Part 5

“Let’s take a walk,” said the policeman, holding the small boy and Pete each by the collar. “You walk ahead,” he said to Allan. “Do you mean that you are going to arrest _me_?” demanded Allan.

“I mean that you’re goin’ to walk,” returned the policeman, using Pete to push Allan forward; and the policeman with his three prisoners moved toward Elizabeth Street.

VIII.

TWO ARRESTS.

ALLAN, angry and chagrined, did as he was told and led the line; and very soon a crowd began to gather again. Even some of the boys who had most wisely taken to their heels, seeing that the policeman had his hands full, ventured again into close quarters, and made audible remarks to Pete and his companion.

They scarcely had gone a block when at least a hundred ragged boys and girls of the quarter were following behind or running ahead to shout the news into the alleys. Recruits came running from Mulberry Square. A man with a push cart drew near to the curb and kept abreast of the procession. It seemed to Allan that at least a thousand women were craning their necks out of windows or crowding eagerly in doorways. His face reddened, and he did not know where to look. He certainly felt very angry and resentful, and yet, when people peered at him, he wondered whether they did not think he looked guilty of something.

“What did they do?”

“They were caught lifting.”

“Three of them.”

“They tapped a till.”

“They got the whole gang.”

“There was a fight.”

These and a hundred other comments and inquiries came to Allan as he threaded the crowded sidewalk; the shuffle of the policeman, with Pete and his companion behind, and a clatter and patter of a multitude of feet everywhere.

Allan was wondering whether they were going to a patrol box or directly to some station, and they were within a short distance of a cross street, when there were signs of a new and separate commotion ahead. Heads in the windows began to turn the other way, and the advance guard of the procession in which Allan had been moving had darted further ahead, and was mingling at the corner with another crowd that surged toward the same cross street.

Then it became plain that there had been another arrest somewhere. Allan could see the helmet of a policeman, the face of a man without his hat; and as they swung around the corner, the two processions almost at the same moment, Allan saw another face that looked familiar.

Yes, it was Dobbs,—Dobbs holding one arm of the man without a hat,—Dobbs, rather flushed, Allan thought, as if he had been running, or was excited. Dobbs looked across at the other crowd and saw Allan, for he laughed and waved his hand, and his lips moved, but in the hubbub Allan could not hear what he said.

The police station was in Elizabeth Street. It looked very gloomy, somehow. Dobbs was laughing again and waving his free hand, just before he turned into the doorway of the station. The crowd had grown to great proportions by this time. Allan never had suspected that so many men and women, who looked as if they might have something better to do, would take so much interest in seeing four prisoners taken into a police station. Several policemen on the sidewalk seemed to be amused; indeed, the affair appeared to be something of a joke to many people, including Pete.

Allan, followed by the policeman and the two other prisoners, found his way through the police station door.

When they got in Dobbs was talking over the railing to the Sergeant at the desk. When he turned and saw Allan, he called out a cheery “Hello! Did you wonder where I went to? So you’ve been snapping an arrest, have you?”

“No,” said Allan, solemnly. “I’ve been getting arrested.”

“You?” Dobbs laughed in a puzzled way, and looked at the policeman, who was pushing Pete a little further away from the door. “Arrested! Wait a minute,” and Dobbs turned again to the desk, while the Sergeant wrote something in a book, and the man without a hat answered certain questions in a low voice.

Although he was feeling decidedly uncomfortable, in spite of finding Dobbs again, and although there was a great chorus of voices in the street and a crowd of faces at the door, Allan found himself watching the face of the man without a hat. It seemed to him that he never before had seen a face so white. Once the man turned and looked at those who were standing near him. He had extremely dark eyes, that twitched—sad-looking eyes, Allan thought.

When the man was led away toward the back room Dobbs swung about quickly, and said, “What’s this? Arrested? What for?”

“They stole my camera,” Allan replied, “and I was trying to get it again.”

“How about this, Steve?” asked Dobbs of the policeman who had captured Allan, and who was now leaning lazily against the railing.

