THE CLUE OF THE FINGER NAIL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue XVIII, 31 October 1896, Page 579

THE CLUE OF THE FINGER NAIL.

The station master at a provincial town in the southwest of Scotland is responsible for the following tale, which he told me during a wait of half an hour there on my part, one evening this spring. I suppress the Scottish dialect, as I doubt whether I could do justice to the lingo. l lt happened some years ago. In the early spring a gentleman and lady arrived from Glasgow, “ braw ” in dress and smart in travelling gear, and drove to a pretty villa in the town. The man left next day, and for some months was a frequent visitor at the villa, coming down from the north in the afternoon, and leaving as a rule the next morning. He was a clean-shaven gentlemen, of good manners, and looked like a city lawyer, of say forty years of age. * One evening in the late autumn I happened to be in the ticket office shortly before the last train went to Glasgow. The lawyer-man took a first return, crossed the line for the up platform, carrying a large bag, and —walked rapidly out of the station into the country. This was curious, and it was lucky I noticed it, and I noticed also a strange thing as he put his hand forward for his change from the ticket clerk. The nail of the forefinger of his right hand was a delicately shaped filbert nail, while the remaining fingers had the coarsest and most plebeian of terminations. I like noticing things, and watched for his left hand as he picked up his bag. Here again was the same anomaly to be seen. * Well, next morning there was an early boat-train for Stranraer, for the Belfast steamer. An old gentleman walked into the booking-hall—white hair, white beard aud whiskers, greyish eyebrows, no luggage. I was myself giving out the tickets, the clerk being a few minutes late, and I saw again the strange finger nails; but with the keenest scrutiny I could see no likeness between the old gentleman and our lawyer. As he went for the train I saw him take up a small bag from a remote corner of the platform. No sooner was the train off than a policeman came tearing into the station, told me the lady of the villa had been murdered during the night, that the servants had been dismissed the day before, and —had I seen the lawyer? I told him the facts, and, the inspector now arriving, told him my suspicions of the old gentleman with the finger nails. Immediately we wired a description of the latter to Stranraer —there was no stop from here to that place —and waited in suspense. Reply came that no person at all answering the description was in the train. The inspector commenced wiring to every station down the line, taking it for granted that the villain had managed to leave the train in motion, and had probably been killed in the attempt. But I saw through my man again—he wasn’t the sort to run such a risk to his own precious skin. Still, the inspector did right e.nough according to his lights, for the train might have slowed up for some reason and given the chance.

‘ I did the rest off my own bat. I cabled to Belfast a statement of the whole case, and told them to look out for a passenger with a certain peculiarity of finger nail. The police there took a right view, insisted on seeing the bare hands of every man arid woman passing through the gangway from steamer to land, and arrested a lady who had no luggage, but wore a pair of trousers under her skirt and the most unfeminine arrangement of socks instead of stockings 1 ‘ The large bag was found in a wood near my station, the small one on the Stranraer line, both with tell-tale contents. The man was hanged. * It cost me a pile, did that cable to Belfast, but I have never asked the money back.’