“Of course not,” said Manfred, “but I don’t see what you mean.”
“I mean that until the whole of the country and every country in Europe adopts a system by which every citizen registers his fingerprints and until all the countries have an opportunity of exchanging those fingerprints and comparing them with their own, it is ridiculous to say that no two prints are alike.”
“That settles the fingerprint system,” said Manfred, sotto voce.
“Logically it does,” said the complacent Leon, “but actually it will not, of course.”
There was a long silence after this and then Manfred reached to a case by the side of the fireplace and took down a book.
Presently he heard the creak of a chair as Gonsalez rose and the soft “pad” of a closing door. Manfred looked up at the clock and, as he knew, it was half past eight.
In five minutes Leon was back again. He had changed his clothing and, as Manfred had once said before, his disguise was perfect. It was not a disguise in the accepted understanding of the word, for he had not in any way touched his face, or changed the colour of his hair.
Only by his artistry he contrived to appear just as he wished to appear, an extremely poor man. His collar was clean, but frayed. His boots were beautifully polished, but they were old and patched. He did not permit the crudity of a heel worn down, but had fixed two circular rubber heels just a little too large for their foundations.
“You are an old clerk battling with poverty, and striving to the end to be genteel,” said Manfred.
Gonsalez shook his head.
“I am a solicitor who, twenty years ago, was struck off the rolls and ruined because I helped a man to escape the processes of the law. An ever so much more sympathetic role, George. Moreover, it brings people to me for advice. One of these nights you must come down to the public bar of the Cow and Compasses and hear me discourse upon the Married Woman’s Property Act.”
“I never asked you what you were before,” said George. “Good hunting, Leon, and my respectful salutations to Amelia Jones!”
Gonsalez was biting his lips thoughtfully and looking into the fire and now he nodded.
“Poor Amelia Jones?” he said softly.
“You’re a wonderful fellow,” smiled Manfred, “only you could invest a charwoman of middle age with the glamour of romance.”
Leon was helping himself into a threadbare overcoat.
“There was an English poet once—it was Pope, I think—who said that everybody was romantic who admired a fine thing, or did one. I rather think Amelia Jones has done both.”
The Cow and Compasses is a small public-house in Treet Road, Deptford. The gloomy thoroughfare was well-nigh empty, for it was a grey cold night when Leon turned into the bar. The uninviting weather may have been responsible for the paucity of clients that evening, for there were scarcely half a dozen people on the sanded floor when he made his way to the bar and ordered a claret and soda.
One who had been watching for him started up from the deal form on which she had been sitting and subsided again when he walked toward her with glass in hand.
“Well, Mrs. Jones,” he greeted her, “and how are you this evening?”
She was a stout woman with a white worn face and hands that trembled spasmodically.
“I am glad you’ve come, sir,” she said.
She held a little glass of port in her hand, but it was barely touched. It was on one desperate night when in an agony of terror and fear this woman had fled from her lonely home to the light and comfort of the public-house that Leon had met her. He was at the time pursuing with the greatest caution a fascinating skull which he had seen on the broad shoulders of a Covent Garden porter. He had tracked the owner to his home and to his place of recreation and was beginning to work up to his objective, which was to secure the history and the measurements of this unimaginative bearer of fruit, when the stout charwoman had drifted into his orbit. Tonight she evidently had something on her mind of unusual importance, for she made three lame beginnings before she plunged into the matter which was agitating her.
“Mr. Lucas” (this was the name Gonsalez had given to the habitués of the Cow and Compasses), “I want to ask you a great favour. You’ve been very kind to me, giving me advice about my husband, and all that. But this is a big favour and you’re a very busy gentleman, too.”
She looked at him appealingly, almost pleadingly.
“I have plenty of time just now,” said Gonsalez.
“Would you come with me into the country tomorrow?” she asked. “I want you to—to—to see somebody.”
“Why surely, Mrs. Jones,” said Gonsalez.
“Would you be at Paddington Station at nine o’clock in the morning? I would pay your fare,” she went on fervently. “Of course, I shouldn’t allow you to go to any expense—I’ve got a bit of money put by.”
“As to that,” said Leon, “I’ve made a little money myself today, so don’t trouble about the fare. Have you heard from your husband?”
“Not from him,” she shook her head, “but from another man who has just come out of prison.”
Her lips trembled and tears were in her eyes.
“He’ll do it, I know he’ll do it,” she said, with a catch in her voice, “but it’s not me that I’m thinking of.”
Leon opened his eyes.
“Not you?” he repeated.
He had suspected the third factor, yet he had never been able to fit it in the scheme of this commonplace woman.
“No, sir, not me,” she said miserably. “You know he hates me and you know he’s going to do me in the moment he gets out, but I haven’t told