“I dunno,” returned Steve. “They were in a mix-up when I got there. This young rat here had the camera,” and he pointed to the smallest boy. “Do you know him?” he added, pointing to Allan.

“Why, he’s my neighbor!” said Dobbs, who evidently was much amused. “This is his camera. I’ve been taken with that myself. I just left him half an hour ago, when I first spotted the ghost.”

“I thought it was his,” pursued the policeman, though Allan looked savage, and didn’t believe him. “Thought I’d bring in the whole debating club, and let them have out the scrap here. I suppose Pete was trying to win that box.”

“Well, we’ll put the pair in for this,” said Dobbs, frowning at Pete and the other boy. “Did they hurt you?” he asked Allan.

“No,” Allan answered, “but I think I hurt them a little.”

Pete’s upper lip was swollen until he presented a comical appearance. Dobbs saw this, and a twinkle came into his eyes. “You young highwayman!” he growled at Pete.

“I was only foolin’,” whined Pete.

“Well,” demanded the deep baritone voice of the Sergeant, behind the desk.

“I wish you’d let them go,” protested Allan. Dobbs was picking up the camera.

“What!” growled Dobbs, with something in his voice that made Allan understand that he didn’t mean it; “let these bandits go?”

“We didn’t know whose it was,” whimpered the smallest boy.

“Of course,” snorted Dobbs again, “you were looking for the owner, weren’t you, like a good little boy?” “No complaint?” asked the Sergeant, in a dry tone.

“Now, Sergeant,” said Dobbs, holding up the camera and blinking into the finder, “please look pleasant; it may hurt your face to do it, but look sweet for just a moment.”

“What about this, Steve?” demanded the Sergeant, turning to the policeman.

“He won’t make a complaint,” said Steve.

“Then get out of here!” ordered the Sergeant, in a terrifying voice to Pete and his companion, and those two reprobates did get out with wonderful agility.

After they had gone Allan was surprised to notice what a pleasant smile the Sergeant had. Dobbs went on to tell Allan, and the Sergeant at the same time, how he had caught a glimpse of the man with the white face, whom he called the Ghost; how the man darted into the alley; how he had pursued him through the two alleys into the side street, and into other alleys; how he had lost him, summoned the assistance of a policeman, and searched several houses for him; how they caught him at last stretched on his face under the rafters.

“And I have been looking for him for three years!” chuckled Dobbs.

“What did he do?” asked Allan.

“Do? What didn’t he do? That fellow’s been bad ever since he began to breathe. We want him in Hazenfield for a store robbery and nearly killing a watchman. Did I worry you some by running away?” “I _was_ bothered a little,” admitted Allan.

“Well, I’ve got to leave the Ghost here until court hours to-morrow, and I’ll be going back to Hazenfield soon. Suppose we take another turn around before we go back.”

“I’ll have to change my plates, somehow,” said Allan.

“All right,” and the detective went back to find the doorman. Presently he returned with a sprightly, gray-haired man at his elbow. “The doorman says he has just the place for you here.”

The place suggested by the doorman proved to be quite what Allan needed, as far as being dark, for when he had closed the door there was not a speck of light anywhere. It was a large closet with an old trunk in one corner, an old coat with brass buttons hanging over it. A musty smell pervaded the place, a rat scampered somewhere in the darkness, and Allan did not especially enjoy the interval during which he transferred his used plates to the box, and the new plates to the holders.

Dobbs was outside guarding the door, though the doorman said that no one ever would think of opening it.

“Ah, Captain!” cried Dobbs, as Allan emerged from the closet. “Loaded for bear now, are you?”

The doorman took great interest in the camera, and so did the Sergeant. Allan felt very grateful and generous, and suggested taking the Sergeant at his desk, the doorman standing near with his keys in a military attitude.

“I guess I should count six,” said Allan, “and you mustn’t move.”

“Hear that, Sergeant?” demanded Dobbs. “Look benevolent and don’t breathe.”

At this the Sergeant’s lips twitched, but he held quite still until Allan had completed the exposure. The thing was hardly done when a policeman came in with another prisoner.

