"Deduction. One person could have heard what Pelle said to Hesset--the
central operator through whom the call passed. When I left here Albert
took me to the door. I made a point of shaking hands with him. A cashier
who had just paid a forged check, it is only natural to suppose, would be
nervous and upset. Albert's hand was hard and strained, his grip that of
a man steeled to see something through.... What?
"I stopped at the telephone office and asked what girls had been on duty
at seven o'clock Monday evening. Tessie had been on duty alone. I did not
mention her name; and yet, before I had gone one hundred feet, she was
out in the street after me, badly shaken, demanding to know why I had
inquired about her. That end of the picture was complete. Tessie and
Albert were sweethearts; she had told him of the Pelle call in
confidential gossip. I knew then who the guilty man was, but I could not
prove it.
"This afternoon the tailor delivered me another man's suit by mistake. I
found it was Albert's. This was in one of the pockets." The doctor pushed
across the desk the paper covered with the canner's signature. "Probably
every other paper on which Albert had practiced the signature had been
destroyed--this one had been overlooked. As he could not have practiced
forgery at the bank he must have done it at home. And as the same pen had
written the signatures on this paper and the signature on the forged
check, they must have been written, not with a bank pen, but with a pen
that Albert carried with him. I wanted to have him use that pen before
witnesses.
"So I had Captain Tucker prepare statements and bring you here. I had
Bryan clear the desk so that Albert would have no other pen to use but
his own. Once he signed that statement he had damned himself."
Bryan Smith, examining the two checks, shook his head. "Doctor, you
cannot see. How could you tell that?"
"Have you a magnifying glass?" the blind man asked.
The bank president took one from a drawer.
"Examine the check Pelle signed and the statement he signed. Both
signatures are smooth. Look at the forged check. There are three l's in
Paul Pelle. On each of the three upstrokes on the l's the pen gouged the
paper a bit. Here's the paper that was in the suit. The same gouge on the
upstrokes. Now the statement Albert Wall signed. There are also three l's
in his name, and the same gouge on the upstrokes. All made by the same
pen."
Joe Morrow was filled with a sense of pride and wonder. Bryan Smith said
slowly:
"Doctor, I fail to see how you, sightless, could detect that."
"Eyes," Dr. Stone said. "Auxiliary eyes. When sight goes, other senses
quicken." He laid his hands upon the table, palms up, and the light shone
upon the delicate, sensitive finger tips.
"You mean you could feel these grooves?" Captain Tucker demanded.
"Yes."
The captain ran his own fingers across the signatures. "I don't see how,"
he complained. "I don't feel a thing."
Dr. Stone filled his pipe with expert care. "You are not blind," he said
mildly. "You lack a blind man's touch."