At the laboratory he threw off his coat and prepared to plunge into work with various mysterious pans of chemicals, baths, jars, and beakers.
"What is it?" asked Carton, as Kennedy carefully took out the dark leather box, shielding it from the glare of a mercury vapour light.
"A camera with a newly-invented electrically operated between-lens shutter of great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always been practically impossible to get such pictures as I wanted, but this new shutter has so much greater speed than anything else ever invented before, that it is possible to use it in this sort of detective work. I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It may or may not have worked, but if it has we've caught someone, right in the act."
Kennedy had a "studio" of his own which was quite equal to the emergency of developing the two pictures which he had taken with the new camera.
Late as it was, we waited for him to finish, just as we would have waited down in the Star office if one of our staff photographers had come in with something important.
At last Kennedy emerged from his workshop. As he did so, he slapped down two untoned prints.
Both were necessarily indistinct owing to the conditions under which they had had to be taken. But they were quite sufficient for the purpose.
As Carton bent over the second one, which showed Kahn in the very act of handing over a roll of bills to the rather anemic man whom his runner had brought to him, Carton addressed the photograph as if it had been Kahn himself.
"I have you at last," he cried. "This is the end of your secret ring of jury fixers. I think that will about settle the case of Kahn, if not of Dopey Jack, when we get ready to spring it. Kennedy, make another set of prints and let me lock them in a safe deposit vault. That's as precious to me as if it were the Black Book itself!"
Craig laughed. "Not such a bad evening's work, after all," he remarked, clearing things up. "Do you realize what time it is?"