“Any matches?” Charles asked, peering over the sergeant’s shoulder. He had worked with Collins before, and had a great deal of respect for him. The man was, by now, the Yard’s resident fingerprint expert.
“With your boys’ prints?” Collins asked, putting down his magnifying glass. “No, I don’t see any matches,” he said slowly, then added, “But that doesn’t mean they haven’t handled these items, of course. The police who picked ’em up obviously didn’t give a thought to preserving possible fingerprint evidence.” He sighed heavily. “They never do, y’know. It’ll take a couple of convictions and a great deal of training before anybody pays attention. The prints on the bottles probably belong to the officers who brought them in.”
Savidge stood. “This means, of course,” he said into Charles’s ear, “that we’ll ask for a continuance until after the Jackson trial.” To Collins, he said, “I should like to fingerprint all the officers who have handled the bottles. Can that be arranged?”
“No need, sir,” Collins said cheerfully. “When Assistant Commissioner Henry took charge of CID, he ordered that every policeman’s fingerprints be taken, for the purpose of exclusion. They’re all on file. You and Lord Sheridan are welcome to come in and have a look.”
“Splendid,” Savidge said, “although it won’t do much good for me to examine them. That’s Lord Sheridan’s bailiwick.”
Charles, also wearing gloves, was taking another look at the four bottles, carefully turning them as they sat on the table, inspecting them from every angle to be sure that Collins had photographed all the prints. On the bottle that had been collected from Gould’s room, he noticed half of a black-dusted print at the left edge of the label.
“This partial print here,” he said. “Is the rest of it on, or under, the label, do you think?”
“On top, I’d guess,” Collins said, glancing at it. “But the label has a matte surface. Doubt if it would take a print.”
Charles took out his penknife, raised the left edge of the label and said, “Whiff a little of that dust here.”
It took only a moment to see that the print extended under the label. Collins was about to remove the label to photograph the print when a fourth man walked in, thickset and wearing brown tweeds and a brown derby. Collins looked up. “Good afternoon, Inspector Ashcraft,” he said.
Charles gave the man an appraising look. Charlotte Conway had said he was out to make a name for himself, Wells had called him a “rather obsessive fellow,” and Rasnokov had suggested that he did not play straight. These were qualities that might well make him a valuable man to Special Branch.
“What’s this?” the man demanded angrily. He threw his hat on the table and glared at Collins. “Why are you removing that label, Collins? That’s police property you’re tampering with! It should have stayed in the evidence locker.”
“But, sir,” Collins protested, “I was only going to-”
“I don’t care what you were going to do. Those bottles are evidence in the Hyde Park case. They are not to be meddled with.”
“Sir,” Collins said quietly, “I very much need to-”
“Who gave you leave?” Ashcraft demanded, obviously in a foul temper. He looked at Savidge and Charles. “And who the blazes are these men? No one’s applied to me for-”
“Assistant Commissioner Henry gave leave, sir,” Collins replied, with the air of a man who knows when he’s defeated. “This is Lord Charles Sheridan, who had the management of the fingerprint project at Dartmoor. And Edward Savidge, the barrister for the defendants-”
“I don’t care who the devil they are,” Ashcraft snapped, “they’ve no business messing about with evidence.”
“We are hardly ‘messing about,’ Inspector,” Savidge retorted. “As barrister for the defense, I have the right at any time to examine the evidence against my clients, and to submit it to expert analysis. Lord Sheridan, whose expertise in fingerprint analysis has already been recognized by the Home Office, is serving in that capacity.”
“Fingerprints,” Ashcraft said in a disdainful tone. He gave a loud snort. “See that those bottles are handled carefully, Sergeant. The contents must not be spilled on any account.”
Savidge took out a notebook. In a measured voice, he said, “Please be so good, Inspector, as to give me the names of the officers who collected the bottles. They will testify for the Crown, I assume.”
“Finney was in charge,” Ashcraft replied sulkily. “He was assisted by Perry and Cummings.”
“And yourself, I suppose,” Charles said.
“Not I,” Ashcraft replied.
Charles looked at him. “You’ve not handled the bottles, then?”
Ashcraft shook his head. “Nothing to do with them. Finney brought them in, along with the Anarchist literature. The glycerine was found in the newspaper office, and one of the Anarchists-Mouffetard, it was-was carrying the bomb-making instructions in his pocket.” He looked at the stoneware bottles, which bore smudges of the black dust used to make the fingerprints visible, then scowled at Collins. “Those damned fingerprints of yours, Sergeant, are causing us no end of trouble, and to no purpose, none at all. When will you understand that they are not reliable evidence? They may be useful as a means of identifying certain criminals-may, I say-but they have never been used to achieve a conviction in a court of law. No jury will ever be persuaded by such scientific hocus-pocus.”
“You are correct on the one point, Inspector,” Savidge said, closing his notebook with a snap. “Fingerprints have not yet been used to obtain a conviction. In a fortnight, however, the case may have altered.” He nodded at Collins. “Isn’t that so, Sergeant?”
Ashcraft fixed the sergeant with a black look. “What’s happening in a fortnight, Collins?”
“Why, the Jackson burglary case, of course, sir,” Collins replied, as if he were amazed that Ashcraft did not know of it. “Haven’t you heard talk of it? Jackson ’s to be tried at Old Bailey a fortnight hence. I’m to testify, since I made the fingerprint match. And there’s a very good man-Richard Muir-standing for the Crown. Assistant Commissioner Henry chose him himself.”
“Yes, Muir,” Savidge said, in a tone of great satisfaction. “I don’t know who’s up for the defense, but in this case, my money is on the Crown. Muir is a workhorse, I’ll tell you. Keeps all the facts and notes for a case on colored cards, one color for direct, another for cross, and so on. ‘There’s Muir at his card game,’ people say. He-”
“The devil himself couldn’t persuade a jury to convict a man on fingerprint evidence alone,” Ashcraft said derisively. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do. I haven’t got the whole bloody day to stand around.”
Charles watched the man depart, reflecting that there seemed to be some truth to what Miss Conway, Steven Wells, and the Russian had said. He turned to Collins.
“Could I have a look at that partial print, Sergeant?”