"Make a special note of that: underline it with red pencil. This is a most important statement!"
The commandant turned over some papers in his drawer, drew out a sealed envelope, opened it, extracted another envelope.
Fandor asked himself, with a thrill of foreboding, what this new move of the commandant's meant.
From a third envelope, Dumoulin took out several bank-notes, yellowed and crumpled. He held them up for Fandor to see.
"Here are three fifty franc bank-notes—new ones!... They bear the following numbers: A 4998; O 4350; U 5108. They were found, with others, concealed in your baggage at the Saint-Benoit barracks at Verdun. Do you recognise these notes as having been in your possession?"
"How do you think I can know that?" countered Fandor. "One bank-note is not distinguishable from another!"
"Yes they are: by the numbering," asserted the commandant.... "I willingly admit that it is not usual to write down for reference the number of every bank-note which passes through one's hands!... We have a better way of demonstrating that the notes I have in my hand were in your possession."
"What exactly is he going to spring upon me now?" Fandor asked himself.
There was an impressive pause.
"These notes," declared Dumoulin, "have been carefully examined by the anthropometric service. It has been demonstrated that they bear distinct traces of your finger-marks.... I hope, Monsieur Fandor, that you do not contest the exactitude of the Bertillion method?"