“Mullins!” he roared. Mullins was on the spot with somewhat suspicious alacrity. “Get the almanac, Mullins, and look up Time of High Water at London Bridge to-day!” He himself flopped down behind the telephone to ring up the cab-office in Bolton Street. But it takes time even for a Eugene Thrush to consume all but three large whiskies and sodas; and the afternoon was already far advanced. CHAPTER XXII. THE SECRET OF THE CAMERA The camera had been placed upon a folded newspaper, for the better preservation of the hotel table-cloth. Its apertures were still choked with mud; beads of slime kept breaking out along the joints. And Phillida was still explaining to Pocket how the thing had come into her possession. “The rain was the greatest piece of luck, though another big slice was an iron gangway to the foreshore about a hundred yards up-stream. It was coming down so hard at the time that I couldn’t see another creature out in it except myself. I don’t believe a single soul saw me run down that gangway and up again; but I dropped my purse over first for an excuse if anybody did. I popped the camera under my waterproof, and carried it up to the King’s Road before I could get a cab. But I never expected to find you awake and about again; next to the rain that’s the best luck of all!” “Why?” “Because you know all about photography and I don’t. Suppose he took a last photograph, and suppose that led directly to the murder!” “That’s an idea.” “The man threw the camera into the river, but the plate would be in it still, and you could develop it!” The ingenious hypothesis had appealed to the eager credulity of the boy; but at the final proposition he shook a reluctant head. “I’m afraid there’s not much chance of there being anything to develop; the slide’s been open all this time, you see.” “I know. I tried to shut it, but the wood must have swollen in the water. Yet the more it has swollen, the better it ought to keep out the light, oughtn’t it?” “I’m afraid there isn’t a dog’s chance,” he murmured, as he handled the camera again. Yet it was not of the folding-bellows variety, but was one of the earlier and stronger models in box form, and it had come through its ordeal wonderfully on the whole. Nothing was absolutely broken; but the swollen slide jammed obstinately, until in trying to shut it by main force, Pocket lost his grip of the slimy apparatus, and sent it flying to the floor, all but the slide which came out bodily in his hand. “That settles it,” remarked Phillida, resignedly. The exposed plate stared them in the face, a sickly yellow in the broad daylight. It was cracked across the middle, but almost dry and otherwise uninjured.