He described to the bench, led by Miss Sundaran, how he had taken Mitch for his daily walk just after dawn, but how, fearing rain was coming, he entered the walled-off waste ground via a missing panel and headed for home by a short cut. He explained how Mitch, running free, had come back to him with something in his mouth. It was a wallet; so, recalling the appeal in the Friday paper, he had taken it to Dover Street police station.
When he had finished, the other man rose, the one in the West End suit. Mr Whittaker knew he represented those bastards in the dock. They would have been hanged in the witness’s younger days, and good riddance. So this man was the enemy. But he smiled in a most friendly fashion.
‘Best hour of the day on a summer’s morning? Cool, quiet, no-one about?’
‘Yes. That’s why I like it.’
‘So do I. Often take my Jack Russell for a walk about then.’
He smiled again, real friendly. Not such a bad cove after all. Though Mitch was a lurcher cross, Mr Whittaker had had a Jack Russell when he was on the buses. The blond man could not be all bad.
‘So you are walking across the waste ground and Mitch is running free?’
‘Yes.’
‘And there he is, suddenly back beside you, with something in his mouth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see exactly where he found it?’
‘Not exactly, no.’
‘Could it have been, say, ten yards from the fence?’
‘Well, I was about twenty yards into the field. Mitchcameupfrombehindme.’
‘So he could have found the wallet about ten yards from the sheet-metal fence?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Thank you, Mr Whittaker.’
The elderly man was bewildered. An usher beckoned him down from the witness stand. Was that it? He was led to the back of the court and found a seat.
Fingerprints is another discipline the Met contracts out to civilian experts and one of these was Mr Clive Adams.
He described the wallet that had been delivered to him; the three sets of prints he had found; how he had eliminated those of the finder, Mr Whittaker, and those of the owner, now dead. And how he had matched the third set exactly to those of Harry Cornish. Mr Vansittart rose.
‘Any smudges?’
‘Some.’
‘How are smudges caused, Mr Adams?’
‘Well, one fingerprint imposed over another will cause a smudge that cannot be used in evidence. Or rubbing against another surface.’
‘Like the inside of a pocket?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which were the clearest prints?’
‘Those of Mr Whittaker and Mr Cornish.’
‘And they were on the outside of the wallet?’
‘Yes, but two prints from Cornish were inside, on the inner faces.’