Chapter XVII: A Bit of Strategy

There was no mistaking Dutch Louie’s place, for it was the only restaurant on the block; moreover, the name of the proprietor was emblazoned in white letters on a flaring red glass sign.

As Parsons had predicted, the place was wide open. Although it was nearly two a. m., and the State excise law forbids business of the kind after one o’clock, the two waiters were very busy serving drinks.

The Camera Chap walked through the front room, and entered the room beyond. He pretended to be under the influence of liquor--walked like a fellow who has all the sail he can carry. It had occurred to him that this pretense might help his game along, although he had not as yet hit upon any definite plan for the taking of the picture.

In a corner of this rear room several men were seated at a round table, playing cards. One of these players wore a blue coat with brass buttons, and his hair was the color of carrots. By these tokens, Hawley knew that he was in the presence of Patrolman Red Horgan.

The card players were not the only occupants of the room. A dozen men were scattered among the small round tables, sipping their beverages or gulping them down, and paying but scant attention to the pinochle game in progress in the corner.

They were, as Carroll had said, a rough-looking crowd. One had only to glance at their faces to realize that anybody who came into the place looking for trouble would not have to go out unsatisfied.

Hawley, spying an unoccupied table some yards away from the group of pinochle players, made his way toward it, still keeping up the pretense of being tipsy. He seated himself so that he faced the policeman and his cronies, and, summoning a waiter, ordered something. Nobody paid much attention to him. Patrolman Horgan’s gaze happened to wander in his direction, but the glance was merely a cursory one. The policeman was too busy “melding a hundred aces” to have much interest in the harmless-looking, apparently very “tired” young man who had just come in.

In another corner of the room was an automatic piano which was operated on a nickel-in-the-slot basis. Somebody dropped a coin into this machine, and it started to thrum a lively waltz strain.

This music--or near music--appeared to have a peculiar effect upon the Camera Chap. Although the tune was a rousing one, it evidently served as a lullaby in his case, for his eyelids began to droop, and his head rolled from side to side in a ludicrous manner. When the waiter came with what he had ordered, he was sprawled across the table, apparently fast asleep.

The waiter shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Here, young feller,” he growled, “here’s your drink. Wake up! This ain’t no lodging house. If you want to sleep, you’d better hire a room upstairs.”

The Camera Chap roused himself as though by a great effort, and stared stupidly at the glass which had been set before him. As soon as the waiter had gone, he lapsed once more into slumber.

“That fellow over there seems to be dead to the world,” remarked Patrolman Horgan, with a chuckle. “Must be worse than he looked when he came in. Whose deal is it now?”

Needless to say, Hawley was by no means as “dead to the world” as his appearance seemed to indicate. Seldom, in fact, had his brain been more active than it was at this minute. As he sprawled across the table, with his eyes closed, and his head resting on his outstretched arms, he was summoning all his ingenuity in an effort to solve the perplexing problem which confronted him.

“Everything is dead easy except the firing of the flash-light powder,” he mused. “I can get a dandy focus from here without moving an inch, and, with my camera held beneath the table, Red Horgan wouldn’t even suspect that his picture had been taken--if it weren’t for that telltale flash. That’s the great difficulty. How the deuce am I going to fire the flash and get away with it?”

And then an inspiration came to him, and he began to groan. Usually he was not in the habit of groaning when he had an inspiration, but he had a good reason for doing so now. It was part of the plan which had just suggested itself to his resourceful mind. So he proceeded to groan loud enough to be heard by the group of pinochle players in the corner.

The waiter, hearing these sounds of anguish, once more stepped up to him, and shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Hey, young feller, brace up!” he growled. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you sick, or is it just an ordinary jag?”

Hawley sat up, and clapped both hands to his head, one to each temple. The waiter and the others whose attention had been attracted by his groans could see that his face was distorted as though with great pain.

“Oh, my poor head!” groaned the Camera Chap. “It feels as though it would split in two. For the love of Pete, friend, if there’s any bromo seltzer in the house, bring me some in a hurry.”

“Sure, we keep it,” said the man. “Just keep quiet a minute, young feller, and I’ll fix up a dose.”

The Camera Chap was not surprised to hear that the drug was procurable in Dutch Louie’s place, for he had noticed a sign on the wall as he came in, announcing that it was on sale.

“Never mind about fixing it up,” he said to the waiter. “Just bring me the bottle, a glass, and some water. I’ll do the mixing myself.”

Patrolman Horgan beckoned to the waiter as the latter was going out to fill the order.

“What’s the matter with that guy over there, Harry?” he inquired.

“Oh, nothin’ serious; just a headache.”

“Is that all?” said the patrolman, in a disgusted tone. “From the way he was groaning just now, I thought he was dyin’. Come on, fellers; it’s my meld.”

When the waiter returned with a tray containing a small blue bottle, an empty glass, and a second glass filled with water, Hawley had an unlighted cigar between his teeth, but no one seemed to think it odd for a sick man to indulge in tobacco.

