Page:Bentley- Trent's Last Case (Nelson, nd).djvu/188

180 not tell a man of your knowledge of the world that the pattern of it is a single-spiral whorl, with deltas symmetrically disposed. This, the print of the second finger, is a simple loop, with a staple core and fifteen counts. I know there are fifteen, because I have just the same two prints on this negative, which I have examined in detail. Look!'–he held one of the negatives up to the light of the declining sun and demonstrated with a pencil point. 'You can see they're the same. You see the bifurcation of that ridge. There it is in the other. You see that little scar near the centre. There it is in the other. There are a score of ridge-characteristics on which an expert would swear in the witness-box that the marks on that bowl and the marks I have photographed on this negative were made by the same hand.'

'And where did you photograph them? What does it all mean?' asked Mr. Cupples, wide-eyed.

'I found them on the inside of the left-hand leaf of the front window in Mrs Manderson's bedroom. As I could not bring the window with me, I photographed them, sticking a