For a moment they stood, eying each other in silence. Was this really
the clue for which they had been searching? Did the plate hold the
solution to the murder? Mariel met Otis’ eager glance with shining
eyes.
“But we mustn’t raise our hopes too high,” she protested. “Remember,
the camera was knocked off the table in the cabin after Fyffe had run
inside. It was closed, too. Wouldn’t that show that the ranger hadn’t
used it since--well, since some time before the murder?”
“That was merely our--my conclusion,” Otis reminded her. “The deputy
found the camera on the floor under the table. In reconstructing the
crime, I leaped at the conclusion that it must have been knocked off
the table as he reached for the phone, or when he fell to the floor.
Maybe he brought it into the cabin with him as he ran to the telephone
after being shot. It’s possible that he dropped it as he reached for
the phone.”
“But,” Mariel reasoned, seeking to prevent him from building his hopes
too high, “assuming that he had it with him out here when he was shot,
and assuming that he had taken some picture that might throw light on
the murder--then how did it happen that it was closed when you found
it? A man who had just been mortally shot would hardly stop and calmly
close his camera before running to summon aid.”
Otis’ face fell--for just a moment. Then he replied:
“But I’m not sure that it was closed when it was found. Deputy Seth
Markey was the one who discovered it. The Sheriff and I were in the
other room at the time. As I remember it, it was some time after our
return, while we were speculating as to Fyffe’s manner of dragging the
phone from the table, that the deputy mentioned that Fyffe had knocked
the camera off the table.
“It was closed when we noticed it. Seth hadn’t said whether it had been
closed when he found it. Maybe he closed it himself when he picked it
up and restored it to the table.”
Mariel, still holding the camera and regarding it curiously, asked
suddenly:
“At what time yesterday was Fyffe murdered?”
Her abrupt question took him by surprise. “We got here pretty early in
the morning. From the condition of the body and the pool of blood, he
must have been dead several hours. As I remember, Lafe Ogden didn’t say
at just what time the forest supervisor had received the call for help
from the ranger station. But we can learn that easily enough. It would
fix the exact time of the murder. But what’s that got to do with it?”
“Only,” Mariel replied slowly, “that if it was dawn or earlier, he
couldn’t have been taking pictures without a flashlight. Did you find
anything of a flash-pan, or flash-powders?”
“Not a trace,” Otis replied, beginning to lose some of his enthusiasm.
“Of course, we weren’t looking for anything of the kind.”
“Did you see anything of the plate-slide for the camera?”
“No, we didn’t notice that. Fyffe kept most of his materials in the
other room of the ranger cabin.”
“But if he’d been using the flash-pan and plate-slide at the time he
was shot, he’d hardly have taken them back there, would he?”
“No-o. Usually a photographer, when he takes out the slide preparatory
to making a picture, places it on top of the camera, if he’s using a
tripod. If he isn’t, and it’s a small camera, he’d be apt to thrust it
into his pocket. We didn’t search his pockets. The coroner could tell
us if it was there.”
“Well, the next thing to do, Otis, is to develop the plate. Shall I
take it to Jackson and have it done? Or do you happen to have
facilities at the ranch for developing it?”
Otis laughed, and reached for the camera. “Do you think Fyffe trusted
his developing and printing to anyone else? I forgot to tell you that
the other room of the ranger cabin was used by Fyffe as a darkroom, for
developing his animal pictures. I tell you we can develop this plate
and make a print within thirty minutes!”
* * * * *
Mariel gasped out a little exclamation of elation, and started for the
cabin.
“But don’t be disappointed, Otis, if it’s nothing but one of his
wild-animal pictures,” she told him after he had lowered the blanket
over the dark-room window, and had lighted the ruby lamp.
With trembling fingers Otis removed the plate from the holder and
placed it in the tray of developing solution. But he was unprepared for
the shock of the discovery they made when, at length, the process
completed, Otis lifted the blanket from the window and held the
negative up to the light.
Mariel looked at it, and gasped. She looked again, and one hand
clutched her throat.
“Why, Otis!” she exclaimed in a voice suddenly low and husky. “Why,
Otis! It’s you!”
Otis was stunned. He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, as if
to dispel a hallucination. He held the plate up and looked again.
“It’s you!” Mariel repeated. “Your hat--your vest--those boots and
trousers! I could tell it was you in an instant. It’s your build, and
everything. And there, behind you, stands Pie-face!”
Otis could not find his voice. He gulped once or twice, striving for
words to express his astonishment.
