"Fingerprinting is pretty modern stuff. So I suppose it's remarkable to find prints so old. But--"

Duval, pacing up and down the room, uttered a stifled exclamation. He stopped by Coghlan's desk. He played feverishly with a wooden-handled Kurdish dagger that Coghlan used as a letter-opener, his eyes a little wild.

Lieutenant Ghalil said resignedly:

"The fingerprints are not remarkable, Mr. Coghlan. They are impossible. I assure you that, considering their age alone, they are quite impossible! And that is so small, so trivial an impossibility compared to the rest! You see, Mr. Coghlan, those fingerprints are yours!"

While Coghlan sat, staring rather intently at nothing at all, the Turkish lieutenant of police brought out a small fingerprint pad, the kind used in up-to-date police departments. No need for ink. One presses one's fingers on the pad and the prints develop of themselves.

"If I may show you--"

Coghlan let him roll the tips of his fingers on the glossy top sheet of the pad. It was a familiar enough process. Coghlan had had his fingerprints taken when he got his passport for Turkey, and again when he registered as a resident-alien with the Istanbul Police Department. The Turk offered the magnifying-glass again. Coghlan studied the thumbprint he had just made. After a moment's hesitation, he compared it with the thumbprint on the sheepskin. He jumped visibly. He checked the other prints, one by one, with increasing care and incredulity. Presently he said in the tone of one who does not believe his own words: "They--they do seem to be alike! Except for--"

"Yes," said Lieutenant Ghalil. "The thumbprint on the sheepskin shows a scar that your thumb does not now have. But still it is your fingerprint--that and all the others. It is both philosophically and mathematically impossible for two sets of fingerprints to match unless they come from the same hand!""These do," observed Coghlan. 

Duval muttered unhappily to himself. He put down the Kurdish knife and paced again. Ghalil shrugged.

"M. Duval observed the prints," he explained, "quite three months ago--the prints and the writing. It took him some time to be convinced that the matter was not a hoax. He wrote to the Istanbul Police to ask if their records showed a Thomas Coghlan residing at 750 Fatima. Two months ago!" Coghlan 

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