Mason said, “I have another idea, Paul. The nurse had a camera. She was taking snapshots of a couple of steamers we met.”
“Well?” Drake asked.
“Well,” Mason said, “she got in early yesterday morning. They didn’t pull out until early yesterday afternoon. She had some films with her. There’s a chance she left those films to be developed and printed down at the photographer’s place.”
“Not if she’d been going away, she wouldn’t,” Drake pointed out.
“No,” Mason told him, “but suppose she didn’t know she was leaving? Suppose she thought she was going to stay there in the flat? She’d have taken the films down the first thing. Then, if she’d been called away, she’d have left some word as to when she’d be back for the films or left a forwarding address, or there may be something in the pictures she took which will give us a line on what we want.”
Drake said, “You’re playing with dynamite on this thing, Perry.”
“I know I am.”
“And,” Drake persisted, “it’s something you can’t afford to be mixed up in. Perry. We’ll send the operative in to pick up the films, and if there’s a squawk about it he can take the rap and—”
“Nothing doing,” Mason interrupted. “I won’t ask a man to take any chances I won’t take myself. Drive over there and park. I’m going in and see what I can find out.”
It had started to drizzle again by the time Mason walked down half a dozen steps from the street into a little cement are away. He pushed open the door of the picture shop. A bell tinkled in a back room, and a woman in the late forties, wearing a blue smock, came through a curtained doorway to regard the lawyer with lackluster black eyes.