one summer i was attacked by the craze for amateur photography. it became chronic afterwards, and i and my camera have never since been parted. we have had some odd adventures together, and one of the most novel of our experiences was that in which we played the part of chief witness against ned brooke.
i may say that my name is amy clarke, and that i believe i am considered the best amateur photographer in our part of the country. that is all i need tell you about myself.
mr. carroll had asked me to photograph his place for him when the apple orchards were in bloom. he has a picturesque old-fashioned country house behind a lawn of the most delightful old trees and flanked on each side by the orchards. so i went one june afternoon, with all my accoutrements, prepared to "take" the carroll establishment in my best style.
mr. carroll was away but was expected home soon, so we waited for him, as all the family wished to be photographed under the big maple at the front door. i prowled around among the shrubbery at the lower end of the lawn and, after a great deal of squinting from various angles, i at last fixed upon the spot from which i thought the best view of the house might be obtained. then gertie and lilian carroll and i got into the hammocks and swung at our leisure, enjoying the cool breeze sweeping through the maples.
ned brooke was hanging around as usual, watching us furtively. ned was one of the hopeful members of a family that lived in a tumble-down shanty just across the road from the carrolls. they were wretchedly poor, and old brooke, as he was called, and ned were employed a good deal by mr. carroll—more out of charity than anything else, i fancy.
the brookes had a rather shady reputation. they were notoriously lazy, and it was suspected that their line of distinction between their own and their neighbours' goods was not very clearly drawn. many people censured mr. carroll for encouraging them at all, but he was too kind-hearted to let them suffer actual want and, as a consequence, one or the other of them was always dodging about his place.
ned was a lank, tow-headed youth of about fourteen, with shifty, twinkling eyes that could never look you straight in the face. his appearance was anything but prepossessing, and i always felt, when i looked at him, that if anyone wanted to do a piece of shady work by proxy, ned brooke would be the very lad for the business.
mr. carroll came at last, and we all went down to meet him at the gate. ned brooke also came shuffling along to take the horse, and mr. carroll tossed the reins to him and at the same time handed a pocketbook to his wife.
"just as well to be careful where you put that," he said laughingly. "there's a sum in it not to be picked up on every gooseberry bush. gilman harris paid me this morning for that bit of woodland i sold him last fall—five hundred dollars. i promised that you and the girls should have it to get a new piano, so there it is for you."
"thank you," said mrs. carroll delightedly. "however, you'd better put it back in your pocket till we go in. amy is in a hurry."
mr. carroll took back the pocketbook and dropped it carelessly into the inside pocket of the light overcoat that he wore.
i happened to glance at ned brooke just then, and i could not help noticing the sudden crafty, eager expression that flashed over his face. he eyed the pocketbook in mr. carroll's hands furtively, after which he went off with the horse in a great hurry.
the girls were exclaiming and thanking their father, and nobody noticed ned brooke's behaviour but myself, and it soon passed out of my mind.
"come to take the place, are you, amy?" said mr. carroll. "well, everything is ready, i think. i suppose we'd better proceed. where shall we stand? you had better group us as you think best."
whereupon i proceeded to arrange them in due order under the maple. mrs. carroll sat in a chair, while her husband stood behind her. gertie stood on the steps with a basket of flowers in her hand, and lilian was at one side. the two little boys, teddy and jack, climbed up into the maple, and little dora, the dimpled six-year-old, stood gravely in the foreground with an enormous grey cat hugged in her chubby arms.
it was a pretty group in a pretty setting, and i thrilled with professional pride as i stepped back for a final, knowing squint at it all. then i went to my camera, slipped in the plate, gave them due warning and took off the cap.
i took two plates to make sure and then the thing was over, but as i had another plate left i thought i might as well take a view of the house by itself, so i carried my camera to a new place and had just got everything ready to lift the cap when mr. carroll came down and said:
"if you girls want to see something pretty, come to the back field with me. that will wait till you come back, won't it, amy?"
so we all betook ourselves to the back field, a short distance away, where mr. carroll proudly displayed two of the prettiest little jersey cows i had ever seen.
we returned to the house by way of the back lane and, as we came in sight of the main road, my brother cecil drove up and said that if i were ready, i had better go home with him and save myself a hot, dusty walk.
the carrolls all went down to the fence to speak to cecil, but i dashed hurriedly down through the orchard, leaped over the fence into the lawn and ran to the somewhat remote corner where i had left my camera. i was in a desperate hurry, for i knew cecil's horse did not like to be kept waiting, so i never even glanced at the house, but snatched off the cap, counted two and replaced it.
then i took out my plate, put it in the holder and gathered up my traps. i suppose i was about five minutes at it all and i had my back to the house the whole time, and when i laid all my things ready and emerged from my retreat, there was nobody to be seen about the place.
as i hurried up through the lawn, i noticed ned brooke walking at a smart pace down the lane, but the fact did not make any particular impression on me at the time, and was not recalled until afterwards.
cecil was waiting for me, so i got in the buggy and we drove off. on arriving home i shut myself up in my dark room and proceeded to develop the first two negatives of the carroll housestead. they were both excellent, the first one being a trifle the better, so that i decided to finish from it. i intended also to develop the third, but just as i finished the others, a half-dozen city cousins swooped down upon us and i had to put away my paraphernalia, emerge from my dark retreat and fly around to entertain them.
the next day cecil came in and said:
"did you hear, amy, that mr. carroll has lost a pocketbook with five hundred dollars in it?"
"no!" i exclaimed. "how? when? where?"
"don't overwhelm a fellow. i can answer only one question—last night. as to the 'how,' they don't know, and as to the 'where'—well, if they knew that, there might be some hope of finding it. the girls are in a bad way. the money was to get them their longed-for piano, it seems, and now it's gone."
