Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

“No,” Johnson said. “I didn’t.”
At that moment, Judge Harlan came in, puffing. They quickly told him the conversation with Black
Dick. “I can’t see as there’s any case against Dick at all,” he said. “I’ve just come from the
Melodeon. Everybody swears Dick Curry was playing faro there all afternoon, just like he says.”
“Well, he must have paid them off!”
“There’s twenty or more seen him. I doubt he paid ’em all,” Judge Harlan said. “No, Dick was
there all right.”
“Then who killed Texas Tom?”
“I’ll worry over it at the inquest, in the morning,” Judge Harlan said.
Johnson intended to pack after dinner, but curiosity—and Perkins’s urging—led him to the Black
Hills Art Gallery instead. “Where are they?” Perkins asked when they had locked the door behind
them.
They inspected the two exposed plates.
The first exposure was as Johnson had remembered—a deserted hotel, with no people visible at
all.
The second plate showed horses in the streets and people walking through the mud.
“Can you see the window?” Perkins asked.
“Not really,” Johnson said, squinting, holding the plate to a kerosene lantern. “I can’t see.”
“I think there’s something there,” Perkins said. “You have a glass?”
Johnson held a magnifying glass to the plate.
Clearly visible in the second-floor window were two figures. One was being strangled by a
second man, who stood behind him.
“I’ll be damned,” Perkins said. “You took a picture of the murder!”
“Can’t see much, though,” Johnson said.
“Make it bigger,” Perkins said.
“I have to pack,” Johnson said. “I’m leaving with the cavalry at dawn.”
“Cavalry’s drunk in the saloons all over town,” Perkins said, “and they’ll never leave at dawn.
Make it bigger.”
Johnson had no enlarging equipment, but he managed to rig an impromptu outfit and exposed a
print. They both peered into the developing tray as the image slowly appeared.
In the window, Texas Tom struggled, his back arched with effort, his face contorted. Two hands
gripped his neck, but the killer’s body was blocked by the curtain to the left, and the killer’s head was
in deep shadow.
“Better,” Perkins said. “But we still can’t see who it is.”
They made another print, and then another still larger. The work became slower as the evening
progressed. The rigged system was sensitive to vibration at great magnification, and Perkins was so
excited he could not stand still during the long exposure.
Shortly before midnight, they got a clear one. At great magnification, the picture was speckled and
grainy. But one detail came through. There was a tattoo on the left wrist of the strangling arm: it
showed a curled snake.
“We got to tell Judge Harlan,” Perkins insisted.