The Missing Fingerprints

Whenever my duties at the Mental Hospital became dull or excessively onerous I found it pleasantly distracting to pay a visit to the superannuated detective William Blackstone Wildman. In his day, he was accustomed to solving the most unusual crime problems while in a state of intoxication -- his practice being, to lock himself into a suitably comfortable room at the scene of the crime with a bottle of gin and a box of beef-extract cubes, there to worry over the problem until inspiration should come. He called his method subliminal reasoning. I have always considered the beef extract to be an affectation, but then, who am I to judge? At any rate, I visited Mr Wildman's lodgings with the assurance of an entertaining memoir and a bottle of good port.

Cold and rain marked that February day he told me about the case of the poisoner who left no fingerprints even though the bare hand of the murderer was seen holding the deadly bottle. I had found my duties at the Asylum unseasonably hectic, for previous to the modernisation of the Violent Ward the cold weather of winter had usually reduced the fervor of my charges (indeed, it kept them blue-lipped and huddling under blankets). I remarked facetiously that the trouble was caused by the new central heating.

"Hah!" said Wildman. "You are quite right, Winston. The winter used to bring a reduction in crime as well, but in these modern times I see no such decline in nefarious activities."

"Indeed," I replied, "the hotter the atmosphere within doors, the more violent the behaviour performed there. I wonder whether the theorists of law enforcement have taken into account this unfortunate side-effect of progress in providing warmth and comfort to the masses?"

"Perhaps not, but you know, a cold-weather crime was always more in my line. This central heating is turning us all into Latins -- hot-blooded and thoughtless, as under the relentless sun of the southern climes. My abilities -- and my opponents' -- were far better stimulated by the effect of cold damp air and a glowing coal fire."

He poked at his own fire with his foot.

"Well, Winston," he continued, "I suggest that you fill up your glass. Then we can warm our hides by the fire, our hearts with alcohol, and our minds with a little tale. I'll tell you the the story of the Openslagh murder. A case of some interest, and in its way as modern as central heating."

*****************

Dr Janos Openslagh was a man of brilliance in his field, but his brilliance was marred, like a fresh-mined diamond, by the crust of its origin. A prison doctor in Brno he had been, a psychologist of sorts he became; though in that year 1908 he called himself a psychical adviser.

His brusque and apparently tactless manner, his thick Slovak accent, appealed to that segment of Edwardian society which prided itself on cosmopolitan attitudes and ostentatious self-indulgence. They came to hear the blunt truth about themselves expressed with a simple precision embellished with neo-Gothic jargon. Dr Openslagh could see them as they saw themselves in their secret visions, and the 'blunt truth' was concocted accordingly. A clever, brilliant, and unscrupulous man indeed.

However, success, like a waistcoat, often fits too snugly upon a greedy belly. Herr Doktor waxed fat in his profession, but his basic weakness finally toppled him. Scandal hissed from ear to ear: 'Openslagh has been taking liberties with his female patients'.

As business fell off, Openslagh was said to be giving out subtle hints of betrayals in order to maintain his high style of living -- what is now called blackmail. And at this point an attempt was made to kill him: poisoned sweets sent anonymously through the post. He sent his only servant, Olga Cernik -- she had been with him since childhood -- to engage my services in his defence: a stout woman, gloved and fashionably dressed in a way that belied her lowly status. Her moving plea on his behalf, as his devoted housekeeper and companion, rather than any respect on my part for his person, persuaded me to take up the case. But before I could even start the investigation of the poisoned chocolates, Dr Openslagh was murdered! I received the news by a special messenger from Frau Cernik on the night of July 7, at half-past eleven.

Once engaged, I made it a point never to leave a case unsolved. My reputation, you know. I went to his house in Wimpole Street immediately. Frau Cernik, looking quite upset, invited me inside, where I encountered my friends Inspector Aphid and Constable Reynolds of Scotland Yard.

"Ah, Billy," said the former, "are you working on this case? I am afraid it is out of your hands now, but if you'd like to stay there's no harm in it."

I assented immediately of course.

We went upstairs to the bedroom, where the body was lying. I noticed (hard not to!) a young lady guarded by two constables.

"This here is Miss Anonymous," Aphid said. "Housekeeper caught her in the hallway when the doctor cried out for help. She won't give her name, but Reynolds has her statement."

I read the document. When I had finished, the Inspector went on: "Problem seems to be this. Witness says she saw a hand pour something from a little bottle into this" -- he pointed to an empty glass that had apparently contained milk; it was on the bedside table next to the body -- "but didn't see who the poisoner was, except it was a woman. Witness says she was hiding in the wardrobe, here, door open just a crack, too frightened to move it. Could only see the hand reaching out to the glass."

"Now if, mind you, she is telling the truth, we should find the poisoner's fingerprints on the bottle. It was in the kitchen refuse bin. I sent it to the Yard for analysis, but I can tell you the police doctor says the deceased probably died of antimony in water solution. There was fingermarks on the bottle, but odd looking, I tell you, very odd."

