re just right.”

“You mean this way?” Sporty asked.

“Bathing tights are very becoming to your style of beauty, Sporty,” the detective went on with his pleasant grin. “Come over here,” and Sporty’s shining legs timidly carried him to where his father waited. “I want you with your arms folded, Sporty—you know,” and Dobbs struck an attitude to show what he meant. “There! that’s it!” cried the detective, when Sporty had folded his arms. “Now, don’t look so savage. I want you to look as innocent as if the judge was asking you if you had ever been convicted before.”

Allan adjusted the camera and pressed the trigger.

“Is it took yet?” asked Sporty.

“Yes,” said Allan.

“That was great!” exclaimed Dobbs. But Allan thought Sporty had not looked very happy. “We’ll have to take him again some time when he’s in the humor,” Allan suggested, “or when he isn’t looking.”

“That’s so,” Dobbs said; “good idea—when he doesn’t know it.” He looked after Sporty as the boy went back to his boat, which had drifted far out of her course. “I tell you, he’s one of the greatest boys you ever saw. He’s simply wonderful. You ought to see him do the cart-wheel. When can I see that picture?”

“Probably I’ll develop it to-night and you can see a proof to-morrow.”

“Good! Are you ready to go to New York?”

“Could you wait until I changed this plate? I want to take the full plate-holders with me.”

“Sure,” returned Dobbs; “why not take a lot more. You could change them somewhere—I can fix that.”

Acting on this suggestion Allan carried in the pocket of his jacket an extra package of plates when he met Dobbs at the station fifteen minutes later.

“Got all your ammunition?” Dobbs asked. “There’s big game in New York; you want to be loaded for bear.”

Allan had not been to New York for several months, and now that he had his camera with him the prospect of so many interesting subjects for pictures filled him with a pleasant excitement. It was a bright day, and as he looked out across the glistening Hudson he made up his mind to “do” the Palisades sometime. He remembered a cat-boat cruise he had taken with the McConnell boys, how they almost had been wrecked near Fort Lee. Yes, he thought a cat-boat and a camera would make a good combination. He already found himself planning certain pictures at the base of the cliffs and from the crags overhead.

There were many scenes along the Harlem that attracted Allan—the long arch of Washington Bridge, the varied craft of the river, the loops of the elevated roads; and when they were in Manhattan, there were funny little remnants of the squatter settlement that seemed made—or at least left—to be photographed.

“Now, you understand,” said Dobbs, “that I’m in no hurry. You can go anywhere you want to and I’ll trot around with you. I want to see how you do it—I’m going to get one of those things myself one of these days.”

“You can’t learn much from the way _I_ do it,” said Allan. “I’m only a beginner.”

“It seems to me,” pursued Dobbs, “that we might do a little of the Bowery and around the Pell Street way—in the Chinese quarter and so on. Oh, I suppose you could put in a week here—slumming with a camera, how would that go?—unless you don’t like slums. First, I’ve got to run in and see one of the Central Office men at headquarters.”

And so they went over to Mulberry from the “L” road, and Allan was so much interested in being at police headquarters that he thought no more about the camera until Dobbs was ready to go.

“Suppose we go and look at the Rogue’s Gallery,” suggested Dobbs, and he led the way into one of the rooms opening off the main hall. “There’s a collection of photographs for you!” exclaimed Dobbs, turning the doors of a curious cabinet like a vast wooden book.

Allan stared in amazement at the countless faces that stared out of this curious collection. Something in the style of these faces made Allan feel sad. Yet the faces were not all evil-looking faces by any means. Perhaps it was because they were not that Allan felt awkward and grieved as he looked at them. There were handsome faces of both men and women, some of them very young—mere boys and girls, sometimes—and the well-dressed and the ragged were shoulder to shoulder. One face, that of a boy who appeared to be of about Allan’s age, held Allan’s attention until Dobbs asked if he knew the face.

“No,” said Allan. He had been thinking how clear-eyed and manly the boy looked. He wondered what trouble the boy had fallen into, and if the boy’s mother thought he was guilty.

“Well,” said Allan, a lump in his throat, “I don’t believe they are all rogues. I believe there were some mistakes—that some of them were innocent.”

