all costs, clear up the mystery.

A dozen people were crowding round Fandor, insisting on being attended
to in the cloak-room.

No one noticed the journalist....

No one seemed interested in what he was doing....

Fandor examined every one of Thomery's guests who were standing about
him. He knew some of them by name, some he knew by sight. He searched
their faces with penetrating eyes; but, in vain.... Some were
common-place looking, others calm, others impenetrable:

"Hang it all," he grumbled. He went off furious and upset.

IX

FINGER PRINTS

After having interrogated all the witnesses of last night's tragedy he
could get into touch with, Jerome Fandor returned to the Palais de
Justice.

"All the same," he confessed to himself, "I must admit that, up to the
present, I do not know anything very definite about it. This Princess
Sonia Danidoff has managed to get robbed in a most extraordinary way. At
one o'clock in the morning, Havard declares that the thief can be none
other than one of the guests, and thereupon every person present has to
submit to being searched--an exhaustive search! Nothing comes of it.
Then Bertillon arrives on the scene, and it seems he has obtained very
distinct imprints of finger marks. If they are as distinct as all that,
the task of the police will be simplified; but, on the other hand, is it
likely the guilty person will be so simple as to respond to the summons
issued by the Public Prosecutor, a general summons issued to all
Thomery's guests to parade in Bertillon's office for the finger-mark
test?... Not he! Why the moment he heard of it he would make for the
train and pass the frontier!"

When his cab arrived at the Palais, Fandor uttered a big sigh of
satisfaction:

"There are a good many things I am not clear about: let us hope
Bertillon will give me some information."

The entrance to the anthropometric department was under the discreet
observation of two detectives:

"Oh," thought Fandor. "They think it probable there will be an immediate
arrest, do they? We are going to have some complications, I foresee, in
connection with the finger-mark ceremony!"

He sent in his card and a few minutes after he found himself in the
presence of Monsieur Bertillon.

"Well, what is it you want me to tell you?" asked this famous man of
science.

"Why, dear master, everything that took place last night! Is it true
that you have summoned here all Thomery's guests?... Have