Otto “Big Red” Amlingmeyer and Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer just got paid $200 for Otto’s book “Wrong Track” which chronicled the adventures of the two amateur detectives in their first big crime adventure. Being in the money now Old Red decided that they needed to go back to San Marcos, Texas and find out who had murdered Old Red’s fiancé back five years ago. But when they arrived in San Marcos the two found that they were not welcome. In fact they and their questions about the long ago murder were very ‘unwelcome’.
Old Red’s fiancé had been a working girl – one of the town whores. But she and Old Red loved each other. She had been putting aside some of her earnings so that the two of them could escape the ‘soiled’ life and get married. But one night at the Star Hotel, she was brutally cut up and shredded in the alley. Old Red only found out a couple of days later when one of the cow hands that had been to town and returned to the ranch where Old Red was working told him about it. Of course Old Red was in misery over losing his love. He went on a long drinking binge and finally left town.
Now that he was back and beginning his deductive detecting he discovered that there were four other young ladies who had ‘gone missing’, each of them in October year after year. The owners of the whore house where all the girls worked were particularly rude and hostile toward the Amlingmeyer brothers. When they failed to drive the boys away even with a lynching attempt late one night things began to get more serious.
Another of the whores was murdered and cut up and left in the brother’s bed in the hotel. They were framed for her murder and ended up in a jail cell while a large crowd gathered and worked themselves up to a real lynching. But the two escaped from the jail and slunk through town to confront the whore house owners. When they finally got into the office above the wallpaper store where the owners operated they found the two men had been murdered.
Evidence there pointed to the town photographer so the brothers trekked across town to find the photographer. They managed to get into the basement through the coal chute and found the dark room with blood encrusted manacles hanging from a rafter. They were caught by the photographer and his wife who meant to kill them but Old Red managed to work out their escape by threatening with a match to light the very explosive magnesium powder that had been spilled all over t he basement floor. As the boys were making their way up the basement stairs the photographer shot at them and missed but managed to spark the magnesium and the resulting explosion destroyed the house. The Amlingmeyers managed to get out but were badly burned in the process.
The lynch mob caught them but before they could be hanged the boys were taken in by the sheriff. It was touch and go but they managed to convince the sheriff that he needed to do some investigating because they were not the killers. The sheriff found the evidence that conclusively nailed the photographer for the murders and in time after inquests on the killings of about a dozen people they were freed.
A rollicking and funny adventure in amateur detecting, using the methods much admired by Old Red; those of the famous Sherlock Holmes, these boys got there in the end by mostly blind luck. But they did solve the crime. “The Crack in the Lens” is the third in a series of “Holmes on the Range” adventures giving us the amateur detection theme in the old west setting. I particularly like the humor and readability of these stories and rate this one at a 9 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
