A pair of silver-backed brushes showed no finger marks upon their shining surfaces, nor were there any on the silver rim that backed a comb. One could infer, Lieutenant Valcour decided, and did, that someone later than Mr. Endicott had used them, as Mr. Endicott would never have wiped them off to remove his prints, and had he not done so there certainly would have been some signs of usage. What a careful murderer it was, he thought, to polish the evidence so very clean. And what a grip the subject of finger prints maintained upon the criminal mind, and upon the lay mind as well. It seemed to embrace their Alpha and Omega in the scientific detection of crime. Lieutenant Valcour offered to bet himself his last nickel that the murderer had overlooked entirely the possibility of what might be found left within the bristles of the brushes and between the teeth of the comb. He took a clean hand towel from the rack and wrapped the brushes and the comb up in it. He set the bundle on the floor beside the cake of soap and the dirty towel. The alphabet, he reflected, had now been depleted down to F.
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