“Yes. So can my father and the others.”
The district attorney’s eyes circled again. “Mr. Stauffer? You arrived on the scene with Mr. Dunn, Senior? Do you confirm—”
“Yes,” said Stauffer gruffly. “Neither the body nor the gun was touched.”
Mr. Regan said, with, it seemed, gloom rather than elation, “That’s sewed up.”
Skinner nodded. “It seems to be.” He looked at Prescott, and then at June. “As you see, Mrs. Dunn, I merely wished to verify some facts. I’ll tell you now the basis for my statement a while ago. The sheriff’s deputy appears to be an inquisitive and skeptical man. His superiors were for closing the incident as an adventitious tragedy; he was not. Due to his pertinacity the following facts have been established: First, both the stock and barrel of the gun had been recently wiped or rubbed, not by a cloth, as is usual, but by something scratchy that left many tiny streaks, revealed plainly under a magnifying glass. Second, instead of bearing many different fingerprints of Noel Hawthorne’s, as a gun should after being carried by a man for more than half an hour, maybe an hour, and fired by him twice, it bore only three sets of his prints, all of the fingers of the right hand — one set on the stock, one on the breechlock, and one on the barrel. The prints were unusual — all four fingers close together, juxtaposed, and none anywhere of the thumb. The set on the barrel was even remarkable, being upside down — that is, not as if the barrel had been grasped in the ordinary manner, but as if it had been held for use as a club, to strike something with the butt.”
“This is all poppycock,” declared young Dunn scornfully.
Prescott said, “Let him finish, Andy.”
“I’ll make it as brief as I can,” Skinner went on, “but I wish to make it plain that this is merely the inevitable march of events under the guidance of the law. To finish with the fingerprints, they had all been made after the gun had been rubbed with something scratchy. As you doubtless know, Mrs. Dunn, the gun is the property of Titus Ames, who works for you. Ames says it has never been wiped with anything except the soft cloth he uses for that purpose, and that he wiped it with such a cloth Tuesday afternoon, when he went to get it for Mr. Hawthorne at Mr. Dunn’s request.”
“So you’ve questioned Ames,” Prescott observed.
“I sure have,” said Mr. Regan.