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 l