“Business is good to-day,” laughed Dobbs; “good-by, Sergeant; hold on tight to my Ghost.”

Then Allan confessed to Dobbs that he had forgotten to change the focus of his camera to short range, and that the picture certainly was spoiled.

“Let it go,” Dobbs said reassuringly. “They’ll forget all about it, anyway. What do you say to walking up to the Grand Central by way of Broadway? We can take in Union and Madison Squares and so on.”

Allan thought this a good idea. The truth is, he was feeling resentful toward the regions in which he had spent most of the time since reaching the city in the morning. He was glad to get away toward Union Square and up-town.

Dobbs made many suggestions as to pictures, but Allan did not find it to be possible to act upon many of them. He made some pictures in the squares,—a tramp asleep, the Plaza at Twenty-third Street, carriage-crowded Fifth Avenue, the kaleidoscopic bustle at the Grand Central.

When they were on the train again, Allan began to feel that it had been a notable day. Taking the pictures had made the trip seem more interesting than ever before, and the arrest—

He hated to think about the arrest. It had happened by no fault of his, unless it might be the fault of leaving the camera where he did when he helped carry the old woman into the house. But he felt soiled by it, and grew red in the face again at the thought of the crowds that had looked at him and perhaps measured him as a criminal.

When they parted Dobbs made Allan promise to let him have a proof of Sporty’s picture as soon as he could. “I’d like to have a squint at those others too,” he said.

Allan himself was eager to see the results of his day’s work with the camera; and although his mother and Edith were much absorbed in his account of the day’s incidents, he spent the half-hour before supper in preparing the dark-room for the developing.

Edith followed him and had a score of inquiries as to the Bowery, and the mysterious alley, and Broadway, and the battle with the boys.

“And just to think, Allan, those horrid police might have locked you in a cell like a common criminal.”

“Anyway, I was glad to see Mr. Dobbs,” said Allan. “He used to be on the force in New York, and he knows everybody.”

“And I hope, Allan, you’ll never want to go in those dreadful places any more. I like pictures of pleasant places and nice-looking people.”

“It takes all sorts of people to make a world,” said Allan, rinsing a tray under the tap.

“Yes,” admitted Edith, “but you don’t need to mix with all sorts.”

After supper Allan began his developing, and Dr. Hartel was with him for fully an hour, long enough to see the picture of Sporty and the Bowery shoe-black, and the group of boys around the “Lemonade Man.”

It was all very fascinating, this work in the red glow of the lamp,—the moments of expectation until the first signs of the image appeared, the slow growth of the picture under the ripple of the developer, the glimpse of the clear negative after the fixing. The trickle of the water from the washing-box was real music to Allan.

Of course there were disappointments in some of the plates, resulting from mistakes in the focussing, from intrusive foreground figures, from too rapid movements that made a blur. But there were compensations too, for there were many unexpectedly interesting things in the pictures, things not seen by Allan at the moment of pressing his trigger, funny gestures of people, droll expressions of faces.

It was nearly ten o’clock when Allan left his last plates washing and went into the house to report on his successes and failures. He carried with him a rack holding the first dozen of the plates, which he wanted to study in the better light of the sitting-room lamp. This lamp had a plain ground-glass shade, which made just the right relief for the image of a negative.

Half an hour later, when Allan returned to the stable, he found the door at the foot of the stairs slightly ajar. This reminded him of the night his plates were stolen. It set him thinking very quickly.

He had closed the door when he left the stable. He remembered turning about with the rack in one hand while he drew the knob with the other.

Yes, he was sure he had closed the door. He stepped within the doorway, and almost as he did so he heard a step on the stair and a shuffle as if some one were crowding against the wall in the shadow.

“Who’s there?” asked Allan.

There was no answer.

“You might as well speak,” continued Allan; “you can’t get away.”

No sound came in reply to this.

Allan opened the door as far as it would go, and as he did so a figure arose in front of him and roughly tried to slip past him. Allan was too quick for the figure. He caught it with both hands—for happily he had not carried anything with him to the stable—and with all the force at his command threw it back against the steps.

The figure grunted at this but gave no other sign that might help to its identification.

