“What’s this ring on his forehead?” he asked, looking at the dead man’s face.
“I don’t know—that struck me as queer,” said Greenfield. “What is it, Doctor Marsh?”
The Examiner peered through his glasses.
“I can’t make that out, myself,” he confessed, frankly.
Morton looked more closely.
There was a red circle on Waring’s forehead, that looked as if it had been put there of some purpose.
A perfect circle it was, about two inches in diameter, and it was red and sunken into the flesh, as if it might have been done with a branding iron.
“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.”