“Graphite-based,” I said. “More coarse than the mercury, but shows up better on certain surfaces.”
“Top marks!” the sergeant said.
I turned away as if to wipe a bit of grit from my eye and stuck out my tongue at Feely.
“But surely these are for dusting?” I protested. “… and not needed for recording prints?”
“Right enough,” the sergeant said. “I just thought you’d be interested in seeing the tools of the trade.”
“Oh, I am indeed,” I said quickly. “Thank you for the thought.”
I did not suppose it would be polite to mention that I had upstairs in my chemical laboratory enough mercury and graphite to supply the needs of the Hinley Constabulary until well into the next century. Great-uncle Tar had been, among many other things, a hoarder.
“Mercury,” I said, touching the bottle. “Fancy that!”
Sergeant Graves was now removing from its protective padding a rectangular sheet of plain glass, followed in quick succession by a bottle of ink and a roller.
Deftly he applied five or six drops of the ink to the surface of the glass, then rolled it smooth until the plate was uniformly covered with the black ooze.
“Now then,” he said, taking my right wrist, and spreading my fingers until they were just hovering above the glass, “relax—let me do the work.”
With no more than a slight pressure, he pushed my fingertips down and into the ink, one at a time, rolling each one from left to right on the ball of my fingertip. Then, moving my hand to a white card, which was marked with ten squares—one for each finger—he made the prints.
“Oh, Sergeant Graves!” Feely said. “You must take mine, too!”
“Oh, Sergeant Graves! You must take mine, too!”
I could have swatted her.
“Happy to, Miss Ophelia,” he said, taking up her hand and dropping mine.
“Better ink the glass again,” I said, “otherwise you might make a bad impression.”
The sergeant’s ears went a bit pink, but he soldiered on. In no time at all he had recoated the glass with a fresh film, and was taking up Feely’s hand as if it were some venerable object.
“Did you know that, in the Holy Land, they have the fingerprints of the angel Gabriel?” I asked, trying desperately to regain his attention. “At least they used to. Dr. Robert Richardson and the Earl of Belmore saw them at Nazareth. Remember, Feely?”
For nearly a week—before our recent set-to—Daffy had been reading aloud to us at the breakfast table from an odd volume of the doctor’s Travels along the Mediterranean and Parts Adjacent, and some of its many wonders were still fresh in my mind.
“They also showed him the Virgin Mary’s Kitchen, at the Chapel of the Incarnation. They still have the cinders, the fire irons, the cutlery—”
Something in the back room of my brain was thinking about our own fire irons: the Sally Fox and Shoppo firedogs that had once belonged to Harriet.
“That will be quite enough, thank you, Flavia,” Feely said. “You may fetch me a rag to wipe my fingers on.”
“Fetch it yourself,” I flung at her, and stalked from the room.
Compared with my life, Cinderella was a spoiled brat.