CHAPTER XXPEP A PRISONER
Pep Smithat once decided that the man who now held his hand captive was another of the Slavin spies. He was sure of it as the latter added to his fierce command the words:
“I’ve been watching out for your sort—stealing, hey?”
“Stealing what?” retorted Pep, vigorously. “No, you don’t!” he added, as the man tried to reach the camera. “That’s my property, as it happens.”
Several persons had caught the echo of the snap-clip of the camera. The rising up of the man and Pep, the start of a struggle, began to attract attention. Pep’s captor took a new tack. He waved a hand towards the entrance, uttering a low whistle. The house policeman came hurrying to the row of seats where the commotion was going on.
“Take this fellow out of here, officer,” spoke Pep’s captor. “He’s been up to tricks.”
Pep knew that resistance would be useless. Further than that, some ladies and children near to him were becoming nervous and alarmed. No one better than Pep knew how quickly a dangerous panic might start from a trifling incident. He went quietly with the officer, his captor following.
“What is it—an arrest?” inquired the policeman, as they got down the aisle away from the center of excitement.
“Later, maybe,” was the response. “Let the management decide that. Take him to the office.”
The policeman now grasped Pep’s arm, which the other man released. He marched him clear to the rear, then around the rows of seats and down a side aisle to the stage end of the house. He opened a door at one side of the stage, went through a passageway, and ushered Pep into a lighted room.
This was the office of the New Idea. It little resembled the tasty business-looking office of the Standard. It contained chairs, a desk and a table. The air was cloudy with tobacco smoke. Their chairs tilted back against the wall, their feet elevated on the table, and smoking cigars, were Slavin and another person.
There was no doubt that Slavin instantlyrecognized Pep, for at a sharp stare at the youth down came chair and feet.
“Hello! what’s this?” he shot out.
“Stealing,” reported Pep’s first captor, stepping forward briskly. “You can go, officer. We’ll let you know if we need you later.”
“All right,” nodded the policeman, lightly, and retired with a knowing look on his face.
“Stealing; eh?” spoke Slavin, bending a scowling face towards Pep. “Picking pockets?”
“Say, you don’t have to ask that,” retorted Pep, hotly. “No one better than yourself knows I don’t have to do that.”
“He was stealing, all the same,” insisted his captor, and as Pep realized the special emissary of Slavin. “I caught him red-handed.”
“What doing?” inquired the other man, evidently Slavin’s business partner.
“You get him to give you that camera and you’ll probably find out,” was the explanation. “I know the fellow, for I’ve seen him before. He’s one of the Standard crowd.”
The speaker concluded by snatching at the camera. Pep was off his guard for that. His despoiler handed it to Slavin, who looked it over casually and pushed it into a drawer of his desk with the words:
“We’ll keep that for evidence and look it over later. Stealing a film; eh?” he interrogated the previous speaker.
“That’s what. He had that camera in his lap ready for snapping. It’s an old trick and I suspected him, knowing the crowd he came from.”
“What was he stealing?” interrogated Slavin’s partner.
“The camel film,” was the reply.
“Eh? What’s that?” ejaculated Slavin, with a start. Then he swept Pep’s face with swift suspicion and added: “Of course that—one of our own specials. You’re in fine business, you Standard people; aren’t you? I believe I’ll just hand you over to the police.”
“I wasn’t stealing your films,” protested Pep.
“What do you call it, then?” sneered Slavin.
“I wanted a photo for a friend of mine, who was interested.”
“Yah, that!” jibed Slavin. “It’ll be a fine thing to have the public know that a partner in the high and lofty Standard goes around stealing New Idea films; won’t it, now? Say,” he added to his partner, “we’ll just cage this fellow. It will be a downfall for old Strapp and his crowd and a capital advertisement for us. Call the officer and make a regular complaint, Norris,” heordered, to the man who stood on guard between Pep and the doorway.
Pep felt that he had placed himself in something of a quandary. He thought quickly and to some purpose. He turned upon Slavin in a defiant, fearless way.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, I’ll guarantee,” he said boldly, “if you think twice about it.”
“Oh, is that so?” jeered Slavin. “Why won’t I?”
“Because I shall explain why I photographed that film. I said a friend of mine wanted a picture of the camel in it. I spoke the truth. He wants that picture because the animal in your film was stolen.”
“The mischief!” ejaculated the partner of Slavin, staring at Pep as if he had found him out to be a pretty smart boy—and one to be feared.
But if this man was startled—the effect upon Slavin of Pep’s audacious statement, impolitic though it might have been, was fairly extraordinary. He actually paled and trembled. For a moment his mind seemed taking in all the words might imply. Then springing to his feet he pounced down upon Pep.
