“Sufficient! You haven’t any evidence at all!”
“Oh, we have some.” With a turn of his head, Cray summoned a man who stood at the hall door.
The man came in, and handed Cray a report.
“H’m,” the attorney scanned the paper. “We find, Mr. Lockwood, fresh finger prints on the chair which stood near Doctor Waring’s desk. Facing the Doctor’s chair, in fact, as if some one had sat there talking to him. Did you?”
“No; I never sat down and talked to him. I was always waiting on him in the matter of bringing books or taking letters for transcription, and in any case, I either stood, or sat at my desk, never in that chair you speak of.”
“This man will take the finger prints of all present,” the Attorney directed, and one and all submitted to the process.
“But you can’t get the prints of Friend Jap,” he said. “Like’s not, he’d be of more importance than all of us put together. Me, now, I can’t see where I come in.”
Yet, after time enough had passed to complete the processes, it was learned that the finger prints on the shiny black wood of the chair under discussion were indubitably those of Gordon Lockwood. Also, there were other prints there, slightly smaller, that Cray immediately assumed to be those of the missing Japanese.
Lockwood looked more supercilious than usual, if that were possible.
“How can you identify the prints of a man not here?” he asked with an incredulous look.
“Supposition not identification,” said Cray, gravely. “But we’re narrowing these things down, and we may yet get identification.”
“Get the Jap back,” advised Old Salt Adams. “That’s your next move, Cray. Get him, check up his finger prints and all that, and best of all get his confession. There’s your work cut out for you.”
“Find Doctor Waring’s will,” Mrs. Bates lamented. “There’s your work cut out for you. I am not unduly mercenary, but when I know how anxious Doctor Waring was that I should inherit his estate, when I realize what it meant that he drew this will before our marriage, so urgent was his desire that all should be mine, you must understand that I do not willingly forego it all in favor of a distant relative, whom, Mr. Crimmins tells us, Doctor Waring did not care for at all.”
“I should say not!” and Crimmins looked positive. “It will be an outrage if Mr. Trask inherits the estate already willed to Mrs. Bates. I stand ready to do all I can to see justice done in this matter.”