Murder Points a Finger. David Alexander

       Murder Points a Finger

      Copyright © 1953 by David Alexander, renewed 1981.

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidepress.com

      THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to Michael J. DeLuca, Lieutenant (Retired) of the New York Police Department, Director of the New York Institute of Criminology, who taught the author all he knows about the fascinating science of fingerprinting.

      1

      MURDER WALKED softly down the cold, dark street where old trees reached out pleading arms like bony beggars.

      Murder walked slowly.

      There was no need for haste. The man who was about to die was just ahead.

      Despite the frost-crisp air that sighed up from the black river, the man who was about to die moved leisurely, as if long, contented years were yet to be enjoyed. But there would be no years for him to savor, nor even hours. Now there were only minutes left.

      Across the river, on the Jersey Palisades, an enormous, illuminated clock outshone the pale full moon of winter. The clock was a familiar sight to the man who was about to die. He had read widely in history and biography and the clock made him think of the Grosse Horloge which had given its name to a square in Rouen. He imagined that the clock across the Hudson, the clock the Mad Hatter had constructed, was far larger than the clock in the square where Joan of Arc had perished on a pile of faggots.

      The man did not know it, of course, but the great bright clock was ticking away the final moments of his life. Behind him in the shadows, Murder was twenty feet away, walking softly.

      The lights of the clock’s dial danced and sparkled on the dark river, like diamond slivers on fluid velvet. The clock’s huge hand would shiver, then jerk forward, and another minute of the night, of the man’s life, of eternity would be gone. The great arrow was moving down from 12 to 6, from top to bottom. The sands were running out.

      Each time the hand jerked, lights would flash a word:

      TIC

      then:

      TOC

      then:

      TIC TOC HATS

      ALWAYS UP TO THE MINUTE IN STYLE

      The street on which the man walked—and Murder followed—was one of the few in Manhattan bordered by trees. It was one of the few in the city where houses were built of wood and brick instead of steel and concrete. It wound up from Broadway to the top of a bluff that overlooked the river. At the very summit of the bluff there was a castle.

      The end—or the top—of this quiet street, with its small houses built early in the century, was a strange place for a medieval castle with turrets and battlements and sentry towers. Frank Tocci, “The Mad Hatter of Manhattan,” had built the castle as his home. It was deserted now. Tocci was the man who had constructed the clock across the river to advertise the merchandise that made his millions.

      The little houses that sprawled at the foot of the castle were very much alike. In the darkness, beside the sky-shadowing bulk of the medieval pile, they might well have been mistaken for serf dwellings on a feudal lord’s estate. But these were no peasant hovels. The houses were comfortable middle-class homes, their façades somewhat overdecorated in the naively ornate gingerbread style of the Teddy Roosevelt era. At this time of night, when the hand of the big clock jerked spasmodically toward the half hour before midnight, the windows of the little houses glowed warm and friendly, though the street itself was chill and dark.

      The man who was about to die was small and wiry-tough. Though he walked slowly, his movements were decisive, purposeful. There was an air of suppressed energy, abundant vitality about him. He was Lieutenant (Retired) Philip Linton of the New York Police Department. He had retired from the force after thirty-five years of service, many of them spent in the Identification Bureau. He was regarded as one of the outstanding fingerprint experts of his time by those who studied the esoteric patterns of whorls and arches and loops that nature engraves upon the end joints of the human hand—and never duplicates.

      Linton’s expert testimony had helped send nineteen murderers to the electric chair.

      Linton pushed open the iron gate of a little house at the top of the hill, directly across from the towering castle. He crossed the short walk and mounted the three steps of the porch. The man who was about to die turned the key of a familiar lock for the last time, and entered his home.

      Murder drew back into the shadows and waited beneath the gaunt old trees.

      The hand of the clock across the river jerked:

      TIC

      The hand of the clock quivered forward again:

      TOC

      The man inside the house now had few precious minutes left. Murder was pushing the iron gate open.

      A night light was burning in the hall of the little house. In its dim radiance the hall tree sprawled a gallows shadow on the wall. In the parlor to the right only one shaded lamp was lighted. Pat isn’t home yet, Linton thought. Well, his granddaughter was out with young Detective Allan Walters that evening and she had an important thing to say to him. Perhaps the most important thing a girl her age ever has to say. Young Walters was very much in love with Pat. It was only natural that this evening should be a long one for the two of them.

      Linton hung his hat and coat upon the hall tree. Pat, he thought, had never liked the hall tree. She called it ugly, and said he should hang his clothes in the closet at the back of the hall. But that closet was filled to overflowing with his fingerprinting paraphernalia. Mostly, he pampered Pat. He’d let her give the old leather sofa to the Salvation Army, and paint the walls of the parlor French gray, and take down his pictures of Sir Francis Galton and Sir William Herschel and Dr. Henry Faulds and Sergeant William Faurot and other pioneers of fingerprinting and put up pretty colored etchings instead. But the hall tree remained. It had always been there. Pat was all he had left in the way of relatives. His wife had died years before and his only son, Pat’s father, had received the Department’s medal when he was killed in the line of duty.

      Of course he still had good friends. Many of them were on the force. And there was old Dab, his best friend of all. J. Dabney Ashton, the Broadway and television actor who spent most of his spare time playing chess and working puzzles. Linton snapped his fingers with annoyance. He must be growing old. He’d forgotten to mail the note to Dab when he went out for his walk. Well, he could call him in the morning instead. You could nearly always catch old Dab in the morning. Dab didn’t like getting up early.

      Linton started to enter the parlor, changed his mind, turned back into the hall. He found the house uncomfortably warm. Women always wanted houses too warm, even Pat who was a healthy outdoors girl. Linton glanced at the thermostat and lowered the gauge. He took off his jacket and his vest and hung them on the hall tree beside his coat and hat. He thought he heard an iron gate close. Probably a neighbor’s.

      He entered the parlor and turned on more light. The four-by-five cards with fingerprinting symbols drawn on them were scattered over Pat’s new coffee table. On top of them was the note to Dab, addressed and stamped. For a second he thought of going out again to mail the letter. Had he done so he might possibly have saved his life. But the mail had probably already been picked up from the corner box and a call tomorrow would do as well. He rather relished the idea of waking old Dab before his accustomed hour.

      I’ll have to clean up this litter before Pat gets home, Linton thought. She’d give me what for if she found it on her brand-new table. He’d sorted out the cards