_A LOST KEY_
Flash silently followed the officer down the hallway to the elevator.
The pointed remark about not having set ideas struck home, making him
suddenly conscious that his attitude had been anything but unbiased.
Hadn’t he been so certain Fred Orris was responsible for the theft that
he refused to consider any other possibility?
Now that he reflected, he realized that the watchman had seemed
unusually interested in his work. As he thought back, it came to him
that when they had been together, he usually was the one to do most of
the talking. Old Herm asked many questions and supplied few answers.
“But it couldn’t have been Herm,” he repeated to himself. “He’s only a
foolish old cod, and he’s always seemed to like me.”
They presently located the watchman on the fifth floor. As Old Herm saw
the police officer striding toward him, he started perceptibly.
“Lookin’ for me?” he inquired uneasily.
“You are the night watchman here?” asked the policeman, gazing steadily
at him.
“That’s right. Anything the matter?”
“Nothing to be skittish about,” the officer said. “All we want is to see
how good you are at answering questions.”
“Answerin’ questions!” the old fellow echoed timidly. “I ain’t done
nothin’, sir.”
“You were in the building at eleven-thirty tonight?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Old Herm replied. “I’m always here then. It’s my job.”
“What part of the building?”
“On the sixth floor, sir. I punch a clock there every night at
eleven-thirty.”
“And you punched it tonight?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I’ve never missed in five years.”
“Any one see you do it?”
“Maybe so and maybe not so,” Old Herm answered vaguely. “If anyone saw
me, I didn’t see them.”
While the old fellow’s voice and face was innocence itself, it seemed
rather strange to Flash that he did not ask the officer why he was being
questioned. It was barely possible, he thought, that Old Herm knew the
reason, yet the chances were against his having talked with anyone about
the theft and attack.
The officer studied the watchman for a moment. Then he took the key
which had been found in the darkroom and held it before Old Herm’s eyes.
“Ever see that before?”
“Why, ah, yes, I have,” the watchman stammered.
“Yours isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Old Herm admitted readily, “it’s the key to the janitor’s supply
room in the basement.”
“We didn’t find it in the basement. We picked it up in the photography
department. Have you been in there tonight?”
“Yes, sir, I was. I drop in there on my rounds when the door’s open. You
see, the photographers are careless about letting faucets run. It’s no
fun mopping up after ’em.”
“At what hour were you there tonight?”
“Just a bit after 10:30. That’s when I ring the time clock in the
department.”
So far, Old Herm’s account of his whereabouts left no ground for
suspicion. Flash recalled that at ten-thirty he had not yet reached the
_Ledger_ Building. According to the clock in the window of the
advertising department, it had been eleven-twenty when he arrived and
met the watchman in the lower vestibule. Evidently the old fellow had
gone directly to the sixth floor to ring the eleven-thirty time bell.
“The record will show whether or not he did,” Flash thought. “If he’s
telling the truth, he couldn’t have been the person who attacked me.
With his bad leg it would have taken him at least five minutes to get
from the sixth floor to the photographic department. And it was only
eleven-forty when Joe Wells found me lying unconscious.”
“You’ve been around here quite awhile, haven’t you?” the policeman was
asking Old Herm.
“Nigh onto ten years now. And it’s been a mighty tedious life, a dreary
existence—walkin’ to the third floor, walkin’ to the fifth floor,
walkin’ to the basement, ringin’ the rounds registers, lookin’ for
burglars that ain’t there. No, sir, in all my years I never scared up an
intruder—not one! And me a brave man able to take care of myself.”
A light of childish bravado shone in Old Herm’s eyes, and the officer
directed a covert wink at Flash.
“Suppose we check on that time register,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Old Herm mumbled. “Just come with me.”
He led Flash and the policeman to the sixth floor. The register, which
was located in the front part of the building, gave conclusive proof
that it had been punched at the hour Old Herm claimed.
“You see, it’s just like I told you,” the watchman declared. “I don’t
know what this is all about, but I been tendin’ strictly to my work all
evening. And I ain’t seen no one in the building except those that have
a right to be here.”
“It probably was an inside job,” the officer commented, dropping the
lost key into the watchman’s hand.
“Was something stole?” Old Herm asked anxiously.
“A film from the photography department,” responded the policeman
briefly.
“An important one,” added Flash. “I had just finished developing it when
someone slugged me on the head.”
“Shoo, you don’t say!” Old Herm muttered. “That’s bad. Nasty lookin’
cut, too. Will it get you into trouble, losin’ your picture?”
