Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that. The stillness gives warning that something is coming. All palms and finger balls went down now, all slouching forms straightened, all heads came up, all eyes were fastened upon Wilson's face. He waited yet one, two, three moments, to let his pause complete and perfect its spell upon the house; then, when through the profound hush he could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, he put out his hand and took the Indian knife by the blade and held it aloft where all could see the sinister spots upon its ivory handle; then he said, in a level and passionless voice:
"Upon this haft stands the assassin's natal autograph, written in the blood of that helpless and unoffending old man who loved you and whom you all loved. There is but one man in the whole earth whose hand can duplicate that crimson sign"-- he paused and raised his eyes to the pendulum swinging back and forth--"and please God we will produce that man in this room before the clock strikes noon!"
Stunned, distraught, unconscious of its own movement, the house half rose, as if expecting to see the murderer appear at the door, and a breeze of muttered ejaculations swept the place.
"Order in the court!--sit down!" This from the sheriff. He was obeyed, and quiet reigned again. Wilson stole a glance at Tom, and said to himself, "He is flying signals of distress now; even people who despise him are pitying him; they think this is a hard ordeal for a young fellow who has lost his benefactor by so cruel a stroke--and they are right." He resumed his speech:
"For more than twenty years I have amused my compulsory leisure with collecting these curious physical signatures in this town.
At my house I have hundreds upon hundreds of them.
Each and every one is labeled with name and date; not labeled the next day or even the next hour, but in the very minute that the impression was taken. When I go upon the witness stand I will repeat under oath the things which I am now saying. I have the fingerprints of the court, the sheriff, and every member of the jury.
There is hardly a person in this room, white or black, whose natal signature I cannot produce, and not one of them can so disguise himself that I cannot pick him out from a multitude of his fellow creatures and unerringly identify him by his hands.
And if he and I should live to be a hundred I could still do it.
[The interest of the audience was steadily deepening now.]
"I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know them as well as the bank cashier knows the autograph of his oldest customer. While I turn my back now, I beg that several persons will be so good as to pass their fingers through their hair, and then press them upon one of the panes of the window near the jury, and that among them the accused may set THEIR finger marks. Also, I beg that these experimenters, or others, will set their fingers upon another pane, and add again the marks of the accused, but not placing them in the same order or relation to the other signatures as before--for, by one chance in a million, a person might happen upon the right marks by pure guesswork, ONCE, therefore I wish to be tested twice."
He turned his back, and the two panes were quickly covered with delicately lined oval spots, but visible only to such persons as could get a dark background for them--the foliage of a tree, outside, for instance. Then upon call, Wilson went to the window, made his examination, and said:
"This is Count Luigi's right hand; this one, three signatures below, is his left. Here is Count Angelo's right; down here is his left. How for the other pane: here and here are Count Luigi's, here and here are his brother's." He faced about.
"Am I right?"
A deafening explosion of applause was the answer.
The bench said:
"This certainly approaches the miraculous!"
Wilson turned to the window again and remarked, pointing with his finger:
"This is the signature of Mr. Justice Robinson. [Applause.]
This, of Constable Blake. [Applause.] This of John Mason, juryman.
[Applause.] This, of the sheriff. [Applause.]
I cannot name the others, but I have them all at home, named and dated, and could identify them all by my fingerprint records."
He moved to his place through a storm of applause--which the sheriff stopped, and also made the people sit down, for they were all standing and struggling to see, of course. Court, jury, sheriff, and everybody had been too absorbed in observing Wilson's performance to attend to the audience earlier.
"Now then," said Wilson, "I have here the natal autographs of the two children--thrown up to ten times the natural size by the pantograph, so that anyone who can see at all can tell the markings apart at a glance. We will call the children A and B.
Here are A's finger marks, taken at the age of five months.
Here they are again taken at seven months. [Tom started.]
They are alike, you see. Here are B's at five months, and also at seven months. They, too, exactly copy each other, but the patterns are quite different from A's, you observe. I shall refer to these again presently, but we will turn them face down now.