“Maybe,” said Dobbs. “Maybe there are fellows there who don’t belong there. And there are a great many folks who belong there who are not there.”

Allan said nothing more while they were going downstairs again. They walked back to the Bowery and turned to the south. One of the first things that Allan saw struck him so oddly that he adjusted the focus of his camera to fifteen feet, and turning about made a quick shot, Dobbs watching attentively.

The subject of Allan’s picture was a boy of twelve or thirteen perched in a high boot-black’s chair with a grimy little Italian “shiner” polishing his shoes.

“Shine?” called the Italian boy over his shoulder, when he saw that some one had stopped; then went on with his work.

“Young America and young Italy,” laughed the detective, as they walked down the Bowery. When they came to one of the numerous dime museums of the street, Dobbs halted and they read over the glaring announcements that plastered the front of the building.

“You haven’t a big enough plate to take the fat lady,” chuckled Dobbs, “but I don’t see but that you might take a shy at the ossified girl. Ha, ha!” the detective laughed loudly, as he pointed to a huge picture spreading across the front of the building; “there you are!” and Allan read:—

GREAT PIE EATING CONTEST BY ELEVEN LOVELY LADIES!!

“Couldn’t we get them to let us take that?” asked Dobbs, “when they were half through, you know!”

Allan joined in the detective’s laugh, until the man in the little window to the right of the entrance looked over at them with a scowl.

Dobbs appeared to be greatly taken with the idea, and for a few moments Allan feared that he might suggest carrying it out. But presently they left the region of the museums, and Allan changed the subject by catching a group at the drinking tap in front of the Young Men’s Institute. Then the detective and Allan came to the shooting-galleries where wooden deer and green lions were ceaselessly jumping, and silvery balls were rising and falling on jets of water until shattered by some successful marksman.

“Here’s a chance,” said Dobbs, “to get some of those queer things in animal locomotion. The great advantage here, though, would be that no matter when you caught the deer and lions, their legs would always look perfectly natural. That would be a big advantage. I don’t like these snap pictures that show the horses standing on one foot with their hind legs twisted.” Below Grand street, in front of a clothing store, they found five men standing at the curb, each supporting a huge wooden letter. When Allan stepped into the street to read the letters from the front, he found that they spelled “P-A-N-T-S.” A “Great Pants Sale” was in progress here. Other sales were in progress at every step of their walk.

“Isn’t it almost time to eat?” asked Dobbs. “I know a joint here where you can get the best steak in New York.”

The “joint” was across the street, and Dobbs saluted the proprietor cheerily as they walked in. Allan was too much stirred up by the sights and sounds out of doors and the whirr and clatter of this “quick lunch” indoors to eat much. When they had finished Allan wished to share the bill.

“But there isn’t any bill,” said Dobbs; which seemed to be true, for, as they passed out, Dobbs merely nodded again to the proprietor. “I once did that fellow a great big favor,” said Dobbs, “and so my money wouldn’t go in there—nor yours either if you were with me.”

“Suppose you lived near by,” said Allan, “and took all your meals there, do you think he would keep on being willing?”

Dobbs laughed. “Well, I think I could keep it up quite a long time, if I wanted to.”

Presently they came to Chatham Square, and Dobbs, pointing over to the west, said, “Here’s Chinatown.”

Dobbs knew all the queer places, the joss houses, and theatres, and restaurants, and he pointed these out or indicated them with a jerk of his head.

“They are suspicious here,” said Dobbs, “and when you want to take anything I’ll turn and talk to you so that you can shoot past me.” It was in this way that Allan caught a group of men in front of one of the queer places. Hundreds of Chinamen were passing up and down the street, hundreds more could be seen in the tea-shops and at the windows of the restaurants.

Suddenly Dobbs turned away with an exclamation which Allan did not understand, and, looking about, the boy saw the detective run into an alley.

Allan, much perplexed, walked to the mouth of the alley and peered into its dingy depths. But there was no sign of Dobbs. He had utterly disappeared.

VII.

IN NEW YORK.