“Who are you?” demanded Allan again, panting with his exertions to hold the wriggling unknown, who presently worked his way off the steps and with a quick leap to his feet had almost reached the door, when Allan caught him again and the two dropped in a heap across the sill.

The light from the house now fell on the face of the unknown. It was Cheney.

IX.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

CHENEY was very much frightened, but he cried sullenly, “You let me go!”

Allan did let him up from the ground, but still held fast to him. “So you _are_ the thief, Cheney? And you want more, do you?” Allan’s voice trembled. “Cheney, I’m going to hand you over to the police. You deserve it. You robbed me, and now you were trying to do it again.” “No, I wasn’t,” whimpered Cheney. “Let me go, Allan! Don’t have me arrested. Please, Allan!”

Then Cheney suddenly gave a violent twist of his body, hoping to catch Allan unawares, and escape. But Allan’s fingers never loosened their hold.

“It’s no use, Cheney,” Allan said, speaking as quietly as his excitement would permit. “It wouldn’t do you any good to get away, anyhow. I know who it is, and you would be arrested before morning.”

Cheney began to cry. “Don’t, Allan.”

“But you are a thief, Cheney.”

“No, I ain’t, Allan; I did take them, but I just put them back.”

“Put them back?”

“Yes, Allan, they’re up there all right.”

“Do you mean that you _have_ brought them back?”

“Sure,” Cheney answered fervently.

“Well, let us see,” said Allan. “You go up first;” and he made Cheney go ahead of him up the stairs in the dark—for he had absently blown out his light when he went into the house. Allan struck a match at the top step.

“See! there they are!” and Cheney pointed to the three plates lying on a chair, the first object Cheney had encountered in the dark.

Allan picked up the plates, holding the match in his other hand. The match burned out, and he struck another, and lighted his “white lamp.” Then he looked at the plates, one by one, to see that they were not injured. Convinced that they were not harmed, he turned to Cheney, who stood falteringly and uneasily watching him.

“Well, you can go, Cheney, for all I care.”

Cheney immediately began to recover his self-possession.

“Oh, I was only foolin’, Allan. I was goin’ to bring them back.”

“You _did_ bring them back,” said Allan. “That saved you. I guess I can get Detective Dobbs to let you go.”

“Detective Dobbs,” stammered Cheney; “you’re bluffing.”

“Well, Dobbs isn’t,” said Allan. “He suspected you from the first. He spoke to you about the plates, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Cheney admitted, “but I didn’t think he knew anything. He only said some pictures were stolen, and if I saw anybody with them I better tell him to get them back in a hurry.”

“Look here, Cheney,” demanded Allan, stepping close to the other, “what did you take them for?” Cheney was staring at the floor. Then he lifted his head. “Oh, I told you,” he said. “Just for fun.”

“No, you didn’t, Cheney.”

But Cheney would confess nothing further; and when it occurred to Allan that asking Cheney why he took the plates was tempting him to confess that he had thought to shield his father, he decided to say nothing further about the matter to Cheney. The plates were there again—that was pleasanter to think of than proving any one to be a thief.

“Let it go,” was all that Allan finally said to Cheney.

“You’re not going to say anything about it, are you?” asked Cheney.

“No.”

And then Cheney shuffled down the steps, and was gone.

Allan intended to take his newly developed plates out of the washing-box and place them in the rack. He scarcely took time to glance at them. The important thing at that moment seemed to be that the fire negatives were safe after all.

When he ran into the house, Allan held the three plates aloft and cried out to his mother and Edith, “Guess!”

“Something good you caught to-day?” asked Edith.

Mrs. Hartel saw something different in Allan’s face. “The fire negatives!” she said,—“you found them!”

“They _are_ the fire negatives,” Allan said exultantly, “but I didn’t find them exactly,—the thief brought them back.”

“The thief—brought them back!” exclaimed Edith.

Allan nodded. “And they’re not scratched. Isn’t it lucky?”

“Who was it?” asked Mrs. Hartel.

“Cheney.”

