Before she could go for help, he sat up, staring at her in a bewildered manner. Penny assisted him to a chair, and dampening a handkerchief with water from the tap above the developer trays, applied it to his forehead.
“What happened?” she inquired anxiously when Salt seemed able to speak.
“Slugged,” he answered in disgust.
“By whom?”
“Don’t know. The fellow must have been in the darkroom when I came here to develop my films. Fact is, I thought I heard someone moving around. I stepped to the door to see, and bing! That’s the last I knew.”
“Has anything been taken, I wonder?” Switching on another light, Penny glanced over the room. The drawer of a filing cabinet where old films, and plates were kept, remained open.
“Someone may have been looking in there!” she commented. “Salt, whoever he is, he must be searching for a film he is afraid we’ll publish in the paper.”
“Maybe so,” Salt agreed, holding a hand to his throbbing forehead. “But I don’t know of any picture we have that would damage anyone.”
Penny stepped to the doorway of the darkroom. In the larger room, the skylight remained closed. It was impossible to tell if anyone had entered the building in that way.
Some distance down the hall was a seldom-used stairway which led to the roof. Finding a door opening into it, Penny climbed the steps to look about. The rooftop was deserted, but in the building directly across from the Star, a corridor window remained open.