The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes - Jamyang Norbu [32]
As we gathered around him Sherlock Holmes picked up the sheet of paper and gently blew some of the fine graphite powder onto the surface of the elephant, on its left flank. He then tapped the elephant lightiy with the penknife, till all the excess graphite powder fell off on the table. As if by magic a number of finger and thumb prints appeared on the part of the elephant which had received the powder. The black lines and whorls of the impression stood out clearly against the light yellow of the brass lamp.
'Now,' said Holmes,'most of these belong to the sweaty fingers of our Portuguese friend, but if you will observe here closely ...'
Using the tip of the penknife as a pointer he indicated a large clear impression — a rough ridged thumb print with a diagonal line running across it.
'It is not conclusive evidence; said Sherlock Holmes, folding the penknife and putting it back in his pocket, 'but it may serve to demonstrate that Colonel Sebastian Moran did, at sometime, handle this object.'
'This is most wonderful verification, Sir; quod erat demonstrandum, if I may be pardoned the expression,' I exclaimed in admiration.
'I owe you an apology, Mr Holmes,' said Strickland ruefully. 'I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty.'
'You give me too much credit, Strickland. I must admit to some luck in this instance. On the balance of probability, I could not have hoped for such a perfect sample of the Colonel's thumb print, especially as the clerk had managed to obliterate nearly all previous fingerprints left on it by his injudicious handling of the object. But I took my chance for "a vaincre sans peril, on triomphe sans gloire". Corneille has such a very neat way of putting these things. But for incontrovertible proof you would need a sample of Colonel Moran's thumb print to compare with this one on the elephant. As you may know, no two human fingerprints are ever alike.'
'Yes, Mr Holmes,' answered Strickland, 'I have heard something of the kind; though till this day I was not aware that it could be used to practical advantage, especially in the solution of a crime.'
'A wide range of exact knowledge is essential to the higher development of the art of detection,' Sherlock Holmes explained in a didactic manner. 'The Babylonians pressed fingerprints into clay to identify the author of cuneiform writings, and to protect against forgeries. Fingerprints were also used by the Chinese at an early date for purposes of identification. You may not be aware that I am the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject. In my work entitled Upon the Distinction and Classification of Human Finger and Thumb Prints I enumerate five main groups of characteristic details and other sub-classification by which fingerprints maybe systematically classified and recorded. I devote two whole chapters to the methods by which fingerprints may be detected upon objects such as glass, metal, wood, and even paper. I myself have developed a method, which you have seen crudely demonstrated, by which near invisible fingerprints can be enhanced or developed by the delicate application of fine powders whose colours contrast favourably with the background surface. The powders adhere to the lines of the prints because of the body oils and sweat always present on the surface of the human hand and which is invariably left on any surface we touch. Such developed fingerprints could be photographed to provide, let us say, evidence in court.
'In the monograph I also provide incontestable evidence of the superiority of the fingerprinting system over Monsieur Bertillon's2 system of "anthropometry" for the identification of criminals. But I weary you with my obsession for minutiae.'
'Not at all,' Strickland said earnestly. 'It is of the greatest interest to me. Surely such a system as you have described would revolutionise police work.'
'Undoubtedly, but it is not in the province of a lone consulting detective to apply such a system to its fullest productivity. It would require the resources of a large official organisation,