Murdoch took out his notebook and his tape measure and began to walk slowly around the body, trying to understand what had taken place. There was no sign of any struggle. Talbert’s armchair was where it had been when Murdoch visited him. Murdoch picked up the briar pipe that was perched on the brass standing ashtray beside the chair. There was still unburned tobacco in the bowl and a spent Lucifer next to it. He had lit his pipe once only. Murdoch was a pipe smoker, he knew how ornery they could be sometimes, refusing to draw on first light. So Talbert was just getting settled in and then he heard something, perhaps something as innocuous as the door knocker. He couldn’t call on his housekeeper to answer, so he put his precious pipe on the rim of the ashtray, placed the newspaper down on the floor, picked up the lamp that Mrs. Stokely had thoughtfully filled with oil for the night, and went to see who was visiting him at this hour.
And who was it, indeed?
Murdoch walked back into the hall and looked around, but his first impression had been correct. Nothing had been disturbed. The clay pot of ferns just inside the door was intact. If it had been knocked over, it would have smashed to pieces. There was a rather worn dhurrie rug covering some of the plank floor and it did not seem to have been moved. All of the framed pictures on the walls were straight. Murdoch glanced at them briefly. Talbert had favoured nature paintings. He had two of the noble stag, one standing at bay with the hounds, the other overlooking his harem of does on the hillside. Murdoch could not imagine anybody overpowering the old man in this narrow hall, however strong they were, without knocking something off the wall. Talbert had not been threatened by his visitor. He had led the person into the parlour.
Murdoch returned to the corpse. First he measured the distance of Talbert’s head from the fireplace fender: eight inches. The location of the bullet hole below the jawline was strange. If he had been shot while he was in this crouched position, the entry wound would surely have been much higher. That would be easier to determine after the post-mortem when he could see where the bullet had exited and the trajectory it had followed.
Next he went to measure the length of the blood spatters. The longest had actually hit the edge of the couch, but the streaks grew shorter like the struts of a fan closer to the fireplace. There were two breaks in the lines: one fairly close to the right edge and the other where Talbert was lying. It made sense then that Talbert had been standing, facing the opposite armchair, when he was shot. His killer had been a few feet away to his left. As he was shot, he spun to his left and collapsed, likely on the hearth, but Murdoch could not definitely determine that until he could move the body and check for a contusion on Talbert’s head. The brass fender around the hearth seemed untouched.
He bent down and removed the bank notes that were scattered on top of the body and placed them carefully to one side. There was one Imperial Bank ten-dollar note, two Bank of Montreal five-dollar bills, and eight two-dollar and five one-dollar bills from the Dominion Bank. Forty-one dollars in total. The blood-stained bills were in varying states of newness and some had stuck together.
Talbert’s wrists had been tied with a striped green and gold necktie. Before he undid the binding, Murdoch made a careful sketch of the way the body had been positioned. Then he examined the hands. The fingers were caked with dried blood, as were both palms. Talbert had probably clutched his neck in an instinctive but vain attempt to stem the bleeding. The necktie, however, showed few blood stains and the knot had been fairly loose. It would seem that his hands had been bound after he had been shot and he must have then been pulled into the ball position. It was grotesque. Obviously, binding his hands would serve no purpose when the man was already dead, so why do it?
There was a thunderous knocking on the front door and he went to answer it.
Four rather breathless constables were on the doorstep. He let them in.
“Thomas Talbert has been shot, sometime last night by the look of the body. He’s in the parlour. You might as well have a look at him but don’t go too close. I haven’t had a chance to examine the carpet yet.”
The men crowded into the hall.
“Sergeant Gardiner was able to reach Dr. Ogden,” said Crabtree. “She’ll be here as soon as she can.”
“Good. I was afraid we’d have to take Johnson.”
Burley, who was a young rather sensitive constable second class, let out an involuntary gasp when he saw the carnage.
“Who’d do that to an old man like Talbert?” asked Crabtree.
