"Everyone will please remain seated and calm," he said to the others.
"Calm be damned!" Blackburn answered. "This one has a punch in the nose coming—and where the devil's my camera?"
"Should have told me you were going to take pictures," Pendelton said, gingerly handing it over. "Would have saved us a lot of trouble. And if you're interested in facts it wasn't me that snatched it, it was a law student. I guess he figured it might have some legal use. There's some interesting footage in it starring Chaplain Rowan and a disturbing young creature named Ethel." He tossed a yellow box on the desk. "You see chaplain, I'm not anti-clerical after all."
Rowan's eyes flicked from Pendelton to the box and back again. "That's the film?" he said.
Pendelton nodded.
Shaheen wet his lips. "You develop it?" he said.
"Yep."
"He's playing with us," Freylinghuysen said. "Well, I can't say I blame him. After all, how many times in a man's life does he get a scoop like this? Look," he said, turning to Pendelton, "there seems to have been some disagreement about what happened on the Mall this morning. We've got eyewitnesses proving anything you want. You've seen the film, maybe you'd like to tell us." He thumbed the desk top, trying to think of a decorous way to phrase it. "Oh hell, is He or isn't He?"
Pendelton pursed his lips and thought a moment.
"I'm not in a position to say at this time," he said.