“We can safely assume, too, that he would not have dared to employ a photographer to make the negatives. The nature of the plans would have forbidden that. It’s a hundred to one, too, as I have said, that he was not provided with a camera large enough to have been of any use in making photographs of the plans, though he might have taken that of the portfolio.”
“Gee! that’s right, too, chief,” put in Patsy, who had been listening attentively. “It was not in the crib where we recovered the plans, or we should have seen it. Chick and I searched the shack from cellar to attic. Besides, they must have been photographed by daylight, and Margate had the plans only one morning, when you come right down to it. We nailed the whole gang, you remember, soon after noon.”
“Those are the very points, Patsy, on which I base my suspicions,” Nick replied. “In so serious a matter as this, however, we must not bank on suspicions only. Aside from getting the photographs, if Margate really has them, we must put that thoroughbred rascal where he belongs.”
“Didn’t Garland see the photographs during his interview with Margate?” Chick questioned.
“He saw a batch of photographs and blue prints on a table, but was so unnerved by the threatening situation that he did not examine them, taking it for granted that they were what Margate stated.”
“The more fool he,” Chick said dryly.
“I suspect that the rascal would not have let him examine them, in case my suspicions are correct,” said Nick. “I suspect, too, that the big camera Garland saw in the room was brought there only to give color to Margate’s assertions.”
“By gracious, chief, if we could find out where he got it——”
“That’s the very point, Patsy,” Nick interrupted. “He may have bought it in some store, or hired it from some photographer. You must start out this morning and follow up that thread.”
“I’ve got you.”