14 hours

7. Meaningless evidences

"What's your plan, Bill?"
With questioning looks, they watched how the Gila monster rummaged in his private box what he used to hide under his bed.
Meanwhile, they had returned to their hiding place and Bill still hadn't made a statement.
"What do you want to do with that?"
Stump pointed at the long belt of bullets.
"I only want to finish my job," Bill said and stood up.
"Aaaaand?" Kinski asked. "Means what?"
"What do you think? I don't know why you ask. Looking for that idiots who put paid to our plans. And you will lead us to them."
Stump looked up with surprise. "What? Who? Me?"
"Who else is the expert for detective work?"
"But Bill, only that I watched detective movies in my childhood, that's a far cry from saying that..."
"Like your literary stuff like that?"
Bill held up a book.
Stump became red. "Where did you...? Do you snoop in my private matters?"
Bill grinned and threw the book over Stump's head. The rabbit tried to catch, but Kinski caught it instead.
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?" the bigger rabbit read before Stump pried it away from him.
"Just childhood memories."
"And what about this?"
Bill held another book.
"Edgar Wallace?" Chorizo asked with surprise before Stump took it, too.
The Gila monster grinned. "Fine. In this case we have agreed with that. You make the investigating work. What says the expert now?"
He leaned himself against the house wall of their hiding place and waited for a wise answer.
Kinski meanwhile scratched his head. "But didn't Sherlock Holmes investigate in murder cases? We still have no corpse."
"It wasn't only corpses near," Stump muttered.
"You see." Bill pointed at Stump's head. "His brain is working. Well, shut up. What next?"
Stump stood there like forgotten and looked at his friends.
"Eeeeeeh. Sherlock Holmes... would look for... evidences. Even the smallest detail could be very important."
The lizard, rabbit and mouse furrowed their brows.
"Details? Details," Chorizo muttered.
"Let's answer another question," Stump said, still a little confused. "Where was the missing person seen for the last time?"
"We know where," Bill grunted. "We had been there."
"Yes, but maybe someone of them had lost something," Stump argued. "We need a track which we can follow."
"A track?" Kinski rubbed his ear. "You mean, a detector dog?"
"Not really. Something what the guys had lost what could lead us to them."
Bill snapped his fingers. "What they "lost" are the letters."
With that the lizard threw the letters on a table.
All four men surrounded them.
"Well, let's take a closer look."
Very soon they had opened the letters so that the envelopes, the notes and the two photographs lay in front of them. Deep in thoughts they eyed them.
"Do you see anything?" Kinski asked around.
"What should they tell us?" Chorizo asked.
"Think about the details," Stump said.
Kinski tapped with his fingers on the photos. "I could be wrong, but maybe these photos were made with an instant picture camera."
"Nice," Bill snorted sarcastically. "Should we collect the names of the ones who bought such a thing?"
"No," Stump stopped his anger. "But the photos could tell us a lot."
"And what, photo whisperer?" Chorizo muttered.
Stump bent more forward. "Mm, looks like a... look at the background. The room. What does it look like?"
All four eyed the photos closer, trying to interpret the background where the chameleon seemed to be captured.
"Mm, a cave?" Chorizo guessed.
Kinski shock his head. "No, too straight walls."
"A part of a hut?" Chorizo tried again. "A shed?"
Bill covered his face. "Where the hell do you see wooden walls?"
"A dungeon?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Bill said and tapped the mouse head.
"Do you have a better idea?"
The Gila monster crossed his arms and looked with narrowed eyes at the photos.
First at the photo where Rango sat and the next where the chameleon lay on the floor. The floor. It was hard. Stone? Cement? All walls were made from hard material.
Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "A cellar."
The others took a closer look.
Kinski rubbed his chin. "Mm, possible, possible."
"We made one step more," Stump joyed.
"Yes, but with no much sense," Kinski grunted. "We can't look at every house with a cellar."
"What about the letters?" Stump changed the topic.
"What about them?" Chorizo asked and took the first letter in his hand. "The letters could be from every newspaper or magazine..."
"But maybe they left their DNA on them."
"DNA... what?" Chorizo had no idea.
"Nowadays that's a brand-new process in forensic science. Everyone has his own DNA in our cells. With that, they can match your track on a place like a fingerprint. Fingerprint?... Yes...that..."
"Nice, nice," Kinski stopped his forensic science enthusiasm. "Do you know a laboratory for such a "brand-new" science?"
Stump forced a smile. "Not yet...but..."
"Sherlock Holmes had a laboratory," Chorizo said while he flicked through the book.
"Nonsense!" Bill cried. "We aren't FBI or whatever."
"Agents?" Kinski liked that idea. "Cool."
"Fingerprints!" Stump screamed.
All three others stared at him.
The rabbit raised his hands. "A very old trick, but still very useful."
Kinski rolled his eyes. "But there is one problem."
He pointed at the letters.
"We all touched the letters. Maybe we can't find useful fingerprints anymore."
With nervous hands, Stump rummaged through his head hair. "Maybe we should wait until tomorrow for a new letter..."
"Damn, man!" Kinski grabbed his shoulders. "Tomorrow we get the fingers!"
"Okay, okay, okay..." Stump broke free from him. "Alright, I got it!"
Bill meanwhile stood in the room, deep in thoughts. "But maybe, this though is not so stupid. Just in case if the blackmailer was stupid, as always... Say, what do you need for that process?"
Stump thought a moment. "Well, we will need ink pad, paper, pencils, sellotape, brushes..."

