“Don’t cook up any more mysteries,” Bert had warned as he left.
“Mysteries!” Sandy made a face at his brother’s disappearing back. “Every time we ask a simple question we’re accused of stirring up trouble.”
Ken slipped a sheet of paper into his typewriter and twirled the roller. “We don’t do badly,” he said, smiling. “Maybe they’ve got some reason to suspect us.”
Sandy stared. “Whose side are you on, anyway? You were the one who started the whole business this morning.”
“Sure—sure. And I’m not satisfied about that business yet. But I guess maybe it was a little too much when we came tearing in with talk about an incendiary fire. Especially,” Ken added pointedly, “in view of something I remember you telling me a while ago.”
“What was that?” Sandy asked.
“You told me that modern camera film is called safety film because it does not go up in flames, fast—the way film used to do.”
“That’s right,” Sandy agreed. “It doesn’t.”
“Then why would anybody deliberately try to start a fire with film?” Ken asked.
Sandy smiled. “A really smart crook wouldn’t, maybe,” he admitted. “If he was somebody like you, for example, who had had the benefit of my educational conversation. But film used to be very inflammable, and it probably still has that reputation with a lot of people.”