That was a probability. I dug into my messenger bag to take out the cloth gloves. “I only have one pair,” I said, waving them. “It’s best to avoid touching—”
“You don’t think I’m prepared?” She clucked her tongue and retrieved a similar pair from her purse.
I smiled and offered her one of the two cans from the bag. I put on my gloves, shimmied the lid free from my container, and carefully held up the film strip. “Single perforations puts this before 1894,” I said. “This movie is definitely earlier than the catalog available to the public.”
“Test footage?” Greta asked as she worked the lid from her can.
“Yeah. But this isafterthey discarded cylinder experiments. Which would make it around 1891?” I held the roll of still frames upward, letting the flashing light of a nearby television backlight it. I narrowed my eyes and brought the still-pliable film closer. “I think this is Dickson.”
“What? Really?”
“I’m not crazy about the fantastic mustaches men had back then, but he’s a handsome guy. ThisisDickson. I’m certain. Wasn’t 1891 when they held a public demonstration?”
“For the National Federation of Women’s Clubs, if I’m not mistaken,” Greta replied. “But that would make it theDickson Greeting, and that’s not possible.”
“Why?” I lowered the film briefly.
“Only a three-second fragment exists today. TheNew York Sundescribed the entire reel as a man who bowed, smiled, waved his hands, and removed his hat. But if I recall, only the bit of Dickson holding his hat has survived.”
I raised the strip again and gently unspooled it. “This is theDickson Greeting,” I insisted in a low tone. “He’s doing everything you’ve just described.”
“That needs to be brought to the attention of the National Film Registry. It’s without a doubt historically significant.”
I looked at Greta as she gently unspooled a bit of her film and studied it. I sifted toward the end of my own footage. The fact that I had in my hands another piece of history thought lost to time was incredible. But like the boxing match, I was suspecting there was more hidden toward the end. And sure enough, there was a bump where two pieces had been haphazardly spliced together.
The second piece of film was perforated on both sides, which put it several years after the originalDickson Greetingmovie. And that was brilliant, because now I had a working timeline. Whoever had been tacking the mysterious murder footage to the end of the reels likely did so between 1894, when the team had perfected the 35mm film used in the machines, and 1895, when Dickson left the company.
“This one is awfully hard to make out,” Greta murmured. She was doing the same as me, holding the still frames up to the light of the television. “Looks like a young boy—almost like he’s conducting music or something. You know that hand motion?”
“That doesn’t sound familiar,” I said, distracted.
“I’m sure there’s plenty Dickson’s team did that we’ll never know about.”
I brought my magnifying glass up to the film. It seemed to be the same outdoor setting—the Flatiron site—but in daylight. The figures were much easier to make out. One man stood before the camera, pointing up and behind. He must have been referencing the magic lantern used on site. I took a leap and made the educated guess that the team had been testing recording at night and wanted to use the city lights, like the magic lantern, for exposing the film. When he looked directly at the camera in another frame, I realized he was the murderer. Muttonchops with the gut.
I fed more footage through my hand, approaching the end of the reel, when two additional men finally stepped into the frame. The minute details of the individuals were impossible to make out, but the angle of the hat worn on one suggested Dickson himself. The second might have actually been the man who died hours later in the nighttime scene.
So if I understood these two scenes correctly, I had four characters involved in the murder: Heise, who was the cameraman of the crew, Dickson himself, the killer—Muttonchops—and the unknown victim.
I leaned to the side and took my phone out of my pocket. They wouldn’t be the greatest photos, not by a long shot, but I had one half-baked idea on how I could go about trying to identify the killer with no information to work with except his face. I let the phone’s camera focus on the tiny frame, magnified it, and snapped a few pictures of Muttonchops.
Greta swore to herself.
“What is it?” I asked, beginning to carefully wind the film up.
“It’s a club in the boy’s hand, not a baton. You’ve got three movies that are said not to exist.”
I finished with my film and set it in the bag, then reached out when she offered me the reel. “I’m not familiar with the footage,” I said.
“Newark Athlete. It’s the oldest film in the Registry,” she continued. “Only existed as stills that were reanimated.”
“LikeFred Ott’s Sneeze,” I mumbled.
Greta made a sound of agreement.
I reached the now-expected bump of the old single perforation merged with newer, double-perforated film. I put the magnifying glass to the stills. It was shot at the Black Maria in Jersey, for sure. There was Muttonchops again. He was standing before the camera, making exaggerated movements.
More testing, I’d bet.
