“There were several on his desk, but the one that was found nearest the body, the one stained with blood, is a copy of Martial’s Epigrams.”
“May I see it, please?”
Lockwood brought the book and Fleming Stone examined it carefully. It was not a rare or finely bound edition, it seemed more a working copy or a book for reference. It was printed in Latin.
“He was fond of Martial?” asked Stone.
“He was a reader of all the classics. He preferred them, of course, in their original Latin or Greek. He was also a modern linguist.”
Stone opened the volume to the stained page, which was numbered 87. He studied it closely.
“It’s all Greek to me,” he said, frowning, “even though it’s Latin, but I hoped to read something on the page beside the printed text.”
However, the irregularly shaped red blur gave him no clue, and he returned the book to Lockwood.
“Had the Doctor any private accounts?” the detective asked suddenly.
“Not that I know of,” replied the secretary. “He was a man of singularly few secrets, and I was always at liberty to open all letters, and had free access to his desk and safe. I never knew him to hide or secrete a paper of any sort.”