"Yes, he telephoned. You know, of course, that I am always asked to intervene now in any ticklish affair!... Well Dr. Du Marvier, an expert in his way, noticed that the Princess had been half strangled by the thief in his haste to secure the pearl collar, and he wished me to search for finger prints on the nape of the victim's neck—to discover the assassin's signature in fact."
"And there were some?"
"A quantity. The Princess had been slightly wounded in the nape of the neck ... blood had been pressed on to the skin of her neck, and it was easy to take a cast of one of the fingers."
"Was that sufficient?"
"Yes, and no; such an impression is something; but there is better than that! The thief must have given the neck a violent squeeze with his hands, consequently there is a complete impression of the hand ... that I had to get...."
Fandor instinctively put his hand to his neck as if he were squeezing it. He said:
"Are such impressions imperceptible?"
"Yes; to the eye, but not to the photographing apparatus. It is thoroughly established that the pattern formed by the innumerable lines which furrow the fleshy part of our fingers is as peculiarly characteristic of each individual as the form of his nose, of his ears, or the colour of his eyes. The curves or rings, the various forms taken by these lines already exist in the newly born and never change to the day of his death. Even in case of a burn, if the skin grows again, the ridges reappear exactly as they were before the accident. Look you, one can obtain by this method—this test—such results as you would never dream of. For example, by taking these imprints I obtained in the early hours of to-day, as a basis, I can tell you, with almost absolute accuracy, the height of the individual...."
"This is marvellous!" cried Fandor. "The service your department renders then is to abolish legal blunders?"
"That is so. Every individual identified, is identified plainly, irrefutably. Unfortunately, we cannot always obtain perfect imprints on the spot where the crime is committed."