The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  “And what does that prove?” he asked.

  “It proves that the thumb-print on the window-pane was not made at the same time as the fingerprints—that it was added separately; and that fact seems to prove that the prints were not made accidentally, but—as you ingeniously suggested just now—were put there for a purpose.”

  “I don’t quite see the drift of all this,” said the superintendent, rubbing the back of his head perplexedly; “and you said a while back that the prints on the glass can’t be Belfield’s because they are identical with the prints on the form. Now that seems to me sheer nonsense, if you will excuse my saying so.”

  “And yet,” replied Thorndyke, “it is the actual fact. Listen: these prints”—here he took up the official sheet—“were taken at Holloway six years ago. These”—pointing to the framed glass—“were made within the present week. The one is, as regards the ridge-pattern, a perfect duplicate of the other. Is that not so?”

  “That is so, doctor,” agreed the superintendent.

  “Very well. Now suppose I were to tell you that within the last twelve months something had happened to Belfield that made an appreciable change in the ridge-pattern on one of his fingers?”

  “But is such a thing possible?”

  “It is not only possible but it has happened. I will show you.”

  He brought forth from the drawer the cards on which Belfield had made his fingerprints, and laid them before the detective.

  “Observe the prints of the forefinger,” he said, indicating them; “there are a dozen, in all, and you will notice in each a white line crossing the ridges and dividing them. That line is caused by a scar, which has destroyed a portion of the ridges, and is now an integral part of Belfield’s fingerprint.

  And since no such blank line is to be seen in this print on the glass—in which the ridges appear perfect, as they were before the injury—it follows that that print could not have been made by Belfield’s finger.”

  “There is no doubt about the injury, I suppose?”

  “None whatever. There is the scar to prove it, and I can produce the surgeon who attended Belfield at the time.”

  The officer rubbed his head harder than before, and regarded Thorndyke with puckered brows.

  “This is a teaser,” he growled, “it is indeed. What you say, sir, seems perfectly sound, and yet—there are those fingerprints on the window-glass. Now you can’t get fingerprints without fingers, can you?”

  “Undoubtedly you can,” said Thorndyke.

  “I should want to see that done before I could believe even you, sir,” said Miller.

  “You shall see it done now,” was the calm rejoinder. “You have evidently forgotten the Hornby case—the case of the Red Thumb-mark, as the newspapers called it.”

  “I only heard part of it,” replied Miller, “and I didn’t really follow the evidence in that.”

  “Well, I will show you a relic of that case,” said Thorndyke. He unlocked a cabinet and took from one of the shelves a small box labelled “Hornby,” which, being opened, was seen to contain a folded paper, a little red-covered oblong book and what looked like a large boxwood pawn.

  “This little book,” Thorndyke continued, “is a ‘thumbograph’—a sort of fingerprint album—I dare say you know the kind of thing.”

  The superintendent nodded contemptuously at the little volume.

  “Now while Dr. Jervis is finding us the print we want, I will run up to the laboratory for an inked slab.”

  He handed me the little book and, as he left the room, I began to turn over the leaves—not without emotion, for it was this very “thumbograph” that first introduced me to my wife, as is related elsewhere—glancing at the various prints above the familiar names and marvelling afresh at the endless variations of pattern that they displayed. At length I came upon two thumb-prints of which one—the left—was marked by a longitudinal white line—evidently the trace of a scar; and underneath them was written the signature “Reuben Hornby.”

  At this moment Thorndyke re-entered the room carrying the inked slab, which he laid on the table, and seating himself between the superintendent and me, addressed the former.

  “Now, Miller, here are two thumb-prints made by a gentleman named Reuben Hornby. Just glance at the left one; it is a highly characteristic print.”

  “Yes,” agreed Miller, “one could swear to that from memory, I should think.”

  “Then look at this.” Thorndyke took the paper from the box and, unfolding it, handed it to the detective. It bore a pencilled inscription, and on it were two blood-smears and a very distinct thumb-print in blood. “What do you say to that thumb-print?”

