Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-09

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those searches which to most people
would seem the least interesting pro
cedure in the world. Detectives were
sent ont to find parts of the country
where the soil W. Of such n compost
ton as chemical analysis showed the
bit of drieG clay to be. = would he
monot onouS, uninspiring, logged
search. witt not even the incentive OF
much reward to give it zest. For even
complete success i1 this investigation
might Weld the slendere~t of clues.
no an ina ginatiNe mind. however,
the work of those minute creatures
who build up coral islands has a thf1i
of it's own. And the search OF Scot
land Yard for the bed of mud whence
that flake of clay had come thrilled me
perhaps more than the faSh-ot.ll2ht-
ming intuition of French detectives.
which misses perhaps more often than
it hits.
such a tedious searching is one Of
the most characteristic procedures of
Scotland Yard cases. With the pa
tienCe the bulldog tennctX, the racia
talent for teamwork and the special
talent Of Scotland Yard for such effort.
these hunts have something of the in
eAorable quality of fate about them.
i x q
NEANWH1IE the victim herself
w WAS investigated 1t WAS found
that She was a wealthy but suspicion
ridden racluSe who had no faith IN
banks or brokers. She had converted
all her wealth into jewels, WS--"h she
could keep IL her little safe and turn
them into cash as sic needed 1t. TO
avert the attention of looters, she
chose the ColorlesS neiehhorhood in
which she had lived, and lived alone.
To give her house III" air of genteel
impecuniouSneSS she put up Rooms
for Rent" sign. but found excuse to
keen them uurented. She had no rela-
tives the police could find; no friends,
and her business relations We're con
fined to the few people who delivered
her daily provisions. This Inc or IN
vestgation. therefore, yielded Scot
land Yard nothing.
But there is a dark room in the
great, square, gloomy structure on the
Emha nkment, where ! studied Scot
land Yard at work. Into this room
there hurried several departmental
chiefs with whatever clues had been
found in Mary Ennis room. These
five men sat in the pitch dark. While
an operator adjusted a piece OF APP
partus at one end of it.
suddenly there was the hiss of an
electric current through an arc lamp
and vivid white screen was revealed
on the wall. On this showed the in
tense shadows of the operators fin
gers as he carefully placed some pho
tosraphs on the stand of rejecting
apparatus.
There appeared on the screen the
vastly enlarged photographs, the
shrewdlike imprints the fingerprint
man had discovered with his powders
and camels hair brush. What We're
they?
Five experts in criminal hunting
brought their combined intelligence to
bear on the peculiar shreds of inn
print now so huge on the screen. FL
nally their questioning minds agreed
on a solution. The men who had muir
dered Mary Ennis worked in street
gloves. On the fingers of one glove
there was a seam open, not big enough
to attract the attention of the wearer
but enough open to have the pressure
of the finger leave a shred of imprint
wherever it rested hard.
Once this was decided. the photo
gra phs were hurried to the finger
print bureau for piecirg together and,
If possible. identification. Fortunately
the seam had shifted with the move
ment of the hand and the imprint left
in several places was not always the
print bureau that the whole scheme of
Identification by fingerprints was first
developed by Sir Edward Henry, for.
mer head of Scotland Yard.
A quarter of million nngerprints
of criminals We're assembled there
when / saw 1t: the cards so cleverly
arranged that, given z fingerprint, 1t
took only five minutes to find it's coun-
terpart among those 100000 different
records.
The shreds of imprint. when pieced
together. gave part of fngerprint.
But it was so small n part that. abso
lutely individual as fngerprints are
no two individuals in the world give
the same imprint--there was too little
on which to base an unmistakable
identification. The most the bureau
could arrive at was to find seven diff
ferent fingerprints of which the shreds
might form a part.
TN the dark room again the five
experts studied new photographs
of the marks made by the chisel or
Jimmy whereby the murderers forced
entrance. into Mary Ennis house.
From the archives of the criminal in
vestigation department were brought
other photographs taken with
microscope camera lens of chfsel
marks discovered on other burglar
cases one by one these were com
pared with the newcomers.
Chisel edges show as individually
ragged under a miscroscope as the
bite of human teeth and can be as
significant as fingerprints. But un-
like the dents Of teeth and the inn
prints OF fingers, the bite of a chisel
may change its mark II the chisel
meets hard substance. SO that here
again the council in the dark room
could arrive only at an approximate
identification.
Meanwhile in another part of Scot
land Yard, under the supervision of
kindly, student type of a man, In
spector John Hendry, who was most
kind in lending me records, another
line of investigation was being car
ried on. Inspector Hendry has
organized a most interesting system
of classification.
One thousand and more different
kinds of crimes are here catalogued
in classes, from A to II, subdivided
according to the technique employed
arson, burglary, counterfeiting,