Suddenly he stopped. The picture in his hand was familiar. A face was smiling up at him from the glossy print, a German fatigue cap was set at a jaunty angle, there was a slight scar over one eye—it was familiar and yet unfamiliar. It looked like Kurt Blandin, yet it was unlike Kurt Blandin. It might have been Kurt ten years before.
Hastily Tim read the short paragraph of descriptive matter attached. The picture in his hand was that of Max Reuter, one of the greatest of German aces, who had been brought down behind the Allied lines just before the close of the war. Shell-shocked, Reuter had been held in a prison camp until the close of the war and then released.
The clipping told little more of importance, but to Tim it had provided a world of information. The whole puzzle fitted together. Dugan’s story, even without him, was complete, and he hurried from the library and started toward the municipal airport.
Tim had a premonition of danger and when he reached the field was not surprised to see Hunter run toward him the minute he came through the gate.
“Tim, Tim,” cried the field manager. “The Sky Hawk has struck! He’s wrecked our eastbound express plane and looted its cargo!”
“Where?” asked Tim with a numbness of heart that seemed to weigh him down.
“East of Montour. The report just came in. It couldn’t have happened more than an hour ago. Ralph’s over on the line now warming up your ship. Will you help us out?”
Tim nodded, hastened into the office for a suit of coveralls and in five minutes was speeding west. Less than an hour later they were scudding to a landing on a field where the remains of the eastbound express were only a blackened heap.
It was a simple story. The country was sparsely settled. A forced landing by the plane, a pounce by the waiting Sky Hawk, a dead pilot, a flaming plane with empty express compartments. The marks of the Sky Hawk’s plane were plainly visible in the snow, even his footprints could be discerned. But that was all There were no fingerprints, nothing more than the tracks in the snow. It looked like a hopeless quest when Ralph, poking around in the wreckage of the plane, picked up a bit of metal. It was a small piece of copper, corroded, strangely so.
Without explaining his action to Tim, he pocketed it and they prepared for the return flight to Atkinson.