Arson Plus and Other Stories Read online

  “He said he’d dope my fingers, and I was to come here and tell the story we’d fixed up, and have my finger-prints taken, and then I’d be safe no matter what leaked out about me and Henny. So he smeared up the fingers and told me to be careful not to shake hands with anybody or touch anything, and I came down here and everything went like three of a kind.

  “Then that little fat guy”—meaning me—“came around to the hotel last night and as good as told me that he thought I had done for Henny and that I better come down here this morning. I beat it for Farr’s right away to see whether I ought to run for it or sit tight, and Farr said, ‘Sit tight!’ So I stayed there all night and he fixed up my hands this morning. That’s my yarn!”

  Phels turned to Farr.

  “I’ve seen faked prints before, but never any this good. How’d you do it?”

  These scientific birds are funny. Here was Farr looking a nice, long stretch in the face as “accessory after the fact,” and yet he brightened up under the admiration in Phel’s tone and answered with a voice that was chock-full of pride.

  “It’s simple! I got hold of a man whose prints I knew weren’t in any police gallery—I didn’t want any slip up there—and took his prints and put them on a copper plate, using the ordinary photo-engraving process, but etching it pretty deep. Then I coated Clane’s fingers with gelatin—just enough to cover all his markings—and pressed them against the plates. That way I got everything, even to the pores, and …”

  When I left the bureau ten minutes later Farr and Phels were still sitting knee to knee, jabbering away at each other as only a couple of birds who are cuckoo on the same subject can.

  Black Mask, 15 October 1923

  From the Author of “Slippery Fingers”

  Since writing ‘Slippery Fingers’ I have read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle wherein August Vollmer, chief of police of Berkeley, California, and president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, is quoted as saying that although it is possible successfully to transfer actual finger-prints from one place to another it is not possible to forge them—‘Close inspection of any forged finger-print will soon cause detection.’

  It may be that what Farr does in my story would be considered by Mr. Vollmer a transference rather than a forgery. But whichever it is, I think there is no longer reasonable room for doubt that finger-prints can be successfully forged. I have seen forged prints that to me seemed perfect, but not being even an amateur in that line, my opinion isn’t worth much. I think, however, that quite a number of those qualified to speak on the subject will agree with me that it can be, and has been, done.

  In the second Arbuckle trial, if my memory is correct, the defense introduced an expert from Los Angeles who testified that he had deceived an assembly of his colleagues with forged prints.

  The method used in my story was not selected because it was the best, but because it was the simplest with which I was acquainted and the most easily described. Successful experiments were made with it by the experts at the Leavenworth federal prison.

  Sincerely,

  S. D. Hammett

  About the Author

  Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) charted a gritty new direction for American crime fiction, crafting true-to-life stories as brash as they are exacting. In 1922, he began writing fiction based on his experience as a private detective, and he pioneered the tough-minded, action-heavy, realistic style that became known as hardboiled. Among his best-known works are Red Harvest (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Glass Key (1931), The Thin Man (1934), and the Collected Case Files of the Continental Op, most of which were published in Black Mask magazine.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  “Foreword” Copyright © 2016 by Julie M. Rivett; “Introduction” Copyright © 2016 by Richard Layman; “Arson Plus,” “Slippery Fingers,” and “Crooked Souls” (“Gatewood Caper”) Copyright © 1923 by Pro-Distributors; renewed by Pro-Distributors as agent for Dashiell Hammett, whose interest was conveyed by will in 1984 to the Dashiell Hammett Literary Property Trust. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover design by Jamie Keenan

  978-1-5040-3596-5

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