“You are right, Edith,” said the Doctor. “There are flames in several more of the windows here than in the other plates. And I can see faint outlines of the building here and there—and what looks like a stream of water, lighted up by the fire, in another place.”
“And so we have something after all!” Allan said, jubilantly.
The third plate displayed the fire at its worst, when the flames broke through the roof, and they were all watching the growth of the image under the soft swish of the developer when a sharp rap sounded on the stable door at the foot of the stairs.
“A call, uncle,” said Edith, resentfully. “They always want you when we want you, don’t they?”
The Doctor went to the door, and he could be heard talking in a low tone for some moments. Then he said, “Good night!” and came up again quickly.
“Didn’t you have to go?” asked Edith.
“Here’s something extraordinary, Allan!” the Doctor exclaimed; “the factory company wants your negatives!”
“My negatives!” Allan looked amazed.
“The fire pictures?” asked McConnell, staring at the Doctor.
“Yes. The superintendent has just told me that there is a possibility that the fire was started by an incendiary. But there is another question—in fact, they are both bound up together. It appears that those cans we saw them taking out contained naphtha, and that the naphtha was there without special permission from the insurance people. But the factory people say the fire started at some distance from the naphtha, and they have the evidence of eye-witnesses that it did start there. Moreover, they rescued every can containing naphtha. The cans were untouched and intact. Yet there will be a controversy, and the factory people, having heard that photographs of the fire were taken, the superintendent thinks they might be first-class corroborative evidence that the fire started on the east side of the wing, the side opposite the storage place of the naphtha,—would head off any trouble with the insurance people.”