plate and the remainder of the hair and had been unable to achieve anything by their means; but the value of finger-impressions for the purposes of identification is not yet appreciated outside scientific circles.[1] I fetched the teapot and salver from the drawer in which I had secured them and examined them afresh.  The teapot had been held in both hands and bore a full set of prints; and these were supplemented by the salver.  For greater security I photographed the whole set of the finger-impressions and made platinotype prints which I filed for future reference.  Then I turned my attention to the hair.  I had already noticed that it was of a dull gray color, but now, when I came to look at it more closely, I found the color so peculiar that I took it to the window and examined it with a lens.

[Footnote 1:  The narrative seems to have been written in 1890.—­L.W.]

“The result was a most startling discovery.  It was ringed hair.  The gray appearance was due, not to the usual mingling of white and dark hairs, but to the fact that each separate hair was marked by alternate rings of black and white.  Now, variegated hairs are common enough in the lower animals which have a pattern on the fur.  The tabby cat furnishes a familiar example.  But in man the condition is infinitely rare; whence it was obvious that, with these hairs and the finger-prints, I had the means of infallible identification.  But identification involves possession of the person to be identified.  There was the difficulty.  How was it to be overcome?

“Criminals are vermin.  They have the typical characters of vermin; unproductive activity combined with disproportionate destructiveness.  Just as a rat will gnaw his way through a Holbein panel, or shred up the Vatican Codex to make a nest, so the professional criminal will melt down priceless medieval plate to sell in lumps for a few shillings.  The analogy is perfect.

“Now, how do we deal with vermin—­with the rat, for instance?

“Do we go down his burrow and reason with him?  Do we strive to elevate his moral outlook?  Not at all.  We induce him to come out.  And when he has come out, we see to it that he doesn’t go back.  In short, we set a trap.  And if the rat that we catch is not the one that we wanted, we set it again.

“Precisely.  That was the method.

“My housemaid had absconded at the time of the murder; she was evidently an accomplice of the murderer.  My cook had left on the same day, having conceived a not unnatural horror of the house.  Since then I had made shift with a charwoman.  But I should want a housemaid and a cook, and if I acted judiciously in the matter of references, I might get the sort of persons who would help my plans.  For there are female rats as well as male.

“But there were certain preliminary measures to be taken.  My physical condition had to be attended to.  As a young man I was a first-class athlete, and even now I was strong and exceedingly active.  But I must get into training and brush up my wrestling and boxing.  Then I must fit up some burglar alarms, lay in a few little necessaries and provide myself with a suitable appliance for dealing with the ‘catch.’