Though it was now more than four hours since the explosion occurred, there was still great excitement and activity about the hospital. Policemen and firemen were still stationed about the place. The dead and injured had been removed and the fire extinguished. But the building still smoked, and the air was heavy with that peculiarly offensive odor that comes from a burned building, combined with the noxious fumes from the burned X-ray films and chemicals that still persisted in the neighborhood. Coming to the scene so late, Jimmy and his comrade were at a great disadvantage. The dead and injured had been removed, the former to the county morgue, the latter to various hospitals within the city. Those people who had been present when the fire started were mostly gone. Policemen, firemen, doctors, and officials, nervously unstrung by the day’s tragedies and taxed by conflict with the surging crowds and by repeated interviews with newspaper men, were blunt, brusque, and often rude. Crowds thronged about the place and it was difficult to move. “We want to get hold of some of the people who saw the thing from the start and get statements from them,” said Handley. “Then we want to interview just as many doctors, nurses, patients, firemen, policemen, and others who were witnesses of the tragedy as we can get in touch with. We ought to have pictures of the interior of the wrecked building and the outside. And we should have some showing the work of rescue in progress. Maybe we can buy these latter pictures. You try for some photographs and I’ll get interviews. When you get your pictures, hunt me up. I’ll be somewhere about the place.” Jimmy thrust his police pass into his hatband and hurried toward the wrecked building. A policeman was guarding the entrance. Jimmy did not know whether the policeman would permit him to enter or not. A thought came to him. He stepped up to the bluecoat. “I’m told that you rescued more people than almost any other man on the force. I want your picture for tomorrow’s paper. Just step inside the reception room where I can get you without this crowd and let me snap a picture, won’t you please?” And Jimmy darted right on into the hospital. The policeman, with a self-conscious look on his face followed. Jimmy didn’t give him time to say a word. “Stand right over there, where the light’s good,” he said. And when the policeman hesitated, Jimmy took him by the arm and shoved him against the wall. Then he backed off and snapped a picture of him. “That’s fine,” said Jimmy, talking as fast as he could to prevent the policeman from saying anything, “but it doesn’t show what it should. This reception room is hardly damaged at all. I want you with a background that will show the danger you had to face. Some of the rooms upstairs are pretty well torn to pieces, aren’t they? I want a picture of you with that background. Come on.” And Jimmy scurried up a stairway.