Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

Marc was wondering what really had transpired up there last night. If Adelaide had lain awake, as well she might have after the altercation, then she may have seen the assassin shuffling along the ledge right past her window. Also, it was clear now that both husband and wife had been asleep during his investigation of the footprints on the landing and beyond.

Adelaide sipped at her coffee, bringing it all the way up to her lips, as if it were too much effort to bend down to it. Closer to her now, Marc could see the dried runnels where copious tears had fallen. She caught him staring.

“It wasn’t just the argument,” she said with quiet dignity. “I haven’t been able to weep for Marion since the afternoon of the funeral. Then, later last night, it all came pouring out.”

“Maybe I should go after Randy,” Sedgewick said to Adelaide. “We do need to leave very soon.”

“You’ll only antagonize him.”

“Then I’ll go along with you,” Pritchard said. “I believe I can make the man see reason. Neutral party and all that.”

Marc rose to join them.

“Please, stay,” Adelaide said, and Marc sat down.

The other two trotted upstairs to get their coats and hats, and came back down less than a minute later. They hurried out the side door.

Marc took the opportunity to go to the kitchen and request more hot food and fresh coffee. When Brookner came back, they would have to hurry him along. Lambert, apparently, was still closeted with Dingman, going over codicils and the like.

“The food will be right in. We need to eat well. It’s seventy miles or so to Kingston. You’ll no doubt be relieved to get home.”

Adelaide smiled, and swallowed hard. Her hands were moving restlessly in her lap.

When the food arrived, she poked at it listlessly. But it was obvious that she did not wish to carry on a conversation.

Some minutes later, the side door was flung open. Sedgewick stood in the doorway, waving for Marc to come over.

“I hope nothing’s wrong,” Adelaide said, getting up.

“Please, stay here, Mrs. Brookner.” Marc rushed over to Sedgewick. Pritchard was peering over his shoulder, white as an Easter lily. His jowls were quivering.

“Come with me quickly, Lieutenant,” Sedgewick said. “No time for your coat. Something dreadful’s happened.”

“Lead the way,” Marc said, fearing the worst.

Pritchard was apparently supposed to look to the lady, but whirled and followed them, in a total daze.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he gasped.

“Then go back and sit with Addie.”

“Oh, I couldn’t tell her, could I?”

Sedgewick sighed, and then decided simply to lead Marc directly to the dreadful happening without further conversation. They walked quickly past the barn and sheds, following the path into the woods that Marc had observed earlier. The recent snow, still falling faintly on the path, was marred by a number of bootprints and scuffs, from Brookner’s boots most likely, and those of Sedgewick and Pritchard having come after him and then retreated. They soon came upon the creek, frozen over and blanketed with the winter’s accumulation of snow. The path paralleled the curves of the creek for a hundred yards or so with spruce trees on their left and the creek-bed on their right.

“We followed his tracks-they were the only ones to come this far-right to this here bend,” Sedgewick was saying to Marc at his heels. “And then we heard the bubblin’ sounds of the spring-water Randolph mentioned last night, and we thought-”

“I can’t go a foot farther,” Pritchard said, halting behind them.

“The footprints stopped, got all muddled, as you can see, and I couldn’t figure out why they stopped so sudden. It was Pritchard who looked down there and saw him.”

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.