“Didn’t you pick up the card?”
“I did not.”
“Then who did?”
“I have no idea — if there was a card.”
“You don’t remember Aubry putting it on the desk? Or seeing it there?”
“No. But this begins to sound like something. You sound as if you’re really detecting. Are you?”
I nodded. “This is called the double sly squeeze. First I get you to deny you touched the card, which I have done. Then I display one of Aubry’s cards in a cellophane envelope, tell you it has fingerprints on it which I suspect are yours, and dare you to let me take your prints so I can check. You’re afraid to refuse—”
“Come and show me how you take my prints. I’ve never had it done.”
I was, I admit it, curious. Was she inviting physical contact because she was like that, or was she expecting to voodoo me, or was she merely passing the time? To find out I got up and went to her, took her offered hand and got it snugly in mine, palm up, and bent over it for a closeup. The hand seemed to be telling me that it didn’t mind the operation at all, and with the fingertips of my other hand I spread her fingers apart, bending lower.
Of course I was concentrated on the job. Whether the door from the outside hall to the foyer was opened so quietly that no sound came, or whether my ears caught a sound but I ignored it, what interrupted my investigation was her sudden tight grip on my hand as she straightened up and cried, “Don’t! You’re hurting me! Norman — thank God!”