“Same thing happened to me.”
Neither of them spoke then for some time. Sandy worked steadily. Finally he said, “Here, make yourself useful. Take these prints out of the hypo and set them washing in the sink. I’m just going to print up that picture of the fire and then I’ll call it a day.”
“Sure,” Ken agreed.
“Look at this,” Sandy said a few minutes later. He was holding up a wet eight-by-ten print and pointing to one corner of it with a dripping forefinger. “Take a look at that car,” he said, as Ken joined him. “The one parked right across the street from Sam’s store.”
“I’m looking,” Ken told him. “What am I supposed to see?”
“The man in it leaning out of the window to see what’s going on,” Sandy told him impatiently. “Isn’t he the one who was getting his watch crystal fixed?”
Ken bent closer. “Sure enough! Must have been caught in the traffic jam.” He took hold of Sandy’s wrist and held it so that light fell more clearly on the print. “Could you make the enlargement any bigger?”
“Sure. But why?”
“If we could read the license plate on that car maybe we could help Sam out after all.”
“That’s an idea. But we won’t need a print for that. I’ll just make a larger projection.” Sandy dropped the wet picture back into the tray, adjusted his enlarger to a bigger image, and turned on the light. “Now you can see the number,” he said, pointing to the tremendous image on the easel.