  “Why,” answered Miller, “it’s this one, of course; Reuben Hornby’s left thumb.”

  “Wrong, my friend,” said Thorndyke. “It was made by an ingenious gentleman named Walter Hornby (whom you followed from the Old Bailey and lost on Ludgate Hill); but not with his thumb.”

  “How, then?” demanded the superintendent incredulously.

  “In this way.” Thorndyke took the boxwood “pawn” from its receptacle and pressed its flat base onto the inked slab; then lifted it and pressed it onto the back of a visiting-card, and again raised it; and now the card was marked by a very distinct thumb-print.

  “My God!” exclaimed the detective, picking up the card and viewing it with a stare of dismay, “this is the very devil, sir. This fairly knocks the bottom out of fingerprint identification. May I ask, sir, how you made that stamp—for I suppose you did make it?”

  “Yes, we made it here, and the process we used was practically that used by photo-engravers in making line blocks; that is to say, we photographed one of Mr. Hornby’s thumb-prints, printed it on a plate of chrome-gelatine, developed the plate with hot water and this”—here he touched the embossed surface of the stamp—“is what remained. But we could have done it in various other ways; for instance, with common transfer paper and lithographic stone; indeed, I assure you, Miller, that there is nothing easier to forge than a fingerprint, and it can be done with such perfection that the forger himself cannot tell his own forgery from a genuine original, even when they are placed side by side.”

  “Well, I’m hanged,” grunted the superintendent, “you’ve fairly knocked me, this time, doctor.” He rose gloomily and prepared to depart. “I suppose,” he added, “your interest in this case has lapsed, now Belfield’s out of it?”

  “Professionally, yes; but I am disposed to finish the case for my own satisfaction. I am quite curious as to who our too-ingenious friend may be.”

  Miller’s face brightened. “We shall give you every facility, you know—and that reminds me that Singleton gave me these two photographs for you, one of the official paper and one of the prints on the glass. Is there anything more that we can do for you?”

  “I should like to have a look at the room in which the murder took place.”

  “You shall, doctor; tomorrow, if you like; I’ll meet you there in the morning at ten, if that will do.”

  It would do excellently, Thorndyke assured him, and with this the superintendent took his departure in renewed spirits.

  We had only just closed the door when there came a hurried and urgent tapping upon it, whereupon I once more threw it open, and a quietly-dressed woman in a thick veil, who was standing on the threshold, stepped quickly past me into the room.

  “Where is my husband?” she demanded, as I closed the door; and then, catching sight of Thorndyke, she strode up to him with a threatening air and a terrified but angry face.

  “What have you done with my husband, sir?” she repeated. “Have you betrayed him, after giving your word? I met a man who looked like a police officer on the stairs.”

  “Your husband, Mrs. Belfield, is here and quite safe,” replied Thorndyke. “He has locked himself in that room,” indicating the office.

  Mrs. Belfield darted across and rapped smartly at the door. “Are you there, Frank?” she called.

 
In immediate response the key turned, the door opened and Belfield emerged looking very pale and worn.

  “You have kept me a long time in there, sir,” he said.

  “It took me a long time to prove to Superintendent Miller that he was after the wrong man. But I succeeded, and now, Belfield, you are free. The charge against you is withdrawn.”

  Belfield stood for a while as one stupefied, while his wife, after a moment of silent amazement, flung her arms round his neck and burst into tears. “But how did you know I was innocent, sir?” demanded the bewildered Belfield.

  “Ah! How did I? Every man to his trade, you know. Well, I congratulate you, and now go home and have a square meal and get a good night’s rest.”

  He shook hands with his clients—vainly endeavouring to prevent Mrs. Belfield from kissing his hand—and stood at the open door listening until the sound of their retreating footsteps died away.

  “A noble little woman, Jervis,” said he, as he closed the door. “In another moment she would have scratched my face—and I mean to find out the scoundrel who tried to wreck her happiness.”