"but how did it happen, cecil?"
"well, mr. carroll says that mrs. carroll handed the pocketbook back to him at the gate yesterday, and he dropped it in the inside pocket of his over-coat—"
"i saw him do it," i cried.
"yes, and then, before he went to be photographed, he hung his coat up in the hall. it hung there until the evening, and nobody seems to have thought about the money, each supposing that someone else had put it carefully away. after tea mr. carroll put on the coat and went to see somebody over at netherby. he says the thought of the pocketbook never crossed his mind; he had forgotten all about putting it in that coat pocket. he came home across the fields about eleven o'clock and found that the cows had broken into the clover hay, and he had a great chase before he got them out. when he went in, just as he entered the door, the remembrance of the money flashed over him. he felt in his pocket, but there was no pocketbook there; he asked his wife if she had taken it out. she had not, and nobody else had. there was a hole in the pocket, but mr. carroll says it was too small for the pocketbook to have worked through. however, it must have done so—unless someone took it out of his pocket at netherby, and that is not possible, because he never had his coat off, and it was in an inside pocket. it's not likely that they will ever see it again. someone may pick it up, of course, but the chances are slim. mr. carroll doesn't know his exact path across the fields, and if he lost it while he was after the cows, it's a bluer show still. they've been searching all day, of course. the girls are awfully disappointed."
a sudden recollection came to me of ned brooke's face as i had seen it the day before at the gate, coupled with the remembrance of seeing him walking down the lane at a quick pace, so unlike his usual shambling gait, while i ran through the lawn.
"how do they know it was lost?" i said. "perhaps it was stolen before mr. carroll went to netherby."
"they think not," said cecil. "who would have stolen it?"
"ned brooke. i saw him hanging around. and you never saw such a look as came over his face when he heard mr. carroll say there was five hundred dollars in that pocketbook."
"well, i did suggest to them that ned might know something about it, for i remembered having seen him go down the lane while i was waiting for you, but they won't hear of such a thing. the brookes are kind of protégés of theirs, you know, and they won't believe anything bad of them. if ned did take it, however, there's not a shadow of evidence against him."
"no, i suppose not," i answered thoughtfully, "but the more i think it over, the more i'm convinced that he took it. you know, we all went to the back field to look at the jerseys, and all that time the coat was hanging there in the hall, and not a soul in the house. and it was just after we came back that i saw ned scuttling down the lane so fast."
i mentioned my suspicions to the carrolls a few days afterwards, when i went down with the photographs, and found that they had discovered no trace of the lost pocketbook. but they seemed positively angry when i hinted that ned brooke might know more about its whereabouts than anyone else. they declared that they would as soon think of suspecting one of themselves as ned, and altogether they seemed so offended at my suggestion that i held my peace and didn't irritate them by any more suppositions.
afterwards, in the excitement of our cousins' visit, the matter passed out of my mind completely. they stayed two weeks, and i was so busy the whole time that i never got a chance to develop that third plate and, in fact, i had forgotten all about it.
one morning soon after they went away, i remembered the plate and decided to go and develop it. cecil went with me, and we shut ourselves up in our den, lit our ruby lantern and began operations. i did not expect much of the plate, because it had been exposed and handled carelessly, and i thought that it might prove to be underexposed or light-struck. so i left cecil to develop it while i prepared the fixing bath. cecil was whistling away when suddenly he gave a tremendous "whew" of astonishment and sprang to his feet.
"amy, amy, look here!" he cried.
i rushed to his side and looked at the plate as he held it up in the rosy light. it was a splendid one, and the carroll house came out clear, with the front door and the steps in full view.
and there, just in the act of stepping from the threshold, was the figure of a boy with an old straw hat on his head and—in his hand—the pocketbook!
he was standing with his head turned towards the corner of the house as if listening, with one hand holding his ragged coat open and the other poised in mid-air with the pocketbook, as if he were just going to put it in his inside pocket. the whole scene was as clear as noonday, and nobody with eyes in his head could have failed to recognize ned brooke.
"goodness!" i gasped. "in with it—quick!"
and we doused the thing into the fixing bath and then sat down breathlessly and looked at each other.
"i say, amy," said cecil, "what a sell this will be on the carrolls! ned brooke couldn't do such a thing—oh, no! the poor injured boy at whom everyone has such an unlawful pick! i wonder if this will convince them."
"do you think they can get it all back?" i asked. "it's not likely he would have dared to use any of it yet."
"i don't know. we'll have a try, anyhow. how long before this plate will be dry enough to carry down to the carrolls as circumstantial evidence?"
"three hours or thereabouts," i answered, "but perhaps sooner. i'll take two prints off when it is ready. i wonder what the carrolls will say."
"it's a piece of pure luck that the plate should have turned out so well after the slap-dash way in which it was taken and used. i say, amy, isn't this quite an adventure?"
at last the plate was dry, and i printed two proofs. we wrapped them up carefully and marched down to mr. carroll's.
you never saw people so overcome with astonishment as the carrolls were when cecil, with the air of a statesman unfolding the evidence of some dreadful conspiracy against the peace and welfare of the nation, produced the plate and the proofs, and held them out before them.
mr. carroll and cecil took the proofs and went over to the brooke shanty. they found only ned and his mother at home. at first ned, when taxed with his guilt, denied it, but when mr. carroll confronted him with the proofs, he broke down in a spasm of terror and confessed all. his mother produced the pocketbook and the money—they had not dared to spend a single cent of it—and mr. carroll went home in triumph.
perhaps ned brooke ought not to have been let off so easily as he was, but his mother cried and pleaded, and mr. carroll was too kind-hearted to resist. so he did not punish them at all, save by utterly discarding the whole family and their concerns. the place got too hot for them after the story came out, and in less than a month all moved away—much to the benefit of mapleton.
