“Have you made any arrangements about your stepfather, Gary?” I asked.
“Going to plant him tomorrow, if you release the body. I called the undertaker and told him to attend to it.”
“Aren’t you going to ask why we’re here, if we’ve arrested someone?”
“If you’re trying to scare me, forget it.”
“I really don’t care, flatfoot. Your arrests don’t interest me.”
“This one will.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to arrest you, Gary, and take you to headquarters and have a look at your fingerprints.”
“I’d know better than to try and scare you, Gary. Anyway, you wiped the fingerprints off the gun.”
“What’s fingerprints got to do with it?”
“Well, somebody loaded the gun and then some time passed. And then he used the gun. He remembered to wipe it clean — but in the stress of the moment, he forgot that there might have been a print on one of the bullets.”
Marty and I moved on him from different angles. He backed a step. He dropped his cigarette. “What kind of bluff...”
“No bluff, Gary,” I said. “Just a single fingerprint on a bullet. If you’re innocent...”
He kicked sand in my face, ducked past Marty, and ran down the beach. The bright sun shone on his fleeing figure, the pastel pink of the Pelican, and the pastel aqua of a convertible on the edge of the motel’s parking lot. He was angling toward the convertible, a track man neither Marty nor I could come anywhere matching.
Marty dropped to one knee, pulled his revolver and fired over the boy’s head.
The bullet gave Gary fresh speed.
Marty took careful aim. His second shot tore a piece of flesh from Gary’s thigh. The boy pitched forward and went rolling.
Later, in a cell, Gary decided to trade a signed confession for a chance of escaping the chair. We still use the electric chair in our state, and the thought of it filled him with a particular horror. His story pretty well coincided with our conclusions.
I’m not at all sure we needed the confession. The fingerprint nailed it down for us. That’s right. His print was a perfect match for the one Rynold discovered on the bullet.
And what of Clement J. Smith, a stranger nearly a continent away, an unknown among millions?
The explanation is simple. His print matched also.
You may recall that Bertillon himself, the great French anthropologist who laid the groundwork for the system, recognized the mathematical possibility of duplicate fingerprints. The odds against it are about two billion to one.
But the laws of chance are undeniable, and in a way, I suppose, what happened here was inevitable, somewhere, sometime.
So perhaps it isn’t as unique as I’d like to think. I’ve no way of knowing how many millions upon millions of fingerprints have been taken throughout the world in all the long decades during which the science has been in use.
I only know that Clement Smith and Gary Scorbin possessed the first known two-billionth digits in common.
I’ll give Pete Gonzales your compliments on the 146-pounder.
Your friend,
R. D. Singer — Captain Detective Division
P. S. Maybe the Langborn case will suggest a story to you. Not being a writer, I wouldn’t know how to work it up. I imagine you’ll think of the Clement J. Smith angle. He was lucky. But what if, tomorrow or two hundred years from now, another two-billionth print led to an accusation against a guy who wasn’t so clearly innocent as Smith? Now wouldn’t he be in a mess?
Diet and Die
by Wenzell Brown
In these days of weight-control by wafer or flavored beverage, some of you will no doubt find this story far-fetched. But those among you who, life myself, are gourmets, will be completely in sympathy with the narrator.
Sir, you appear to be a gentleman of taste and discrimination, such a man as I believe myself to be, I am informed that you are a psychiatrist and this training should add to your insight and wisdom. I have refused to make my confession in the presence of the police. They are dull, unimaginative clods, quite incapable of understanding the sensitivities that come with refinement and breeding. Sir, I am a murderer. I admit the fact. But many fastidious men have been preoccupied with violent death. I consider it no disgrace to be a member of their ranks. Nor do I hope to escape the penalty involved. However, I see no reason to invite the mockery, the crude guffaws, perhaps the disbelief of the uncouth minions of the law who until your arrival were my inquisitors.
I must tell you about Yvette, but first it becomes necessary to speak a few words about myself. My lineage is one of distinction and I am naturally aware of the social prestige attached to my family name. The question therefore arises why I should have married Yvette who was not only nine years my senior but also a woman whose rather coarse appearance indicated, with accuracy, her French peasant stock.
But I am getting ahead of my story. Of my youth, let it suffice to say that it was spent in luxurious loneliness. My father was too preoccupied with his business interests to give me more than a passing thought. My mother was a woman of artistic temperament who attempted to instill in me her love of art, music and poetry. In retrospect it seems as though my entire boyhood was spent in museums, literary salons and art galleries. Mother virtually commuted from Boston to Europe and I invariably accompanied her. True, there were a few brief intervals in private schools but these interludes are filled with painful memories. Grubby dormitories, the juvenile atrocities of the playing fields and the public humiliation of the class-room were not for me. Worst of all was the tasteless refectory food. Before long I would fall ill and mother, taking pity on my misery, would swoop down and remove me from my sordid surroundings.
By and large, my education was supervised by a series of tutors who coached me in languages, art and music. Not altogether successfully, I must admit. My talents are limited. I am a connoisseur rather than a creative artist. Nevertheless, under this irregular tutelage, I did gain an admission to one of our better universities. I was not happy there. The conditions that prevail at such institutions are deplorably primitive, especially in the matter of food. I withdrew in my sophomore year.
My mother and I resumed our travels. Although I may be considered a failure, there was one area in which I had become an expert. My judgment in the culinary arts was impeccable. Wherever mother and I went, be it Paris, Rome or Vienna, I was able to ferret out little out-of-the-way restaurants where the cuisine was superb. Mother and her friends always deferred to my judgment and I never led them astray.
My father’s demise passed almost unnoticed but mother’s death six years ago came as a severe blow, especially as it was accompanied by the shocking knowledge that the family fortune had dwindled to a point of almost non-existence. Through a series of circumstances too elaborate to recount, I found myself stranded in New York, saddled with an unpleasant job that paid me a mere pittance. New York has always seemed to me a coldly hostile city. Certainly it was not designed for a man of my sensibilities.
I had never possessed the knack of easy friendships and now I was quite alone. Night after night I wandered about the city, seeking the side streets in the hope of finding cosy little restaurants where fine foods would be served. Invariably I was disappointed. Time and again I would rush out of restaurants in a rage, the food barely tasted. Everything was wrong, the sauces abominable, the legumes overcooked, bread and pastries either a puffy mess or hard as shoe leather.