"
Swain bit his lips nervously.
"I have a horror of her staying in that house another night," he said;
"but I hadn't thought of the funeral. There is one nurse on duty all
the time, isn't there, doctor?"
"Yes."
"All right, then; we'll risk one night more. But you promise me that
she shall be taken away immediately after the funeral?"
"Yes," I said, "I promise."
"And I," said the doctor. Then he looked at his watch. "It's time we
were getting back," he added.
He took us over in his car, and we found the jury, under the guidance
of Simmonds, just coming out of the house, each member smoking a fat
black cigar at the expense of the State. They had been viewing the
body and the scene of the crime, but as they filed back into their
seats, I noted that they seemed anything but depressed. The lunch had
evidently been a good one.
Sylvester was recalled to finish his testimony. He explained the
system of curves and angles by which finger-prints are grouped and
classified, and the various points of resemblance by which two prints
could be proved to have been made by the same finger. There was, first
of all, the general convolution, whether a flexure, a stria, a sinus,
a spiral, a circle, or a whorl; there was, secondly, the number of
ridges in the convolution; and there was, thirdly, the angles which
these ridges made.
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