Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 165: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE UNSEEN FACE, ‘‘When I was reading up on the tech- nique of crime detection,” Professor Goldie ruminated, ‘‘I found from Professor Hans Gross’s Die Erforschung des Sachverhalts straftbarer Handlungen that cigar butts were valuable as clews because of the im- press of teeth on them. You will notice— fortunately the chewed end was dried nice- ly, retaining the mark of the teeth—that one tooth is a particularly long one, the canine; an exceptionally long canine. Whereas this man’s canine is, if anything, shorter than the average.” Chief Quinn blushed like a schoolboy. It was, after all, a simple bit of deduction he had overlooked, simple as Columbus’s trick with the egg after one knew how to make it stand on end. ‘“ Well, we’ve learned something!” he said with a decent degree of heartiness. ““ Exceedingly little,” Professor Goldie suggested. ‘‘ So little that I really can’t see what use I can be—”’ ‘“T suppose my husband can borrow this cigar remnant for further study at home,” Mrs. Goldie suggested. “Til say he can!’’ Chief Quinn ex- claimed and reached a muscular forefinger and thumb for the cigar butt. But Professor Goldie put out a restrain- ing hand. ‘“ Pardon me, Mr. Quinn, but perhaps this bit of cigar had better be han- dled as little as possible.” From the back of his lapel he took out a long pin, such as he kept with him for handling insect specimens, and, carefully running it through the cigar butt, he looked around for something else. Seeing a half empty box of the chief’s cigarettes, he ab- sent-mindedly emptied it. Then with the adroitness of a laboratory research worker he mounted the cigar butt on its pin inside the cigarette box so that, like Mohammed’s coffin, it stayed suspended in mid-air with- out touching anything that might fray it. “You say this poor man is unknown?” he asked the chief. ‘“ And what is his occu- pation?” Chief Quinn shook his head. ‘“‘ Can’t even guess. Something rough, I figure, from his overalls.” Professor Goldie bent over the dead man’s hands 955 ‘His flesh seems soft for an unskilled laborer,” he murmured. He rose and, taking up Chief Quinn’s penholder, stuck the wrong end in the ink- well. With this he bent down to the dead man’s right hand and looked at palm and fingers closely. He even ran the sensitive tips of his own fingers over parts of these. Then as he found something in his tactual search he made small circular patches on his own right hand with the inky end of Chief Quinn’s penholder. When he had thus made four such marks on his right hand and fingers he waved his hand gently in the air to dry it. This done, he took out his handkerchief and, wrapping his right hand carefully, used it as little as possible. It was only when he was about to leave that he noticed how intently his wife and Chief Quinn had been watching his queer occupation. He colored. ‘There may be nothing in it,” he mut- tered hastily. ‘Ill be glad to let you know what results I get, if any.” Whenever his wife saw that far-afield look in her husband’s eyes she forbore to ask questions. If he brought anything home from his mind’s wanderings he would share it with her. But if she distracted him with questions at such a time he would be sure to lose his way on whatever trail he was following. So she bade good-by to Chief Quinn for both and gently piloted her wan- dering husband toward the trolley. Arrived at his little porch laboratory Pro- fessor Goldie put the cigar butt under a glass bell jar and, guarding his ink-marked, handkerchief-wrapped right hand from rude contact, sallied forth across the campus to the machine shop, where Pete Haskins, the university’s genius-of-all-work was making a water-weighing machine for the physics lab- oratory. ‘Peter, I have been drafted into work outside my specialty,” Professor Goldie apologized. ‘And I wish you would help me.” He unwrapped the handkerchief from about his right hand and showed the ink- stains on the palm and fingers. — ‘“ Please look at these spots and consider them.as representing callouses or toughening COM DOOLK CO