Yet, after time enough had passed to complete the processes, it was learned that the finger prints on the shiny black wood of the chair under discussion were indubitably those of Gordon Lockwood. Also, there were other prints there, slightly smaller, that Cray immediately assumed to be those of the missing Japanese.
Lockwood looked more supercilious than usual, if that were possible.
“How can you identify the prints of a man not here?” he asked with an incredulous look.
“Supposition not identification,” said Cray, gravely. “But we’re narrowing these things down, and we may yet get identification.”
“Get the Jap back,” advised Old Salt Adams. “That’s your next move, Cray. Get him, check up his finger prints and all that, and best of all get his confession. There’s your work cut out for you.”
“Find Doctor Waring’s will,” Mrs. Bates lamented. “There’s your work cut out for you. I am not unduly mercenary, but when I know how anxious Doctor Waring was that I should inherit his estate, when I realize what it meant that he drew this will before our marriage, so urgent was his desire that all should be mine, you must understand that I do not willingly forego it all in favor of a distant relative, whom, Mr. Crimmins tells us, Doctor Waring did not care for at all.”
“I should say not!” and Crimmins looked positive. “It will be an outrage if Mr. Trask inherits the estate already willed to Mrs. Bates. I stand ready to do all I can to see justice done in this matter.”
“But justice, as you see it, can only result from finding the will,” said Cray.
“Yes,” agreed Crimmins, “and the whole matter opens up a new train of thought. May not the distant cousin, this man Trask be in some way responsible for the destruction of the will and the death of the decedent?”
“It is a new way to look,” Cray agreed, with a thoughtful air; “and we will look that way, you rest assured. We will at once get in touch with this cousin, you will give us his address, and learn where he was and how employed on the night of Doctor Waring’s death. We still have to face the problem of an outsider’s exit from a locked room, and though it seems more explicable in the case of a member of the household, yet a new suspect brings fresh conditions, and perhaps fresh evidence, which may show us where to look. At any rate, we must speedily find Mr. Maurice Trask.”