“Why, oh, why didn’t you tell me in the first place?” Mariel was
moaning. “Why did you deny it? If you’d only confided in me! Maybe
there was some reason--some extenuating circumstance! But Otis, Otis, I
didn’t think you’d lie to me! Couldn’t you have trusted me?”
Otis found his voice.
“There’s something wrong, Mariel. It looks like me. Under any other
circumstances, I’d say it was a picture of me, even if the face is
hidden in shadow. But Mariel, it can’t be! I tell you, something’s
wrong! Pie-face and I were miles away from this cabin when that picture
was taken. Of course you wont believe me. Nobody would, now. With
Fyffe’s dying message, and the empty cartridges in my gun, and now this
picture--well, it looks like it’s all up with me.”
“Perhaps,” put in Mariel hesitantly but hopefully, “perhaps he had
taken your picture at some other time, and hadn’t developed it.”
Otis shook his head. “No, to my knowledge Fyffe never took my picture.
He never bothered about pictures of anything except wild animals, so
far as I know. I still think this was the last picture he ever took. I
still think it was taken before he was shot. But I know, as well as I’m
standing here, that the man in that picture, however much he looks like
me, isn’t Otis Carr!”
Mariel reached for the negative. For many moments she stood at the
window, scrutinizing its every detail.
“What is it,” she asked finally, “that you--I mean the man in the
picture--has in his hand?”
Otis took the plate again and examined it. “It looks like--Mariel, I
believe that’s the clue we’ve been searching for! Look at the
horse--there! I’ve got it, Mariel--the solution of everything! Wait
until I make a print of that negative. I tell you if that doesn’t prove
the whole thing--well, then I’ll be ready to accept the blame without a
protest!”
After soaking the plate in alcohol, they placed it outside in the
strong dry mountain wind; and in this way dried it in half an hour.
Then awkwardly, with unsteady fingers, Otis placed the negative in the
printing-frame. Mariel waited with bated breath.
“There!” Otis exclaimed when at last the print was finished. “Look,
Mariel! Isn’t it astounding? I’ve suspected it, but I’ve never breathed
a word of my suspicions to a soul. This solves
everything--_everything!_”
Twenty minutes later, having made an additional print, and with the
negative carefully wrapped to protect it from breakage, Otis announced
his readiness to leave the cabin. Both were jubilant as they mounted
their horses and started down the trail. Suddenly Mariel broke out with
an exclamation of annoyance.
“I’ve forgotten something,” she told Otis ruefully. “No, you needn’t
bother. You ride on down the trail. I’ll go back to the cabin, but I’ll
be with you again in five minutes.”
Otis was puzzled, but he did not question her. Mariel galloped back to
the ranger station, flung herself from her horse, and ran into the
cabin. She seized the telephone, and called for the forest supervisor
in Jackson.
“Call the Sheriff and tell him that if he wants Otis Carr, he can get
him at the Footstool ranch in two hours,” she directed without
preliminaries. “Phone the Footstool ranch and tell Sterling Carr that
Otis is coming home. Tell him to have all the boys there to meet
him--everyone who was at the meeting the other night. He’ll understand.
What? No, I haven’t time to explain. Come to the Footstool ranch
yourself, and you’ll learn everything. That’s all. Good-by.”
* * * * *
Without giving the puzzled supervisor time to question her about her
startling directions, she hung up the receiver and ran from the cabin.
She remounted, and rode down the trail to join Otis.
“It’s all right,” she smiled at him. “We can take our time. There’s no
great hurry to get back to the ranch, now.”
“I don’t think I’ll go back to the ranch,” Otis announced. “I think I’d
better look up the Sheriff first thing, and place this evidence in his
hands.”
A shadow of annoyance flitted across Mariel’s face.
“Oh, let that go until you’ve shown it to your father and Margaret,”
she protested. “Don’t you think they’re entitled to be the first ones
to know the good news?”
“It will be a surprise to them both,” Otis grinned. “I know Dad never
suspected for a moment.”
“I suspected,” Mariel volunteered.
“Why?” demanded Otis in surprise. “You’ve only been here a week. What
foundation did you have for your suspicions?”
“I admit they were only of the vaguest kind,” Mariel smiled. “They had
no basis, except intuition. Do you remember what I told you my
intuition was based upon?”
Otis colored slightly. “I think I’d better go on to Jackson,” he
remarked without answering. “I’ll come back to the ranch later on.”
“_I_ am going straight to the ranch,” Mariel announced positively. “Are
you going to let me ride alone?”
“Oh, all right,” Otis laughed. “I guess the Sheriff can wait.”