“Norris,” he spoke in husky, unsteady tones, “take this fellow down to the lumber room. Lock him in safe and sound. When the crowdis gone we’ll put him through the third degree. It isn’t safe to let him loose.”
“No, he knows a lot too much for our good,” growled Slavin’s partner.
Pep’s eyes glowed. He had deftly got these men to verify his suspicions. There was something underhanded about their possession of the camel film. Pep had surmised correctly when he had told Vic Belton and Randy that the starting point in the hunt for the stolen camels was the New Idea photo playhouse.
Pep was a fighter on most occasions when cornered. However, he knew that Slavin was in an ugly mood. The three men he faced were big burly ruffians. Pep did not care about being battered. They could not detain him long, for Randy and Vic knew that he had come to the New Idea. They would suspect Slavin and look for him there if he was absent for any length of time.
“Go ahead,” said Pep, indifferently. “You won’t help yourself by locking me up.”
The man Slavin had called Norris led the youth to a door at the rear of the room.
“Get down there,” he ordered, and turned on an electric light in the vague darkness below. As Pep descended a pair of rickety steps Norris closed and locked the door.
The apartment Pep found himself in was used as a lumber room. It seemed to run under the entire stage space. It was littered up with damaged chairs, pieces of boards, some stage scenery and such trumpery as is regularly broken or discarded in a motion picture playhouse.
There was not a break in the solid stone wall enclosing the apartment except where a deep, barred window showed, too high for Pep to reach. Even could he have done this and have removed the bars, he quickly discerned that a cat could hardly hope to squeeze through the narrow aperture.
“I’m fairly booked, I guess,” reflected the youth. “I wonder how it will all come out? There’s a ventilator that might help me, if I could reach it. No, it isn’t that. It’s a dump chute.”
As Pep spoke he advanced under a hole in the floor that formed the ceiling overhead. It was far beyond ready reach. Studying the break in the floor, however, he found that a box-like structure ran up about four feet into the room overhead. Then Pep knew that it was a chute into which the sweepings of the playhouse were dumped.
A heap of dust, scraps of paper, splinters of wood and the like, littered the floor. Pep theinquisitive pulled the mass over. He apparently had some leisure to spare. He proceeded to utilize it to some purpose.
He felt that he could not know too much of the enemies of the Standard. There were quite a lot of envelopes, postals, advertising matter and the like. He inspected what there was. There were several duns for unpaid bills, applications for engagements, offers of service from film houses.
Pep’s eyes brightened as he fished out a part of a letter. There was not much of it and he could not find the connecting fragments, but he felt satisfied with his discovery.
“It’s from the people who got up that camel film,” decided Pep. “‘Can make a series of about twenty camel subjects’ that scrawl says, ‘and then work in educational nature reels like bees, butterflies and birds. Must be secret and cautious and will ship from B twice a week.’ Where’s ‘B’, I wonder?”
Pep pulled over the papers in the heap several times, but he could not find the rest of the letter. He had kicked aside a creased sheet of manilla paper several times. Casually picking it up, Pep noticed that it had enclosed some goods shipped to the New Idea. It bore an address in ink. Then he noticed that it had theimpress of a red stamp in one corner. As he read what this said he almost uttered a shout.
“Got it, sure!” he crowed and he tore address and stamped words from the manilla sheet. “This is the paper a package of camel films came in, sure as shooting. I want to get out of here now, if I can. Yes, I’m going to do it.”
Pep cast his eyes once more up at the ceiling five feet overhead. Then he went over to a long plank. This he lifted, dragged and tilted in an incline against the side wall just under the chute.
It was no task for a healthy, nimble boy to scale this. When Pep reached the top of the plank he elbowed his way up into the chute, keeping a safe anchor purchase on the top of the board with one toe.
Very cautiously he grasped the edge of the top of the chute and stuck his head up. The chute was located in a partitioned-off space behind the stage. Pep lifted himself out of the chute, felt a blast of fresh air, and groped his way to its source, an open window.
It was a ten foot drop to a paved court, and to find his way to the nearest street was nothing. Inside of five minutes Pep was at the hotel.
Randy and Vic greeted him with expectant faces as he burst in upon them.
“Did you get the picture?” questioned Vic eagerly.
“No—lost my camera; but I’ve found something better. Look here.”
Pep drew forth the scrap of manilla paper. In ink it bore the address of the New Idea. A red stamp across one corner read “Prepaid” and under it were the words: “Brinton, Massachusetts.”
“That’s part of the covering that enclosed the camel film,” announced Pep. “Vic, I think you’ll find your camels at or near Brinton.”