“I didn’t do it, I didn’t! You can take my prints—”
“Relax, Molly,” the sheriff said. “We already got ’em off the compact in your desk, and you didn’t do it.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that she did,” Miss Withers said, “even though her husband had been mixed up with Thelma Pringle. However, I think that they got the idea of blackmail separately. You see, the murder was well planned — designed to throw an even heavier weight of guilt on George Travis. The killer did not know that Travis was out on bond, but she did know that if a body identified as that of his wife was found in Las Vegas, he would be suspected of having instigated the murder. Even if the identity of the corpse came to light, it would still appear that his agents had merely struck down the wrong woman. Only one person had a motive to involve George Travis in more trouble than he was already in — and that person came into the cottage with a shotgun and killed the girl who was trying to blackmail her, thus killing two birds with one stone.”
“Very neat,” the sheriff said. “But it you’re—”
“I certainly am,” Miss Withers cried breathlessly. “Eileen Travis, I accuse you of a double murder.”
It should have been a rousing climax, but it fell flat as a pancake. Eileen was shaking her head, almost pityingly. Macy’s expression was sorrowful, and Rankin was almost laughing. The sheriff smiled a weary, patient smile. “All done, ma’am?”
“Isn’t... isn’t that enough?”
“Plenty. Very ingenious, too. Only I think that you ought to know, ma’am, that when she came in Mr. Travis insisted we take her fingerprints, and they don’t match the ones on the gun, glasses, or ice-pick!”
Miss Withers felt slightly faint. “But they have to!”
“Officer Rankin here is our fingerprint expert,” the sheriff said. “He’s read all the books.”
Rankin beamed.
“But there must be some mistake!” cried Miss Withers.
“There is, and you’ve made it.” The sheriff looked at a big silver watch the size of a teacup. “Miss Withers, there’s a plane out of here at nine o’clock, which gives you just half an hour. Macy you see that she gets packed and on that plane and out of my hair!”
Sheriff Kehoe was standing up now, his voice rising to a deep baritone roar. Miss Withers, the bitter taste of defeat in her mouth, backed hastily out of the door.
There was a long silence. The sheriff sat down again, lighted a cigar, and mopped his forehead. “Now, like I said, we’ll start at the beginning, and see if we can straighten this out. You first, Mrs. Travis. We’ll take your statement, and Molly will type it out so you can sign it and go.”
Eileen spoke carefully and slowly, for some time. Her statement was in the typewriter when the telephone on the sheriff’s desk rang shrilly. He picked it up. “Kehoe. What? Oh, Macy. What’s the matter, did you let her miss the plane?”
There was a short pause, and then the sheriff heaved a deep sigh of relief. “Good, good. I’m glad you reported — it’s a load off my mind.” He started to hang up, and then jammed the instrument against his ear “What? What final request?”
The others in the room all strained their ears, but they could hear only a jumble of sounds from the other end of the line. At last the sheriff put down the phone, and said, “Rankin!”
“Yes, sheriff?”
“You’re supposed to be our fingerprint expert. This case is at a dead end because we can’t find any suspect whose prints fit those on the murder weapons and the drinking glass. Tell me, is there any way a person could deliberately leave false prints?”
The burly young detective swallowed. “There... there’s a photographic process on gelatin, but it’s easy to detect because it doesn’t leave pore marks...”
But the sheriff wasn’t listening. He turned slowly toward Eileen Travis, who still leaned back in the one easy chair, her bare brown ankles crossed, a cigarette dangling from her full lush mouth. She stared back at him, letting the ashes fall to the floor.
“Mrs. Travis,” he asked with ceremonious politeness, “would you mind very much if I asked you to take off your shoes?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came.
“It’s been suggested by the lady who just left,” continued Sheriff Kehoe, “that fingers are not the only portions of the human body that have distinctive skin patterns. With your permission — or without it — we’d like to take your toeprints!”
About the story: Your Editor’s first reaction on finishing Stuart Palmer’s “Fingerprints Don’t Lie” was one of sheer disbelief. If a criminal leaves impressions of her toes on a shotgun, an ice-pick, and a drinking glass, is it possible that the police, trained observers, would assume the prints to be fingerprints? — big ones, even for a man. We sat and thought about it, and the more we stewed in the juice of our own thoughts, the more incredible it seemed. Yet we realized that the entire validity of the story stood or fell on this vital point.
Being realistic, and blessed with a passionate curiosity, we took off one of our shoes and socks and tried to examine the underparts of our own toes. Not being a contortionist, the results of our investigation were inconclusive. So we decided to send out an S.O.S. (Save Our Story): we telephoned the one person in whose expert knowledge of practical police procedure we have complete confidence — the dean of true crime writers, Ed Radin, whose latest book is TWELVE AGAINST THE LAW and who is currently doing a weekly series for King Features Syndicate called “Secrets from the Archives of Crime.”
We posed the problem to Ed.
Ed said: Boy, that’s hard to swallow.
We said: Well, here’s your golden opportunity. You beep preaching that truth is stranger than fiction. Is it? Can the print of a toe be mistaken for an unusually large print of a thumb?
We could feel Ed scratching his head: I don’t know. Wait a minute—
We interrupted: Don’t look at your own toe — we’ve already tried that. How about checking with the police lab?
Ed said: I’ll do that little thing.
And what do you know? It could!
Yes, unbelievable as it may seem at first shock, a toeprint looks exactly like a large finger- or thumbprint. A toeprint has all the proper characteristics — pattern, ridges, whorls.
Your Editor goes on record here and now that never again will we be skepticaclass="underline" truth is stranger than fiction — that’s why fiction only seems stranger than truth. And all detective-story writers and detective-story readers should doff their collective hats to Stuart Palmer for thinking up a factually accurate and brand-new wrinkle on the old fingerprint chestnut — a neoclassic clue, and “one for the books”...