The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack. R. Austin Freeman
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am sorry,” said Thorndyke, “that they are such wretchedly poor prints. You don’t think that they are too imperfect to identify, I hope.”
Miller inspected the photographs afresh. “I don’t see much amiss with them,” said he. “You can’t expect a crook to go about with a roller and inking-plate in his pocket so as to give you nice sharp prints. These are better than a good many that our people have to work from. And besides, there are three digits from one hand. That gives you part of the formula straight away. No, the experts won’t make any trouble about these. But supposing these prints are not on the file?”
“Then we shall take it that I suspected the wrong man.”
“Quite so. But, if I am not mistaken, your concern is to prove whose fingerprints they are in order that you can say whose fingerprints they are not. Now, supposing that we don’t find them on the files of the dead men, would it help you if we tried the current files—the records of the crooks who are still in business? Or would you rather not?”
“If it would not be giving you too much trouble,” said Thorndyke, “I should be very much obliged if you would.”
“No trouble at all,” said Miller, adding with a sly smile: “only it occurred to me that it might be embarrassing to you if we found your respected client’s fingerprints on the live register.”
“That would be a highly interesting development,” said Thorndyke, “though I don’t think it a likely one. But it is just as well to exhaust the possibilities.”
“Quite,” agreed Miller; and thereupon he wrote the brief particulars on a slip of paper which he put into an envelope with the photographs, and, having rung a bell, handed the envelope to the messenger who appeared in response to the summons.
“I don’t suppose we shall have to keep you waiting very long,” said the Superintendent. “They have an extraordinarily ingenious system of filing. Out of all the thousands of fingerprints that they have, they can pounce on the one that is wanted in the course of a few minutes. It seems incredible, and yet it is essentially simple—just a matter of classification and ringing the changes on different combinations of types.”
“You are speaking of completely legible prints?” suggested Thorndyke.
“Yes, the sort of prints that we get sent in from local prisons for identification of a man who has been arrested under a false name. Of course, when we get a single imperfect print found by the police at a place where a crime has been committed, a bit more time has to be spent. Then we have not only got to place the print, but we’ve got to make mighty sure that it is the right one, because an arrest and a prosecution hangs on it. You don’t want to arrest a man and then, when you come to take his fingerprints properly, find that they are the wrong ones. So, in the case of an imperfect print, you have got to do some careful ridge-tracing and counting and systematic checking of individual ridge-characters, such as bifurcations and islands. But, even so, they don’t take so very long over it. The practised eye picks out at a glance details that an unpractised eye can hardly recognize even when they are pointed out.”
The Superintendent was proceeding to dilate, with professional enthusiasm, on the wonders of fingerprint technique and the efficiency of the Department when his eulogies were confirmed by the entrance of an officer carrying a sheaf of papers and Thorndyke’s photographs, which he delivered into Miller’s hands.
“Well, doctor,” said the Superintendent, after a brief glance at the documents, “here is your information. Jeffrey Brandon is the name of the late lamented. Will that do for you?”
“Yes,” replied Thorndyke, “that is the name I expected to hear.”
“Good,” said Miller. “I see they have kept the whole of his papers for some reason. I will just glance through them while you are doing Thomas Didymus with the fingerprints. But it is quite obvious, if you compare your photographs with the rolled impressions, that the ridge-patterns are identical.”
He handed Thorndyke the fingerprint sheet, to which were attached the photograph and personal description, and sat down at the table to look over the other documents, while Thorndyke walked over to the window to get a better light. But he did not concern himself with the fingerprints beyond a very brief inspection. It was the photograph that interested him. It showed, on the same print, a right profile and a full face; of which he concentrated his attention on the former. A rather remarkable profile it was, strikingly handsome and curiously classical in outline, rather recalling the head of Antinous in the British Museum. Thorndyke examined it minutely, and then—his back being turned to Miller—he drew from his waistcoat pocket the right profile of Mr. Pottermack and placed it beside the prison photograph.
A single glance made it clear that the two photographs represented the same face. Though one showed a clean-shaven young man with the full lips and strong, rounded chin completely revealed, while the other was a portrait of a bearded, spectacled, middle-aged man, yet they were unmistakably the same. The remarkable nose and brow and the shapely ear were identical in the two photographs; and in both, the lobe of the ear was marked at its tip by a dark spot.
From the photograph he turned to the description. Not that it was necessary to seek further proof; and he did, in fact, merely glance through the particulars. But that rapid glance gathered fresh confirmation. “Height 5 feet 6 inches, hair chestnut, eyes darkish grey, small port-wine mark on lobe of right ear,” etc. All the details of Jeffrey Brandon’s personal characteristics applied perfectly to Mr. Marcus Pottermack.
“I don’t quite see,” said Miller, as he took the papers from Thorndyke and laid them on the others, “why they kept all these documents. The conviction doesn’t look to me very satisfactory—I don’t like these cases where the prosecution has all its eggs in one basket, with the possible chance that they may be bad eggs; and it was a devil of a sentence for a first offence. But as the poor beggar is dead, and no reconsideration of either the conviction or the sentence is possible, there doesn’t seem much object in preserving the records. Still, there may have been some reason at the time.”
In his own mind, Thorndyke was of opinion that there might have been a very good reason. But he did not communicate this opinion. He had obtained the information that he had sought and was not at all desirous of troubling still waters; and his experience having taught him that Mr. Superintendent Miller was an exceedingly “noticing” gentleman, he thought it best to avoid further discussion and take his departure, after having expressed his appreciation of the assistance that he had received.
Nevertheless, for some time after he had gone, the Superintendent remained wrapped in profound thought; and that his cogitations were in some way concerned with the departed visitor would have been suggested by the circumstance that he sauntered to the window and looked down with a speculative eye on that visitor as he strode across the courtyard towards the Whitehall gate.
Meanwhile Thorndyke’s mind was no less busy. As he wended his way Templewards he reviewed the situation in all its bearings. The wildly improbable had turned out to be true. He had made a prodigiously long shot and he had hit the mark: which was gratifying inasmuch as it justified a previous rather hypothetical train of reasoning. Marcus Pottermack, Esq., was undoubtedly the late Jeffrey Brandon. There was now no question about that. The only question that remained was what was to be done in the matter; and that question would have been easier to decide if he had been in possession of more facts. He had heard Mr. Stalker’s opinion of the conviction, based on intimate knowledge of the circumstances, and he had heard that of the Superintendent, based on an immense experience of prosecutions. He was inclined to agree with them both; and the more so inasmuch as he had certain knowledge which they had not.
In the end, he decided to take no action at present, but to keep a watchful eye for further developments.
CHAPTER VIII
MR. POTTERMACK SEEKS ADVENTURE
In the last chapter it was stated that one of the effects of Thorndyke’s appearance at the side gate of “The Chestnuts,” Borley, was to revive in the mind of its tenant certain projects which had been considered and rejected. But perhaps the word “rejected”