"There seems to me to be a singular unanimity of purpose existing between these two men," I said; "not only as regards the subject-matter of their reading, but in no less than six cases they have both perused the same volume.This never happened by chance.
Clearly, they are acquaintances, and are working together toward some common end.I should think it very likely, judging from their interest in cancers and toxicology, that they were medical students.
Numbers four and five don't exactly seem to strengthen my medical hypothesis, but they are only two out of the ten.That's about all I can make out of it;" and I returned the list to him.
"Your views in the matter," replied Maitland, "are precisely those which first occurred to me, and I am not sure but I should still hold them, had I been obliged to decide solely from the evidence Ihave submitted to you.It was clear to my mind from the first that some common purpose actuated both Weltz and Rizzi.With a view to ascertaining where they lived as a preparatory step toward learning more of them, I consulted a Boston directory, only to learn that it contained no such names.I was about to examine some of the directories of neighbouring towns when it occurred to me that the easiest way to find their places of residence would be to consult the green slips upon which they had procured their books, and Iaccordingly asked the attendant to kindly let me look at them.
While she was collecting the slips I re-examined the list of books taken by Weltz and Rizzi, especially those which had been taken by both men.One thing at once struck my attention, and that was that most of these latter were large books which would take a long time to peruse and would require to be borrowed several times for hall use, were they to be examined with any care.I put this fact down for future reference and gave my attention to the green slips, the whole twenty of which the attendant now placed before me.The residence of Weltz was given as No.15 Staniford Place, Boston, while that of Rizzi was No.5 Oak Street, Boston.I was about to walk over to Oak Street to see if Rizzi were still there when, in returning the slips to the attendant, I noticed a peculiarity in Weltz's 'z' which I had thought I had seen in Rizzi's signature.
I immediately compared the slips.There was the same oddly shaped 'z' in both.It was made like this" - and he handed us a slip of paper with this z* upon it.
"You see," he continued, "it is so unusual a way of ****** the letter that it at once attracted my attention, notwithstanding the fact that Rizzi wrote with his left hand.Closer examination revealed other peculiarities, as in the r*'s, common to both hands.
Well, to make a long story short, I satisfied myself that the same person wrote the whole twenty slips and was, moreover, ambidextrous.
This I considered as a very promising discovery, so much so, indeed, that I gave up an engagement I had for the evening and decided to camp right there until the Library closed.Happily the books I had been consulting were still on the table.I picked out those borrowed under the names of Weltz and Rizzi, and began a most careful examination of them.I had been working about two hours when Idiscovered something that fairly took my breath away.I was not sure that I was right, but I knew that, if my microscope bore me out, I would be able to stake my life that the murderer of John Darrow had read that book.I was aware, however, that even then I should not be able to name the man who had put his mark upon the book, but I could take oath that the record was made by the same hand that committed the murder.
___________________________________________________________________transcriber's note: the symbols designated z* and r* are shown as script which is not reproducible here.
___________________________________________________________________"I was too excited to do more till this had been settled, so Ibesought the official in charge to let me take all the books home with me, if only for a day, explaining to him the vital importance of my request.He readily consented and I hastened home with the whole lot.You may imagine with what interest I put the page Iwished to examine under my microscope and laid beside it the piece of glass which, you will perhaps remember, I cut from a window of the room in which the murder was committed.I believe I have never yet explained to Miss Darrow why I preserved that bit of glass.
There were two reasons for it.The house had been primed that day and there were two smutches of paint upon the glass and two almost identical smutches upon the sill.One was a sinuous line, as if the glass had been struck with a short bit of rope, - or possibly rubber tubing since no rope-like texture was visible, - which had previously been soiled with the paint from the sill.The other mark was that of a human thumb.I had seen at the World's Fair an exhibit of these thumbmarks collected by a Frenchman who has made an exhaustive study of the subject, and had learned there for the first time that no two thumbs in the world can make the same mark.I knew, therefore, that this slip of glass would at any time tell me whether or not a suspected man were guilty.I had not failed to get the thumb-marks of the men who painted the house on that day, as well as those of every other person known to be about the place.The marks upon the glass could not, by any possibility, have been made by any of them.The deduction was inevitable.They were made by the man who stood by the window when the murder was committed.