  PART II

  THE SHIP OF THE DESERT

  The case which I am now about to describe has always appeared to me a singularly instructive one, as illustrating the value and importance of that fundamental rule in the carrying out of investigations which Thorndyke had laid down so emphatically—the rule that all facts, in any way relating to a case, should be collected impartially and without reference to any theory, and each fact, no matter how trivial or apparently irrelevant, carefully studied. But I must not anticipate the remarks of my learned and talented friend on this subject which I have to chronicle anon; rather let me proceed to the case itself.

  I had slept at our chambers in King’s Bench Walk—as I commonly did two or three nights a week—and on coming down to the sitting-room, found Thorndyke’s man, Polton, putting the last touches to the breakfast-table, while Thorndyke himself was poring over two photographs of fingerprints, of which he seemed to be taking elaborate measurements with a pair of hair-dividers. He greeted me with his quiet, genial smile and, laying down the dividers, took his seat at the breakfast-table.

  “You are coming with me this morning, I suppose,” said he; “the Camberwell murder case, you know.”

  “Of course I am if you will have me, but I know practically nothing of the case. Could you give me an outline of the facts that are known?”

  Thorndyke looked at me solemnly, but with a mischievous twinkle. “This,” he said, “is the old story of the fox and the crow; you ‘bid me discourse,’ and while I ‘enchant thine ear,’ you claw to windward with the broiled ham. A deep-laid plot, my learned brother.”

  “And such,” I exclaimed, “is the result of contact with the criminal classes!”

  “I am sorry that you regard yourself in that light,” he retorted, with a malicious smile. “However, with regard to this case. The facts are briefly these: The murdered man, Caldwell, who seems to have been formerly a receiver of stolen goods and probably a police spy as well, lived a solitary life in a small house with only an elderly woman to attend him.

  “A week ago this woman went to visit a married daughter and stayed the night with her, leaving Caldwell alone in the house. When she returned on the following morning she found her master lying dead on the floor of his office, or study, in a small pool of blood.

  “The police surgeon found that he had been dead about twelve hours. He had been killed by a single blow, struck from behind, with some heavy implement, and a jemmy which lay on the floor beside him fitted the wound exactly. The deceased wore a dressing-gown and no collar, and a bedroom candlestick lay upside down on the floor, although gas was laid on in the room; and as the window of the office appears to have been forced with the jemmy that was found, and there were distinct footprints on the flower-bed outside the window, the police think that the deceased was undressing to go to bed when he was disturbed by the noise of the opening window; that he went down to the office and, as he entered, was struck down by the burglar who was lurking behind the door. On the window-glass the police found the greasy impression of an open right hand, and, as you know, the fingerprints were identified by the experts as those of an old convict named Belfield. As you also know, I proved that those fingerprints were, in reality, forgeries, executed with rubber or gelatine stamps. That is an outline of the case.”

  The close of this recital brought our meal to an end, and we prepared for our visit to the scene of the crime. Thorndyke slipped into his pocket his queer outfit—somewhat like that of a field geologist—locked up the photographs, and we set forth by way of the Embankment.

  “The police have no clue, I suppose, to the identity of the murderer, now that the fingerprints have failed?” I asked, as we strode along together.

  “I expect not,” he replied, “though they might have if they examined their material. I made out a rather interesting point this morning, which is this: the man who made those sham fingerprints used two stamps, one for the thumb and the other for the four fingers; and the original from which those stamps were made was the official fingerprint form.”

  “How did you discover that?” I inquired.

  “It was very simple. You remember that Mr. Singleton of the Finger-print Department sent me, by Superintendent Miller, two photographs, one of the prints on the window and one of the official form with Belfield’s fingerprints on it. Well, I have compared them and made the most minute measurements of each, and they are obviously duplicates. Not only are all the little imperfections on the form—due to defective inking—reproduced faithfully on the window-pane, but the relative positions of the four fingers on both cases agree to the hundredth of an inch. Of course the thumb stamp was made by taking an oval out of the rolled impression on the form.”

