Silva glanced at his follower doubtfully.
"I am not sure that I can make him understand," he said, and for some moments talked energetically to Mahbub in a language which I suppose was Hindu. Mahbub listened, scowling fiercely, speaking a brief sentence now and then. "He would know," Silva asked, at last, turning to the coroner, "whether blood is a constituent of that ink."
"It is a purely chemical compound," Sylvester explained. "There is no blood in it, nor any other animal matter."
This was repeated to Mahbub, and, after some further hesitation, he advanced to the table.
A moment later, Sylvester was bending above the prints. Then he looked up, his face red with astonishment, and motioned me to approach.
"Look at that!" he said, and laid the prints before me.
My heart was leaping with the hope that the incredible had happened; that here lay the clue to the mystery. But the first glance told me that such was not the case. The prints resembled Swain's not at all. And then, when I looked at them again, I perceived that they resembled no other prints which I had ever seen.
For the prints of all ten fingers were exactly alike, and consisted, not of whorls and spirals, but of straight lines running right across the finger. Sylvester was staring at them in bewilderment.
"These," he said, when he could find his voice, "are the most remarkable prints I ever saw."
"Do they resemble those on the robe?" asked the coroner.