Casebook 1: The Open-and-Shut Case - 1.5[index]

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It appeared to be untouched. Helflemeny verified that everything was in its place. As we came out of the vault, the blind man was being taken to the station for questioning. He began to plead that he had been abducted. Was this an open-and-shut case? It made no sense.

*            *            *

I sat with my feet up on my desk, slowly opening and closing my glasses case as I applied my mind to the problem of the vault, but all I could think about was the note. How!? How could it be? I was baffled. My mind frozen by the sheer impossibility of the situation. I was interrupted by one of the PC’s. I was wanted by the desk sergeant. What he showed me brought the case into a new realm of fantasy, but I saw it with my own eyes.

The suspect had been charged. Photographs and fingerprints had been taken. As the suspect pressed his fingertips to the paper, he cried out in surprise. When the sergeant asked him what was the matter, he said:

“It’s a message.”

“What’s a message?” asked the sergeant.

The sergeant handed me the prints. At first, I saw nothing, only the fingerprints. I took a closer look, turning the paper against the light, looking for a watermark of some kind.