Let Loose the Dogs

by Maureen Jennings

  After his apparel was duly hung on the coat tree, the butler led the way down the hall and tapped deferentially on a closed door to the right. There were no softening portieres, and the door itself might have suited a castle with its ostentatious brass doorknob and prominent keyhole. There was an unpleasant smell in the air, and for a moment Murdoch feared his sealskin coat had been reeking again. However, he realised this odour was too pungent and too close. It was also more like rotting meat than fish.

  “Enter.”

  Murdoch was ushered into Dr. Semple’s laboratory.

  The stench of decay was like an assault. A tall, skinny man in a brown Holland smock was standing at a bench with his back to the door. He made a note on a pad of paper and turned to greet Murdoch.

  “Good morning, Inspector. Forgive me the informality, but I’m under the gun to get some results and I can’t spare you much time.” In spite of the words, his tone was friendly. “I won’t shake hands either. I’ve been messing around with cadavers, and you wouldn’t want that on your fingers.” He waved his hand vaguely. “I suppose the place stinks to high heaven, does it? When you are in here for a while you get used to it. I thought you looked a little taken aback when you came in.”

  “There is a rather strong odour, I must admit.”

  “I’m doing a post mortem examination, that’s why.”

  He stepped back and Murdoch saw what his body had shielded. For one brief moment, he thought he was looking at a doll, but then he realised it was an infant. The scalp was pulled down over the face like a red mask revealing the grey convolutions of the brain. The chest cavity was gaping open. The rest of the body was ash white. A male child.

  “A young woman is up on a murder charge. Usual story. Silly girl got herself in the family way and was afraid to tell in case she lost her position. The baby must have come early, and she stuffed it into a valise and left it under a tree in the nearby field. She says it was stillborn, but I’ve got to determine that. It is possible she suffocated it as soon as it came out. There’s no milk in the stomach, but the lungs do show some air. That is not necessarily conclusive of course. We know that in some circumstances an infant will breathe while still in the womb. Look, what do you think?”

  There was a little heap of what looked like fresh calves’ liver on the bench, and the doctor sawed off a piece and dropped it into a glass tank filled with water that was in front of him. The fragment of lung floated for a moment then slowly started to sink to the bottom of the tank. Semple reached into the water and squeezed the tissue between his thumb and forefinger. “See, no air at all. I’m inclined to think the infant didn’t breathe. There is some meconium in the intestines, which is typical of stillborns.” His voice had the resonance of a man accustomed to lecturing. Murdoch knew the doctor was a demonstrator at the Toronto school of medicine. He was suddenly aware that there were several glass jars on a shelf to the right of them that contained pickled embryos. Semple noticed where he was looking.

  “Each of those specimens show a foetus at different stages of development in utero. My little fellow looks to be about six months, which is consistent with what the mother said and with life being unsustainable.”

  He leaned his knuckles on the bench, lecturer style. “Of course, some women are altogether too cunning and will kill by virtually undetectable means.” He illustrated his words by pulling up his own eyelid. “A needle thrust in here will cause death at once, or here.” He indicated his lower spine. “However, I see no indication that took place or any suspicion of suffocation or a broken neck.”

  Murdoch’s feelings must have revealed themselves because Semple grinned.

  “Beg your pardon. Got carried away for a moment. Too many hours in the lecture room.” He cut off another piece of lung and tossed it into the water. This time the tissue hardly floated at all.

  “There we go then. That’s a relief. I hate being the one to condemn a woman to the gallows unless it’s totally certain.” He started to wipe his hands on a rag. “Not that a jury will bring in a verdict for hanging. Women get too much sympathy. Pity really,” he added ambiguously.

  Suddenly, he swivelled around and removed a pile of papers from a high stool.

  “Take your weight off your beaters.” He patted the stool.

  Dr. Semple spoke with a slight Irish brogue and had the typical colouring of a Celt: fair skin, blue eyes, and black hair, which was slicked smooth across his head to hide his premature balding. His moustache was thick and in need of a trim, the ends looking as if he sucked on them in moments of contemplation. He looked about the same age as Murdoch himself.

  “Now, Inspector, what can I do for you? You said you had an urgent matter.”

  “Not inspector, Dr. Semple, merely acting detective. I just wanted to verify a few details of a case at which you were the medical witness.”

