第102章

"Now, this is what happened.A picture was taken of Cadwalader Brown's automobile, probably at rest, with Brown in it.The matter of faking Travis or any one else by his side is simple.If with an enlarging lantern the image of this faked picture is thrown on the paper like a lantern slide, and if the right hand side is a little further away than the left, the top further away than the bottom, you can print a fraudulent high speed ahead picture.True, everything else in the picture, even if motionless, is distorted, and the difference between this faking and the distortion of the shutter can be seen by an expert.But it will pass.In this case, however, the faker was so sure of that that he was careless.

Instead of getting the plate further from the paper on the right he did so on the left.It was further away on the bottom than on the top.He got distortion all right, enough still to satisfy the uninitiated.But it was distortion in the wrong way! The top of the wheel, which goes fastest and ought to be most indistinct, is, in the fake, as sharp as any other part.It is a small mistake, but fatal.That picture is really at high speed - backwards!

It is too raw, too raw."

"You don't think people are going to swallow all that stuff, do you?" asked Hanford coolly, in spite of the exposures.

Kennedy paid no attention.He was looking at McLoughlin.The Boss was regarding him surlily."Well," he said at length, "what of all this? I had nothing to do with it.Why do you come to me? Take it to the proper parties.""Shall I?" asked Kennedy quietly.

He had uncovered another picture carefully.We could not see it, but as he looked at it McLoughlin fairly staggered.

"Wh - where did you get that?" he gasped.

"I got it where I got it, and it is no fake," replied Kennedy enigmatically.Then he appeared to think better of it."This,"he explained, "is what is known as a pinhole photograph.Three hundred years ago della Porta knew the camera obscura, and but for the lack of a sensitive plate would have made photographs.A box, thoroughly light-tight, slotted inside to receive plates, covered with black, and glued tight, a needle hole made by a number 10needle in a thin sheet of paper and you have the apparatus for lensless photography.It has a correctness such as no image-forming means by lenses can have.It is literally rectigraphic, rectilinear, it needs no focussing, and it takes a wide angle with equal effect.Even pinhole snapshots are possible where the light is abundant, with a ten to fifteen second exposure.

"That picture, McLoughlin, was taken yesterday at Hanford's.After Miss Ashton left I saw who came out, but this picture shows what happened before.At a critical moment Miss Ashton stuck a needle in the wall of the studio, counted fifteen closed the needle-hole, and there is the record Walter, Hanford, - leave us alone an instant."When Kennedy passed out of the Boss's office there was a look of quiet satisfaction on his face which I could not fathom.Not a word could I extract from him either that night or on the following day, which was the last before the election.I must say that I was keenly disappointed by the lack of developments, however.The whole thing seemed to me to be a mess.Everybody was involved.What had Miss Ashton overheard and what had Kennedy said to McLoughlin? Above all, what was his game? Was he playing to spare the girl's feelings by allowing the election to go on without a scandal for Travis?

At last election night arrived.We were all at the Travis headquarters, Kennedy, Travis, Bennett, and myself.Miss Ashton was not present, but the first returns had scarcely begun to trickle in when Craig whispered to me to go out and find her, either at her home or club.I found her at home.She had apparently lost interest in the election, and it was with difficulty that I persuaded her to accompany me.

The excitement of any other night in the year paled to insignificance before this.Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing horns.Now a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass of people before a newspaper bulletin board.Now came sullen groans, hisses, and catcalls, or all together with cheers as the returns swung in another direction.Not even baseball could call out such a crowd as this.Lights blazed everywhere.Automobiles honked and ground their gears.The lobster palaces were thronged.Police were everywhere.People with horns and bells and all manner of noise-making devices pushed up one side of the thoroughfares and down the other.Hungrily, ravenously they were feeding or the meagre bulletins of news.

Yet back of all the noise and human energy I could only think of the silent, systematic gathering and editing of the news.High up in the League headquarters, when we returned, a corps of clerks was tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official reports.

As first the state swung one way, then another, our hopes rose and fell.Miss Ashton seemed cold and ill at ease, while Travis looked more worried and paid less attention to the returns than would have seemed natural.She avoided him and he seemed to hesitate to seek her out.

Would the up-state returns, I had wondered at first, be large enough to overcome the hostile city vote? I was amazed now to see how strongly the city was turning to Travis.

"McLoughlin has kept his word," ejaculated Kennedy as district after district showed that the Boss's pluralities were being seriously cut into."His word? What do you mean?" we asked almost together.