“All crooks aren’t clever, Mr. Vance,” declared Heath combatively.
“Oh, dear, no! They’d never be apprehended if they were. But, after all, Sergeant, even an authentic finger-print merely means that the person who made it was dallying around at some time or other. It doesn’t indicate guilt.”
“Maybe so,” conceded Heath doggedly. “But I’m here to tell you that if I get any good honest-to-God finger-prints outa this devastated area, it’s not going so easy with the bird that made ’em.”
Vance appeared to be shocked. “You positively terrify me, Sergeant. Henceforth I shall adopt mittens as a permanent addition to my attire. I’m always handling the furniture and the teacups and the various knickknacks in the houses where I call, don’t y’ know.”
Markham interposed himself at this point, and suggested they make a tour of inspection while waiting for the Medical Examiner.
“They didn’t add anything much to the usual methods,” Heath pointed out. “Killed the girl, and then ripped things wide open.”
The two rooms had apparently been thoroughly ransacked. Clothes and various articles were strewn about the floor. The doors of both clothes-closets (there was one in each room) were open, and to judge from the chaos in the bedroom closet, it had been hurriedly searched; although the closet off of the living-room, which was given over to the storage of infrequently used items, appeared to have been ignored. The drawers of the dressing-table and chest had been partly emptied on to the floor, and the bedclothes had been snatched away and the mattress turned back. Two chairs and a small occasional table were upset; several vases were broken, as if they had been searched and then thrown down in the wrath of disappointment; and the Marie Antoinette mirror had been broken. The escritoire was open, and its pigeonholes had been emptied in a jumbled pile upon the blotter. The doors of the Boule cabinet swung wide, and inside there was the same confusion of contents that marked the interior of the escritoire. The bronze-and-porcelain lamp on the end of the library-table was lying on its side, its satin shade torn where it had struck the sharp corner of a silver bonbonnière[21].
Two objects in the general disarray particularly attracted my attention—a black metal document-box of the kind purchasable at any stationery store, and a large jewel-case of sheet steel with a circular inset lock. The latter of these objects was destined to play a curious and sinister part in the investigation to follow.