Norma Kent of the WACS

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE VANISHING PRINT

  Norma was up bright and early next morning. As she stepped out on theporch for a breath of air, her eyes were greeted by a scene ofmarvelous beauty. Back of a dark spot rising from the sea which must,she thought, be Black Knob, the sun was rising.

  “What a picture!” She knew just how it should be taken.

  Racing into the house she put her hand on the mantel at the spot whereshe had left her camera.

  “Gone,” she murmured. “It’s gone!”

  Well, after all, she might be mistaken. Perhaps she had taken it to herroom. Rushing upstairs, she began a hurried search.

  “What’s up?” Betty demanded. “House on fire?”

  “No, a gorgeous picture to be taken and I’ve misplaced my camera.”

  “Here. Take mine!” Betty took her camera from the shelf.

  Without a word Norma grabbed the camera and raced down the stairs totake three exposures before the sun was too high.

  “I can’t imagine what could have happened to my camera,” she exclaimed,after a thorough search. “I’m sure I left it on the mantel downstairs.I took two shots of the fishermen’s boats coming in yesterday, then putit on the mantel and forgot it.”

  “Oh! it will show up.” Betty was a cheerful soul.

  At breakfast that morning, Norma sat by Lieutenant Warren and told herall about Bess, Beth, their grandfather, and Black Knob.

  “That seems an admirable spot for a spotter shed,” said Miss Warren.

  “It must be,” Norma agreed. “Of course it has its watching post but itseems undermanned—a grandfather and two old ladies for the night andfishermen keeping an eye out during the day. Doesn’t sound very good.”

  “No, it doesn’t. We may want to lend them a helping hand. I’ve askedfor six more auxiliaries for just such emergencies.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Norma said. “We may need them more than you thinkbefore a month has passed.”

  “Why? What do you mean by that?” The Lieutenant gave her a sharp look.

  “Just a hunch, I guess,” Norma evaded. She wasn’t going to tell of thephotographer with bristly white hair, of the voices behind scenes atthe studio, the black pigeons, or the missing camera until she had moreto tell.

  Late that afternoon she picked up another shred of evidence. When theday’s work was done, she got out one of the motorcycles and rode backto the photography studio. Carl Langer had promised that the picturesfor their identification cards would be done. Then, too, she waswondering about the three films she had left on his table.

  By the time she arrived fog had driven in from the sea, makingeverything look dark and gloomy. The studio seemed darkest, most gloomyof all. Only a faint light showed through the window. The three blackpigeons sat silently along the ridge of the roof.

  As if her arrival had disturbed them, they took off with noisy flappingof wings to soar away and lose themselves in the fog out over the sea.

  Norma tried the door. It was locked. She rang the bell. No response. Asecond ring failed. A third long one brought an angry response.

  The door flew open and Langer’s white hair seemed to give off sparks ashe stormed angrily:

  “Why do you ring now? You know my hours. Everybody knows. You—”

  He broke off short. At last he had taken time to look at his caller.

  “Oh, it is you.” His voice changed. “You are Miss Kent, one of thoselady soldiers.” He laughed hoarsely. “Come in. The pictures are done.They are not beautiful, but natural.” He laughed again.

  He did not turn on more light. A small lamp on a table gave out afeeble glow.

  “See,” he said, shuffling a pack of prints as if they were playingcards, “Here they are, all of them.”

  Yes, there they all were and Lena’s picture was on top. “Really thebest of the lot,” Norma thought. She was not surprised.

  “About my films?” She hesitated.

  “Oh, yes! I have done these, too,” he exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm.“They’re very good. You really understand timing, light, grouping, andall that. Some of these village pictures, they are excellent. With yourpermission I shall retain three films for a short time only, that I maymake enlargements.”

  “That—that’s all right,” Norma replied. She was looking at the picturesone by one and at the same time counting them.

  In the end, she drew in a deep breath. There should have beentwenty-four. One was missing. “And that one,” she thought with a start,“is the one I took of the Spanish hairdresser at Fort Des Moines.

  “What a fool I was to let this man do them!” she told herself.

  “There are only twenty-three prints here,” she suggested, trying tokeep her voice on an even scale.

  “Twenty-three good pictures out of twenty-four!” he exclaimed. “This isremarkable for an amateur, my dear. What should one expect?”

  She wanted to say, “You are telling a lie. That was a good picture.Taken in bright light, time—one twenty-fifth of a second and shutterhalf open, I couldn’t have failed.”

  She said nothing of the sort. Instead she said:

  “You’ll make the some enlargements of the films you are keeping?”

  “To be sure.” He rubbed his hands together. “Very fine ones. And, mydear, they shall cost you absolutely nothing. I shall charge younothing for these. You are almost a genius at light, shadows, andgrouping. Such a choice of subjects! Such placing, to bring out theangles, and the contrasts. Please allow me to do all your films.”

