"I wonder what the
lines upon my own fingers may resemble."
"We can soon see," replied the police officer, and ringing a
bell he summoned an assistant to whom he issued a few directions.
The man left the room, but presently returned with a little
hardwood box which he placed on his superior's desk.
"Now," said the officer, "you shall have your fingerprints
in a second."
He drew from the little case a square of plate glass, a little
tube of thick ink, a rubber roller, and a few snowy white cards.
Squeezing a drop of ink onto the glass, he spread it back
and forth with the rubber roller until the entire surface of the
glass was covered to his satisfaction with a very thin and uniform
layer of ink.
"Place the four fingers of your right hand upon the glass,
thus," he said to D'Arnot. "Now the thumb. That is right.
Now place them in just the same position upon this card,
here, no--a little to the right. We must leave room for the
thumb and the fingers of the left hand. There, that's it. Now
the same with the left."
"Come, Tarzan," cried D'Arnot, "let's see what your
whorls look like."
Tarzan complied readily, asking many questions of the officer
during the operation.
"Do fingerprints show racial characteristics?" he asked.
"Could you determine, for example, solely from fingerprints
whether the subject was Negro or Caucasian?"
"I think not," replied the officer.
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