“Right,” Ken said again, more firmly than ever. “Because, for one thing, the fire only lasts a second. And, for another, that man waiting for his watch crystal is standing right in front of the window, unconsciously protecting the box on the shelf inside. Sam told us he was there when it happened. Remember?”
“Oh, I remember all right,” Sandy admitted. “But the whole thing sounds like a hallucination, my friend. In the first place, why would anybody particularly want the box? Your father told us it wasn’t valuable—that he picked it up from the porter in the Rome office.”
“It’s an antique,” Ken pointed out.
“Sure. So is any old stone you can find in a field.”
“Look,” Ken said, “I don’t know why anybody wants the box. But it looks to me as if somebody does. I was right about somebody breaking into the house last night. You were right about the film in Sam’s wastebasket, which is certainly an odd place for film to be.”
Sandy stood up abruptly. “O.K.,” he said. “Maybe we can check that part of your nightmare, anyway. If somebody bought that film with the deliberate purpose of starting a fire, he probably got it in Schooley’s photo shop right across the street from Sam’s. Let’s go and find out.”
They grabbed their coats and started for the door. Ken picked up the box from Pop’s desk on the way.
“I think I’ll keep my hands on this—just in case,” he said.
The photographic supply shop was as crowded as Sam’s store had been. Several minutes went by before the boys could catch the attention of one of the clerks.
But finally one of them said, “Hi, Sandy. What is it today? Film or flash bulbs?”