A Journeyman to Grief (4 page)

“Whoa there.” He backed out quickly.

Green came over at once. “I should’ve told you not to get too close, sir. She’s a mean one, that. Don’t like nobody coming up behind her.”

Murdoch felt like a fool. He’d worn his best clothes and boots for the lecture and now look at them.

“Damn. You should have warned me.”

“Beg pardon, sir. Sometimes she’s like that, sometimes she
ain’t.” Green took a piece of grubby towelling from the rail and handed it to him. “Why don’t you go into the office and dry off properly. Mr. Cooke has an oil heater in there.”

Murdoch figured Crabtree would be returning with Dr. Ogden in about half an hour, but he expected they’d be in the barn for some time longer. He didn’t fancy standing around with sopping-wet trousers.

“Have you got the key?”

“It’s not locked.”

“Never or just tonight?”

“Tonight. When I found him I ran to the telephone. I ’spected I’d have to break in, but the door was open. Mr. Cooke always kept it locked. He was nervous ’bout thieves.”

Murdoch dabbed at his trousers with the towel. “So far the key hasn’t shown up.”

Green frowned. “That so?”

“Which way did you come in?”

“Through the west side entry door. I do have a key to that.”

“Who else does?”

“Just me and Thomas Talbert. He helps out on Wednesdays and Sundays.”

“Not the cabbies?”

“No, sir.”

“What about the office?”

“Nobody but Mr. Cooke had that.”

“I’ll need the names and addresses of the rest of the cabbies and also your helper’s.”

“I’ll give you Thomas’s, but you’ll have to look in Mr. Cooke’s files for the others.”

Murdoch scrutinized him for a moment, but his head was turned away and revealed nothing.

“I’d better go and dry off a bit.”

Green pointed. “You can get to the office through the passageway down there. You don’t mind if I get on, do you?”

“No. I’ll come back to you later.”

Murdoch picked up one of the lanterns and, making sure to keep to the middle of the centre aisle in case he drew the ire of other fractious mares, he went in the direction Green had indicated. His boots squelched as he walked.

The door to the office was ajar and he stepped in, holding the lantern up high. It was a small room, better furnished than his own cubicle at the station. An oil heater was in the opposite corner from a safe, and the room was warm and the air redolent with the smell of good tobacco.

Murdoch sat down on a well-padded chair, pulled off his boots and socks, and placed them on top of the heater. He wrung a little more water out of his trousers. Blasted horse.

A rough sisal carpet on the plank floor scratched his bare feet as he padded over to the long bank of windows facing into the stable yard. From his desk, Cooke would have had a perfect view of the comings and goings of his employees. The desk had once been a fine mahogany one, but the surface was scarred with marks from matches allowed to burn down, and there was a light film of dust over everything and clumps of cigar ash. In the left corner was a clean, dust-free circle where he assumed the lamp now in the tack room had stood. On the right were several papers on a spike, a new-looking telephone, and an open box of cigars, half empty. Murdoch flipped through the papers briefly. They all seemed to be invoices, but he’d examine them more carefully later. He turned and swung the lantern in an arc around the room. There were two doors: one that led to the passage into the stables and the other likely to the street. He walked over to check. It was not locked and opened directly onto Mutual Street. He assumed Cooke had entered the livery stable this way, as it was the most
direct. Was this where he’d received the blow to his head? Murdoch brought the lantern close to the floor, but the sisal was too rough to show any sign of a man being dragged. How had his assailant got in, and how had he got Cooke into the tackle room?

A pungent smell wafted over from the oil heater and he went to check on his socks. Not dry yet.

The large, elaborately decorated safe was locked. Next to it was a wooden filing cabinet. Murdoch opened a couple of drawers and found them untidily stuffed with papers. A cursory examination showed they were also business invoices. Hanging on a hook next to the cabinet was a clipboard with a pencil tied to it.

Murdoch unhooked the clipboard and checked the piece of paper. Today’s date was at the top, Wednesday, April 15, and underneath several scrawled signatures. In the column next to their names, the cabbies had written the time of taking out the carriages and the time of return. The third column was initialled D.C. Only four carriages had gone out on the afternoon shift. Two of the cabbies, R. Littlejohn and J. Wallace, had signed off at 5:00 and 5:10 respectively. The last two names were R. Robson and P. Musgrave. The former had signed off at 7:00 and the latter at 7:25. Cooke had not initialled these names.

