"Them Finger Prints Never Lied Yet, and We Don't Believe They're Goin' to Begin for a Cheap Amateur Crook Like You"

"Finger Prints."
By Charles R. Barnes (?-?).
First appearance: The Popular Magazine, July 1, 1913.
Short short story (6 pages).
Online at Comic Book Plus HERE (set the page selector to 225).

"Everybody knows that finger prints don't lie; but it looked as if they did when the police tried to fasten an automobile robbery on an ingenious crook whose finger prints were on record at Headquarters"

Pete Riley thinks he's got it all figured out: steal a car, leave his finger prints all over the crime scene, and still beat the rap:

. . . "I don't know anything about it," Riley insisted. "You tell me that some finger prints were found that are the same as mine. I can't help that. I was up in Harlem, playing pool, when you claim the machine was stolen, and I can prove it. That's all I got to say." He relapsed into silence, his face bearing an injured expression.  . . .

. . . but Pete doesn't allow for fallible human nature to louse up a plan that could have worked if his weak-willed partner in crime didn't have a frailty for frails.

Resources:
- We couldn't find much info on Charles R. Barnes, the most being HERE.
- Not long ago we met another overconfident car thief HERE.

The bottom line: "You stole a car that wasn't on the list. Why don't you just go to the police station in a red clown suit and let everybody know what we're doing here?"
— Memphis Raines