“Oh, I don’t say it’s exactly what happened, but there must have been something of the sort, for what other hypothesis fits the case at all? We can’t imagine Doctor Waring branding his own forehead, and then killing himself, can we?”
“No; and if he had, where’s the branding iron—to call it that—and where’s the dagger?”
“That’s right. Now, I propose to treat the matter as a murder case, and look for the criminal first, and then find out how he entered the locked room afterward.”
“Pooh! those locked rooms—”
“You’re ’way off, Morton, when you sneer at a ‘locked room.’”
“It was locked—I mean impenetrably locked. There is no secret passage—of that I’m sure. Your ingenious idea of removing and replacing a whole pane of glass was clever, I grant, but we’ve seen that not a pane has been lately reputtied. They’re all framed in old, dried, hard, and even painted putty.”
“I know it. But some other such way might have been devised.”
“Can’t think of any. We’ve examined all the window sashes and door frame—oh, well, so far as I can see the room was absolutely unenterable. But, notwithstanding, I’m going to work on a murder basis. Because inexplicable as that seems, there are even more insurmountable difficulties in the way of the suicide theory. Now, I suppose you’ve had the finger print expert in?”
“No—I haven’t—not yet.”
“Good Lord! What kind of a detective are you? Well, get him, and put him to work. What about footprints?”