  “And why is that?” asked Semple, and his voice was sharp.

  “The accused denies his guilt, and I have agreed to go over the evidence again.”

  “Have you indeed? That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, what was the case?”

  “The man is named Henry or Harry Murdoch. He was charged with murder on August four of this year. He has been convicted and is sentenced to hang on Monday.”

  Semple frowned. “Isn’t your name Murdoch, or did I get it wrong? Any relation?”

  “The accused is my father, sir. I have only just discovered his situation.”

  “Bad luck. Not intent on proving we were all wrong, I hope. Waste of time if you are.”

  He wasn’t hostile, just a busy man.

  “I have no particular aim except to make sure that all the evidence is, as you say, conclusive.” He hesitated but he liked Semple’s no-nonsense manner and answered in kind. “As perhaps you can imagine, I would sleep easier if I knew I had done everything I could.”

  “Quite. What would you like to know from me then?”

  “I was hoping you would go over the evidence again with me. Show me exactly why you reached the conclusions you did.”

  Semple clicked his teeth. “Very well. The Armstrong case is done really.” He threw a cloth over the dead baby. “However, I do have to set up an experiment for my class this afternoon. It won’t take but a moment.”

  Most of one wall of the laboratory consisted of long, uncurtained windows. On each side were several wicker cages, which contained two or three sparrows. They weren’t moving or attempting to fly around their small prisons but sat on the perches, their heads tucked down into their feathers. Semple opened a cupboard below the bench and removed a bottle labelled CHLORINE. He unscrewed the lid, and the pungent odour made Murdoch cough immediately. Semple poured a capful into an empty beaker and replaced the lid.

  “As you just experienced, this gas had a considerable inflammatory effect on the air passages. Too much of it will kill. Don’t worry, you only had a whiff. I myself seem to have become impervious to it. People can work in an atmosphere of chlorine with impunity and become immune. They do, however, always lose weight and remain thin. We’re not quite sure why that is.”

  He measured out some water into another beaker, took a syringe from an open case on the bench, and drew up some of the chlorine into the needle.

  “Now, I add the water to the two-hundredth part, and we’re ready.” He laid down the syringe and reached into one of the cages. The sparrows fluttered and chirruped, but he caught one of them and drew it out. “I have to demonstrate how the blood responds to the chlorine. Sorry, little fellow,” he said to the bird, who opened its beak silently. With a practised motion, Semple injected the chlorine solution and replaced the creature carefully in the cage. He checked a large clock that was beside him and made a note in his book.

  “Should take less than five minutes.”

  Then he walked across the room to a large metal filing cabinet and pulled open one of the drawers. Murdoch couldn’t take his eyes off the sparrow, which was n
ow obviously gasping for air. The other birds shifted along the tree branch out of the way.

  “Here we are, Regina v. Henry Murdoch.”

  He turned back to Semple, who had a folder in his hands.

  Murdoch heard a soft noise from the cage, and he saw that the bird had fallen to the bottom of the cage and was lying on its side, feet stretched out like a wooden toy. It was dead.

  Semple came over and looked at the clock. “Hmm. That didn’t take long. Let me just make a note of the time, and then we can go over your file.”

  Murdoch swivelled the high stool away so he could no longer see the cage.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  MURDOCH HAD BEEN ABLE TO SEND a telephone message from Dr. Semple’s office to say he was coming to the jail, and Harry was waiting for him in the visiting room. For an instant he caught an unguarded expression on his father’s face of such despair and darkness that it was like a stab into his own chest. However, Harry smiled up at him.

  “Thought you’d never get here, Will.”

  “I came as soon as I could.” He nodded at the guard. “I brought in a couple of plugs if you’d care for one, Mr. Barker.”

  “I won’t say no to that, sir.”

  Murdoch handed over his little package of Jolly Tar, and the guard tipped his cap. “I’ll leave you to your chin wag then. I’m right outside the door if you need me.” He left.

  Murdoch took another bag from his pocket and gave it to Harry. “I got Bull Durham today.”

  “That’s a good one,” Harry said. “Funny thing is, I’ve almost lost my craving. Never thought that would happen. I’ll hold off for a bit.” He pushed a piece of drawing paper across the table. “Do you know who this is?”