Mrs. Hartel shook her head regretfully. “I’m very sorry it was Cheney.” Allan related the incident of the meeting, the struggle, and the confession.

“I think you acted rightly,” said Mrs. Hartel. “It will be as well to say nothing more about it.”

“Do you really think,” asked Edith, “that he took the plates on his father’s account—because he was afraid the pictures might prove something against his father?”

“I don’t know,” said Allan. “He wouldn’t confess—and I didn’t much care to make him. Anyway, I’m quite sure his father had nothing to do with the fire. Mr. Dobbs doesn’t think it was set afire, and the factory people don’t either.”

“I’m glad,” said Edith. “It seems dreadful to think of—any one deliberately setting fire to a building.”

Dr. Hartel did not reach home until late that night, but Allan waited up for him. He wanted to tell the news himself.

The next morning he hurried over to Owen’s and to Detective Dobbs’s house. Dobbs only remarked, “I thought so.” The detective seemed to take it for granted that Cheney would go unpunished. “But he should be thrashed for it,” he said, and added: “How about Sporty’s picture?”

“I think it is going to be good,” Allan replied. “I’ll fetch you a proof to-day.” He could see that Dobbs was more interested in Sporty’s picture than in anything else, though he seemed to enjoy all of the proofs of the pictures made in New York which Allan had to show him that afternoon.

Meanwhile, Allan had gone to the factory superintendent and delivered the plates to him. The superintendent was delighted.

“I don’t know whether they are going to be of any use to us,” he said, “but I hated to lose them that way, and they may be very important. Matling!” called the superintendent to a man at a desk in the corner of the factory office, “make out a check to young Hartel for fifty dollars, and take it in to Mr. Ames.”

Allan gave his full name; the check was signed by a white-haired man in the adjoining room, who came out from the inner office as the cashier was handing the check to Allan.

“So you are the boy who photographed the fire,” said the white-haired man.

“I guess he would like to do it often,” laughed the superintendent.

“Probably—if it paid as well. But it is no more than the plates are worth to us just now. I want to see them.” And the white-haired man examined the plates with great interest. “They don’t look much like the prints, do they? I tell you,” he said, turning again to Allan, “you must let us call on you sometime when we want a piece of photographic work done. We probably shan’t have a lawsuit in mind again, but there are things we need from time to time, and you could make use of a little money now and then, I suppose—photography costs something, doesn’t it?”

Allan said that he should be glad to try his hand at anything that he was able to do. “You see, I’m only a beginner,” he said. He liked the white-haired man, who had a pleasant look in his eyes and whose smile was very friendly.

When Allan left the factory the feeling of good fortune, of having succeeded after threatened failure, of new opportunities for his photographic enthusiasm, not to mention the feeling of the check in his pocket and the new privileges it promised, gave him a cheerful expression of countenance which doubtless appeared to Owen when he met him on his way back to the house.

“What luck?” asked Owen, cheerily.

“Good luck,” answered Allan. “Everything is all settled. They paid me for the plates, and the old gentleman—the president of the company I guess he is—thinks there are other things I might do for them.”

“That’s great!” exclaimed Owen.

“And, Owen,” Allan went on, “I shan’t have a bit of fun out of this money until you have divided it with me.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Owen, sincerely, “I don’t think I should have any of that. I only helped you; it was your camera.”

“But, Owen,” insisted Allan, “you did a good deal more than help me; you really did most of the work. Anyway, I couldn’t enjoy the money unless you shared it. It wouldn’t seem fair.”

“But I couldn’t feel comfortable, either, if I took it.”

“Why not, Owen? You could use it getting some new stuff, and—”

“Well,” interposed Owen. “I tell you what we might do. Ever since I saw those rooms in your coach-house, I have been thinking that it would be a fine idea for us to have them for a club—a camera club, if your father would let us have them. Now, if you really think you couldn’t be happy with all that money, why not take some of it and spend it fixing up the rooms and getting things for a club?”

“Splendid!” cried Allan. “It wouldn’t seem so good as giving to you, Owen; but it would be great to have a club, and we could all have the use of better materials than we could afford to have on our own account.”