“Was it a robbery, sir?” Fyfer asked.
“I’d say not. The assailant actually left money on the body in the amount of forty-one dollars. I’ll give you more of a briefing later. Right now we need to get the proceedings moving. George, you stay with me. Fyfer, I want you to round up a jury, fast as you can. Dewhurst and you, Burley, start going through the house. Don’t rush, use your wits, and just try to determine if anything at all is out of order or if you see anything that might be related to the murder.”
“What sort of thing, sir?”
“I don’t know, Dewhurst,” Murdoch answered impatiently. “A threatening letter, a bloody handprint. Use your noddle.”
Murdoch beckoned to Crabtree. “George, he’s stiff as a board, but I want to get him up so I can see the exit wound and the blood pattern underneath him.”
Together they hauled up the body, which moved in one grotesque piece. There was a large hole just below the right temple where the bullet had exited.
“That must have blown out some pieces of bone. Hold him there for a minute and I’ll find them.”
Murdoch moved away from the body, creeping close to the floor. There they were. Several small fragments of the skull were on the floor where the body had covered them.
“I was right,” said Murdoch. “He was shot while he was standing and facing that chair. The bullet travelled on an angle upward, so either his killer was sitting or crouching or he was much shorter than Talbert, who was tall, about six feet at least. We can get an exact measurement later. Rigor is complete so he has been dead at least twelve hours, which gives us time of death anywhere between eight and eleven o’clock last night. Dr. Ogden might be a little more precise.”
There was another knock on the door. “Speaking of Dr. Ogden, that’s probably her now. Let her in, will you, George?”
Murdoch smoothed out a sheet of the newspaper and placed the bloodied bone fragments on top of it.
“Goodness gracious, Mr. Murdoch, what have we here now?”
Dr. Ogden, looking slightly dishevelled, as if she had dressed in a hurry, came into the room. Murdoch was not surprised to see Professor Broske at her heels.
“Detective, we meet under the worse of circumstances, don’t we?”
Getting rather drunk on grappa last night wasn’t a particularly bad circumstance, but Murdoch knew what he was referring to.
“What have you ascertained so far, William?” Dr. Ogden asked.
Murdoch related the conclusions he had come to about how the murder had happened.
“So he was tied up post-mortem?”
“I’d say so.”
“And why would somebody do that?”
Before Murdoch could reply, Broske said, “It has to be a statement, does it not? A message of some kind. There’s a secret society that exists in my country. They call themselves the Cosa Nostra. Apparently they will sometimes mutilate the body of their victims as a warning to others, to intimidate them.”
“What others?” Murdoch exclaimed, exasperated. “If I hadn’t come here early, his housekeeper would have discovered him. I cannot imagine she is a target of this intimidation, she’s a middle-aged woman.”
“Is she of the same race?” Broske asked.
“No, she’s a white woman.”
“And the dead man was a negro,” continued the professor. “Perhaps there are those who objected to him employing a white woman as his housekeeper.”
Dr. Ogden looked shocked. “Surely not here, professor? The situation is unconventional to be sure, but I cannot imagine anybody in this city being so incensed they would shoot an old man and commit such an indignity to his body.”
Broske shrugged. “Alas, one cannot underestimate the depth of depravity human beings can sink to, and in my experience the more so when they are filled with righteousness.”
It was a sobering thought, and for a moment all of them paused. Then Murdoch said, “I was just about to examine the carpet more closely, doctor. There was so much blood spilled, the murderer would have had to walk through it, especially when he was tying Talbert up.”
“It is perhaps best if we stand aside then?”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Crabtree, Broske, and Dr. Ogden watched while Murdoch got to his knees and studied the blood stains. A partial print was clearly visible.
“This is from a man’s boot, blunt-toed, average size. Ah.” He bent closer. “There’s another print here. Just the toe, and it’s not that distinct, but it’s a rounder shape than the other.”
“So, there were two people here,” said Broske.
“I believe so.”
“Poor fellow didn’t stand much of a chance, did he?”