he expert adjusted his glasses, pulled out a pocket
magnifying-glass, and leaned close up to the prints.

"We're infallible!" exclaimed the Commissioner with superiority. "Watch
Pope get your man. He'll hound him out in no time. Eh, Pope?"

The expert was not of a sanguine disposition in the minute which ensued
as he ran over the prints, studied them, held them to the light then
laid them down on a table and shook his head.

"We have no record of this fellow," he said coldly. "It looks like a
man's print. Here's the thumb and here is the middle finger of the
right hand, I think. Hard to tell, sometimes. I'd say, as a pretty sure
thing, that we have no duplicates in our collection. Shall I look?"

"Yes! Look!" said Fosdick.

Drew felt that the case was slipping from him as Pope fluttered from
cabinet to cabinet, pulled out drawers, replaced them and tried still
others.

"No go?" he asked as the expert shot back the last cross-index cabinet
and turned with shaking head. "No go? Try again."

"Absolutely no record of the maker of these prints," said Pope, holding
out the photos. "He hasn't registered with us yet. Whoever made these
prints has never been arrested in the United States for a felony."

"How about a misdemeanor?" asked Drew.

"No! They're all in this cabinet. Even if he was picked up on suspicion
or for auto speeding or beating his wife,--if he has one,--he would be
here. I'm sorry, inspector."

Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and turned toward
Fosdick.

"Have you got a print of Finklestein?" he asked. "You remember the
fellow who was arrested in the Morphy case. He was afterwards released
for lack of evidence or else he claimed exemption. I've forgotten how
he got off. He's supposed to be in Florida or somewhere in the South. I
had a man out to Morristown who reports along those lines. I wish you'd
compare these prints with Finklestein's."

"Go ahead," said the commissioner. "Go as far as you like. I don't
think that there is anything in these prints. You got the wrong
ones--that's all."

"What's Finkle--Finklestein's initials?" asked the expert.

"J. B.," said Drew quickly. "Julius B.!"

A quick search through an alphabet-index, a consultation of two
drawers, out of which the expert pulled some tiny squares of cardboard,
and then a slow shaking of his head, brought Drew back to where he had
started from before taking the prints in the booth.

"No record could be more different