Trafika Europe 8 - Romanian Holiday

Ioana Pârvulescu

that, there was constant ill feeling and backbiting among the agents, sergeants and constables of the Prefecture. The turkeys, that is, the sergeants, who had numbers on their caps, laughed at the goldfinches, that is, the constables, because of the green or red patches on their shoulders. And the goldfinches called the commissars and sub-commissars, that is, Costache’s men, who had degrees in law and spoke French and German, coxcombs, bookmen and earwigs. Mr Costache heaved a sigh. Ultimately, thequarrels and theprefects flowed by like water, while he, like a rock, remained. But it was not easy to be a rock. At the Bucharest Police, they had been taking fingerprints for almost three years, since

before the arrival of Caton Lecca. They had first done so thanks to Dr Minovici, the oldest of the three physician brothers, who had experimented with ‘dactylloscopy’ on dozens of convicts. A year later, Costache had proposed that he himself take over the Judicial Identification Service, a department such as existed in other parts of the world to deal with the biggest malefactors, criminals,forgersandrapists. They had anthropometric records, with photographs and fingerprints. Costache had secretly conducted an experiment on Fane the Ringster: he had demanded that his fingerprints be taken the first time he was arrested. Itwas a real honour for a jewel thief like Fane, who had not understood what was happening and

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