The Woman in Black

by E. C. Bentley

  CHAPTER VIII

  A HOT SCENT

  "Come in," called Trent.

  Mr. Cupples entered his sitting-room at the hotel. It was the earlyevening of the day on which the coroner's jury, without leaving the box,had pronounced the expected denunciation of a person or persons unknown.Trent, with a hasty glance upward, continued his intent study of whatlay in a photographic dish of enameled metal, which he moved slowlyabout in the light of the window. He looked very pale and his movementswere nervous.

  "Sit on the sofa," he advised. "The chairs are a job lot bought at thesale after the suppression of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. This is apretty good negative," he went on, holding it up to the light with hishead at the angle of discriminating judgment. "Washed enough now, Ithink. Let us leave it to dry, and get rid of all this mess."

  Mr. Cupples, as the other busily cleared the table of a confusion ofbasins, dishes, racks, boxes and bottles, picked up first one and thenanother of the objects and studied them with innocent curiosity.

  "That is called hypo-eliminator," said Trent as Mr. Cupples uncorked andsmelled at one of the bottles. "Very useful when you're in a hurry witha negative. I shouldn't drink it, though, all the same. It eliminatessodium hypophosphite, but I shouldn't wonder if it would eliminate humanbeings too." He found a place for the last of the litter on the crowdedmantel-shelf, and came to sit before Mr. Cupples on the table. "Thegreat thing about a hotel sitting-room is that its beauty does notdistract the mind from work. It is no place for the May-fly pleasures ofa mind at ease. Have you ever been in this room before, Cupples? I have,hundreds of times. It has pursued me all over England for years. Ishould feel lost without it if, in some fantastic, far-off hotel, theywere to give me some other sitting-room. Look at this table-cover; thereis the ink I spilled on it when I had this room in Halifax. I burnt thathole in the carpet when I had it in Ipswich. But I see they have mendedthe glass over the picture of 'Silent Sympathy,' which I threw a boot atin Banbury. I do all my best work here. This afternoon, for instance,since the inquest, I have finished several excellent negatives. There isa very good dark-room downstairs."

  "The inquest--that reminds me," said Mr. Cupples, who knew that thissort of talk in Trent meant the excitement of action, and was wonderingwhat he could be about. "I came in to thank you, my dear fellow, forlooking after Mabel this morning. I had no idea she was going to feelill after leaving the box; she seemed quite unmoved, and really she is awoman of such extraordinary self-command, I thought I could leave her toher own devices and hear out the evidence, which I thought it importantI should do. It was a very fortunate thing she found a friend to assisther, and she is most grateful. She is quite herself again now."

  Trent, with his hands in his pockets and a slight frown on his brow,made no reply to this. "I tell you what," he said after a short pause,"I was just getting to the really interesting part of the job when youcame in. Come: would you like to see a little bit of high-class policework? It's the very same kind of work that old Murch ought to be doingat this moment. Perhaps he is; but I hope to glory he isn't." He sprangoff the table and disappeared into his bedroom. Presently he came outwith a large drawing-board on which a number of heterogeneous objectswas ranged.

  "First I must introduce you to these little things," he said, settingthem out on the table. "Here is a big ivory paper-knife; here are twoleaves cut out of a diary--my own diary; here is a bottle containingdentifrice; here is a little case of polished walnut. Some of thesethings have to be put back where they belong in somebody's bedroom atWhite Gables before night. That's the sort of man I am--nothing stopsme. I borrowed them this very morning when everyone was down at theinquest, and I dare say some people would think it rather an oddproceeding if they knew. Now there remains one object on the board. Canyou tell me, without touching it, what it is?"

  "Certainly I can," said Mr. Cupples, peering at it with great interest."It is an ordinary glass bowl. It looks like a finger-bowl. I seenothing odd about it," he added after some moments of close scrutiny.

  "That," replied Trent, "is exactly where the fun comes in. Now take thislittle fat bottle, Cupples, and pull out the cork. Do you recognize thatpowder inside it? You have swallowed pounds of it in your time, Iexpect. They give it to babies. Gray powder is its ordinaryname--mercury and chalk. It is great stuff. Now while I hold the basinside-ways over this sheet of paper, I want you to pour a little powderout of the bottle over this part of the bowl--just here.... Perfect! SirEdward Henry himself could not have handled the powder better. You havedone this before, Cupples, I can see. You are an old hand."

  "I really am not," said Mr. Cupples seriously, as Trent returned thefallen powder to the bottle. "I assure you it is all a complete mysteryto me. What did I do then?"

  "I brush the powdered part of the bowl lightly with this camel-hairbrush. Now look at it again. You saw nothing odd about it before. Do yousee anything now?"

