Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1894-11-23


mat some 1ncendiarism was on foot In
either case ! was naturally anxious to dis
'over the culprit, and it seemed to me that
10 time was SO favorable as the immediate
! moment, when the room was exactly as he
lad left it. You know we scientific people
ere rather fond of problems of evidence"
He looked kecnly round the group of us.
So did l. Unless he was far better physi-
| ognomist than l, nothing was to be de-.
ected. To me every one looked interested,
md all more or less disconnected by his
pspicion. Askin for instance, was blush.
ng Wilderspin, who had u nervous trick
If twitching the corner of his mouth was
witching it violently, and the lips of tho
new man were white.
Now, am happy to say that when l
eft the laboratory had hint that pres
ntly developed into evidence rs absolute
y conclusive of who had taken my carbon
)isulphide as any evidence could he"
A dramatic pause. For my own part
vas little scared. Suppose Mr.. Smith
was jumping to conclusion. 1t might
be inconvenient for some of us.
1.-The gentleman, quite inadvertently,
had written his signature to the theft;
had left his sign manual to his act-liter.
ally his sign manual, gentlemen"
He smiled oddly at us. We expected
him t~p point some one out with his finger.
He looked for a moment at the little slips
of paper on the bench beside him and hes.
itated. We were all naturally much excit.
ed by this time.
"You don't mean," said the new stu.
4 tbot In h.,
stole that carbon bisulphide was so absent,
minded-so madly absentminded-as tc
write his name
Our teacher, still smiling shook his
head in ncgation. "Not quite that" he
said. Clearly he meant to prolong the
agony.
"When this fire broke out opposite" ne
proceeded calmly, Il had a suspicion that
the things were connected. Very early this
morning-before SUNRISE in fact wont
over there. | traced the fire, with the hrlI
of the firemCn, down to the cellar. 1t had
been lit, as l supposed it must have been,
through the coal plate raked about fol
my carbon bisulphide bottle among the
cinders and ashes in the cellar and as soon
as they were cool enough for the search,
and l could not find it. My suspicious OF
our connection with that fire grew little
fainter, but / still chung to them. The eel.
lar was extremely hot, and my investiga-
tions in consequence superficial, SO that |
determined to repeat the search more thor.
oughly later in the day.
"To fill the time up after breakfast and
bath went into the garden and hunted
about there. First l found a familiar
stopper, and that excited me. Then, I'M
der lilac bush, found the bottle-bro-
ken, suppose, by the foot of a fireman
The label, you remember, on those store
room bottles is large paper one that goes
almost all the way round You will re-
member that our friend had upset bottle
of starch mucilage. 1t is cClorless, but
with iodine gives a purple blue color. Be-
fore left the laboratory noticed that our
friend had dabbled his fingers in this
starch, for upon the door handle l per-
ceivcd the dim marks of them. l felt sure
that if l got the bottle there would be
traces of his fingers on the label Accord
ingly l developed the label with iodine
and found three blue finger marks and a
beautiful thumb print. You may have
heard of Professor Cation.
HE has made medical study of the
lines upon the human thumb and has pro
posed it as method of identifying crimi-
nails He has taken thousands of impress
sions from linked human thumbs at the
AnthrOpOmetric laboratory at South Ken
sington, and in no two human beings are
these impressions alike. He has published
book of his prints, and very good book
it is too. So here you see / have a little
printers ink mixed with oil smeared on
this paperweight, and here are some little
slips of paper, and the whole matter will
be settled in II few minutes. If the mis-
creant is present, we shall find him; if
not
Look QUIT" cried Wildcrspin.
turned round to see the new man hold
ing bottle in either hand. The anarchist
had discovered himself One bottle was
poised ready to throw 1t had ground
glass label and was probably some acid
duckcd instinctivcly, and the missile whiz-
zed over my head, touched Smith on the
shoulder and rlcoChCttcd with Il terrific
smash into Il stand of boiler tubes beyond.
There was the keen smell of nitrogen OK
idcs in the air. The second bottle happily
flew wide, bowled over ii bunscn burner
and two tripods and moved down all the
small bottles of reagents on Wilderspin's
bench.
never saw men scatter so quickly. I
turned with some idea Of graphing with
the lunatic an: saw him grip bottle of
sulphuric acid-oil of vitriol, that popular
ingredient of the Partisan love philter.
This was too much for me, and lodged
round the bench forthwith. Some of the
fellows had got out of the room and stood
on the staircase, whittier Smith, had also
made good his retreat. saw Wilderspin,
his mouth twitching more than ever, be-