  “Then do you suggest that this murder was committed by some one connected with the Finger-print Department at Scotland Yard?”

  “Hardly. But some one has had access to the forms. There has been leakage somewhere.”

  When we arrived at the little detached house in which the murdered man had lived, the door was opened by an elderly woman, and our friend, Superintendent Miller, greeted us in the hall.

  “We are all ready for you, doctor,” said he. “Of course, the things have all been gone over once, but we are turning them out more thoroughly now.” He led the way into the small, barely-furnished office in which the tragedy had occurred. A dark stain on the carpet and a square hole in one of the window-panes furnished memorials of the crime, which were supplemented by an odd assortment of objects laid out on the newspaper-covered table. These included silver teaspoons, watches, various articles of jewellery, from which the stones had been removed—none of them of any considerable value—and a roughly-made jemmy.

  “I don’t know why Caldwell should have kept all these odds and ends,” said the detective superintendent. “There is stuff here, that I can identify, from six different burglaries—and not a conviction among the six.”

  Thorndyke looked over the collection with languid interest; he was evidently disappointed at finding the room so completely turned out.

  “Have you any idea what has been taken?” he asked.

  “Not the least. We don’t even know if the safe was opened. The keys were on the writing-table, so I suppose he went through everything, though I don’t see why he left these things if he did. We found them all in the safe.”

  “Have you powdered the jemmy?”

  The superintendent turned very red. “Yes,” he growled, “but some half-dozen blithering idiots had handled the thing before I saw it—been trying it on the window, the blighters—so, of course, it showed nothing but the marks of their beastly paws.”

  “The window had not really been forced, I suppose?” said Thorndyke.

  “No,” replied Miller, with a glance of surprise at my colleague, “that was a plant; so were the footprints. He must have put on a pair of Caldwell’s boots and gone out an
d made them—unless Caldwell made them himself, which isn’t likely.”

  “Have you found any letter or telegram?”

  “A letter making an appointment for nine o’clock on the night of the murder. No signature or address, and the handwriting evidently disguised.”

  “Is there anything that furnishes any sort of clue?”

  “Yes, sir, there is. There’s this, which we found in the safe.” He produced a small parcel which he proceeded to unfasten, looking somewhat queerly at Thorndyke the while. It contained various odds and ends of jewellery, and a smaller parcel formed of a pocket-handkerchief tied with tape. This the detective also unfastened, revealing half-a-dozen silver teaspoons, all engraved with the same crest, two salt-cellars and a gold locket bearing a monogram. There was also a half-sheet of note-paper on which was written, in a manifestly disguised hand: “There are the goods I told you about.? F. B.” But what riveted Thorndyke’s attention and mine was the handkerchief itself (which was not a very clean one and was sullied by one or two small blood-stains), for it was marked in one corner with the name “F. Belfield,” legibly printed in marking-ink with a rubber stamp.

  Thorndyke and the superintendent looked at one another and both smiled.

  “I know what you are thinking, sir,” said the latter.

  “I am sure you do,” was the reply, “and it is useless to pretend that you don’t agree with me.”

  “Well, sir,” said Miller doggedly, “if that handkerchief has been put there as a plant, it’s Belfield’s business to prove it. You see, doctor,” he added persuasively, “it isn’t this job only that’s affected. Those spoons, those salt-cellars and that locket are part of the proceeds of the Winchmore Hill burglary, and we want the gentleman who did that crack—we want him very badly.”

  “No doubt you do,” replied Thorndyke, “but this handkerchief won’t help you. A sharp counsel—Mr. Anstey, for instance—would demolish it in five minutes. I assure you, Miller, that handkerchief has no evidential value whatever, whereas it might prove an invaluable instrument of research. The best thing you can do is to hand it over to me and let me see what I can learn from it.”