[Illustration]
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—”
[Illustration:
“‘Think a minute,’ said the superintendent.”
]
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!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------