“What’s up?” Sandy asked, when Ken hung up the receiver a moment later.
“Sam Morris wanted to know if that man with the broken watch crystal was a friend of ours,” Ken reported. “He remembered seeing us talk to him.”
“Why?” Sandy asked, his voice preoccupied. He was using a magnifier to focus the image being projected on his enlarger easel.
“The man had just given Sam a twenty-dollar bill to pay for his crystal when the fire started,” Ken explained. “Sam stuffed the bill in his pocket as he ran out to pick up the wastebasket, and when he came back later to give him his change the man had disappeared. Sam thought he could send him his change if we knew who he was.”
“Nobody else but Sam would worry that much about it,” Sandy said. “Anybody else would figure that if the man wanted his change he’d come back for it—or remember it in the first place.”
“I know.” Ken dropped into a chair. “But the man said he was just passing through Brentwood, remember? Maybe by the time he realized he’d forgotten his change he was too far away to come back, and not knowing Sam’s last name couldn’t call him up. Anyway, that’s how Sam thinks it was.
“Wish we could have helped him out,” he went on after a minute. “For the man’s sake as well as Sam’s. I still think Mom would be out one jewel box if he hadn’t been standing at that window when the fire happened.”
“You can’t prove that by what happened last night.” Sandy grinned as he rocked a tray gently.
“How right you are. Especially,” Ken admitted, “since I stayed awake until daylight and can practically swear nobody tried to get in the house all night.”
“Were you awake too?” Sandy grinned again. “So was I—and without even trying. Every time I got sleepy Bert’s face seemed to rise up before me and—”