The «Canary» Murder Case / Смерть Канарейки. Книга для чтения на английском языке - стр. 19
“Markham,” he said, “the condition of that jewel-case is positively astounding. It’s unreasonable, illogical—insane. It complicates the situation most damnably. That steel box simply couldn’t have been chiselled open by a professional burglar … and yet, don’t y’ know, it actually was.”
Before Markham could reply, a satisfied grunt from Captain Dubois attracted our attention.
“I’ve got something for you, Sergeant,” he announced.
We moved expectantly into the living-room. Dubois was bending over the end of the library-table almost directly behind the place where Margaret Odell’s body had been found. He took out an insufflator, which was like a very small hand-bellows, and blew a fine light-yellow powder evenly over about a square foot of the polished rosewood surface of the table-top. Then he gently blew away the surplus powder, and there appeared the impression of a human hand distinctly registered in saffron. The bulb of the thumb and each fleshy hummock between the joints of the fingers and around the palm stood out like tiny circular islands. All the papillary ridges were clearly discernible. The photographer then hooked his camera to a peculiar adjustable tripod and, carefully focusing his lens, took two flash-light pictures of the hand-mark.
“This ought to do.” Dubois was pleased with his find. “It’s the right hand—a clear print—and the guy who made it was standing right behind the dame. … And it’s the newest print in the place.”
“What about this box?” Heath pointed to the black document-box on the table near the overturned lamp.
“Not a mark—wiped clean.”
Dubois began putting away his paraphernalia.
“I say, Captain Dubois,” interposed Vance, “did you take a good look at the inside door-knob of that clothes-press?”
The man swung about abruptly, and gave Vance a glowering look.
“People ain’t in the habit of handling the inside knobs of closet doors. They open and shut closets from the outside.”
Vance raised his eyebrows in simulated astonishment.
“Do they, now, really?—Fancy that! … Still, don’t y’ know, if one were inside the closet, one couldn’t reach the outside knob.”
“The people I know don’t shut themselves in clothes-closets.” Dubois’s tone was ponderously sarcastic.
“You positively amaze me!” declared Vance. “All the people I know are addicted to the habit—a sort of daily pastime, don’t y’ know.”
Markham, always diplomatic, intervened.
“What idea have you about that closet, Vance?”
“Alas! I wish I had one,” was the dolorous answer. “It’s because I can’t, for the life of me, make sense of its neat and orderly appearance that I’m so interested in it. Really, y’ know, it should have been artistically looted.”
Heath was not entirely free from the same vague misgivings that were disturbing Vance, for he turned to Dubois and said:
“You might go over the knob, Captain. As this gentleman says, there’s something funny about the condition of that closet.”
Dubois, silent and surly, went to the closet door and sprayed his yellow powder over the inside knob. When he had blown the loose particles away, he bent over it with his magnifying-glass. At length he straightened up, and gave Vance a look of ill-natured appraisal.
“There’s fresh prints on it, all right,” he grudgingly admitted; “and unless I’m mistaken they were made by the same hand as those on the table. Both thumb-marks are ulnar loops, and the index-fingers are both whorl patterns. … Here, Pete,” he ordered the photographer, “make some shots of that knob.”