A flash of light outside the window caught Murdoch’s eye. The side door across the yard opened and Constable Crabtree stepped in, dark lantern in his hand, followed by Dr. Ogden. Behind her, muffled in a black double-tiered cape, was Professor Broske.

Damn. They’d come sooner than he expected. He grabbed his damp socks.

CHAPTER
FIVE

M
urdoch went outside to greet the newcomers.

“I do hope you don’t mind me coming along,” said the professor. “Dr. Ogden thought I would find it interesting.”

“Did she, indeed? This is a murder investigation after all, not a laboratory experiment.”

Broske halted and lowered the hand he had already extended toward Murdoch. Dr. Ogden looked disapproving.

“Dr. Broske is a world-renowned expert in fear, William. When your constable said that the victim had probably died of fright, he was naturally most interested.”

“Died of fright? We don’t know that.” He turned to Crabtree. “Why did you say such a thing, George?”

The constable seemed discomfited. “It’s his eyes, sir. They’re almost out of his head. In fact, begging your pardon, Dr. Ogden, what I said was, ‘He looked as if he had died of shock. I didn’t use the word
fright
.’”

It was Julia Ogden’s turn to look embarrassed. “I suppose I was so caught up in Dr. Broske’s lecture that I heard it as ‘fright.’ I’m sorry, professor. I have brought you here under false pretences.”

“Not at all, madam. Let’s save our judgment until we have examined the case further. I am more than happy to accompany you. I’m sure the learning will be all mine.”

Murdoch watched this exchange in astonishment. The prim doctor of formidable intellect was behaving like a coy young girl. As for Broske, he was speaking to her and looking at her as if she were an object of great attraction. Dr. Ogden!

She met Murdoch’s gaze and suddenly became brisk and businesslike again.

“Where is the body, William?”

“In the tack room, ma’am. Light us, George.”

Crabtree led the way across the cobbled yard, which was slick and dotted with puddles. Broske offered Dr. Ogden his arm and she accepted. She was a good six inches taller than he and had to bend toward him to hear what he was saying.

“I mustn’t forget to tell you the story of my poor Bertino and his open skull through which I could study the workings of the human brain for several weeks and what invaluable experiments I was able to conduct.”

Her response was lost to Murdoch, who was opening the barn door. Elijah Green was mucking out one of the stalls. He straightened up when they came in, but he didn’t approach them.

They all followed Crabtree down the centre aisle, Dr. Ogden lifting her skirt fastidiously. Murdoch ushered them into the tack room, knelt down beside the body, and removed the blanket. Cooke’s staring, protuberant eyes did make him look extremely fearful. His mouth had dropped open and his fingers had curled.
Murdoch beckoned to Crabtree and they rolled the body to its side so they could see the back.

“Goodness me!” exclaimed the doctor. “How extraordinary.”

Broske fished in his pocket and, crouching down, fixed his monocle and looked at the wounds.

“Definitely a lash of some kind and it was wielded with great ferocity. It ’as broken through the flesh in several places.”

Dr. Ogden also bent down beside the body, and Broske offered her his monocle, which she used as a magnifying glass.

“Do you have the whip that was used, Mr. Murdoch?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. We haven’t had a chance to conduct a search yet.”

“I see he has also suffered a blow to his head on the top left side, but it looks superficial. However, I won’t know until I open up the skull. You can lower him now.” She peered closely at Cooke’s face. “There’s a cut in the corner of his mouth.”

“I believe he was gagged, ma’am.”

“He vomited quite copiously. He has not lost a lot of blood so I doubt he died from exsanguination. However, I suspect our constable was right, the cause of death may very well be shock. Poor fellow, he wasn’t a young man, was he? After a certain age, one would hope to die peacefully in one’s bed, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Broske?”

“Indeed I would, ma’am, but isn’t that both the terror and the marvel of life that we mere mortals have really so little choice in the matter?”

