“So that’s all it is!” Sandy’s glance took in the busy policemen, urging the crowd along, the two great fire engines with their coils of hose, the firemen in heavy black waterproofs, and the jammed traffic.

“This is something the fire chief will want to remember,” he said with a grin. “See you later,” he added to Ken, and disappeared into the crowd with his camera.

A few minutes later Ken spotted him on the roof of Morris’s two-story building, aiming his lens at the crowd below and at the small foam-shrouded wastebasket at its center. When Sandy rejoined Ken again he was still grinning.

“I’ll print this up for the chief’s New Year’s card,” Sandy said. Then he straightened his face quickly as Chief Dick James emerged from the jewelry store.

“Everything under control, Chief?” Ken asked.

James nodded shortly. “Total damage one wastebasket and a black smudge on about five square feet of wall. Quick thinking on Sam Morris’s part, of course,” he added, “or it might have been a real fire. The minute he saw flames coming out of the basket he picked it up and carried it into the street.”

“How’d it start?” Ken asked. “Cigarette?”

James shrugged. “Probably. Or a still-burning match. People are so danged careless. Wonder it doesn’t happen oftener, the way they toss stuff around.”

Sandy, bending over the wastebasket, sniffed c