ALLAN could scarcely believe his eyes. The detective certainly ran into the alley, and there seemed to be no escape from the alley save by the flight of wooden steps running up the side of the building on the left. These steps were in full view to the top, and it certainly was impossible that Dobbs should have mounted these in the brief moments that had elapsed before Allan reached the point from which he could see them.

For several minutes Allan stood there in perplexity. Then he walked as far as the corner and back again to the alley. Still no sign of Dobbs. A Chinaman in a tea-shop came to the door and stared at Allan. Other Chinamen across the way seemed to be wondering what he wanted there. Two barefooted Italian boys stopped, and very deliberately examined the camera and Allan.

Allan again walked to the corner, and as he turned he saw a little ragged boy enter the alley, and he lost no time in retracing his steps. But when he reached the alley the boy was not to be seen. He, too, had melted away.

Allan then determined to settle this mystery if he did nothing else, and to wait there until another figure attempted to elude him. “I’ll follow them,” he said to himself.

The Chinaman in the tea-shop saw Allan take his stand at the curb opposite the alley. For five minutes or more he stood there watching the life of the street, peering at the strange signs and banners and balconies. He looked toward Chatham Square, from which came the clatter of the elevated trains and the roar of street traffic. Occasionally he turned to the alley as if expecting to see Dobbs reappear from its shadowy depths.

Once, when his eyes turned to the alley, he saw a man with a red shirt shambling toward him, a lame man who leaned against the sides of the alley to support himself. But it was impossible to see where he had come from. The mystery was as deep as ever—as deep as the alley.

Presently a woman who passed him with a bundle of clothes entered the alley with a rolling step, and Allan instantly followed her, to the evident perplexity of the Chinaman in the tea-shop. He followed so closely at the woman’s heels in his determination not to let her melt out of his sight, that the woman glanced back at him over her shoulder in suspicious inquiry.

Then Allan discovered what many another discovered long ago, for when the woman reached what had appeared to be the end of the alley, she turned to the right, and the boy, following, found himself in another alley running at right angles to the first.

It seemed very absurd that he had not thought of this before. Several doors opened into this second alley, and through one of these the woman passed with her bundle.

Allan went straight ahead into the cross street upon which the alley opened. If Dobbs had been playing a trick upon him, it might be that he was waiting here somewhere. But there was no sign of the detective.

Whether it was a joke or not, Allan made up his mind not to worry any more over finding Dobbs. Possibly the detective might come back to the place from which he had disappeared. Perhaps he was in one of these houses. But there was no way of telling where he was, or when he would come if he did come. Allan had been in New York before. He knew his way to the Grand Central Station. That did not trouble him. Yet he was disappointed in losing so good a guide as Dobbs.

However, there were still two hours of picture-making daylight left, and he determined to use these as best he might on his own account. They had not lingered in Chatham Square, and Allan walked again in that direction, and down into Chatham Street to Newspaper Row and the City Hall. On his way he came across a pretzel man with a store of salty pretzels strung on a stick.

In City Hall Park Allan found a group that excited his interest. The group of men and boys were in a circle, and made up such a good picture that Allan sighted his camera at a distance of twenty feet and pressed the trigger. Then he went forward to satisfy his curiosity.

“What’s the matter?” Allan asked of a man who was turning away.

“Craps,” answered the man, grinning.

Pressing forward into the group, Allan heard the click of pennies and caught a glimpse of a boy’s grimy hand tossing some dice on the stones. When some one uttered a peculiar exclamation, the owner of the grimy hand and half a dozen other boys darted out of the centre of the crowd, and fled in great haste, leaving on the stones one of the dice, which an onlooker picked up. Then Allan understood that the boys had been gambling and that some one had sighted a policeman; a fact which gave him food for thought as he crossed the square again and walked up Centre Street. He had determined to move again in the direction of the Grand Central.

While he was thinking of the boys and the policeman and how much of life in this part of New York seemed to be made up of a battle between the two, he caught sight of the Tombs prison, which had been half torn down and patched up again since he saw it once before.

