Fred Orris stooped to pick up the broken pieces of glass from the floor. Those who stood in a circle about the watchman were staring at him with a new expression.
“Herm, I’m afraid breaking the plate won’t get you out of this,” the head photographer said coolly. “Your guilt is fairly well established in the minds of every person in this room.”
“Why did you do it, Herm?” asked Flash.
“I didn’t! It ain’t fair to try to make me lose my job.”
“You’ll be lucky if you don’t spend your declining days in jail,” Orris said sharply. “It’s a serious business, tampering with pictures, not to mention striking a man with a blackjack.”
“Herm,” spoke Flash persuasively, “I’m not particularly interested in seeing you turned over to the police. Maybe if you tell us what you did with my fire picture we’ll let you go? Did you destroy it?”
“I don’t know anything about your picture,” the watchman insisted sullenly. “I already proved to the police I wasn’t in this here part of the building at the time it was stole!”
“You were punching the time clock on the sixth floor?” recalled Flash.
“That’s right. I wouldn’t have had time to get down here even if I had been a-mind to do such a thing!”
“Suppose we see what Jeff has to say about it?”