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By CECIL BISHOP

erlock Holmes” Lives

Ex-Detective Inspector of New Scotland Yard, and Author of “From Information Received—"

Noted Scotch Pathologist Fights Crime by Science at Scotland Yard—Counter-
feiter Convicted by Metal Particles in His Hair—Microscope Takes Place of

“SHERLOCK HOLMES,” the scientist,
has “joined the Yard” and there is now an
eminent pathologist in charge of Scotland
Yard’s crime laboratory. Dr. James David-
son, who was a noted Edinburgh patholo-
gist, came down to supervise the Scotland
Yard Department and he was the first to
instruct police officers in various scientific
means of crime detection.

For many years Scotland Yard did not
boast its own laboratory, as Lord Tren-
chard’s predecessor felt that the special
work to be covered ought to be put to
experts like Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Sir
William Wilcox or Dr. Roche Lynch. Or-
dinary commercial photographers were
called in to photograph fingerprints and
clues through a microscope, and it was left
to Dr. Davidson to show that the Yard
ought to have its own apparatus, not only
for micro-photography but also for testing
the materials with ultra-violet rays.

The science of fingerprints is a fairly old
one in police work but it was left to Super-
intendent Battley of the Scotland Yard
Fingerprint branch to devise a new scienti-
fic means of classifying the loops and whorls
of fingerprints, so that they could be easily
selected. There are, of course, millions of
possibilities of fingerprint formations but
Superintendent Battley has worked out a
scheme whereby photographs of fingerprints
can be classified by examining them through
a magnifying glass which has a number of
concentric circles drawn on it. This helps
experts to classify prints in a matter of only
a few seconds.

What is worrying Scotland Yard at the

OCTOBER, 1938

Magnifying Glass in England

moment —and what is keeping the crime
laboratory busy—is not the necessity for
finding new methods of investigations, but
in checking up that these are infallible.

The Sherlock Holmes’ touch must not go
too far, for a jury will not necessarily accept
as convincing evidence the fact that a re-
volver can be identified by the groove marks
on a bullet. It is possible nowadays to say
that the blood of a suspected person comes
from one of four groups well known to
hospitals. That does not mean to say that
the most skilful operators in a crime labora-
tory can prove that the blood is from a par-
ticular individual. Until Scotland Yard can
tighten up on matters like these the scien-
tist has not entirely defeated the criminal.
It takes a large collection of this sort of
evidence to clinch a case when it comes to
court.

Photographic apparatus at Scotland Yard
may soon be improved, for what the crime
laboratory workers need now are enlargers
for fingerprint photographs and microscope
negatives. American police scientists at
Washington, have worked out a clever
scheme for matching up fingerprints photo-
graphically by enlarging a sort of magic
lantern slide of half of the fingerprints of
a known man, and throwing his image on
a large screen. A similar glass slide of the
fingerprint of a suspected person is then
projected on to the screen and the two are
matched up to see that the patterns of the
prints correspond. By an arrangement of
lenses this can be made a very true compari
son.

Scotland Yard does not necessarily have

R. F. HARRISON

to do all the scientific crime investigation,
for local chief constables can use their own
authority and need only call in Scotland
Yard in cases of emergency.

That fact has encouraged some provincial
police to fit out their own crime laboratory,
and at Nottingham and Brighton, there are
completely equipped detection units which
in a small way are just as efficient as those
in Whitehall.

The local C.I.D. at Nottingham fitted up
a crime laboratory eight years ago, and
nowadays it can bear comparison with any
of the famous continental organizations.
Inspector Fentland started the laboratory
and he has fitted ultra-violet and infra-red
apparatus for identifying blood stains and
examining ink stains on fabrics.

The Chief Constable, Capt. Popkess,
toured several continental capitals and
examined their police methods before he
came back home again to Nottingham and
got Inspector Pentland to start the labora-
tory. But he has copied the best methods
of the police scientists at Prague, Vienna
and Berlin and now can probably show
Scotland Yard a thing or two. He has in-
vited the co-operation of the University of
Nottingham and has at his disposal all the
leading analytical chemists, microscope
operators, radiologists and biologists.

COUNTERFEITER CAUGHT BY SCIENCE

One of the cleverest captures made by
the Nottingham police force as a result of
their crime laboratory was that involving a
man suspected of making counterfeit coins.
The man strongly denied that he had ever
had any connection with metalwork, but

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W. E. REYNOLDS

Lady in Attendance

Page Seventy-Seven