  “Where have I heard all that before?” the girl asked herself as sheleft the place. The answer, she felt sure, was, “Never anywherebefore.” It was strange.

  As she mounted her motorcycle and set it pop-popping, the three blackpigeons, who had returned, once more went flapping out to sea.

  “Pointing the way to Black Knob,” she told herself. “I wonder if theyever go all the way?”

  * * * * *

  Days glided by. There was study and work, hours on end. At last morework and less study.

  They studied types of airplanes and subs until they were fairly sure ofrecognizing them in daylight. Learning them by sound would be quiteanother matter. For some enemy planes they had sound recordings. Norma,who had quite a remarkable ear for sound variations, spent hours on endlistening first to the American fighter planes that every day zoomedoverhead, and then to the recordings of Zeros and Messerschmitts.

  The day after her camera disappeared, she found it just where she hadleft it. Had someone taken it by mistake and returned it? Did Mr.Sperry or someone else suspect her of taking forbidden snapshots? Thisseemed improbable for she had taken two pictures and the spot stillshowed number three. What was more, the shutter was just as she hadleft it and the time, still set at one-twenty-fifth of a second.

  “It can’t have been someone who wished to use it for taking forbiddenpictures either,” Betty assured her. “No pictures have been taken.”

  To her great surprise, when at last the film was used up and she had itdeveloped, she was told that the first two pictures had turned out asblanks. Carl Langer showed her the blanks as proof positive.

  Yet, to Norma this was not absolute proof. “For,” she told herself,“those were very ordinary snapshots. The other pictures were takenunder the same circumstances, nothing had been done to the camera, andyet they came out very well.”

  Her curiosity was aroused. After two days had elapsed, she again lefther camera lying about. Once again it vanished. In two days it wasback. This time she had left number four showing. Hastily using up thefilm, she hurried to the studio and had the film developed.

  “Some of your pictures are quite wonderful,” Carl Langer commented.“but the first three—”

  “I know. They are blank.” Norma thought this, but didn’t say it. Shewas wrong. The first three were quite black. Very much overexposed.They showed nothing.
r />   “Perhaps,” said Langer, “you were a bit careless putting in that film.It looks light-struck at the beginning.”

  She had not been careless. The film was not light-struck, yet she saidnever a word. She would get to the bottom of this yet.

  The next day Norma forgot her photographic problems for at last a visitto Black Knob was on the calendar. Norma had made two more visits tothe spotter shed at Granite Point. With ever-increasing interest shehad watched the talking hands from the island and had listened to weirdand interesting tales told of the great rock called Black Knob by thosefascinating twins, Beth and Bess.

  At first it was planned that only Norma and Betty should accompanyLieutenant Warren on the trip to Black Knob but at the last moment Lenaasked permission to go.

  Perhaps Miss Warren knew some things about this tall, strong girl thatNorma had never learned. Certain it is that, had it been left to her,she would have said, “No, let’s not take her.”

  Lena went along. The journey out was uneventful. Norma and Betty tookturns at the wheel. Their experience piloting boats at summer campsstood them in good stead.

  As Black Knob loomed up larger, they made out trees growing like bushyhair on its crest and, close beside a small harbor formed by anoutcropping of rocks, a group of fishermen’s cottages and summertourist cabins.

  A small, bright-eyed man with a full gray beard took their line at thenarrow dock.

  “Lieutenant Warren!” he exclaimed. “I am glad to see you. The girlshave been telling me on short wave radio about you and one of yourworkers. They call her Norma.”

  “This is Norma,” said Miss Warren, helping Norma out of the boat.

  “Ah,” said the little man. “I am indeed glad to meet you. As you musthave guessed, I am the grandfather of Bess and Beth. Dudley Norton isthe name I drew when I was born.” He laughed in a friendly, cacklingway. “And here,” he added, as a nine-year-old girl came dancing downthe path, “is my chief assistant, Patsy. Her principal task is keepingthe bad Gremlins away.”

  “Gremlins,” said Norma. “What are Gremlins?”

  “Oh! They are little people,” the girl, who was the living picture ofBess and Beth, explained. “The bad ones put ice on your airplane’swings and stop up your guns when you want to shoot. But the good onesget out, hundreds and hundreds of them, and blow on the sea to make abig storm when the enemy subs are about.”

  “Oh! That’s the way it is,” Lieutenant Warren said. “But aren’t youafraid to live way out here when so many Gremlins are about?”

  “No!” said the girl. “I’m not afraid.” She took her grandfather’s hand.“Besides I’m not allowed to be afraid. Grandfather and I have a big jobto do over here on Black Knob—and we’re in for the duration, aren’t we,Grandpa?”

  “That we are!” The little, gray-haired man agreed heartily.

  “That’s the spirit!” Lieutenant Warren exclaimed. “We’ll win now forsure!”

  After Betty and Lena had been introduced, they all took the windingpath that led to Grandfather Norton’s “House of Magic,” as Norma hadnamed it, long before she saw it.

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