It was while he was picturing the Tombs from the corner of Franklin Street that a boy who had watched everything he did from the moment he stopped there, tapped him on the sleeve, and said, “Say, d’yer want a good picture?” The boy tossed his head in the direction of Baxter Street with a wink so jolly that Allan concluded that the suggested subject must be amusing at least, but he followed the boy for the space of half a block, when the boy, who had been trotting ahead, halted with a laugh before the steps of a dirty, empty-looking house.

On the steps was what appeared from a little distance like a bundle of soiled rags; but when Allan drew near he saw that there was a living creature in the rags,—an old woman lying as if she had fallen there, a rumpled black bonnet in her lap, her head resting against the rail, and her yellow, wrinkled face upturned to the sun.

The boy giggled as if he thought it all a vast joke; but Allan shuddered and looked about as if in wonder that no one had come to help the woman; and when he saw a fat policeman strolling toward him he hurried forward to say: “Officer, here’s a sick woman. Shouldn’t some one get her out of the sun? She may be dying.”

The policeman looked at Allan with an expression which Allan did not understand. For a moment the policeman looked at the woman; then he spat into the street, and said, “I don’t think she’s dyin’ yet,” smiled at Allan, and continued his walk.

Allan’s face grew hot, and he wanted to shout, “You’re a brute!” after the policeman, when a girl came out of the doorway of the house where the woman lay, and seeing the object on the steps, came forward and began shaking the woman as if to arouse her. The girl had a sad face. Allan thought she looked as if she had cried very often.

The woman opened her eyes finally, and Allan, placing his camera on the steps, helped the woman to rise, and by the aid of Allan and the girl the woman tottered up the steps and through the doorway.

“We live upstairs,” said the sad-faced girl, quietly. Allan knew that this was a request to help a little longer. It was hard work on the stairs, for the steps were steep and narrow, and the old woman trembled violently.

When they had reached the top, the girl, with a grateful look, said, “I’m much obliged.” The old woman did not speak. As he came downstairs an ugly girl with a baby in her arms said to Allan, “Mrs. Grimmins is drinkin’ very hard again.”

Allan went out without a word. He was so much upset that he did not notice at first that his camera had gone. Almost at the moment when he did discover his loss, he saw the camera in the hands of a boy who was scudding around the corner.

Allan was the best runner in the Hazenfield high school nine, and a hundred feet beyond the corner he came upon a group of boys who had the camera between them, and who in another moment would have been out of sight in one of the alleys.

“I’ll take that,” said Allan to a big, rough fellow who had his fingers on the carrying strap.

“Who said so?” was the response.

Allan caught hold of the camera, but the big fellow held fast, and gave Allan a violent push with his left hand. A little crowd sprang up around Allan instantly, and several of the boys began to jostle him and to pull at his coat.

Allan knew that in trouble of this sort it was necessary to get rid of the biggest enemy first, and, still holding the camera with his left hand, he struck his biggest enemy squarely in the face. As the other fell sprawling over the sill of a grocer’s shop, Allan wrested the camera free, and, turning about, he struck quickly at two of his other assailants, clearing a space about him.

It was a very uneven affair, for Allan was hampered by the camera. Each of the others had two hands to his one. But Allan fought furiously, and might have made a very good defence with his single hand had not his big enemy, regaining his feet, approached Allan from behind, and, throwing his arms about him, flung him to the walk.

“Soak him, Pete!” yelled several of the boys, gathering for a chance to use their feet.

Pete was powerful, but in agility he was no match for Allan. In a moment Allan had Pete under him; but he had lost hold of the camera.

One of the boys, with a shout, grasped the black box and started to run. He did run—plump into the hands of a policeman.

“The cop!”

The crowd melted in a second’s time. Only Allan, Pete, and the boy who had the camera, remained to give an account of the affair.

For a moment Allan thought it was the same policeman he had seen on the other street. But it was not. This new policeman held fast to the boy who had the camera, and who seemed to be wishing that he didn’t have it.

“They have been trying to steal my camera!” cried Allan, adjusting his crushed hat.

“He lies!” roared Pete.

“Well,” said the policeman, lazily, and as if there was nothing exciting about the incident, “I’ll take you all in till we talk it over, hey?”

The boy with the camera began to whimper. “I was only takin’ care of it!” he cried.

“I never touched it!” protested Pete. “He stole it hisself!”