He wrote, with trembling fingers, before he put the camera into position and pressed the shutter-control for the second time.
When his eyes recovered from the flash, there was nothing on the desk.
He did not sleep at all that night, nor did he work the next day. He went to a photographer with the film and paid an extravagant fee to have the film developed and enlarged at once. He got back two prints, quite distinct. Even very clear, considering everything. One looked like a trick shot, showing a door twice, once open and once closed, in the same photograph. The other was a picture of an open book and he could read every word on its pages. It was inconceivable that such a picture should have come out.
He walked around practically at random for a couple of hours, looking at the pictures from time to time. Pictures or no pictures, the thing was nonsense. The facts were preposterous. It must be that he only imagined seeing these prints. But there was a quick way to find out.
He went to Haynes. Haynes was his friend and reluctantly a lawyer—reluctantly because law practice interfered with a large number of unlikely hobbies.
"Haynes," said Jimmy quietly, "I want you to look at a couple of pictures and see if you see what I do. I may have gone out of my head."
He passed over the picture of the door. It looked to Jimmy like two doors, nearly at right angles, in the same door-frame and hung from the same hinges.
Haynes looked at it and said tolerantly, "Didn't know you went in for trick photography." He picked up a reading glass and examined it in detail. "A futile but highly competent job. You covered half the film and exposed with the door closed, and then exposed for the other half of the film with the door open. A neat job of matching, though. You've a good tripod."
"I held the camera in my hand," said Jimmy, with restraint.