Patricia Wentworth - The Fingerprint

Miss Silver coughed in a meditative manner.

“I feel quite sure that he will have provided himself with an alibi.”

“Any particular reason for thinking so?”

She said,

“I think Sid Turner is a very dangerous person. He plans with great attention to detail, and he acts promptly and efficiently. He takes care to establish a connection with Mr. Maudsley’s office, he takes care to maintain his ascendancy over Mirrie Field, he even takes the bold step of coming down to attend Mr. Field’s funeral. I feel sure that he would not have neglected to provide himself with an alibi for Tuesday night. There are a number of ways in which it could be done.”

“My dear ma’am! I tremble to think of the consequences if you had ever turned your mind to crime!”

This impropriety was rightly ignored. She said,

“There is a point which may interest you. It concerns the torn-out page and the missing notes supposed to authenticate the fingerprint upon it.”

He wondered what was coming, but was hardly prepared for it when it came.

“ Georgina tells me that the story of a murderer’s confession during an air raid was a great favourite of Mr. Jonathan Field’s, but that he had told her it really had no foundation in fact.”

“ Georgina told you that!”

“I already had grave doubts about the story. The fingerprint was supposed to have been left on a cigarette-case passed by Mr. Field to the man who, like himself, had been trapped in the ruins of a bombed building. Mr. Field in his account of the incident was said to have stated that he subsequently lost consciousness, and that when he came to he discovered himself to be in hospital with a broken limb. He would have been undressed, money and valuables removed from his pockets, and I found it impossible to believe that a fingerprint would have survived the handling to which his cigarette-case must have been subjected. In fact the murderer’s confession might possibly have been made as described by Mr. Field, but reason and common sense reject the evidence of the fingerprint. When I said this to Georgina she informed me that the print on the torn-out page was that of Mr. Field’s own forefinger.”

Frank said, “The old devil!” He received a glance of reproof.

“I believe that he considered it to be a very good joke. It does undoubtedly remove the possibility that the missing page was torn out for any other reason than to divert attention from the real motive for Mr. Field’s murder.”

“Bringing us back to Sid Turner. You know, he really did have desperately bad luck-bad and quite unforeseeable. No one-no one could have imagined that Jonathan would destroy his new will only a few hours after he had signed it.”

Miss Silver looked at him gravely.

“Sid Turner is a dangerous and unscrupulous man. I shall be uneasy until I have heard of his arrest.”

FOR AT LEAST ONCE in his life Sid Turner would have endorsed a police officer’s opinion. His luck had been terrible. With every foreseeable detail thought out, every adverse contingency provided against, the one thing which could upset his careful planning had turned up against him. Jonathan Field had destroyed the will which he had signed only a few hours before, and his and Mirrie’s chances had gone up in smoke. Well, no use fighting your luck, and no use crying over spilt milk. Mirrie wasn’t the only pebble on the beach. There were other girls with money coming to them, and if he wanted to play safe, there was Aggie Marsh-getting on a bit, but not bad-looking and as soft as butter. Bert Marsh had left her the pub and twenty-five thousand. He knew that for a fact, because he had been to Somerset House and read the will. He had been considering her very carefully before Jonathan Field had carried Mirrie off from the Home and begun to fall for her in a big way. Well, he would just have to make do with Aggie. She’d have him all right, but he’d better not let the grass grow under his feet. Thanks to careful planning he was in the clear-alibi for Tuesday night and nothing to connect him with the death at Field End as long as Mirrie held her tongue. And she’d be much too frightened to do anything else. For a moment, as he contemplated the possibility of Mirrie blabbing, his thoughts became frighteningly dark.

Then they cleared again. She had known things about him before and she hadn’t split. Besides it was all to her own advantage to keep a still tongue. Whatever she thought, she’d be too frightened of getting drawn in herself not to keep quiet about it.

He had reached this comforting point, when his landlady Mrs. Jenkins called up the stair, “Phone call for you, Sid Turner,” and he went down to take it. The telephone was in her front room, and he shut the door before lifting the receiver. It might be Aggie Marsh. There had been something said about his going round for a spot of supper tonight. Well, he didn’t mind if he did.

It wasn’t Aggie. It was Bertha Cummins.

“Is that you, Sid? I want to see you at once… No-no -it’s not on my account, it’s on yours. Things have been happening at the office. There’s been an Inspector from Scotland Yard-”

“Shut up!” He couldn’t get it out fast enough. The leaky tongues women had! She was trying to say something again, but the rasp in his voice stopped her. “I didn’t get what you said just now-the line’s bad. I’ll be at the corner of West Street in say twenty minutes. We can do a flick.” He hung up and went to meet her.

Bertha Cummins came out of the call-box where she had been ringing up. There are hundreds just like her in any big city-neat, nondescript-the efficient secretary, clerk, manageress. She was thin without being slender, well-featured without making any effect. She had one of those smooth colourless skins which are an excellent foundation for make-up, but she had never done more for it than wash it in soap and water and dust it with powder if the day was warm. She wore neither lipstick nor nail polish. Her clothes were as drab as herself. She was forty-four years old and no man who wasn’t an elderly relation had kissed her until a month ago, when she had dropped her umbrella coming out of the office and Sid Turner had picked it up.

She had let him pick her up too. Even now she couldn’t think how she had come to do it. He had been most respectful in his manner. There had been a little talk about dropping things and somehow he was walking along the street beside her, and when she thanked him again and said goodbye he had given her that wonderful smile and said, “Does it have to be goodbye?” After that it really seemed quite natural to have tea together, and then they went to the pictures, and he told her how lonely he was and she let him hold her hand. After that he met her every day, not coming right up to the office but waiting for her round the corner. No one had ever made love to her before. She couldn’t believe that he cared for her, but he convinced her that he did. The barriers fell one by one. She walked in a daze of happiness and only thought how wonderful it was that he should be so interested in everything she did. She hadn’t wanted to talk about the office, because she thought it would bore him, but it was wonderful how interested he was. She found herself telling him about everything that happened. He didn’t know any of the people, so what did it matter? She told him about Jonathan Field changing his will. The barriers were down in good earnest.

He was waiting for her at the corner of West Street. She could see the black look on his face before she came up to him. He didn’t raise his voice, but it had a cutting tone in it.

“Don’t you ever say things like that on the phone again, or I’m done with you!”

“Things?”