The Fingerprint Read online

“Well—no—I had things to do and I didn’t get them finished, so I had to ask Georgina. She’s so good, but I’m afraid she was vexed. I mean, she’s so good about everything herself, and I haven’t had a lot of practice, but I didn’t —oh, I really didn’t mean to make her late.” Her voice trembled a little and the eyes were raised again.

  But Anthony Hallam had turned and was looking past her and across the hall. He said, “Oh, well, she’s coming now,” and just as the lobby door opened to admit the first of the guests Georgina Grey came into sight at the head of the stairs and began to descend them.

  A late entrance is nearly always an effective one. Frank wondered a little cynically whether she had planned it. But if she had, there was a flaw in the timing. Guests were streaming into the hall, old Jonathan was greeting them, and the new-found niece was being brought forward with a hand on her shoulder to be presented in the most affectionate manner. Only Frank himself and Anthony Hallam had the leisure to watch Georgina come down the stairs.

  She was worth watching too, and it was evident that Anthony thought so. Frank saw a tall girl in a silver dress—a tall fair girl with a lovely figure and pale gold hair. She had a white skin, a red mouth, and eyes of a strange dark grey. Eyebrows and lashes were no more than a couple of shades darker than her hair, but the eyes had a black ring about the iris, and the iris was the colour of deep water under a cloudy sky. It could look grey or it could look green, but always and in any light it was arresting. Frank, who was something of an expert, considered that the eyes were the making of her. If they had been blue the whole effect would have been too pale. If they had been brown—but of course they wouldn’t be, not with that hair, and he was prepared to bet that the hair was natural. She had the right skin for it and she wore as little make-up as a girl considered decent. She came down without any appearance of hurry, went past them with a smile for Anthony, and was in the thick of the greetings.

  There had been a string of names not always easy to allocate—Lord and Lady Pondesbury, Mr. and Mrs. Shotterleigh, Miss Mary Shotterleigh, Miss Deborah Shotterleigh, Mr. Vincent, Mr. and Mrs. Warrender. Frank identified Lord Pondesbury, and remembered the Shotterleigh twins as prim little girls exactly alike who looked as if they couldn’t say bo to a goose. One of them was in pink and the other in blue, and they still looked prim.

  Johnny Fabian, latest of the house-party, came running down after Georgina. He was, as always, in the best of spirits, ignored the brief frown accorded him by Jonathan, and began to talk and laugh with everyone. The Shotterleigh girls brightened perceptibly. Mirrie Field’s colour rose. She didn’t speak to him, she just stood there and made a picture—brown curls, white frills, a small string of pearls about a soft white throat, dark lashes dropped over soft brown eyes.

  When Georgina had spoken to everyone else she came across to Anthony and Frank. She rested a hand on Anthony’s arm, gave him a second smile, and acknowledged Frank’s introduction with friendliness and charm. He had been thinking that Johnny Fabian really hadn’t changed in the least—he probably never would. The dark hair which insisted on curling no matter how short it was cut would probably recede with the passing years, but the dancing blue eyes would keep their merry sparkle and the engaging smile still bring him more smiles in return than fell to most men’s lot. It had got him out of scrapes at home, at school, in the army, and it would continue to do so. He turned it on pretty girls and on plain ones, upon the elderly, the clever, the dull, and the disappointed. Frank had never known him well—just a chance encounter here and there—but he was clapped on the shoulder and greeted like an old friend.

  “Hullo there! Ages since we met. How’s crime?”

  Frank said, “Much as usual.”

  Johnny turned to Georgina.

  “Our famous detective, in case you don’t know. A shining light of what American books talk of as the Homicide Squad. A Lieutenant in the Homicide Squad, that’s what he would be over there. Sounds much more imposing than a Detective Inspector or whatever he is at Scotland Yard.”

  Frank laughed.

  “And what are you doing with yourself?” he asked. “Didn’t I hear about your going into shipping or something?”

  Johnny shook his head.

