“Not a very hot one, though,” Morton remarked, after suggesting this, “but surely somebody did it. I’ll say it’s the sign or seal of the murderer himself. For a dead man couldn’t do it, and there’s no sense in assuming that Doctor Waring branded himself before committing suicide. Was it done before or after death?” he asked of the two doctors present. “Before, I should say,” Doctor Greenfield opined. “Yes,” concurred Marsh, “but not long before. I’m not sure it is a brand—such a mark could have been made with, say, a small cup or tumbler.” “But what reason is there in that?” exclaimed Morton. “Even a lunatic murderer wouldn’t mark his victim by means of a tumbler rim.” Absorbedly, he picked up a tumbler from the water tray, and fitted it to the red mark on Waring’s forehead. “It doesn’t fit exactly,” he said, “but it does almost.” “Rubbish!” said Gordon Lockwood, in his superior way. “Why would any one mark Doctor Waring’s face with a tumbler?” “Yet it has been marked,” Morton looked at the secretary sharply. “Can you suggest any explanation—however difficult of belief?” “No,” Lockwood said. “Unless he fell over on some round thing as he died.” “There’s nothing here,” said Morton, scanning the furnishings of the desk “The inkstand is closed—and it’s a smaller round, anyway. There’s no one of these desk fittings that could possibly have made that mark. Therefore, since it was made before death, it must have been done by the murderer.” “Or by the suicide,” Lockwood insisted firmly. Morton, looking at the secretary, decided to keep an eye on this cool chap, who must have some reason for repeating his opinion of suicide. “Now,” the detective said, briskly, “to get to business, I must make inquiries of the family—the household. Suppose I see them in some other room—” “Yes,” agreed Lockwood, with what seemed to Morton suspicious eagerness. Why should the secretary be so obviously pleased to leave the study—though, to be sure, it was a grewsome place just now. “Wait a minute,” Morton said, “how about robbery? Has anything been missed?” Lockwood looked surprised. “I never thought to look,” he said; “assuming suicide, of course robbery didn’t occur to me.” He looked round the room. “Nothing seems to be missing.” “Stay on guard, Higby,” the detective said to a policeman, and then asked the secretary where he could interview the housekeeper and the servants. Lockwood took Morton to the living-room, and there they found Mrs. Bates as well as the two Peytons. Though her eyes showed traces of tears, Emily Bates was composed and met the detective with an appealing face. “Do find the murderer!” she cried; “I don’t care how much that room was locked up, I know John Waring never killed himself! Why would he do it? Did ever a man have so much to live for? He couldn’t have taken his life!”