The answer is yes, fairly easily. There are several ways, one not available if the story is set in the 1920's. By the way, apart from a smallish fixed lens (maximum aperture f/3.5 or so), a decent 1920's camera was not much worse than a decent 1990s camera, and better than a lot of "point-and-shoot" devices. Leicas were pretty good. Artificial lighting, though, was typically a lot dimmer than today.
(1) Black and white film (the most common choice then) can be push-processed (developed to make it act like a faster film) much better than color film. He might get a "usable" - not pretty - picture using available light, wide aperture and a 1/60 second exposure (the longest recommended for a handheld shot), if the film was developed well. Note that that wide aperture would reduce depth of focus - not very important for a photograph of a room, unless the room was very small.
(2) A camera can be placed on a table-top in the absence of a tripod for a time exposure; and most good cameras of that era did time exposures..
This 1927 Leica camera , for instance, has a 1/20 second shutter setting ("20") and a "time" setting (that's the "Z", for "
Zeit".) I've actually used a camera much like this. The time setting would probably be a click-on-click-off control. You might get a little blur from the shake when you press the button, but it'll actually be less noticeable in a long time exposure. If held very firmly, or not touched, the results will be good.
(3) Twenty years ago, you could buy very fast color film, ASA1000 or higher. This was not available in the 1920s: color films in those days were very slow by modern standards. Black and white, not so much: you will notice the 1/500 second setting!
