Patricia Wentworth: The Fingerprint

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.

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 in 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.