Brewer said, "Our room is square and nearly the shape of this office, but not so large. There are two windows in the west side of our room. They are about five feet apart." And he placed the trunk against the wall of the office between two windows, which were farther apart than the windows in his room. After he had placed the trunk, I said to him, "Now, I want you to approach the trunk just as you did this morning, when you missed your money, unlock the trunk, and go through the same motions that you did until you discovered the loss."
He approached the trunk, got down on his right knee, unstrapped the trunk, produced a key, unlocked it, turned the lid back against the wall, then removed the tray which covered the portion of the trunk below the lid. This trunk was a cheap one, covered with an imitation of leather, and was comparatively new. The trunk and tray were lined with a delicate blue paper. The tint was of such a color that it would easily soil. The tray had sides and ends which were perhaps two inches deep, and slid down into the lower half of the trunk from the lid, where it rested upon two cleats at either end. It fitted the trunk snugly. There were two straps of light colored tape, which were about an inch wide and were fastened with carpet tacks to the center of each end of the tray. These tapes acted as handles by which the tray could be lifted from the trunk. Brewer had to work for some time to get the tray up out of the trunk, for the reason that one of the tape straps had evidently been recently jerked from its fastenings. As stated before, these tapes had been fastened to the tray by means of four large-sized carpet tacks. When the one strap had been jerked off the tack remained firm in the tray, but the heads of the tacks had been pulled off. This left a sharp point on one of the tacks, which projected from the wood about one-sixteenth of an inch, and like a needle point.
While Brewer was trying to remove the tray I was kneeling down at one end of the trunk and noticed the sharp point on the tack. I also noticed the mark of a thumb, which had been greasy and dirty, and which had been pressed over the tack as the light paper plainly showed.
Meanwhile, the young man whom I supposed was the brother, was standing at the other end of the trunk opposite me, when I happened to look up just as he turned around towards me, with his hands by his side. I noticed that the thumb on his right hand, which was calloused and dirty, had been cut diagonally across, leaving the cut about three-quarters of an inch long, and about a thirty-second of an inch deep. The cut was fresh and was beginning to gape open, although not deep enough to bring blood. The hands of all men employed around oil wells become more or less saturated with oil, and are rough and calloused. Generally they present a dirty and greasy appearance. As the fellow turned and I got a glimpse of the cut in the thumb, I rose from beside the trunk, faced him, and instantly seized his right hand. I carefully examined the cut, then looked at the imprint on the end of the tray, and pointing to the stain, said to him in a sharp, commanding tone, "Where is this man's money?"
"Where is this man's money?"
He began to cry, and said, "If you will let me go I will get the money."
I asked him where the money was, and he said, "I hid it yesterday under the carpet in the hall at the boarding-house."