“It was an ugly sight, but that didn’t concern me. I was interested in the rope mark about the neck. It left a big welt — almost like a scar. You could see the twists of the rope.
“I’ve seen marks like that before, so I knew what to expect. I had a chance to look at it closely. And that’s when I saw something else!”
The reporter leaned forward, and his right forefinger traced a line on the palm of his left hand.
“Right with the rope mark,” he said, “was another line — so thin you could hardly see it. Just a faint, narrow trace, almost like a thread. It may have been red once; but it’s white now.
“It followed the rope mark so closely that it was lost at times. It looked to me exactly as though the rope had been set to cover that very line!”
Mann was listening with implacid countenance to Burke’s words. It was not Mann’s business to theorize too frequently. He was a collector of facts. Nevertheless, he could see the obvious connection toward which Burke was working. Mann made no comment.
“When I saw that,” continued Burke, “I did some more looking. That’s when I spotted something else. I looked at the dead man’s face. On his forehead, I saw a mark like this.” The reporter made a tracing with his finger. “A round spot, no bigger than a dime!”
“A scar?”
“It looked more like a burn,” Burke went on. “It was whiter than the surrounding flesh, and I never would have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking mighty close.
“Brill wasn’t watching me at the time. I heard him speak to some one, and I looked to see Detective Sergeant Cleghorn. He was handling the case. I listened while he spoke to Brill.