The Camera Fiend Part 33

"I'll never breathe a single word to a single soul," he vowed, "except yourself."

She caught at that through her tears. He could talk to her about it, always, as much as ever he liked; it would be a bond between them all their lives. And not until she said it, to be just to Pocket, did he think of a reward or look beyond those days.

But what were they to do with a stereoscopic camera containing an automatic pistol? It was not to be burnt in a grate like a sheaf of MS.

They thought about it for some time with anxious faces; for it was getting on towards evening now, though the sun was out again, and it was lighter than the early afternoon; but Mr. Upton might be back any minute. It was Phillida who at last said she knew. She would not tell him what she meant to do; but she put on her waterproof again, little as it was wanted now, and the camera under it as before; and together they sallied forth into the noisy and crowded Strand.

Pocket did not know where he was, and Phillida would not tell him where she was going, neither could he question her in that alarming throng. He felt a frightful sense of guilt and danger, not so much to himself as to her, with that lethal weapon concealed about her; every man who looked at them was a detective in his eyes, and past the policemen at the corners he wanted to run. But they gained the middle of Waterloo Bridge undetected and ensconced themselves in a recess without creating a sensation.

"Now, then," said Phillida, "will you focus Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament, or shall I?"

There they were before them against the sunset, the long lithe bridge, the stately towers. But Pocket could not see Phillida's drift until she aimed herself, and, aiming, let the square black box slip clean through her fingers into the depths of the river from which she had only retrieved it a couple of hours before, as a body is committed to the deep.

She bewailed her stupidity; he had the wit to echo her then, and in a loud voice, that any eye-witness or pa.s.ser-by might be struck with the genuine severity of their loss. But there had been no eye-witness who thought it worth while to rally them on the occurrence, and the busy townsfolk hastening past were all too much engrossed in their own affairs to take any interest in those of the boy and girl who seemed themselves in something of a hurry to get back to the Strand.

And in the Strand the first thing they saw was a yellow poster bearing but four words in enormous black letters:-

CHELSEA INQUEST

CAMERA CLUE!

Phillida slipped her hand within Pocket's arm. Pocket was man enough to press it to his side.

THE END