“No, that isn’t what I was going to say,” Rebecca said. “I’m quite capable of doing my own talking, thank you, Florence.”
“What were you going to say, Miss Gentrie?”
“Simply that those films might not have been fogged during the daytime by the police, but might have been fogged the night before by someone who struck a match. I found a burnt match stub on the floor of my darkroom. I thought at the time one of the officers had lit a cigarette, but I’m just wondering now if it mightn’t have been someone who was looking for something in my darkroom and struck a match. Lots and lots of people don’t realize that striking a match in a darkroom is just the same as turning on a light. It can cause just as much damage as though you’d switched on an electric light.”
Tragg said, “That’s very interesting. You keep a pretty fair stock of materials in your darkroom, Miss Gentrie?”
“Well, no, I don’t. I don’t have the money to buy them.”
“It’s rather an expensive pastime,” Mrs. Gentrie said.
“Well, you don’t need to talk. It pays its own way.”
“You do work for others?”
Rebecca said, “Occasionally.”
“A few of the neighbors,” Mrs. Gentrie supplemented.