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But a finger-print is a stamped impression the finger-tip being the stamp; and it is only necessary to obtain a stamp identical in character with the finger-tip, in order to produce an impression which is an absolute facsimile, in every respect, of the original, and totally indistinguishable from it."
But there is no such thing as a single fact that 'affords evidence requiring no corroboration. As well might one expect to make a syllogism with a single premise." "I suppose they would hardly go so far as that," I said, laughing. "No," he admitted. "But the kind of syllogism that they do make is this "'The crime was committed by the person who made this finger-print.
It was flimsy and blue-lined, and the message it contained was smudged and badly printed. But to the inspector's annoyance, there were no finger-prints on the paper. The finger-print expert at Scotland Yard had examined it under the microscope, but his search for finger-prints had been vain.
A finger-print is merely a fact a very important and significant one, I admit but still a fact, which, like any other fact, requires to be weighed and measured with reference to its evidential value." "And what do you propose to do first?"
"When the thumb- and finger-print experts got busy with their photographs and their enlarged reproductions, the criminals began studying on methods to offset this dangerous aid to detective work." "I knew it," cried Frank. "And so," Ned went on, "they conceived the idea of filling the lines on the fingers and hands and making them perfectly smooth. This is rubber paint," he went on.
Think of the forged banknotes, of which not only the engraving, the design and the signature, but even the very paper with its private watermarks, is imitated with a perfection that is at once the admiration and the despair of those who have to distinguish the true from the false; think of the forged cheque, in which actual perforations are filled up, of which portions are cut out bodily and replaced by indistinguishable patches; think of these, and then of a finger-print, of which any photo-engraver's apprentice can make you a forgery that the greatest experts cannot distinguish from the original, which any capable amateur can imitate beyond detection after a month's practice; and then ask yourselves if this is the kind of evidence on which, without any support or corroboration, a gentleman of honour and position should be dragged before a criminal court and charged with having committed a crime of the basest and most sordid type.
Then, excusing himself to the ladies, he passed into the inner room in company with Narkom, and carried the letter with him. When he returned it was still in his hand, but there were greyish smudges all over it. "There's not a finger-print in the lot that is worth anything as a means of identification, Miss Lorne," he said.
There were certain obvious things to be done at once. For, up to a point, the science of detection is merely a matter of routine. He flung back his orders curtly and concisely. "Right. I'm coming straight down. I suppose the local division inspector is on it. Send for Chief Inspector Green and Inspector Waverley, and let the finger-print people know. I shall want one of their best men.
"It's just like the finger-print theory. There must be a sort of summation of individual characteristics. Now here's a broken 'l' and there is an 'a' that is twisted.
He had to depend more and more on the clerical staff and the finger-print bureau records. His position became that of a villager with a department store on his hands, of a country shopkeeper trying to operate an urban emporium. He was averse to deputizing his official labors. He was ignorant of system and science.
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