“I do have only a short amount of time to make my observations...” he added, “before the body begins to decay. The poor man was found outside a tavern. My guess would be heart failure, but as the man had no known family…” He gestured to the table. “Tell me, what brings you here? Not a personal injury or malady, I hope.”
“I do need your expertise in the matter of a case I am assisting Brodie with.”
“Hmmm. Yes.” he replied.
I wasn’t certain what that was supposed to mean, but I dismissed it as Brimley being distracted with his latest‘project.’
“I have brought an item that I would like you to look at. It may be able to provide a clue.” I glanced at the body. “I don’t wish to disturb you.” Body decay and all that, I thought.
“No, no, quite all right. I just need to pack the body.”
Pack? I thought of packing one’s travel bag or...
Mr. Brimley then pulled several leather pouches from a nearby bucket and placed them inside and about the body cavity.
“They’re filled with ice,” he explained. “I don’t have a cold box for storage. I have to improvise.”
Indeed.
“How may I assist you?” he asked as he pulled a sheet up over the‘project.’
From my bag I removed the small glass tumbler that I’d found at Ellie Sutton’s flat at Charing Cross.
“I need to know what you can tell me about this, if there are fingerprints.” I had wrapped it in a handkerchief before leaving Sussex Square, to preserve any marks.
“Hmmm,” he commented again. “Part of a new inquiry case that you’re pursuing?”
“A young woman who was murdered,” I replied. “It’s most complicated.”
“Let us see what we can see,” he said then as he went to the long counter.
He set the tumbler on the counter and then retrieved a container of gun powder. I had learned in the past it could be used as quite an ingenious method of detecting, since the gun powder that would stick to anything that contained an oily substance...such as a person’s fingerprints.
He brushed off the excess gunpowder then held the glass up to the overhead light.
“There appear to be two prints, both somewhat large,” he announced, as I went to the counter to observe that he had discovered.
He took the tumbler now smudged with gun powder and carefully pressed a piece of tissue paper against the powdered glass.
“Now let us see what these prints tell us under the microscope.” He then laid the tissue paper with those marks on the glass and turned on the electric light attached to the microscope.
“I would say most definitely a man’s fingerprints,” he said, looking through the eyepiece. “The curve at the edge of thethumb and the second finger.” He stood back and I stepped up to the microscope.
The print of the thumb was obvious. It was the print of the second finger that he’d retrieved from the glass tumbler that revealed something most interesting. There was a clear line that extended from the tip of the finger to the joint.
“A scar?”
“So it would seem,” Mr. Brimley replied.
And very definitely a man’s hand had held the glass. “Might I keep the paper?” I asked, not certain at the moment what that might be able to tell me.
“What can you tell me about any residue inside the glass?” I then asked.
He held the glass up to the overhead light. “There is a bit of stain dried at the bottom of the tumbler.” He set it on the counter and went to a floor cabinet much like a physician’s, then took out a large glass jar.
“Water purified with a ceramic and carbon filter,” he explained. “The water one finds around the city is filled with all sorts of filthy elements.” He returned with the jar and poured a small portion of the purified water into the tumbler and slowly swirled it about.
“Hmmm,” he made that sound again as he smelled the water in the tumbler. “Chloroform smells a great deal like ether, and cyanide has a distinct almond smell. I don’t find either. My guess from what I do smell would be brandy.”