Murdoch agreed with him on that point. He was intrigued. Suddenly the professor seemed less like an implacable, self-important man of science and more of a philosopher. A definite improvement.

Dr. Ogden started to get to her feet and Broske helped her up.

“How close are we to getting the jury, William?” she asked.

“I don’t know, ma’am. George, can you find out? If Fyfer hasn’t got twelve men yet, beat the bushes until he has. Then one of you had better fetch the ambulance.”

“Yes, sir.”

“One of the more cumbersome of our Canadian practices, professor,” said Dr. Ogden, “is that when there is a questionable death, the law insists on the coroner’s jury viewing the body
in situ
. I wish I could start the post-mortem examination right away before rigor truly has its grip on him, but we have to wait until the jury is assembled and I can instruct them.”

“I am not at all fatigued, I assure you, madam. Perhaps if there is nothing else for you to do at the moment, we could sit apart and I could tell you my long-postponed story.”

She smiled. “I would like that.” She turned to Murdoch. “Has the victim’s family been notified?”

“Not yet. I will go to his home as soon as I can.”

“You’ll leave somebody in charge here, won’t you?”

Murdoch groaned to himself. One characteristic of Dr. Ogden with which he was now familiar was her propensity to tell him how to do his job.

“I will make sure the place is quite secure if I am not here myself, ma’am.”

She got his point and looked discomfited as she always did when caught out in her transgression. That was the counterbalance to her bossiness and kept Murdoch liking her.

“May I suggest you wait in Cooke’s office, ma’am. You will be more comfortable there.”

Once again, Broske offered her his arm. “That sounds like sound advice. Shall we?”

They all left the tack room, and as Dr. Ogden and the professor disappeared down the passageway, Murdoch turned, intending to go in search of Green. He didn’t have to because the negro
suddenly stepped out of the nearest stall. He had a horsewhip in his hand.

“I found this in here laying atop of the wheelbarrow.” He handed it to Murdoch.

The leather had split near the end, revealing the whalebone underneath. All around the tear was stained a brownish red.

“Does it belong to the livery?”

“It might. I’ll have to check the carriages. The cabbies are supposed to leave them in the brackets.”

“Show me.”

Green led the way to the carriage shed. There were five single-horse carriages and one two-horse lined up in a tight row against the far wall. The light from his lantern winked on the gilt lettering painted on the carriage doors, a big letter C and underneath the words
Cooke’s Livery
. Murdoch was struck with how clean and well kept everything was.

“The whip is missing from number six carriage,” said Green.

“Who had that one out?”

“I don’t know without checking the list. They are parked in the order of coming in so number six would have been the last one.”

“According to the sheet I was just looking at, that would have been P. Musgrave. He came in at twenty-five past seven, just after Robson.”

Green nodded. “They both like to work until the last minute. Like I said, they were supposed to be all done, and the horses unharnessed and in their stalls by eight o’clock.”

“Did either of these men have any enmity toward Mr. Cooke?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you get along with them yourself?”

Green looked surprised by the question and, once again, Murdoch saw the wariness in his face.

“They’s cabbies. As long as I do my job and make sure they’ve got clean carriages and fit horses to go out, we all get along.”

Murdoch opened his notebook.

“Give me your address, will you?”

“Number 262, Terauley Street.”

“Really? Bit of a haul, isn’t it, to come over here?”

Green shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

“What is the address of the man who spells you off? Thomas Talbert, you said?”

“That’s right. He lives close by, at 33 Shuter Street.”

At that moment, they heard Crabtree’s sonorous voice. “Wait here until I come and fetch you. Remember you are subpoenaed and sworn, so don’t think you can weasel out of your duty.”

Murdoch closed the notebook. “The jurymen have arrived.”

“Do you want me to stay here when I’m finished, or can I go home?”

“You’d better wait at least until Dr. Ogden has done her instruction and announces the date of the inquest. You’ll be called as a witness. Oh and by the way, Green, I’m also looking for a piece of leather. I’d guess part of a lead shank. If you find anything like that, bring it to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

As they returned to the main barn, Dr. Ogden and Professor Broske emerged from the passageway, smiling at each other as if they had just shared a joke.