Marc turned to look down over the creek-bank, noting that the snow was matted down, and there in the creek itself, where he had tumbled, lay Captain Randolph Brookner. His eyes were wide open, aghast at the last thing they ever saw. He was very dead. He had landed in the only running water in the township, a frothing, spring-fed rivulet of blue-black water only a yard wide and several more in length. The body was almost fully under water, on its side, and facing Marc. An icy stream bathed his bare head and poured over the hole in his temple where a lead ball had entered or come out, killing him instantly. Little blood was evident. The fancy fur hat lay in the snow nearby. He had either fallen or been shoved into the water. Certainly he had been murdered in cold blood.
Marc hurried along the path in the considerable wake of Dr. MacIvor Murchison. Barely an hour had passed since the grisly discovery. A lad had been dispatched on mule-back to fetch the esteemed county coroner from his palatial abode in Prescott, and he had arrived a half hour later in his one-horse sleigh. The solitary horse had to be of draught size as MacIvor Murchison was a man of intimidating weight and girth, in addition to being a fellow of formidable height, means, and gait. His first duty had been to minister to the distraught widow, who was soon under sedation in the care of Mrs. Dingman in her quarters. The witnesses and other interested parties were ordered to sit in the dining-room or lounge and keep the peace. Murdo Dingman, uncertain as to which division he belonged, fretted and fumed on principle. When Marc mentioned to the coroner that he had been involved in no less than three official murder investigations, he was instructed to follow along when Murchison marched out the side door to view the body “in situ.”
Wearing floppy, flat overshoes ideally suited to trudging through snow when they were carrying three hundred pounds, the coroner with his long assured strides was keeping well ahead of Marc’s limping pace.
“It’s to your left about a hundred-”
“I know the terrain, laddie. You concentrate on keeping up, eh?” Murchison had a voice that could have outclassed a foghorn, and didn’t seem interested in modulating it in any way for the benefit of his audience or good manners. The first sight of him filling the front entrance of the Georgian Arms had left Marc speechless. He had a huge head, side-whiskers like two stooks of fraying wheat, tufts of ginger hair sprouting irreverently from his scalp, and loose, dark features-all flap and crevasse-with eyes as burnished and staring as a pair of swollen hickory nuts. His brown tweed suit hung over his flesh with all the subtlety of an awning, and when he added a greatcoat more capacious than an army-tent and a beaver flapped-cap, he resembled nothing less than a badly tailored bull moose in moulting season.
In short order they came upon the corpse of Randolph Brookner.
“This place looks like it’s been trampled by a camel caravan,” he muttered loudly. “We won’t find our killer’s boots among this stew.”
“Exactly what I concluded,” Marc said. “After I sent Sedgewick and Pritchard back to the inn to break the news to Mrs. Brookner, I carefully surveyed the perimeter. We’ve had intervals of fresh snow all night but not enough, I think, to completely obscure any marks made in the deep snow beyond this path and the high ground. I found nothing. It looks as if the killer used the path and came from the vicinity of the hotel or one of the many sheds behind it. What do you think, sir?”
The coroner, who was teetering over the bank to get a better view of the body, swivelled his big head around without moving his torso, like a ruffled owl, smiled at Marc, and said, “Most likely. And don’t call me sir. Around here I’m known as Mac to my equals and, to those obsessed with formality, as Doctor Mac. I answer to both, but you call me Mac and I’ll call you Marc.”
Marc nodded.
“Now take ahold of my hand, laddie, I’ve got to go down to get a closer gander at the poor bugger.”
With Marc providing necessary ballast, Mac leveraged himself down until his massive bulk just seemed to settle into the snow around Brookner’s upper body. He whistled, stridently enough to wake dogs throughout the township.
“Jesus Christ on a donkey! What a mess! We ain’t had a real murder like this in the region for four or five years, not counting the aftermath of the odd grog-shop fisticuffs or some gelding getting revenge on its master with a well-aimed hoof. But this chap’s been shot by somebody who truly wanted him dead-and quickly, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
Marc watched with fascination as the coroner removed his furry gloves and applied a set of surprisingly nimble fingers to examining the wound and the area around it. “He fell immediately into this ice bath, I’d say. There’s still very little bleeding. He might’ve lain here like this for days, unchanged.”
“How was he shot?”
“Small lead ball from a pistol, from the size of the wound. Entered the back of the head just below the left ear and came out through the right temple, taking some of the brain with it. The running water’s washed most of the brain-matter away.”
“So he was likely shot somewhat from below.”
“Well, he looks like a very tall man, almost as tall as you or me. Few killers could have shot down at him.”
“Can you tell how far away the killer was when the shot was fired?”
“Well, I don’t see any splash of powder-the water’s done a job on the hair-but even so, I’d guess from the size of these holes and the force of the blast that we’re looking at three or four feet, no more.”
Marc gave that some thought while Mac continued his probing: “I’d say, then, that the killer came up behind him, perhaps stepped onto the path from behind one of these spruce trees, and simply fired before Brookner could react.” Marc surveyed the other side of the path. “There are no prints back here anywhere. That means the killer must have come up silently behind him and fired just as he turned. That’s possible because Brookner was a stiff-necked, stubborn creature, an easy target for this type of ambush.”
Mac chuckled sonorously. “Well, he isn’t stiff yet. Petrified a bit from this chilly shower, but no rigor mortis.”
“Not surprising. Four of us saw him head out for his walk about twenty minutes before Sedgewick and Pritchard found him.”
“You don’t suppose the two of them-”
“Not a chance. Pritchard is a rather silly Englishman who knew none of us before we set out together. Sedgewick didn’t like his brother-in-law, but he was with me when the victim left for his walk. It certainly points to someone who may have been stalking Brookner for the last day or two.”
“Tell me about it.”
Marc gave the coroner a brief account of the threatening note, Brookner’s involvement in the capture of the Scanlon brothers, Miles Scanlon’s subsequent escape, and Brookner’s imprudent behaviour in the face of legitimate danger.
Mac put both hands in Marc’s and hauled himself up out of the creek. He didn’t bother brushing the snow off his flanks or haunches. “Well, he’s paid a high price for his arrogance. Now tell me, before we go back in, where everybody was during the twenty minutes from the time Brookner left the building till he was found here.”
Again, Marc gave him a brief account. At nine o’clock or so, he had joined Sedgewick, Pritchard, and Lambert for breakfast. Ten minutes later, perhaps, Brookner came downstairs, argued for half a minute with Sedgewick in the side hallway, then left on his own. No more than five minutes later, and just after Lambert and Dingwall left for his office, Mrs. Brookner arrived looking for her husband. Learning he had already left, she joined the others for breakfast. Perhaps ten minutes after that, Sedgewick and Pritchard went to fetch the wayward captain and found him dead-apparently murdered only minutes before their arrival.