“Film?” The jeweler looked blank. “What kind of film?”
“We don’t know,” James said. “We’re not even sure if that’s what it was, but that’s what it smells like.”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t know what was in the basket. It stands over there, beneath that desk.” He pointed to a writing shelf built against one wall, for the use of customers who wanted to fill out cards to enclose with gifts. “It’s usually almost empty, except for a couple of cards that have been blotted or spoiled, or maybe an empty cigarette package. I don’t know why anybody would have thrown film in it.”
“Film is inflammable stuff,” James pointed out. “Maybe somebody wanted to start a fire in here.”
“A pyromaniac?” Sam looked unbelieving.
James shook his head. “I was thinking of a crook—a man smart enough to start a fire, so that he could make off with a handful of rings, or watches, during the excitement. Have you checked your stock, Sam?”
Morris shook his head. “It didn’t occur to me. I had the basket out in the street in a couple of seconds, and then I came right back in. My clerks were here all the time.” He smiled wearily. “There wasn’t half as much excitement in the store as there was out in the street after the trucks arrived.”
“Where were you when the blaze started up?” James asked.
“Behind the partition—in the workroom.” Morris gestured toward the rear wall broken by a single door and a windowlike gap above a ledge. “I’d just finished putting in a watch crystal for the man who was here when you boys were in earlier,” he added to Sandy and Ken. “He’d been waiting for a few minutes and I was just handing him his watch through the window there when one of the customers yelled ‘Fire!’ I saw the smoke right away, and I ran out of the workroom through that door and carried the basket to the street.”
“You don’t know what merchandise was out on top of the counter at the time?”