Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/128

Rh for the other two murders, and for the attack on our friend, Deweese."

Strange heaved a sigh of profound satisfaction. He was now on familiar ground. Unseen and unknown forces that struck men down, forces that were apparently of some other world, were beyond his depth; but human knife-wielders were his meat. Given something tangible, a clue, or a motive, or even a theory that was not beyond his comprehension, there was no man on the force who could obtain quicker or more satisfactory results than he.

Therefore, while in his own mind, he had already settled on the dagger as the one key to the mystery in sight, it flattered him, in spite of the obviousness of the clue, to have the major's opinion coincide with his own.

"I agree with you, major," he cried heartily. "The man that we want most is the man that murdered the valet; and," he added with a tightening of his jaws, "I'm gonna get him!"

"Wait," said Sergeant Alington, who had been an interested listener to the major's summing up of the case. "I have some information to reveal which I think will be of interest to you."

He cleared his throat, set his glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose, and glanced at several slips of paper he held in his hand.

"Before the bodies of Sprague and Berjet were taken to the morgue, I secured the finger-prints of both of them. I have since photographed a number of prints found on various objects in this room. Among the latter are a set of well-defined prints on the handle of the dagger that killed the valet. The photographs of these prints will not be available for purposes of comparison, of course, until I develop them; but the impressions on the daggerhandle are so clean-cut that they stand out clearly under the developing powder, when a magnifying glass is applied to them. While I cannot speak positively, therefore, I think that I have succeeded in identifying them."

"Well?" growled Strange, straining forward.

"Well," replied Alington, "instead of clearing up the mystery surrounding the murders of Sprague and Berjet, the finger-prints on the dagger tend to complicate it—that is, if we are to assume that the prints were made by the valet's murderer, and this, I am sure, all of you will agree with me in doing."

"Well?" repeated Strange, who saw his last glimmer of hope growing dimmer and dimmer. "Who murdered the valet?"

"If the prints were made by the man I think they were," said Alington slowly, as if to prolong the taste of his words, "the valet was murdered by Max Berjet."

TRANGE, at once perceiving the blank wall into which his inquiry had led him, sat down on the arm of a chair and sought to hide his discomfiture by biting a liberal sized chew from the plug of tarlike tobacco that he fished out of his trousers pocket.

He had, very naturally, believed that the solution of the mystery was to be found in the finger-prints on the dagger, and his sudden disillusionment annoyed and angered him. He felt himself baffled and, having a profound dislike for the little finger print expert anyway, it incensed him to have to admit even momentary defeat at the latter's hands, especially in the presence of his superior.

The major, however, accepted the exploding of his theory with equanimity. [sic]

"It is obviously impossible for the scientist to have had any direct hand in Sprague's murder," he observed,