“Mind if I go along?” asked Sergeant Gray. “I’d like to look at ’em again. I want to remember how they look all the rest of my life.”
Joe nodded, and Sergeant Gray led the way to the studio. In a corner, roped tightly to a chair, sat Booth, Photographer. He was bleeding profusely from a cut on the lip and another over the eye, his head was bobbing weakly on his shoulders, and he wore, to be exact, one union suit minus two buttons on the chest and held together by a safety pin.
Joe stumbling over the Indian blanket heard it groan beneath him, and uncovered a stout gentleman in a cutaway coat and with his collar torn off.
“Pretty good, eh?” demanded Sergeant Gray. “Sorry about the collar, though. Booth’s is too small for me.”
“Want an ambulance?” inquired the elevator man with unholy joy in his eyes.
“Yes. Better have one.” And to the wreckage: “You gentlemen will be all right,” said Joe. “How’d this happen, anyhow?”
“I’ll tell you,” volunteered the sergeant. “They’re spies, that’s what they are. German spies. D’you get it? And I——”
“Aw, shut up!” said the first roundsman, wearily. “Take him along, Joe. Now, how d’you feel, Mr. Booth?”
“But I tell you——”
“You don’t tell me anything. You go. That’s all.”