“Surely the fallacy of blindly accepting as the murderer the man who made those prints is obvious? Consider the _position_ of the marks. They point down the handle, towards the blade! It is almost incredible that at any time would the murderer have held the weapon as a Regency buck dandled his tasselled cane. “My difficulty was to reconcile with Deacon’s innocence of the murder the presence of his finger-prints upon the tool with which it was committed. That the prints were his I had too much respect for the efficacy of the Scotland Yard system to doubt. “A possible solution came to me from memory of a detective story¹ I once read, in which the murderer, something of a practical scientist, made, by means of an ingenious and practicable photographical process, a die of another’s man’s thumb-print. This he used to incriminate the innocent owner of the thumb. ¹ The Red Thumb Mark, by R. Austin Freeman. “For a while I cherished this theory, so vivid was my recollection of the possibility of the method; but I was never really satisfied. Then, suddenly, I found the explanation which I was afterwards to prove true. _“Instead of going to the immense trouble of making a stamp or die, why not obtain beforehand upon the desired object the _actual_ finger-prints of the chosen scapegoat?_ “After consideration, I accepted this idea. It fitted well enough with my murderer—a fellow of infinite cunning. I proceeded with the work of reconstruction. Thus:— “Since Deacon had no knowledge of the crime, the murderer must have induced him, in circumstances so ordinary or usual as to be likely to escape his memory, to take hold of the wood-rasp by its handle at some time before the murder; perhaps eight hours, probably not more. For this clever murderer would realise the difficulty of retaining the finger-prints unspoiled. “When, after obtaining the finger-prints, he had got rid of Deacon, he must have removed with gloved hands—taking care not to touch those parts of the handle where the prints must be—the handle he had loosened before Deacon had held it. Then that handle must have been packed (say in a small box with cork wedges) in such a way as to ensure that its carriage in the pocket for the descent of the wall and subsequent activities could be effected without those beautiful marks being spoiled. The reassembling of the tool must have been done after the murder; and the whole Deacon-damning bit of evidence then planted for the police to find.