Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/371

 as their personal counsel to look after their interests, now that the district attorney seemed to have cleared up the criminal end of the case.

Hollins was one of the prominent attorneys of East Point, and before the election of Kilgore as prosecutor had been his partner. Unlike Kilgore, we found him especially uncommunicative and inclined to resent our presence in the case as intruders.

The interview did not seem to me to be productive of anything. In fact, it seemed as if Craig were giving Hollins much more than he was getting.

"I shall be in town over night," remarked Craig. "In fact, I am thinking of going over the library up at the Godwin house soon, very carefully." He spoke casually. "There may be, you know, some finger-prints on the walls around that closet which might prove interesting."

A quick look from Hollins was the only answer. In fact, it was seldom that he uttered more than a monosyllable as we talked over the various aspects of the case.

A half-hour later, when he had left and had gone to the hotel, I asked Kennedy suspiciously, "Why did you expose your hand to Hollins, Craig?"

He laughed. "Oh, Walter," he remonstrated, "don't you know that it is nearly always useless to look for finger-prints, except under some circumstances, even a few days afterward? This is months, not days. Why on iron and steel they last with tolerable certainty only a short time, and not much longer on silver, glass, or wood. But they are seldom permanent unless they are made with ink or blood