“What time was this, Matt?”
“Oh, about ten-thirty. Right after I got back from the Banning farm. He acted funny about that. When I mentioned the Banning farm. Maybe you’d better take his picture down to the capitol and show it to that clerk.”
Clyde scoffed. “Look, Matt, I want to believe Cal didn’t do this just as badly as you do. But Charles Henry Lane! I can’t buy that. Think about it a while and you won’t either.”
“Now wait just a minute, Clyde. Why not Charles Henry Lane? If it’s possible for a guy like Cal Lewis to go wrong why not Charles Henry Lane. Look. Give it a try anyway. Send somebody with a picture of Lane to the capitol.”
“Not me, Matt. It’d get around and then I would have troubles. I’m not sticking my neck out for a damn fool hunch of yours like that.”
“Then I’ll do it, Clyde. I’ll print up one of those pictures I took Wednesday and take it down there myself.”
Clyde shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll give you a letter to take with you in case they object to talking with you. But other than that you’re on your own.”
I regretted saying I’d go as soon as I walked out of Clyde’s office. I didn’t feel at all like driving to the capitol. But then I thought of Cal and I knew I had to do it. Halfway out to the station wagon I thought of something else and I went back to Clyde’s office.
“Do one thing for me, Clyde,” I said to him. “Find out where Charles Henry Lane spent his Army days.”
Clyde sighed. “All right. I’ll do that much for you.”
When I explained my idea to Anita she wasn’t at all skeptical. Maybe it was because she’d been away so long and Charles Henry Lane was rather unreal to her. And when she insisted on going to the capitol with me I didn’t object. I needed her now if only for moral support.
It’s about 65 miles one way to the capitol. Anita offered to drive down. My head was hurting again from printing up some enlargements of Lane so I let her drive. By the time we reached the capitol I was feeling pretty good. It was about three o’clock when we reached the edge of the city and three-thirty when we got to the car rental agency.
Fortunately the man who rented the car on Sunday night was on duty again. It took only a few minutes to get what I wanted. Charles Henry Lane was the man in our mystery car and our clerk was quite willing to make an identification in person.
Anita and I were both elated as we started homeward. I felt we really had something now. I drove and as the miles clicked by Anita dozed, her head resting near my shoulder. About twenty miles from home and just inside our county line there’s a bad curve and a drop-off on one side. It’s a bad spot and a lot of cars have gone over the bank. I don’t think anyone has lived who’s gone over. We were nearing it now and I began to slow down. Anita had awakened and was sitting sideways in the seat looking out the rear window. Suddenly she sat up straight.
“Matt! That car behind you is coming up awfully fast isn’t it?”
I’d been watching him in my rearview mirror. He was coming awfully fast. I swung off the road just as he cut around me, half on our side of the road. We hit the guard rail but stopped.
“Matt! He crowded you off the road!” Anita cried.
“He sure did! If I’d been going a little faster we’d have gone right through the guard rail!” I was boiling mad because I knew one side of my station wagon was a mess where I’d scraped the guard rail. I got out of the car. There’d been very little traffic on the road and not a car was in sight now. I was examining the damage when I heard someone running through the gravel along the road. I swung my flashlight on him. Charles Henry Lane!
When the beam of my light hit him he slowed to a walk. Then I saw the revolver in his hand.
“Drop the light on the ground, Braddock. Good. Now kick it toward me.”
I wasn’t going to argue with a killer. I did as he said.
“All right, now. Get back in the car.” He opened the door behind me and got in too. “Now get this car back down the road. That’s fine.” He was holding the gun at Anita’s head. I prayed desperately for another car to come along but nothing was in sight. “Now drive forward, point the wheels toward the guard rail, and stop when I tell you.” He got out of the car now and pressed the muzzle of the gun against my temple as he opened my door. “Now put your right foot on the gas pedal and your left on the brake. Fine.” He looked to make sure I had the car in drive. I knew what was coming next. I glanced over at Anita. She was staring straight ahead and I knew she, too, knew what he was about to do.
“Now gun the motor. Faster, Braddock. Fine. So long, boy.”
With that he grabbed my leg and jerked my foot off the brake. But as he did so I drove my left arm into his face. At the same time Anita hit the selector lever throwing the car into neutral. Instead of hurtling forward we rolled a few inches and stopped. As I dived for Lane he fired. I heard the bullet strike the windshield and then I was on top of him. Lane was in good shape and desperate. But I was seventeen years younger and just as desperate. It was touch and go for awhile but I’d knocked the gun out of his hand when I dove for him and all he had to fight with were his fists. I stood up. Lane lay on the ground unable to move.
“I’ve got the gun, Matt,” Anita called to me. Then I heard a car coming down the road. I grabbed Lane and managed to drag him off the highway.
“Get that flashlight,” I panted at Anita. “I think he threw it in the back seat. Flag that car.”
But before Anita could get the flashlight the car was rounding the curve. I noticed that it was going awfully slow. They must have seen us at the same time for that big red flasher came on. I collapsed against the car as Clyde and Cal Lewis stepped out of the sedan. And then I had something else to think about as Anita flung herself into my arms.
“You know, Clyde,” I said later, “I’ve always thought pictures were important but I never thought one of my pictures would help solve a murder.” Anita squeezed my hand.
“I’m not surprised, Matt. I always knew you’d be a famous photographer. But I’ll admit I didn’t expect it to happen here, or in quite this way.”
We were all sitting in Clyde’s office, having a much needed coffee break. Charles Henry Lane, was safely locked up. There’d been no more fight in him when Cal slapped him awake and put the handcuffs on him.
“Okay, Clyde,” I said, putting down my coffee cup. “Let’s finish this up. When did you decide my idea wasn’t completely cockeyed?”
Clyde gave me a sheepish grin. “Not very long after you left. I knew it would take too long to get anything from the Army on Lane’s whereabouts during the war. So I checked the newspaper files, figuring Lane’s whereabouts would have been given there. Lane was at Camp Pickett, Virginia, from 1943 until he went overseas in ’44. So then I went to Cal with what I had.” He glanced at Cal. “Care to fill him in, Cal?”
“My sister,” Cal began, “was always pretty wild. But when she began hanging around the soldiers from Camp Pickett she really cut loose. There was talk that she’d even married one of the soldiers during a weekend spree that ended up in Maryland. But nothing ever came out about it and I’d always supposed it was just talk. My sister never acknowledged the rumor. I asked her about it once but she just laughed at me. Then soon after that she ran off with a fellow from town. Hugh Gaskins. They sent word they’d gotten married, he went into the Marines, and was killed somewhere in the South Pacific. I was overseas myself at that time. My parents died while I was gone and when I came back I’d lost all track of Thelma. About eight years ago I got a letter from her. She’d tracked me down through some friends at home. I heard from her once in awhile then and a little over two years ago she wrote from Akron. Soon after that I went up to see her. That was the last time I saw her alive. Not too long after I visited her I got a letter from her asking if I knew Charles Henry Lane. She said he’d been up there for a convention in the hotel where she was working and she’d noticed on the register that he was from here. I think when I answered her letter I gave her a brief sketch of Lane, pointing out that he was quite a big man here in town. I thought no more about it. I didn’t even remember the incident when I saw her out there in the silo the other morning. But when Clyde came to me with the news that Lane had been at Camp Pickett I began to put two and two together.”