“That ain’t so much trouble,” Benedict said.
“I’ve been holding out on the police.”
“Well, why not? You can’t go around blabbing all you know.”
She told him the whole story, and he listened carefully. “What do you want?” he asked when she had finished.
She said, “In the can receptacle for apartment five nineteen are the broken remnants of a whiskey bottle. I want that salvaged before the can collector gets it. I want to have it processed for fingerprints, and then I want the latent prints photographed and preserved so they can be used as evidence at any time.”
“What else do you want?”
“Your immoral support.”
Uncle Benedict sent his wheel chair gliding over to the telephone. He dialed a number, waited, then said, “George?”
He waited a moment, then gave the address of the apartment house where Stella Lynn had lived. “There’s a broken whiskey bottle in a galvanized receptacle in the back yard with the number five nineteen on the can. I want that broken bottle carefully preserved. Dust it for fingerprints. Fix any prints you find so they’ll stay there a long time. I also want ’em photographed. Now, you’d better have somebody with you to be a witness in case you’re called on to make an identification of that bottle. Your record ain’t so good... Who’s that?... Yes, he’ll be fine... If anybody says anything, flash a badge showing you’re a sanitary inspector, and make a kick about some of the regulations being broken... That’s right, get them on the defensive... Okay, let me know when you have it. Good-by.”
Uncle Benedict hung up and turned to Peggy. “That’s taken care of. If you should need anything else let me know.”
His eyelids drooped and his head nodded.
Peggy took elaborate precautions to see that no one was following her and then called for the pictures she had left for a rush job of developing and printing.
In the privacy of her apartment she studied the nine pictures and was utterly disappointed. One picture at the beach showed a handsome young man in tight bathing trunks. He had blond wavy hair, an attractive smile, and a magnificent physique, but he meant nothing to Peggy.
There was a shot of an automobile parked by the beach; two pictures of Stella Lynn in a bathing suit that would never have passed any censor anywhere at any time. The bathing suit had evidently been concocted by knotting three bandanas carefully arranged so that they showed all the curves of her figure. It was a suit that was not intended to have any contact with the water.
There was a picture showing the back of an automobile, with a young man lifting two suitcases from the trunk. A series of small cabins with garages showed in the background of this picture.
Peggy looked for the license number on the automobile. Unfortunately the man was standing so that he concealed all but the last three figures — 861.
Peggy studied a picture of a parked car with a stretch of beach in the background. Here again there was no opportunity to get any part of the license number. The car was shown sideways.
There was a picture of a picnic lunch spread out on the beach. The young man with the slender waist and square shoulders was seated cross-legged.
The telephone rang, and Peggy answered it.
Don Kimberly’s voice said, “Thank heaven I’ve caught you, Peggy.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I got up to the office this morning and learned that a police detective was looking for me. I thought, we should find out a little more about that letter before I talked with anyone, so I’ve been hiding out, but I didn’t want to hide out from you, and I didn’t want you to think that I’d left you to stand the gaff. I’ve been trying to get you all day.”
She felt a big surge of relief. “Oh, that’s fine, Don,” she said. “I’m glad you thought of me. Where are you now?”
“Right at the moment,” he said, “I’m at a pay telephone.”
She said, “I understand you’re quite a photographer.”
“I do quite a bit of photographic work, yes.”
“I have some films that I think should be... well, I think we should enlarge one or two of them.”
“Where did you get the films?”
She was silent.
Kimberly said, “Oh-oh, I get it.”
“How long will it take to do it?”
“How many are there?”
“Nine. But I think only two or three are important.”
“Nothing to it,” he said. “We could make enlargements just as big as you want, or pick out the part of the film you wanted enlarged, and then we could go out to dinner. By the time we got back, the enlargements would be dry and we could study them carefully.”
“Could you do all that yourself?”
“Sure. I’m all fixed up for it. I’ll come around and get you.”
“All right, but give me half an hour to shower and dress.”
“Thirty minutes on the dot, and I’ll be there,” he said.
Peggy hung up and dashed for the shower, experiencing a peculiar feeling of exultation that Don hadn’t left her to face the problems alone.
Don Kimberly showed Peggy around his apartment with a sense of pride, pointing out the framed photographs on the walls.
“You took all these?” she asked.
“All of them,” he said. “I like dramatic cloud effects. You can see from these pictures that I’ve gone in for thunderheads and storms over the ocean. Of course, you deliberately dramatize that stuff by overcorrecting with a red filter, but it gives you a sense of power, of the forces of nature.”
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “They’re... they’re believable. They’re true. They somehow symbolize life.”
“I’m glad you like them. — Want to see the darkroom now?”
“I’d love to.”
“Let’s take a look at those films, Peggy.”
She handed him the envelope. He brushed the prints aside and studied the negatives.
“Well,” he said, “the girl used an expensive camera.”
“How do you know without seeing it?”
“You can tell by the films,” he said. “The films are wire sharp. That means she had a coupled range finder and a high-grade lens. That’s why I like to look at negatives instead of prints. The negatives tell the story. Lots of times a cheaper lens will give you a warm black that makes the print seem all right, but the minute you start to blow it up it fuzzes out on you. We’ll make some enlargements right quick.”
“Where’s the darkroom?” she asked.
He laughed. “This is a bachelor apartment. There was a big pantry off the kitchen, a lot bigger than I needed, so I made it lightproof, installed running water, and fixed up a darkroom. Come on in and I’ll show you my workshop.”
He led the way into the darkroom and showed Peggy the two enlarging cameras. One of them used what he called “cold light,” and the other used condensers for sharpness of detail.
Kimberly poured chemicals into stainless-steel trays. “We’ll have these pictures enlarged in a jiffy. Why so thoughtful, Peggy?”
“Because I want to ask you something that’s probably none of my business.”
“What?”
“You know of Stella’s condition?”
“Yes.”
“Were you—” she asked, “that is — were you—”
“You mean am I the man in the case?”
“Yes.”
“No.” He was silent for a few moments. Then he added, “I’ve known Stella for years. She was working in a cafeteria when I first knew her. She was a good-natured, lovable kid. I saw her a few times. Then someone put me on a committee to pick the queen of some local festivities. There was a lineup of a lot of girls in bathing suits, and to my surprise I saw Stella Lynn in the lineup. I don’t think the fact that I knew her influenced my judgment. Anyway, I voted for her, and so did the other two judges. She was elected queen of the outfit. That was three years ago. She’s put on weight since then, but at that time — well, she bad a good figure.”