“Do you know what this does, gentlemen?” he asked, in a voice husky with emotion.  “It strikes at the foundation of the whole system of finger-print identification!  It renders forever uncertain a method we thought absolutely safe!  It’s the worst blow that has ever been struck at the police!”

“You mean the prints agree with the photographs?” asked Godfrey, going to his side.

“Absolutely!” said Sylvester, and mopped his face with a shaking hand.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE END OF THE CASE

To Sylvester, head of the Identification Bureau, it seemed that the world was tottering to its fall; but the rest of us, who had not really at the bottom of our hearts, perhaps, believed in the infallibility of the finger-print system, took it more calmly.  And presently we went upstairs to take a look at the contents of Silva’s secret cupboard.  When he had first come to the house, Miss Vaughan explained, he had been given carte-blanche in this suite of rooms.  He had them remodelled, installed the circular divan and crystal sphere, selected the hangings, and had at the same time, no doubt, caused the secret cupboard to be built.

Its contents were most interesting.  There was a box of aerial bombs, which Godfrey turned over to Simmonds with the injunction to go and amuse himself.  For Sylvester’s contemplation and further confusion were the gloves with which Silva had managed his parlour mystification scheme, six pairs of them; and there was also the very simple apparatus with which the finger-print reproductions had been made—­an apparatus, as Godfrey had suggested, similar in every way to that used for making rubber stamps.  There, too, were the plates of zinc upon which the impressions of the prints had been etched with acid.  And, finally, there were various odds and ends of a juggler’s outfit, as well as various bottles of perfumes, essences, and liquids whose properties we could not guess.

Godfrey looked at the gloves carefully, as though in search of something, and at last selected one of them with a little exclamation of satisfaction.

“I thought so!” he said, and held it up.  “Look at this glove, Sylvester.  You see it has never been used—­there is no ink on it.  Do you know what it is?  It’s the print of Swain’s left hand.”

Sylvester took it and looked at it.

“It’s a left hand all right,” he said.  “But what makes you think it is Swain’s?”

“Because Silva expected to use both hands, till he learned that Swain had injured one of his.  But for that, the blood needed to make the prints would have come from the victim, and Silva would have worn this glove, too; but Swain’s injury gave Silva a happy inspiration!  Wonderful man!” he added, half to himself.

Goldberger and Simmonds went on into the inner room to arrange for the disposition of the body of Mahbub; but Godfrey and Miss Vaughan and I turned back together, for we did not wish to see the Thug.  At her boudoir door Godfrey paused.