  “Not shipping. Something frightfully dreary that I never really got the hang of—I think they call themselves General Importers. There was a second cousin twice removed of my grandfather’s who was a sleeping partner, he got me in, and after about six months a partner who wasn’t asleep chucked me out. It was practically bound to happen, because if I ever came across a business that was a smell under the nose, that was it.”

  “So what are you doing now?”

  “Well, a misguided aunt left me her little all a few months ago, and I am looking round for something to put it into. It’s difficult of course, because what I want is an amusing job where there isn’t any boss and where I don’t have to do any work. And meanwhile I do a spot of car-coping—pick ’em up cheap and sell ’em as dear as I can with a lick of paint and what have you to make ’em go down easy.”

  Jonathan Field called across the hall to them.

  “Well, we’re all here now, I think. Georgina, has everybody come?”

  Her hand dropped from Anthony’s arm and she went over to him.

  “Yes, darling, I think so. And there’s Stokes to say that we can go in. Will you take Lady Pondesbury?”

  Jonathan Field gave his arm to a muscular lady who looked, rather as if she had come out in a brick-coloured mask and short red gloves. Between these two extremely sun-burned portions and the black satin in which the rest of her was encased there were large milk-white arms and a considerable area of milk-white back and chest. She wore what she had no hesitation in describing as a copy of the ancestral diamond and ruby necklace which had been sold to pay the estate duties on her father-in-law’s decease some fifteen years earlier. Her husband Lord Pondesbury, a horsy little man with a swivel eye, approached Georgina. Jonathan Field observed the forms of his youth. In his house people still went in to dinner two by two in a seemly and orderly manner. Frank found himself with Mary Shotterleigh, and saw Anthony go in with Mirrie Field.

  Chapter III

  LOOKING BACK on it afterwards, Frank found himself remembering a number of disjointed bits and pieces. The complete picture had been there like one of those large jigsaw puzzles laid out upon a table. It had been there for him to look at, and if it is true that the memory never really loses anything, it was still there to be remembered. But when he came to look back on it, it was as if someone had picked up a handful of pieces here and there and tossed them into his lap. Some of them fell in groups, and others singly. Some of them fell right, and some of them fell wrong. Some made nonsense. He had to unscramble them and try and get them together again. One of the more successful efforts brought back the scene in Jonathan’s study. They had finished dinner and there was time to fill in before the dance guests arrived. Now just how many of them were there? Himself and Anthony. It was Anthony who had asked whether Jonathan would show them his collection, and Lord Pondesbury had said, “Not for me, old boy. I don’t know one end of a fingerprint from the other and I don’t want to. I’ll go and have a word with Marcia Warrender about that two-year-old of hers.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Shotterleigh hadn’t been interested either, but the girls came into the study, and so did Mirrie Field and Mr. Vincent, but not Lady Pondesbury, or Georgina, who remained in the drawing-room to play hostess. He thought about the rest of them crossing the big square hall and coming into the study with its book-lined walls and the handsome maroon curtains drawn across the windows. It would be rather a dark room by day, but under modern lighting pleasant enough, with comfortable chairs and a carpet in tones of red and green. Mirrie Field’s white frills and the pink and blue of the Shotterleigh girls stood out against the dark furnishings.

  When they were all there and the door shut, Jonathan got out his heavy albums and found room for them on the writing-table. Nobody thought about sitting down. Johnny Fabian stayed by the door, amused for the moment but prepared to escape if he was bored, and Mary Shotterleigh stayed with him. She had grown up rather pretty. She looked sideways at Johnny and he said something which brought her colour up in a bright attractive blush. The other girl, Deborah, came up to the corner of the writing-table and stood there looking shy. Mirrie Field was with Anthony Hallam, pressed up as close to him as she could get and holding on to his sleeve rather as if she was afraid that something might jump out of one of the albums and bite her. Frank himself was over by the fire with a man called Vincent, a newcomer to the neighbourhood after some years in South America. According to Anthony there was plenty of money, but no wife or family. As they stood together, Mr. Vincent observed that he couldn’t imagine why anyone should want to collect fingerprints, to which Frank replied that it wouldn’t appeal to him personally, but he understood that Mr. Field’s collection was unique. Mr. Vincent fixed him with a dullish eye and enquired,

  “How do you mean unique? I should have thought the police collection would be that.”