“It won’t do me any good,” Flash returned.
Turning, he followed the police officer down the hall, leaving the old
watchman to stare after them.
When they were beyond earshot, Flash said: “You were satisfied with his
story?”
“Oh sure,” replied the policeman carelessly. “You were right. He’s only
a foolish old fellow. No motive for the crime.”
“For that matter, what reason would anyone in the building have for
doing such a trick? A personal grudge against me?”
“Might have been. I’m satisfied it was an inside job and not the work of
any of the arson gang.”
After the officer had gone, Flash returned to the darkroom for his hat.
As he passed through the news room a moment later, the editor stopped
him at the desk.
“Here’s something that may interest you,” he said, thrusting a sheet of
copy paper into Flash’s hand. “One of our reporters just brought it in.
About ten minutes ago an old man named Andy Simpson was run over by an
automobile and killed.”
“Andy Simpson!” Flash exclaimed. “Not the watchman at the Fenmore
warehouse!”
“Same fellow.”
“Run over deliberately?”
“No. It appears he was dazed or had been drinking too much. Anyway,
according to the story of the motorist, he ignored the traffic lights
and walked straight into the path of the car.”
“Andy Simpson was the one person who could have thrown new light on the
arson case,” Flash muttered. “He met ‘H. J.,’ the man who is supposed to
be the brains of the arson gang. Now the police never will be able to
get a description.”
He read the brief item through and handed it back to the editor. Never
had he felt more discouraged. With Andy Simpson dead, his missing
picture was of greater importance than ever. But it was definitely gone.
He never would see it again.
While no word of blame was spoken, Flash saw several reporters glancing
at him with a peculiar expression. By morning everyone on the _Ledger_
would have heard the story.
“I’m getting a record for failures,” he thought as he made his way to
the street. “Unless I can figure out who is at the bottom of tonight’s
attack, things may keep on happening.”
The previous mishaps, while personally humiliating, had not been so
serious. But now, with Andy Simpson dead, the loss of the picture
undoubtedly meant that the higher-ups in the arson ring never would be
brought to trial.
As the bus rolled along the deserted neighborhood street, Flash turned
over in his mind every possible person who might have been responsible
for the vicious attack. Aside from members of the arson ring, Fred Orris
and Old Herm seemed the most likely suspects. The watchman had a perfect
alibi, so that left only the head photographer.
“There’s Luke Frowein of the _Globe_,” Flash mused. “He would enjoy
seeing me lose my job. But he couldn’t have known about the warehouse
affair.”
A light was burning in the Evans cottage as the bus drew up a short
distance away. Flash walked rapidly, realizing that his mother must be
waiting up for him.
Hearing his step on the front porch, she opened the door.
“You shouldn’t have waited up, Mother,” he protested.
“Jimmy!” she exclaimed in horror. “Your forehead! You’ve been in an
accident!”
“It’s nothing.”
Despite his protests, she hastened to the medicine cabinet for iodine
and adhesive tape. As she bathed and bandaged the wound, she drew from
Flash an account of what had occurred.
He ended by saying: “This was extra work I was doing tonight, so I’ll
not be fired. But I figure it’s bound to come before many weeks. Someone
is out to get my job!”
“I almost wish you would lose it,” Mrs. Evans shuddered. “Since you
started work at the _Ledger_, I’ve not had an easy moment. I’m so afraid
something dreadful will happen to you. If only you hadn’t become mixed
up in this arson affair!”
“I had a close call tonight,” Flash admitted. “But the same thing isn’t
likely to happen twice. What makes me sore is that by losing the
picture, I’ve fixed it so the real head of the arson gang never will be
captured.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not, but the result is the same. I muffed a wonderful opportunity
to round up those men, get a scoop for the _Ledger_, and at the same
time make a name for myself.”
“Things have been running against you,” his mother murmured
sympathetically, “but it can’t continue that way indefinitely.”
“It can, unless I do some tall thinking,” he replied grimly. “Someone in
the office has been after my job from the day I started work there!”
“You’re alluding to that man, Fred Orris?” his mother asked in a quiet
voice.
“I’ve heard he has someone in mind for my job. But I don’t know whom I
suspect. The thing has me completely baffled.”
“From what you’ve told me of Mr. Orris, it scarcely seems to me he would
be the type of man to resort to a brutal attack. If I were you, I should
be very careful about accusing anyone.”
“Oh, I know better than to do that,” Flash promised gravely. “But from
now on, I’m trusting no one! And I may think of some scheme to trap that
fellow, whoever he is!”