"The young lady," I said, "gives no explanation for her presence in the wardrobe?"

"No. But we found these papers in her handbag just before you arrived."

I looked through them. They were consultation notes concerning a Mrs J. Hardknott, written in a Germanic script. (I will not tell you what they revealed, Winston -- the lady might still be living. Nor will I hazard a guess as to what she was doing in Dr Openslagh's bedroom, or why she hid in the wardrobe.)

"These," Aphid said as I gave them back into his keeping, "came apparently from the study across the hall. Piles of similar notes there all tied up with red tape. There don't seem much doubt this is Mrs Hardknott or someone connected. Will you admit as much, Miss?"

For the first time in my presence the young lady spoke: "I...I wish you to call on the gentleman whose name I gave to the constable. Not one word will I add to my statement until you do so. Since you have found the papers, I shall admit that I am Mrs Hardknott."

"Excuse me," I said, "I can see that you should wish to consult a friend before volunteering any more information. However, allow me to clarify a point or two concerning what you have already said. You say here, 'I saw an arm reach out and tip something out of a bottle into the glass of milk'. Will you describe that arm to me, please?"

"The arm was bare, but I could not see very well as the only light was from the candle on the bed table. I should not recognize it again. It was just an arm."

"Did you see anything else?"

"No, sir. I only saw a portion of her skirt; that is how I know it was a woman."

"The colour of the skirt?"

"White. The light fell so that I could see the red forearm against it."

"And where was Dr Openslagh during this event?"

She blushed. "He was in the lavatory. I did not know where to go when I heard the footsteps in the hall and did that rather silly thing of hiding in the wardrobe."

"Very clearly put."

We sent the witness away and dispatched a messenger to the address she had given. I offered the Inspector a swallow from my pocket flask; he declined regretfully.

"I believe her to be guilty of the crime," Aphid said after a while.

"No, my friend," I said, "let me hypothesise for a moment. Let us say that she came here at some time to persuade the doctor to relinquish certain embarrassing papers; let us assume that he refused; that she returned here tonight to obtain them by other means, not of a ladylike nature (but we are not moralists, merely detectors of crime); that she was compelled to hide in the wardrobe by the approach of the murderess. That she then supposedly fled the house, but actually went into the study and searched for and found the papers. At this point, Openslagh, having drunk the poisoned milk, cries out in agony, and the housekeeper, in neglige, comes running to her master's aid and apprehends our burglarous miss..."

"Well now," he said. "A deal of inference there, but I think you have it for the most part. That is my own construction. But that story about seeing the red arm of Satan hovering over the beddiby milk don't ring true, to my thinking. No, our Mrs Hardknott put poison in the man's drink and stole some papers -- to prevent scandal, no doubt about it."

"In that case, why did she linger in the house for so long? That poison takes effect after about a quarter of an hour. From the time the milk was poisoned to the time the girl was apprehended must have been at least twenty minutes (surely, she was not holed up in the wardrobe for that length of time?)."

"Twenty minutes? It may be she had some trouble finding the right papers. Besides, who's to believe she saw the milk poisoned? Anyroad, here is Reynolds with the report from the fingerprint people."

He studied the report for some time, and I refreshed myself from my flask.

"Bah! I told you, Wildman, that there was something odd about those fingerprints. Look here: clear imprints of two fingers and a thumb, but no visible ridge patterns. We'll have to have a look at the woman's hands."

"Which will help to prove her innocence, Aphid. Nothing wrong with her hands -- I saw them. However, if you will examine the housekeeper's hands..."

I continued, having solved the case in a flash: "Openslagh employed no scullery maid, or any other servant. He did not trust servants, with all those valuable papers lying about. But he DID trust his old friend (if that is all she was)."

If all the scandal concerning the doctor were true, what were the emotions of Olga Cernik? Long treated as a common servant, forced to put up with his liaisons, ruin looming on the horizon -- what an opportunity to seek revenge when she discovered a perfect scapegoat!

(I was waving the flask about in Aphid's face as I went on.)

"I surmise, Aphid, that Cernik knew about Mrs Hardknott's predicament, suspected her of an attempt to murder Openslagh with poisoned chocolates through the post, and was aware that she was IN THE HOUSE tonight. What better opportunity to carry out her determined act of revenge? And so with the poison ready to hand -- because this was premeditation waiting for opportunity -- she did the deed, not knowing the girl was hiding in the wardrobe rather than ransacking the study. A perfect scapegoat, and a revenge worthy of -- well..."

Later, when we examined Olga Cernick we discovered what Inspector Aphid later called the worst case he had ever seen of 'dishpan hands'. And I have to apologize, Winston, for inflicting an anachronistic phrase as the punch line to a murder case that took place before the Great War. Here, have another drink....

From the William Blackstone Wildman Collection by Grobius Shortling

[This story has no plot, you say. It is just an eleborate framework for a rather feeble joke. Well, it IS a mystery of sorts. What was Mrs Hardknott doing in the wardrobe? You can come up with your own solution. (It was, however, the first of these stories, and could have been better elaborated.) --Grobius]