  “Oh, the police only get the failures. They don’t touch the potential criminal or the chap who has never been found out. And that, of course, is where Mr. Field has the pull. He has been collecting for the last forty years or so, and he is so well known that it is quite a compliment to be asked for a contribution. In fact anyone who refused would be sticking out his neck and asking to be suspected of dabbling in crime.”

  Mr. Vincent said it all seemed rather dull to him, but then what he was really interested in himself was stamp-collecting, and he went on to describe how he had found and subsequently had stolen from him a two cent British Guiana 1851 of which only ten copies had been previously known to exist. It was a tragic tale told i
n the dullest possible manner. A tepid man with not even a spark of the collector’s fire in his belly.

  “He went down over the rapids and the stamp with him, and no one would go in to look for the body because the river was so dangerous, so now there are only ten copies again.” He shook his head with faint regret and added the one word, “Pity.”

  All this while Jonathan Field was laying out two large volumes on the flat top of his writing-table and hovering over them with an index or a catalogue or whatever he chose to call it.

  “Now what shall I show you? Hitler’s thumb and forefinger? Most people want to see those. I’ve got quite a nice little group of the Nazis—Goering, Goebbels, Bormann, and poor old Rommel.”

  The book opened easily at the place. Everyone crowded to see, and there they were, exactly like the prints which any of the people in the room might have made. These men had grasped at the world, and it had slipped from them. They were gone. There was nothing left but ruined lands and ruined people and some black prints in Jonathan Field’s collection.

  The prints were all very neatly mounted and set up, a legend under each, with a name and sometimes a date. What an extraordinary hobby for anyone to have. And Jonathan was as keen as mustard, there was no doubt about that. He stood behind his writing-table and snapped off little anecdotes of how he had come by the exhibits. Some of them were amusing, and some of them were tragic, but it was a very good performance. Nobody seemed to look at the prints very much, but they all listened to the stories.

  When it had been going on for about half an hour Georgina came in and said that people were beginning to arrive for the dance. Jonathan didn’t look pleased. He said in a pettish voice,

  “All right, all right, I’ll come.”

  He took up the left-hand album and then put it down again.

  “The most interesting prints are in here, but I never show them to anyone.”

  Looking back, Frank could admire the showmanship. He was going to finish the performance with a bang.

  “I don’t know the man’s name, and I probably never shall, but I’ve got his fingerprints, and I think—I say I think— I should know his voice.”

  Georgina stood in the doorway in her silver dress. She looked across at him and said “Darling!” on a note of protest. But Mirrie clasped her hands and breathed in an anguished tone,

  “Oh, Uncle Jonathan, please! You can’t stop there—you must go on!”

  There was no doubt which was the popular niece for the moment. Jonathan frowned at Georgina, cast a softened look at Mirrie, and said,

  “Oh, well, some other time. It’s too long a story for now— quite dramatic though!”

  He half opened the volume and shut it again. It didn’t shut down smoothly. There was an envelope in the way. Frank had just a glimpse of it over Mirrie’s head. And then Jonathan was going on.

