Before the police come, with Swann lying dead and Margot is back in the bedroom, Tony takes the love letter out of his wallet and plants it in Swann's inside pocket. But in doing so, Tony gets his fingerprints on the letter. Wouldn't the police have checked the letter for fingerprints, and assuming they fingerprinted Tony (since the police had no idea who did what), wouldn't that throw suspicion on Tony? Or am I missing something?
shareNO, he didn't touch the letter, it was initially inside a diary in his jacket pocket. He opened the diary without touching the letter then put a handkerchief around his fingers before picking up the letter and putting into Swan's jacket pocket. Tony's fingers never touched the letter so there wouldn't have been ANY of Tony's fingerprints on the letter.
shareWhat puzzled me much more about the letter planting was that, after taking no more than a second or two to grab the letter and stuff it into Swann's jacket pocket, Tony later tells the inspector in his brief confession that Margot was nearly frantic in her attempts to find the letter on Swann's body, but could not in the half-hour or so that she had before the police arrived. It was easily found by the cops themselves, so why would they swallow Tony's story?
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