  Mr. Cupples peered again. "How curious," he said. "Yes, there are twolarge gray finger-marks on the bowl. They were not there before."

  "I am Hawkshaw the detective," observed Trent. "Would it interest you tohear a short lecture on the subject of glass finger-bowls? When you takeone up with your hand you leave traces upon it, usually practicallyinvisible, which may remain for days or months. You leave the marks ofyour fingers. The human hand, even when quite clean, is never quite dry,and sometimes--in moments of great anxiety, for instance, Cupples--it isvery moist. It leaves a mark on any cold smooth surface it may touch.That bowl was moved by somebody with a rather moist hand quite lately."He sprinkled the powder again. "Here on the other side, you see, is thethumb-mark--very good impressions all of them." He spoke without raisinghis voice, but Mr. Cupples could perceive that he was ablaze withexcitement as he stared at the faint gray marks. "This one should be theindex finger. I need not tell a man of your knowledge of the world thatthe pattern of it is a single-spiral whorl, with deltas symmetricallydisposed. This, the print of the second finger, is a simple loop, with astaple core and fifteen counts. I know there are fifteen, because I havejust the same two prints on this negative, which I have examined indetail. Look--!" he held one of the negatives up to the light of thedeclining sun and demonstrated with a pencil point. "You can see they'rethe same. You see the bifurcation of that ridge. There it is in theother. You see that little scar near the center. There it is in theother. There are a score of ridge-characteristics on which an expertwould swear in the witness-box that the marks on that bowl and the marksI have photographed on this negative were made by the same hand."

  "And where did you photograph them? What does it all mean?" asked Mr.Cupples, wide-eyed.

  "I found them on the inside of the left-hand leaf of the front-window inMrs. Manderson's bedroom. As I could not bring the window with me, Iphotographed them, sticking a bit of black paper on the other side ofthe glass for the purpose. The bowl comes from Manderson's room. It isthe bowl in which his false teeth were placed at night. I could bringthat away, so I did."

  "But those cannot be Mabel's finger-marks."

  "I should think not!" said Trent with decision. "They are twice the sizeof any print Mrs. Manderson could make."

  "Then they must be her husband's."

  "Perhaps they are. Now shall we see if we can match them once more? Ibelieve we can." Whistling faintly, and very white in the face, Trentopened another small squat bottle containing a dense black powder."Lamp-black," he explained. "Hold a bit of paper in your hand for asecond or two, and this little chap will show you the pattern of yourfingers." He carefully took up with a pair of tweezers one of the leavescut from his diary, and held it out for the other to examine. No marksappeared on the leaf. He tilted some of the powder out upon one surfaceof the paper, then, turning it over, upon the other; then shook the leafgently to rid it of the loose powder. He held it out to Mr. Cupples insilence. On one side of the paper appeared unmistakably, clearly printedin black, the same two finger-prints that he had already seen on thebowl and on the photographic pla
te. He took up the bowl and comparedthem. Trent turned the paper over, and on the other side was a boldblack replica of the thumb-mark that was printed in gray on the glass inhis hand.

  "Same man, you see," Trent said with a short laugh. "I felt that it mustbe so, and now I know." He walked to the window and looked out. "Now Iknow," he repeated in a low voice, as if to himself. His tone wasbitter. Mr. Cupples, understanding nothing, stared at his motionlessback for a few moments.

  "I am still completely in the dark," he ventured presently. "I haveoften heard of this finger-print business, and wondered how the policewent to work about it. It is of extraordinary interest to me, but uponmy life I cannot see how in this case Manderson's finger-prints aregoing--"

  "I am very sorry, Cupples," Trent broke in upon his meditative speechwith a swift return to the table. "When I began this investigation Imeant to take you with me every step of the way. You mustn't think Ihave any doubts about your discretion if I say now that I must hold mytongue about the whole thing, at least for a time. I will tell you this:I have come upon a fact that looks too much like having terribleconsequences if it is discovered by any one else." He looked at theother with a hard and darkened face, and struck the table with his hand."It is terrible for me here and now. Up to this moment I was hopingagainst hope that I was wrong about the fact. I may still be wrong inthe surmise that I base upon that fact. There is only one way of findingout that is open to me, and I must nerve myself to take it." He smiledsuddenly at Mr. Cupples' face of consternation. "All right--I'm notgoing to be tragic any more, and I'll tell you all about it when I can.Look here, I'm not half through my game with the powder-bottles yet."

  He drew one of the defamed chairs to the table and sat down to test thebroad ivory blade of the paper knife. Mr. Cupples, swallowing hisamazement, bent forward in an attitude of deep interest and handed Trentthe bottle of lamp-black.