第46章

"There is nothing there hut the paint spot.Regarding that, however, you have come to a very natural though erroneous conclusion.It is not formless"; and he passed me a jeweller's eye-glass to assist me in a closer examination.He was right.The paint lay upon the glass in little irregular furrows which arranged themselves concentrically about a central oval groove somewhat imperfect in shape."Well," continued.Maitland, as I returned him the magnifying glass, "what do you make of it?" "If you hadn't already attached so much importance to the thing," I said, "I should pronounce it a daub of paint transferred to the glass by somebody's thumb, but, as such a thing would be clearly useless, I am at a loss to know what it is.""Well," he rejoined, "you've hit the nail on the head, - that's just what it is, but you are entirely wrong in your assumption that the thumb-mark can have no value as evidence.Do you not know that there are no two thumbs in the world which are capable of making indistinguishable marks?" I was not aware of this."How do you know," I asked, "that this mark was made by the assassin? It seems to me there can hardly be a doubt that one of the painters, while priming the sill, accidentally pressed his thumb against the glass.His hands would naturally have been painty, and this impression would as naturally have resulted.""What you say," replied Maitland, "is very good, so far as it goes.My reasons for believing this thumb-mark was made by the assassin are easily understood.First: there was another impression of a thumb in the moist paint of the sill directly under that upon the glass.Both marks were made by the same thumb and, in the lower one, the microscope revealed minutetraces of gravel dust, not elsewhere discernible upon the sill.The thumb carried the dust there, and was the thumb of the hand pressed into the gravel, - the hand of which I have a cast.You see how this shows how the thumb came to have paint upon it when pressed upon the glass.Second: the two men engaged in priming the house, James Cogan and Charles Rice, were the only persons save the assassin known to have been upon that side of the house the day of the murder."Here," he said, carefully removing two strips of glass from a box, "are the thumb-marks of Cogan and Rice made with the same paint.You see that neither of these men could, by any possibility, have made the mark upon the glass.So there you are.But we are missing the question before us.What line of procedure can you suggest, Doc? I'm all at sea.""We must find someone," I said, "who could have had a motive.This someone ought to have a particularly good reason for concealing his footprints, and is evidently lame besides.I can't for the life of me see anything else we have to go by, unless it be the long nail of the little finger, and I don't see how that is going to help us find the assassin - unless we can find out why it was worn long.If we knew that it might assist us.As I have already suggested, a Chinaman might have a long nail on the little finger, but he would also have the other nails long, wouldn't he? Furthermore, he might use the boards to conceal the prints of his telltale foot-gear; but why should he not have put on shoes of the ordinary type? If he had time to prepare the boards, - the whole affair shows premeditation, - clearly he had time to change his boots.The Chinese are usually small, and this might easily account for the smallness of the hand as shown by your cast.These are the pros and cons of the only clue that suggests itself to me.By the way, Maitland, it's a shame we did not try, before it was too late, to track this fellow down with a dog.""Ah," he replied, "there is another little thing I have not told you.After you had left the house with Miss Darrow on the night of the murder, and all the servants had retired, I locked the parlour securely and quietly slipped out to look about a bit.As you know, the moon was very bright and any object moderately near was plainly visible.I went around to the eastern side of the house where the prints of the hand and boards werefound, and examined them with extreme care.What I particularly wished to learn was the direction taken by the assassin as he left the house and the point at which he had removed the boards from his feet.The imprints of the boards were clearly discernible so far as the loose gravel extended, but beyond that nothing could be discovered.I sat down and pondered over the matter.I had about concluded to drive two nails into the heels of my boots to enable me to distinguish my own footprints from any other trail I might intersect, and then, starting with the house as a centre, to describe an involute about it in the hope of being able to detect some one or more points where my course crossed that of the assassin, when I remembered that my friend Burwell, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin Combination recently stranded at Brockton was at home.As you are perhaps aware an Uncle Tom Company consists of a 'Legree,' one or two 'Markses,' one or two 'Topsies,' 'Uncle Tom,' a 'Little Eva,' who should not be over fifty years old, - or at least should not appear to be, - two bloodhounds, and anybody else that happens to be available.It really doesn't make the least difference how many or how few people are in the cast.I have heard that an Uncle Tom manager on a Western circuit, most of whose company deserted him because the 'ghost' never walked, succeeded in cutting and rewriting the piece so as to double 'George Harris' and 'Legree,' ' Marks' and 'Topsy,' 'Uncle Tom' and 'Little Eva.' As for the rest he had it so arranged that he could himself 'get off the door' in time to 'do,' with the aid of the dogs, all the other characters.You see the dogs held the stage while he changed, say, from 'Eliza' to Eva's father.'George Harris' would look off left second entrance and say that 'Legree' was after him.Then he would discharge a revolver, rush off right first entrance, where he would pass his weapon to 'Eva' and 'Uncle Tom,' and this bisexual individual would discharge it in the wings at the imaginary pursuer, while 'Harris ' would put on a wire beard, slouch hat, black melodramatic cape, and,=20rushing behind the flat, enter left as 'Legree.'