"I said those were odd marks on his face," Mr. Peck repeated.
Ward's face clouded and he stepped closer to Mr. Peck.
"It's funny you should notice them red blotches, Mr. Peck," he said. "I been kind of wondering about them myself."
The two men eyed one another for a moment of tense silence, and marked suspicion.
"Why?" Mr. Peck asked abruptly.
Ward scanned the little man's face with an air of uncertainty.
"Er—do them marks mean anything to you?" he finally asked, his voice tinged with caution.
Mr. Peck made no immediate answer, but turned and leaned closer to the corpse, examining the faint red blotches on the cheeks with more care than he had at first taken.
"To the casual observer, that is, to the layman," he said, removing his glasses and facing Ward, "it might appear that the deceased was suffering from a mild case of measles"—he paused, glanced at the corpse again, then turned once more to Ward—"but to the trained eye, I would say that this man has received a shot of xetholine caniopus into his system."
"A shot of what?"