> does anyone know how I might get a hold of
> an article by Hammett called "Finger
Prints"?
> It ran in Black Mask June, 1925.
According to Layman's bibliography, Hammett wrote a letter,
published in
the June 1925 issue of _Black Mask_ under the title 'Finger
Prints'.
I've looked through my collection and haven't been able to
locate a copy
of this item. A quick look through the indices (and a flick
through the
appropriate chronological sections) of the major works on
Hammett
(Layman, Nolan, Johnson) also fails to find a reproduction of
the item
in question. [Actually, this is a bit odd---I'm _sure_ I've
come across
a copy of the letter before, I just can't track it down at
the moment].
There is a related item which may be of interest: item, No.
20 (of 29)
in Hammett's "Memoirs of a Private Detective" which was
published a
couple of years earlier in _The Smart Set_:
20.
Even where the criminal makes no attempt to efface the
prints of
his fingers, but leaves them all over the scene of the
crime, the
chances are about one in ten of finding a print that
is
sufficiently clear to be of any value.
It may be that this tells us something of forensic technology
and
fingerprinting in the early 1920s, but when I had a _table_
stolen from
the courtyard (oh, alright then, backyard) a few years ago,
the soco put
some silver powder over the gloss-painted gates (refusing to
dust any
other surfaces) and claimed to be able to find nothing of any
use.
Eddie Duggan
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