The judge’s table was provided with a shallow drawer which pulled out at the side and which accommodated the box comfortably, leaving the small tabletop free for the papers. When the lid of the box was raised, there were displayed a copper inking-slab, a small roller and the twenty-four “pawns” which had so puzzled Polton, and on which he now gazed with a twinkle of amusement and triumph.
“Are those all stamps?” inquired the judge, glancing curiously at the array of turned-wood handles.
“They are all stamps, my lord,” replied Thorndyke, “and each is taken from a different impression of the prisoner’s thumb.”
“But why so many?” asked the judge.
“I have multiplied them,” answered Thorndyke, as he squeezed out a drop of fingerprint ink on to the slab and proceeded to roll it out into a thin film, “to avoid the telltale uniformity of a single stamp. And I may say,” he added, “that it is highly important that the experts should not be informed that more than one stamp has been used.”
“Yes, I see that,” said the judge. “You understand that, Sir Hector,” he added, addressing the counsel, who bowed stiffly, clearly regarding the entire proceeding with extreme disfavour.
Thorndyke now inked one of the stamps and handed it to the judge, who examined it curiously and then pressed it on a piece of waste paper, on which there immediately appeared a very distinct impression of a human thumb.
“Marvellous!” he exclaimed. “Most ingenious! Too ingenious!” He chuckled softly and added, as he handed the stamp and the paper to the foreman of the jury: “It is well, Dr. Thorndyke, that you are on the side of law and order, for I am afraid that, if you were on the other side, you would be one too many for the police. Now, if you are ready, we will proceed. Will you, please, stamp an impression in square number three.”
Thorndyke drew a stamp from its compartment, inked it on the slab, and pressed it neatly on the square indicated, leaving there a sharp, clear thumbprint.
The process was repeated on nine other squares, a different stamp being used for each impression. The judge then marked the ten corresponding squares of the other two sheets of paper, and having checked them, directed the foreman to exhibit the sheet bearing the false thumbprints to the jury, together with the marked sheet which they were to retain, to enable them to check the statements of the expert witnesses. When this was done, the prisoner was brought from the dock and stood beside the table. The judge looked with a curious and not unkindly interest at the handsome, manly fellow who stood charged with a crime so sordid and out of character with his appearance, and I felt, as I noted the look, that Reuben would, at least, be tried fairly on the evidence, without prejudice or even with some prepossession in his favour.
With the remaining part of the operation Thorndyke proceeded carefully and deliberately. The inking-slab was rolled afresh for each impression, and, after each, the thumb was cleansed with petrol and thoroughly dried; and when the process was completed and the prisoner led back to the dock, the twenty squares on the paper were occupied by twenty thumbprints, which, to my eye, at any rate, were identical in character.
The judge sat for near upon a minute poring over this singular document with an expression halfway between a frown and a smile. At length, when we had all returned to our places, he directed the usher to bring in the witnesses.
I was amused to observe the change that had come over the experts in the short interval. The confident smile, the triumphant air of laying down a trump card, had vanished, and the expression of both was one of anxiety, not unmixed with apprehension. As Mr. Singleton advanced hesitatingly to the table, I recalled the words that he had uttered in his room at Scotland Yard; evidently his scheme of the game that was to end in an easy checkmate, had not included the move that had just been made.
“Mr. Singleton,” said the judge, “here is a paper on which there are twenty thumbprints. Ten of them are genuine prints of the prisoner’s left thumb and ten are forgeries. Please examine them and note down in writing which are the true prints and which are the forgeries. When you have made your notes the paper will be handed to Mr. Nash.”
“Is there any objection to my using the photograph that I have with me for comparison, my lord?” asked Mr. Singleton.
“I think not,” replied the judge. “What do you say, Mr. Anstey?”
“No objection whatever, my lord,” answered Anstey.
Mr. Singleton accordingly drew from his pocket an enlarged photograph of the thumbprint and a magnifying glass, with the aid of which he explored the bewildering array of prints on the paper before him; and as he proceeded I remarked with satisfaction that his expression became more and more dubious and worried. From time to time he made an entry on a memorandum slip beside him, and, as the entries accumulated, his frown grew deeper and his aspect more puzzled and gloomy.
At length he sat up, and taking the memorandum slip in his hand, addressed the judge.
“I have finished my examination, my lord.”
“Very well. Mr. Nash, will you kindly examine the paper and write down the results of your examination?”
“Oh! I wish they would make haste,” whispered Juliet. “Do you think they will be able to tell the real from the false thumbprints?”
“I can’t say,” I replied; “but we shall soon know. They looked all alike to me.”
Mr. Nash made his examination with exasperating deliberateness, and preserved throughout an air of stolid attention; but at length he, too, completed his notes and handed the paper back