The Camera Chap was not in the habit of smoking cigars, but he always carried a couple in his vest pocket, and he had reasons of his own for transferring this one from his pocket to his mouth.

He took the bottle of bromo seltzer, and emptied some of the white powder into the empty glass. Then he turned to the waiter.

“On second thought, I guess I’ll mix it with vichy instead of plain water,” he said; “I like it better that way.”

The waiter shrugged his shoulders, and went out to get a siphon of vichy. As soon as he had gone, the Camera Chap became very busy, but unobtrusively so.

His left hand stole into the side pocket of his coat, and when it came out again the closed fist held a quantity of silvery powder. He poised this hand over the glass containing the bromo seltzer, and the silvery powder fell on top of the white powder.

Then his right hand went into his coat pocket, and he stealthily drew out a small pocket camera, which he held beneath the table.

When he had done these things, he gazed anxiously around the room, apprehensive that his actions might have been observed; but, to his great relief, he found that nobody was paying any attention to him.

Then, as he saw the waiter approaching with the siphon of vichy in his hand, Hawley struck a match, held the flame for a moment to the cigar in his mouth, then threw the match away.

Apparently he was careless, for the match, still alight, instead of falling to the floor, dropped into the glass of bromo seltzer in front of him.

Instantly there was a blinding flash which momentarily illuminated the entire room, and a dull explosion. The siphon of seltzer fell from the startled bartender’s hand; several men gave vent to shouts of alarm; chairs and tables went crashing to the floor.

Patrolman Horgan jumped excitedly to his feet, and advanced toward the Camera Chap, who still sat at the table, surrounded by a haze of smoke which was slowly lifting toward the ceiling.

“Great guns! What was that?” the policeman demanded.

Hawley, his face a picture of bewilderment, pointed to the bartender.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” he said indignantly. “What was it? Maybe this man can tell us. I asked for bromo seltzer.”

“It was marked bromo seltzer on the bottle,” the astonished waiter declared. “And I took it from the regular stock.”

He turned to the Camera Chap with sudden suspicion. “But what did you throw that lighted match into it for, anyway, young feller? That was a queer thing to do.”

“The match dropped in,” Hawley explained. “Didn’t you see that I was lighting my cigar? But this is the first time I’ve ever heard of bromo seltzer being an explosive. Mighty queer it should go off like that. It’s a mercy somebody wasn’t killed.”

“Oh, I guess the stuff ain’t dangerous,” remarked Patrolman Horgan, glancing around the room. “Nobody is even hurted, so there’s nothing to get excited about. Let this be a lesson to you, young feller, to be more careful in future where you throw lighted matches.”

“I certainly shall,” the Camera Chap assured him meekly.

“I thought at first it was somebody takin’ one of them flash-light pictures,” said Patrolman Horgan. “It looked something like the kind of light them camera people use.”

Hawley nodded. “Yes, it did look a little like that, didn’t it?” he agreed. “I once saw a man take a flash-light picture, and, now that you speak of it, there was some resemblance.”

A few minutes later Fred Carroll, pacing nervously up and down the sidewalk outside Dutch Louie’s place, was astonished and much relieved to see the Camera Chap step out of the doorway, a smile on his face, and with no signs of having sustained bodily injuries.

“Thank goodness, you’ve come at last!” the proprietor of the _Bulletin_ exclaimed. “I was just thinking of coming in for you. I heard the flash go off a few minutes ago, and things were so uncannily quiet afterward that I was beginning to be afraid they had killed you. What on earth happened?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when we’re in the car,” chuckled Hawley, hurrying toward the corner where the automobile waited. “I don’t think there’s any danger now, but just the same we might as well get away from here as soon as possible. I don’t believe in taking any unnecessary chances.”

Parsons, who was seated at the wheel of the motor car, uttered an ejaculation of joy when he caught sight of the Camera Chap.

“You don’t mean to say that you actually got the picture?” he exclaimed incredulously, as the latter climbed aboard.

Hawley grinned. “I got something,” he said; “but I can’t guarantee that the result will be good. I had to manipulate my camera with one hand, and I had to guess the focus. Under those conditions, the chances are against the negative turning out all right. But it was the best I could do under the circumstances.”

“How on earth did you do it?” Carroll inquired. “I can’t imagine how you got off so easily. Do you mean to say that bunch didn’t jump on you when you set off the flash?”

“Not at all,” replied the Camera Chap, with a laugh. “They were very nice about it. There wasn’t any rough-house at all, Fred. The last I saw of those fellows they were making a scientific experiment.”

“A scientific experiment?” Carroll repeated, with a puzzled frown.

“Exactly,” Hawley chuckled. “They were all gathered around the waiter like students in a chemistry class. And what do you suppose that waiter was doing, Fred?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“He had several bottles of bromo seltzer on the table before him, and he was uncorking each one, and dropping a lighted match into it to see if he couldn’t make it go off like a flash-light powder.”