We waited expectantly.  As he turned I saw a dark-skinned, hook-nosed man, and I exclaimed disgustedly to Burke:  “Well, if they are going to Lexington they can’t make this train.  Those are the last people who have a chance.”

Kennedy, however, continued to regard the couple steadily.  The man saw that he was being watched and faced us defiantly, “Such impertinence!” Then to his wife, “Come, my dear, we’ll just make it.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you to show us what’s in that grip,” said Kennedy, calmly laying his hand on the man’s arm.

“Well, now, did you ever hear of such blasted impudence?  Get out of my way, sir, this instant, or I’ll have you arrested.”

“Come, come, Kennedy,” interrupted Burke.  “Surely you are getting in wrong here.  This can’t be the man.”

Craig shook his head decidedly.  “You can make the arrest or not, Burke, as you choose.  If not, I am through.  If so—­I’ll take all the responsibility.”

Reluctantly Burke yielded.  The man protested; the woman cried; a crowd collected.

The train-gate shut with a bang.  As it did so the man’s demeanour changed instantly.  “There,” he shouted angrily, “you have made us miss our train.  I’ll have you in jail for this.  Come on now to the nearest magistrate’s court.  I’ll have my rights as an American citizen.  You have carried your little joke too far.  Knight is my name—­John Knight, of Omaha, pork-packer.  Come on now.  I’ll see that somebody suffers for this if I have to stay in New York a year.  It’s an outrage—­an outrage.”

Burke was now apparently alarmed—­more at the possibility of the humorous publicity that would follow such a mistake by the secret service than at anything else.  However, Kennedy did not weaken, and on general principles I stuck to Kennedy.

“Now,” said the man surlily while he placed “Mrs. Knight” in as easy a chair as he could find in the judge’s chambers, “what is the occasion of all this row?  Tell the judge what a bad man from Bloody Gulch I am.”

O’Connor had arrived, having broken all speed laws and perhaps some records on the way up from headquarters.  Kennedy laid the Scotland Yard finger-prints on the table.  Beside them he placed those taken by O’Connor and Burke in New York.

“Here,” he began, “we have the finger-prints of a man who was one of the most noted counterfeiters in Great Britain.  Beside them are those of a man who succeeded in passing counterfeits of several kinds recently in New York.  Some weeks later this third set of prints was taken from a man who was believed to be the same person.”

The magistrate was examining the three sets of prints.  As he came to the third, he raised his head as if about to make a remark, when Kennedy quickly interrupted.

“One moment, sir.  You were about to say that finger-prints never change, never show such variations as these.  That is true.  There are fingerprints of people taken fifty years ago that are exactly the same as their finger-prints of to-day.  They don’t change—­they are permanent.  The fingerprints of mummies can be deciphered even after thousands of years.  But,” he added slowly, “you can change fingers.”