  “Oh, yes, quite dramatic. We were buried under a heap of rubble in the blitz, not knowing each other from Adam, or caring cither for the matter of that, and neither of us thought we’d ever see daylight again. Curious how that sort of thing takes people. I never felt more alive in my life—noticed everything more than I’d ever done before or since—everything speeded up, intensified. There was a pain, but it didn’t seem to belong to me. The other fellow was where I could just reach him. He wasn’t hurt, just trapped and mad with fright—what they call claustrophobia. I passed him my cigarette-case and matches—that’s how I got a fingerprint—and with the third cigarette he began to tell me about a murder he had done. In fact two murders, because he said he had had to kill a possible witness in order to make himself safe after the first one. He had got it all worked out in his mind that the second one didn’t really count. He said it was practically self-defence, because she would have gone to the police if he hadn’t stopped her, and the only way he could be sure of stopping her was by finishing her off. He was perfectly clear about it, and it didn’t seem to bother him at all. But the first one bothered him a bit. You see, he’d done that one to get hold of some money. He said he ought to have had it anyhow and the man he murdered had got it by undue influence, and he seemed to think that would make it all right about the murder. At least he hoped it would, but when a couple of bombs came down pretty near us he didn’t feel any too sure about it. He may have been making it up, but I didn’t think so then and I don’t think so now, so when he passed the case back to me I wrapped my handkerchief round it and slipped it into my breast pocket just in case.”

  Anthony said, “What happened after that?”

  Jonathan looked across at him with something that wasn’t quite a smile.

  “As far as I was concerned that was the end. There was another bomb, and I didn’t know anything more until I woke up in hospital with a broken leg. As a matter of fact that last bomb was a blessing in disguise, because it shifted the stuff that was over us and the Red Cross people were able to get me out.”

  “And your murderer?” That was Anthony too.

  “Never saw hair, hide or hoof of him. He must have crawled out and got away, because there were no corpses lying about. So he’s probably walking around somewhere and still trying to make up his mind whether he’s a double murderer or not.”

  Georgina made a little gesture that said, “Oh, well—” and turned round and went away, leaving the door open behind her. Now was there any importance in that, or wasn’t there? There might have been. Because anyone in the hall could have come up close enough to have heard what Jonathan had said and what Jonathan was saying now. Georgina had stood in an open doorway. She had gone away and left it open behind her. Anyone could have heard what Jonathan said.

  Chapter IV

  THE DANCE went very well. Frank met quite a lot of people he knew. He danced with Cicely Hathaway. She wore a flame-coloured dress and she was enjoying herself. She told him it was said that Mr. Vincent was looking for a wife and she didn’t envy her.

  “If Mrs. Shotterleigh had her way, it would be Mary or Deb, but either of them would rather have Johnny. Anyhow the Vincent man must be at least twenty years older than they are, and he’s the dullest man I ever met in my life. Has he told you how he lost his British Guiana stamp?”

  “He has!”

  She laughed.

  “He tells everyone. Did you go to sleep, or just come over numb with boredom? And you know, it ought to be an exciting story!”

  “Yes, he’s like that. But we needn’t talk about him.”

  When he had danced with his Aunt Monica, a charming inconsequent person to whom he was devoted, he approached Miss Mirrie Field, who fluttered her eyelashes at him and said, “Oh—” in rather an alarmed sort of way. If that was her game, he was in the mood to play it.

  “I don’t actually go about arresting people at dances, you know.”

  She let him have a good view of her eyes. They were an unusual shade of brown and very pretty.

  “But you do arrest them sometimes?” The words were just breathed.

  “As occasion offers.”

  “That must be horrid—for you.”

  He allowed himself to laugh.

  “I believe it hurts them rather more than it does me.” He put his arm round her and they slipped into the dance.

  Someone had built on a ballroom at the back of the house. Jonathan’s grandmother was an heiress, and she had six daughters. The ballroom had no doubt assisted her in her determination to supply them with eligible husbands. It stood at right angles to the block of the house, and thanks to a wealth of creepers and a charming formal garden which brought it into harmony with the terrace under the drawing-room windows, it was no longer the eyesore which it had been when it was new.

  The floor was very good, the music delightful, and their steps went well together. She was a little soft, light thing and she could dance. He had a passing wonder as to how she might compare with Georgina Grey. She passed them at the moment, coping with Lord Pondesbury who had a tendency to treat every dance as if it were some kind of a jig of his own invention. In the circumstances Frank gave Georgina marks for the kindness of her smile.

  Mirrie looked up at him and said,

  “How well you dance!”