“The prints would be identical?”
“Oh, no; no two prints are ever identical. The pressure of the finger and the temperature of the body cause infinite minute variations.”
“But they do not interfere with identification?”
“No more than the fact that you raise or lower your voice alters the fact that it is your voice.”
“Precisely. Now, Dr. Barretti, I ask you to identify these two photographs and to tell us what they represent.”
Dr. Barretti took the two huge cardboard squares with their sinister black splotches and inspected them gravely. The jury, abruptly and violently agog with interest, hunched rapidly forward to the edges of their chairs.
From over Mr. Farr’s shoulder came an old, shaken voice—the voice of Dudley Lambert, empty of its erstwhile resonance as a pricked drum: “One moment—one moment! Do I understand that you are offering these in evidence?”
“I don’t know whether you understand it or not,” remarked Mr. Farr irritably. “It’s certainly what I intend to do as soon as I get them marked for identification. Now, Dr. Barretti—”
“Your Honour, I object to this—I object!”
“On what grounds?” inquired Judge Carver somewhat peremptorily, his own eyes fixed with undisguised interest on the large squares.
“On the grounds that this entire performance is utterly irregular. I was not told that the witness held back by the prosecutor was a fingerprint expert, nor that—”
“You did not make any inquiries to that effect,” the judge reminded him unsympathetically.
“I consider the entire performance nothing more or less than a trap, Your Honour. I know nothing about this man. I know nothing about fingerprints. I am not a police-court lawyer, but a—”
“Do you desire further to qualify Dr. Barretti as an expert by cross-examination?” inquired His Honour with more than his usual hint of acerbity.
“I do not, Your Honour; as I stated, I am totally unable to cross-examine on the subject.”
“I am sure that Dr. Barretti will hold himself at your disposal until you have had the time to consult or produce fingerprint experts of your own,” said Judge Carver, bending inquiring eyes on that urbane gentleman and the restive prosecutor.
“Oh, by all means,” said Mr. Farr. “One day—two days—three days—we willingly waive cross-examination until my distinguished adversary is completely prepared. May I proceed, Your Honour?”
“You may.”
“They represent two greatly enlarged sets of fingerprints, enlarged some fifty to sixty times—both the photographs and the initialled enlargements are in the lower left-hand corners—by my photographer and myself.”
“Both made at the same time?”
“The photographs were made at the same time—yes.”
“No, no—were the fingerprints themselves?”
“Oh, no, at quite different times. The set at the right is a photograph of official prints—prints made especially for our file; the one at the left, sometimes known as a casual print, was obtained from a surface at another date entirely.”
“A clear impression?”
“A remarkably clear impression. I believe that I may say without exaggeration—a beautiful impression.”
“Each shows five fingers?”
“The official one shows five fingers, the casual print shows four fingers distinctly—the fifth, the little finger, is considerably blurred, as apparently no pressure was exerted by it.”
“Only one fingerprint is necessary in order to establish identity?”
“A section of a fingerprint, if it is sufficiently large, will establish identity.”
“These prints are from the same hand?”
“From the same hand.”
“It should be obvious even to the layman in comparing them that the same hand made them?”
“I should think that it would be inescapable.”
“No two people in the world have ever been discovered to have the same arrangement of whorls or loops or arches that constitute a fingerprint?”
“No two in the world.”
“How many fingerprints have been taken?”
“Oh, millions of them—the number increases so rapidly that it would be folly to guess at it.”
“I’m going to ask you to give these prints to the jury, Dr. Barretti, so that they may be able to compare them at their leisure. Will you pass them on, Mr. Foreman, after you have inspected them? … Thanks.”
The foreman of the jury fell upon them with a barely restrained pounce, the very glasses on his nose quivering with excitement. Fingerprints! Things that you read about all your life, that you wondered and speculated and marvelled over—and here they were, right in your lucky hands. The rest of the jury crowded forward enviously.
“Dr. Barretti, on what surface were these so-called casual prints found?”
Through the courtroom there ran a stir—a murmur—that strange soaring hum with which humanity eases itself of the intolerable burden of suspense. Even the rapt jury lifted its head to catch it.
“From the surface of a brass lamp—the lamp found in the gardener’s cottage on the Thorne estate known as Orchards.”
“Will you tell us why it was possible to obtain so sharply defined a print from this lamp?”
“Certainly. The hand that clasped the lamp was apparently quite moist, either from natural conditions of temperature or from some emotion. It had clasped the base, which was about six inches in diameter before it swelled into the portion that served as reservoir, quite firmly. The surface of the lamp had been lacquered in order to obviate polishing, making an excellent retaining surface. Furthermore, the impression was developed within twenty-four hours of the time of the murder, and the surface was at no time tampered with. The kerosene that had flowed from it freely flowed away from the base, and, in any case, the prints were on the upper portion of the base. All these circumstances united in making it possible to obtain an unusually fine print.”
“One that leaves not the remotest possibility of error in comparison and identification?”
“Not the remotest.”
“Whose hand made those two sets of impressions, Dr. Barretti?”
“The hand in both cases,” said Dr. Barretti, gravely and pleasantly, “was that of Mrs. Patrick Ives.”
After a long time Mr. Farr said softly, “That is all, Dr. Barretti. Cross-examine.”
And as though it had travelled a great distance and were very tired, the old strange voice that Mr. Lambert had found in the courtroom that afternoon said wearily, “No questions now. Later, perhaps—later—not now.”
The fifth day of the Bellamy trial was over.
VI
The
