“I am not trifling with the court,” Hawley replied. “There can’t be any question about the time this snapshot was taken, your honor. If you will hold the negative up to the light, as I have done, you will see plainly that the hands of the clock in the tower of the city hall are pointing to three o’clock. Evidently the gentlemen responsible for this frame-up overlooked that small detail. If they had thought of it, it would have been easy for them to have touched up the negative a bit so as to have spoiled the face of that clock.”
The faces of Gale and Chief Hodgins had turned quite pale. Their pallor increased when Judge Wall examined the negative, and, in a tone of great astonishment, confirmed the defendant’s statement.
“The hands of the clock in this picture certainly are pointing to three o’clock,” his honor declared. “What does it mean, chief?”
“The clock must have been fast,” suggested Hodgins, in an agitated tone.
The judge glanced out of the courtroom window, from which the white clock tower of the city hall was visible. Then he consulted his watch, and the timepiece on the wall of the courtroom.
“The city-hall clock is not fast—it is exactly right!” he declared sharply. “Moreover, I have never heard of that clock being wrong. I don’t believe it has gained or lost a minute in ten years. I can’t understand this thing at all, chief.”
Judge Wall was a friend of Chief Hodgins and the other members of the political ring which the Bulletin was fighting. He was willing to do a lot to accommodate these men, but he emphatically drew the line at sending an innocent man to jail.
Therefore, when he had heard the Camera Chap’s story, he turned to Hodgins with a frown. “I am afraid I[Pg 43] shall have to throw this case out of court, chief,” he said. “There are several things about it which I don’t understand; but, in view of these—ahem—surprising developments, I am convinced that there is not sufficient evidence to justify me in convicting this young man. The prisoner is discharged.”
CHAPTER XIII.
GUERRILLA WARFARE.
“I suppose you are going to get after those fellows now and send them both to jail for conspiracy,” said Fred Carroll to Hawley, as he sat chatting in the Bulletin office half an hour after the Camera Chap’s triumphant departure from the police court. “You’ve certainly a strong case against them.”