it finally reached the right
person after all. You didn't get away quickly enough.

"You were not expecting that the real daughter would see it and turn
up so soon. But she has. She lives in California. Mr. Haswell in his
delirium has just told of receiving a telegram which I suppose you,
Mrs. Prescott, read, destroyed, and acted upon. It hurried your plans,
but you were equal to the emergency. Besides, possession is nine
points in the law. You tried the gas, making it look like a suicide.
Jane, in her excitement, spoiled that, and Dr. Burnham, knowing
where I was, as it happened, was able to summon me immediately.
Circumstances have been against you from the first, Prescott."

Craig was slowly twisting up the hand of the inventor, which he still
held. With his other hand he pulled a paper from his pocket. It was
the old envelope on which he had "written upon the occasion of our
first visit to Mr. Haswell when we had been so unceremoniously
interrupted by the visit of Dr. Scott.

"I sat here yesterday by this bed," continued Craig, motioning toward
the chair he had occupied, as I remembered "Mr. Haswell was telling
Dr. Scott something in an undertone. I could not hear it. But the old
man grasped the doctor by the wrist to pull him closer to whisper
to him. The doctor's hand was toward me and I noticed the peculiar
markings of the veins.

"You perhaps are not acquainted with the fact, but the markings of
the veins in the back of the hand are peculiar to each individual--as
infallible, indestructible, and ineffaceable as finger prints or the
shape of the ear. It is a system invented and developed by Professor
Tamassia of the University of Padua, Italy. A superficial observer
would say that all vein patterns were essentially similar, and many
have said so, but Tamassia has found each to be characteristic and
all subject to almost incredible diversities. There are six general
classes--in this case before us, two large veins crossed by a few
secondary veins forming a V with its base near the wrist.

"Already my suspicions had been aroused. I sketched the arrangement of
the veins standing out on that hand. I noted the same thing just now
on the hand that manipulated the fake apparatus in the laboratory.
Despite the difference in make-up Scott and Prescott are the same.

"The invisible rays of the ultra-violet light may have blinded Mr.
Haswell, even to the recognition of his own daughter, but you can
rest assured, Pres