"What do you want to do with that?"
Mrs. Daisy asked, who was working in the post office of Dirt. She was more than surprised when Bill asked her for office utensils.
"Keep your mouth and give them to me," Bill only said.
He wanted to leave that house immediately before she could ask something about under water vapor opened letters.
With a little box in his hands, Bill disappeared in an old shed, where the others waited for him.
Stump took ink pad and paper first.
"Alright. Every one of you have to tape his fingerprints on the paper."
The others crossed their arms. "Means what?"

"That's so childish," Kinski muttered and rubbed his blue colored fingertips together.
If Stump hadn't drawn his fingerprints on the paper, too, nobody would have colored his fingers blue.
After everyone had pressed his blue fingertips on the paper, they made an overview about their work.
"We should burn it after that," Kinski suggested. "Before someone gets the idea to use it for the criminal file.
"Don't worry," Stump calmed him. "It's just for this moment. Okay, now the pencils."
He took another paper and put some pencils beside it. Then he took a knife and rubbed the top of the pencils over the paper so that a little pencil powder came into being.
"Where did you learn that?" Chorizo asked.
"Unimportant," Bill barged in and was busy to clean his blue fingertips with a towel. "Let him do his work. I want to finish up this stupid action today."
"Okay," Stump said finally.
With the powder and a brush, he wiped over the letters to fix some fingerprints. After that, he saved them with a piece of sellotape, and glued them on another paper.
"They are a lot of fingerprints," he explained the result. "Ours and another one what isn't from us."
"Maybe from the blackmailer," Chorizo guessed.
"Maybe, but maybe they wore gloves," Kinski objected. "And more possible, these strange fingerprints could be from the postman only."
"Again an impasse?" Bill sounded more than disappointed. But he had the next idea immediately. "In this case we should pay a visit to the postman."
The others looked at him. Then they nodded.
"Alright, but maybe, before we leave, we should scrutinize the crime scene," Stump said.
Bill narrowed his eyes warningly. "Don't say such words again. You are sounding like that sheriff now."

"Trackless area," Kinski reported.
As good as they searched in the shed where the kidnappers had knocked out the sheriff, they found nothing.
"They left nothing," Chorizo brought it to the point. "No suspicious hair, no piece of stuff, no credit cards, nothing."
"Alright gentlemen." Bill stood up and cleaned his pants. "In this case we travel to the main post office in Primrose Town now."
The others assented to his view.
They left the shed and climbed on their roadrunners.
"What's that?" Chorizo asked and pointed at something what Kinski held in his hand.
"A pocket watch."
"Expensive?"
"It was a gift."
Chorizo smiled. "Of course. Well, what time is it?"
Kinski took a look at the watch. "Well, until midnight, we have almost 12 hours."
"As long as you don't count every minute," Bill interrupted him. "We shouldn't waste more time."
He rode first.
Chorizo bent over to Kinski. "Do you really think, that he comes with us, just because, that it's his job?"
"Whatever. But I don't want to get body parts in the post. Either a whole corpse in life or nothing."
"What are you babbling?" Bill asked loudly. "I want to make fast work of that before the clock belts midnight. And by the way, I'm still the leader of our group, alright?"
Kinski sighed loudly. „Alright, Sherlock Holmes. And I'm Dr. Watson and you..."
He pointed at Stump. "You are Columbo."
"And what about me?" Chorizo asked curiously.
"You play Miss Marple."