Might as Well Be Dead

When I got there, on Madison Avenue in the Forties, five minutes early, I discovered that I hadn’t exaggerated when I called it a party, and nobody was late. There were ten of us gathered down in the anteroom of the vaults: Parker; Degan; two officers of the safe deposit company; an attendant of the same; an Assistant District Attorney with a city dick, known to me, apparently as his bodyguard; a fingerprint scientist from the police laboratory, also known to me; a stranger in rimless cheaters whose identity I learned later; and me. Evidently opening a safe-deposit box outside of routine can be quite an affair. I wondered where the mayor was.

After the two MSDC officers had thoroughly studied a document Parker had handed them we were all escorted through the steel barrier and into a room, not any too big, with three chairs and a narrow table in its center. One of the MSDC officers went out and in a couple of minutes came back, carrying a metal box about twenty-four by eight by six, not normally, but with his fingertips hooked under the bottom edges at front and back. Before an appreciative audience he put it down, tenderly, on the table, and the fingerprint man took the stage, putting his case also on the table and opening it.

I wouldn’t say that he stretched it purposely, playing to the gallery, but he sure did an all-out job. He was at it a good half-hour, covering top, sides, ends, and bottom, with dusters, brushes, flippers, magnifying glasses, camera, and print records which came from a briefcase carried by the Assistant DA. They should have furnished more chairs.

He handled his climax fine, putting all his paraphernalia back in his case and shutting it before he told us, “I identify six separate prints on the box as the same as those on the records marked Michael M. Molloy. Five other prints are probably the same but I wouldn’t certify them. Some other prints may be.”

Nobody applauded. Someone sighed, tired of standing up. Parker addressed the stranger with the rimless cheaters. “That meets the provisions of the order, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” the stranger conceded, “but I think the expert should certify it in writing.”