“I certainly do, John,” Gale replied. “There isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that those pictures were taken for the Bulletin, and will be prominently displayed on the front page of that disreputable sheet to-morrow morning. And I shouldn’t be surprised,” he added sagaciously, “to find other pictures there, too. You can depend upon it, John, that you and Debbs weren’t the only cops those chaps caught napping last night. The fact that they hired an automobile indicates that they were out for a big killing.”
“The scoundrels!” growled Officer Hicks. “Surely, Mr. Gale, we can do something to prevent them from printing our pictures in their newspaper? Ain’t there any way of stopping them?”
A malicious glint came to Gale’s eyes. “Probably there is, John,” he said. “We must see what we can do. Perhaps it will be possible not only to prevent them from publishing the pictures, but to put them in jail, besides, for violating the new anticamera law.”
As he finished speaking, his gaze lighted on a boy who was walking on the opposite side of the street.
“Seems to me I know that kid,” said Gale. “He’s employed in the Bulletin office. My father pointed him out to me on the street the other day as Carroll’s office boy.”
Then his face suddenly lighted up as an idea came to him.
“Excuse me for a few minutes, John,” he said to the policeman. “I’m going to have a talk with our young friend across the way. I’ve got a sort of hunch that he may be able to help us.”
CHAPTER XXI.
TEMPTED.
“Pardon me, sir, but may I take the liberty of asking you if you are not a newspaper man?” said Gale, addressing Editor Carroll’s office boy.
Master Charles Miggles, better known in the Bulletin office as “Miggsy,” regarded the speaker with some suspicion. Miggsy was only fourteen years old, and not in the habit of being addressed as “sir.” To be looked upon[Pg 42] as a newspaper man was also a brand-new experience for him. He had never dared to consider that his job as office boy in the Bulletin office entitled him to that classification.