"You must be a fool!"
"Well, one of us is a fool, but it's not me, my lord," said Mr. Jacobs,
imperturbably. "I knew the truth ten minutes after I had examined the
dressing-room. You see, the burglar who understands his business works
in kid gloves; they leave no finger-prints. There were prints on the
door of the safe, inside, on the poker--oh, well, everywhere; because,
you see, when a man's engaged in this kind of work, he's naturally
nervous, his hands are sweaty. And these finger-prints were those of a
gentleman's hands. Do you want me to go on, Lord Heyton?"
Heyton could not speak; his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his
mouth; he felt as if his spine were giving way, as if all his strength
of mind and body were ebbing from him.
"It's--it's ridiculous!" he stammered.
"No, my lord, it's quite simple, quite elementary. There were the
finger-prints, on the safe, on the walls, on the poker. I could read
them quite easily with a magnifying glass; and they never lie. 'Pon my
word, Lord Heyton!" he broke off musingly, his mouth twisting into a
smile, "I'm inclined to think they're the only things in this world one
can rely on. Now, you'll see why I upset the ink over your hand." He
took the two sheets of paper from his pocket and laid them on the table;
and beside them he placed a silver print of the finger-prints in the
room.
Heyton stared at them as if they were live things that could sting him.
"Another thing, my lord," said Mr. Jacobs. "I was in the dressing-room
just after the Marquess recovered consciousness, and heard him charge
you with the robbery. The evidence is quite conclusive. But there is, of
course, what we call collateral proof. I found these two keys under the
bed in your dressing-room. Of course, you intended throwing them in the
lake, when you went down with the jewel-case; but you dropped the keys
and didn't find them; there is always a little hitch like that--it's
the hitch in the rope. I know you took the jewel-case the morning you
went down to bathe, because I traced your footprints into the middle of
the wood, where you need not have gone, if you had been going merely for
a bath. I knew I should find the jewel-case just where you stopped; but
I didn't want to discover it. I was waiting for you to go for it,
which you would have done presently. Unfortunately for him, another man
was in the wood that morning and saw you; and he went for the
jewel-case. The Inspector has arrested him, worse luck. I say 'worse
luck,' because now we can't hush up the affair--and, you'll have to
go."