"Until the end or the nineteenth century, British jurisprudence was ruled hy oral and documentary evidence. New investigative technologies, such as fingerprints, ballistics, and toxicology were often regarded as irrelevant and even frivolous by those whose task it was to summon the criminal hefore the tar. What
counted was the criminal's confession, which every effort was Lent to obtain."
On Saturday morning, Charles applied himself to solving a murder. The jobmaster Prodger had given the victim a name-Monsieur Armand. Whether it was the man's real name remained to be seen. Charles offered the information to Inspector Wainwright, whom he found once again seated at the small table in the chilly basement office, surrounded by stacks of papers.
"Armand?" Wainwright asked irritably, when Charles had finished the narrative of his investigations. The pallid light fell upon the table drrough the dingy window, illuminating a wire basket containing official memoranda, an inkstand and fragment of much-used blotter, and a Prince Albert red-and-gilt ashtray filled with a quantity of cigarette butts. The inspector scraped back his straight wooden chair, rose, and went to warm his hands over the kettle, which was heating on the gas burner.
"Armand," Charles repeated. He took the other chair, which was missing two of its wooden turnings.
Wainwright rubbed his thick hands together. His brown wool coat was worn at the elbows and in want of brushing, and his collar had already seen several days' service. "Don't know that a name takes us anywhere," he said, his voice heavy with an irreversible gloom. He took the tea canister from the shelf and shook out the last spoonful of loose tea into a cracked white china teapot. He poured hot water from the kettle into the pot, took down a tin of My Lady's Tea Biscuits, and returned once more to his chair. "We already knew he was French, from the coat label. 'Armand' probably isn't the real name."
"Perhaps," Charles said. "But I have found something
else that may help us." He took out a piece of paper and unfolded it carefully.
The inspector opened the biscuit tin. "What's that?"
"A fragment of feather," Charles said, turning it over with a pencil. ' 'Certainly a nonindigenous species. Pavo christatus, I believe. From the breast of a male bird. This specimen does not bear the familiar 'eye' of the splendid tail plumage, of course, but the iridescent blue color reveals its-"
Wainwright pulled out several crumbly biscuits and put them on the table. "Where'd you find it?" He gestured at the biscuits. "Tea will be ready shortly. Have a biscuit."
"No, thank you," Charles said. "It was found in the chaise hired by the victim." By Miss Ardleigh, he thought to himself, but did not say. The interested, interesting Miss Ardleigh, who absolutely refused to relate the reason for her interest.
The inspector made a growling noise deep in his throat.
"Observe that the feather is broken," Charles said, pointing. ' 'With the aid of a microscope, it would be possible to match it to-"
"Haven't got a microscope." Wainwright picked up a biscuit and bit it. It crumbled in his hand. With a muttered curse, he dropped the crumbs on the floor. He got up, fetched the teapot and two cups, and brought them to the table. "Anything else?"
Charles retrieved the feather, folded it into its paper, and put it back in his coat pocket. From his portfolio, he took an enlarged photograph. "This," he said, laying it on the table. ' 'Tell me, Inspector, has Monsieur Armand yet been buried?''
"Yesterday." The inspector squinted suspiciously at the photograph. "What is it?"
"It is the enlargement of a fingerprint on the whip handle of the chaise hired by the victim." Charles picked up a pencil and pointed to a ridged whorl. "Observe this unique configuration."
"And just what d'you expect to prove with that?" As Wainwright picked up the teapot and began to pour, his voice was laden with something like scorn.
"It is regrettable that the corpse has been buried. If it were
to be exhumed and the man's fingerprints compared to-"
Wainwright set down the teapot so smartly that hot tea splashed onto the photograph. "Exhumed!" he exclaimed.
Charles retrieved the photo hastily. ' 'Have you read Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson?"
The inspector stared at him.
Charles tried a different tack. "It is unfortunate that fingerprints are not generally in use. But with the proper equipment and training, an astute police officer like yourself could make quite a name-"
"Not got proper equipment," Wainwright growled, picking up his cup, "and not likely to get it." He blew on it, bitterly. "Have to buy even my own tea and biscuits. The superintendent won't give me a farthin' for fingerprints or photos or feathers, when he won't give me a telephone or a typewriter. Or a microscope. Of course," he added with ill-concealed resentment, "a learned gentleman like yourself wouldn't understand that."
Charles frowned. He felt, he thought, the same frustration that Dr. John Snow must have felt forty years before, when he tried to explain his theory of the transmission of typhoid to the Ministry of Public Health. Such stubborn unwillingness to accept anything new!
"But my dear fellow," he said urgently, "if this fingerprint does not belong to the victim, it must belong to the killer. Don't you see? We have here the opportunity to establish-''
"A confession," Wainwright said into his teacup.
"Beg pardon?" Charles asked.
"A confession." The inspector set his cup down. "That's what we need to solve this murder. That's what a jury would understand."
"I see," Charles said. He cleared his throat. "I wonder, though," he said mildly, "just how a confession is to be obtained from a killer who has so far eluded detection?"
"Your tea's gettin' cold," the inspector said. "Drink up."