He was following me intently, and now nodded his head in token of comprehension.
"Look at those drippings," I went on; "the hand that last grasped the candlestick did not try to avoid them, although they were yet soft and warm from the flame. It does n't require a trained eye to determine that the thumb was nearest the base."
"I declare!" he wonderingly interrupted. "Blest if you 're not right, Swift. The candle was burning when somebody grabbed it up for use as a club. Whoever it was he caught hold of it with a pretty firm grip."
"An additional argument," I added, "that it was put to some violent use. It is n't necessary to hold it anything near so tight merely to carry it.
"However," I pursued, "the circumstance is in a way unfortunate. While I can gather the idea that the hand was n't inured to hard labor, and that it was a rather long and slender one, it closed so powerfully upon the drippings that the pattern of little lines—the vermiculations which differentiate one man's hand from everybody else's—is merely a blur. As a wax impression of the murderer's hand it is not a success."
My audience seemed to be immensely interested.
But I was not yet through with the wax impression.
"One peculiarity is suggested, though: this is unmistakably the impress of a right hand, and the owner of the hand wore a broad ring on the second finger—an unusual place for a man to sport that sort of jewelry."
The third finger of Maillot's left hand was adorned with a modest signet ring, while the private secretary's abnormally long, bloodless digits bore no sign that they had ever been encircled by any ring at all.
The situation was serious enough, however; the imprint which I assumed to have been made by a ring was so blurred as to leave wide latitude for error respecting any deduction that I might make from it.