of Fred's arrest. When you told me
of the handkerchief and then of the finger-prints, I knew that someone
was plotting against him. And then, quite suddenly, I thought of
something."

"You jumped up," I said, "as though you were shot, and ran to the
book-case over there and got down that album of finger-prints, and
found that Swain's were missing. That seemed to upset you completely."

"It did; and I will tell you why. My father, for many years, had been
a collector of finger-prints. All of his friends were compelled to
contribute; and whenever he made a new acquaintance, he got his
prints, too, if he could. He believed that one's character was
revealed in one's finger-prints, and he studied them very carefully.
It was a sort of hobby; but it was, for some reason, distasteful to
Senor Silva. He not only refused to allow prints to be made of his
fingers, but he pooh-poohed my father's theories, and they used to
have some terrific arguments about it. One night, after a particularly
hot argument, Senor Silva made the assertion that he could, by
hypnotic suggestion, cause his servant Mahbub to reproduce any
finger-prints he desired. Mahbub's finger-tips had been manipulated in
some way, when he was a child, so that they showed only a series of
straight lines."

"Yes," I said, "his prints were taken at the inquest."

"Father said that if Senor Silva could show him proof of that
assertion, he would never look at finger-prints again. Senor Silva
asked for a week in which to make a study of the prints, in order to
impress them upon his memory; at the end of that time, the test was
made. It was a most extraordinary one. Senor Silva, father, and I sat
at the table yonder, under the light, with the book of prints before
us. Mahbub was placed at a little table in the far corner, with his
back to us, and Senor Silva proceeded to hypnotise him. It took only a
moment, for he could hypnotise Mahbub by pointing his finger at him.
He said Mahbub was a splendid subject, because he had hypnotised him
hundreds of times, and had him under perfect control. Then he placed
an ink-pad on the table in front of him--nothing else. My father wrote
his name and the date upon the top sheet of a pad of paper, and Senor
Silva placed it before Mahbub. Then he sat down with us, selected a
page of prints, and asked us to concentrate our minds upon it. At the
end of a few moments, he asked me to bring the pad from before Mahbub.
I did so, and we found