Mr. Narkom mopped his face with a silk handkerchief, a sure sign of emotion upon his part.
"I don't think this can be James Blake," said he, reflectively, "for I looked up his record after what you said a little while back about his being the head of the gang and learned that he left England a year or more ago, and nothing had been heard of him in his old haunts, or by his boon companions since."
"Hmn," said Cleek with a grim little laugh, "lying low, evidently, after, or in view of some big coup, but that doesn't prove anything about our murdered friend here. It's finger-prints we want."
"And we shall have them, too," threw in the Superintendent triumphantly, fumbling in his pocketbook with fingers that themselves shook with excitement. "I had a copy made of Blake's."
"Good man," ejaculated Cleek, as he took the precious scrap of paper, and went up to the room wherein had been placed the victim of a vengeance, possibly as just as that of the law itself. By the time Mr. Narkom had made his way more slowly and ponderously up to the same spot, he found Cleek looking down with considerable disappointment.
"Barked up a wrong tree this time," he said, but the light of a great discovery shone in his eyes and his voice had an undercurrent of strong excitement. "This is not James Blake, but I can tell you who it is. Justice has simply been forestalled----"
His face was grim and Mr. Narkom looked up into it almost breathless.
"What is it, old chap; tell me?" he gasped. "What have you discovered?"
"This man is the murderer of Elsie McBride, the old wardrobe seller of Crown Court, so her murder will not have gone long unavenged!"
"But--how--are you sure?" said the startled Superintendent.
"Quite sure, my friend," was the reply. "Whatever other disguises a man may assume, as we know, there is no escape from the irrefutable proof of finger-prints. Here----"
He lifted up the dead hand, and with a magnifying glass in his own, brought the thumb before Mr. Narkom's gaze.
"Now compare these thumb and finger marks with these which are a copy of those found on that dagger with which the poor woman was killed. You will see that they are identical. I'll nip off to town now and see whether I can get the other old woman down here to identify this man. I think, too, when we have discovered the motive for this murder we shall have gone far to have found out the reason why Lady Margaret was abducted. But that remains to be seen."