  The pencil sketch was of a woman’s head, half in profile, smiling down at a flower she was holding. She was unmistakable.

  “It’s Mother.”

  “She’s young there, of course. My first sight of her. I forget what she was looking at, so I made it a flower. She was a pretty lass back then. Fair took my heart.”

  Murdoch had never to his knowledge heard his father make any public declaration of affection for his mother. He could not conceal his astonishment or his disgust. Harry took back the sketch.

  “It’s writ all over your face what you’re thinking. But I did care for her, Will.”

  “Did you? It might have made her life happier if you had showed it.”

  Harry didn’t react. “I know that and I’m sorry for the way I was.” He rubbed at his head with the now familiar gesture. “How many times am I going to have to repeat it?”

  Murdoch wanted to snap at him, A dozen more times? A hundred? Forever? However, his temper was held in check by the sight of his father’s distress.

  “Let’s get to the matter at hand. I’m here to give you an up-to-date report.”

  “I can tell it’s nothing I haven’t heard already.”

  Murdoch shrugged. “So far nothing new has come to light. I went into the ravine first to get a look around.”

  “Did the trees talk to you, Will?”

  Harry smiled slightly to show he meant this as a joke, and suddenly Murdoch remembered how he’d been teased as a child when he was adamant that he could converse with the trees.

  “I’m raising a lass, not a lad,” Harry had said.

  “I only wish they could. We’d know unequivocally, wouldn’t we. However, there is something I’d like to ask you. I’ll come back to it in a minute. I met up with Walter Lacey, the hired man …”

  “Ah yes. He took a scunner to me. That didn’t help my case at all.”

  “I didn’t say we were related, just that I was investigating the case privately.”

  Harry nodded. “Better that way.”

  “I talked to Newcombe. He didn’t add anything. While I was there Mr. Pugh arrived together with Mr. Craig. I understand his son is back to courting Miss Delaney. Newcombe said that her father had forbidden the relationship earlier.”

  Harry leaned forward. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “I doubt it has much significance. According to the trial report, Miss Craig swore under oath that her father and brother were at home from eight-fifteen that evening and did not leave.”

  “She could be lying.”

  “Was that your impression?”

  “Frankly, I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention. I might have if I’d known James was after the Delaney girl.”

  “Let’s not go galloping after the fox too soon. Newcombe didn’t think James was too chagrined by the father’s edict. Miss Delaney apparently was.”

  “Maybe she met up with her father and quarrelled with him. Damnation, why didn’t Clement pursue this? I told you they had all passed verdict on me from the beginning.”

  “You forget that Mrs. Delaney was on the witness stand. She said both her son and daughter were in the house all evening. She and Miss Delaney were apparently making a quilt together. But I suppose she, too, could be lying to protect her daughter.”

  He could see Harry wince at his tone. “It isn’t out of the question, Will. You seem able to accept that I am lying but not that these women might be.”

  Murdoch let that pass. “This morning I visited the doctor who conducted the post mortem. Shall we go over his evidence again? First, the bruise on your cheek, the blood on your right shirtsleeve and cuff …”

  “That was from my dog.”

  Murdoch let that go. Semple had told him they could not distinguish between human and animal blood even with the most powerful microscopes they had. “However, we can distinguish different fibres, and we can tell human and dog hair apart. Look, I’ll show you.”

  He was proud of his microscope, which he assured Murdoch was the best and most up-to-date money could buy. He insisted Murdoch press his eye to the lens while he inserted a slide.

  “Here are three different strands of hair. This first one is from a spaniel. The second is from a horse. You can see it is much wider and coarser. The third is human hair, and the transverse lines are much finer.”

  At this point Semple had paused. “I consider this the most damning piece of evidence I collected. Even though he was in the water, some strands of hair were caught on Delaney’s shirt and not washed away. I discovered them, dried them, and magnified them so. This hair, as you can see even with the naked eye, is dark. Henry Murdoch’s hair is quite dark. Delaney’s is light, grey in fact. But here, look. Under the microscope, you can see that each strand still has the root capsule attached. It suggests to me that the two men did fight and fight viciously, to the extent that Delaney pulled out some of Henry’s hair by the roots.”

  Murdoch related this to his father, who listened quietly. “Yes, he blathered on about that. He kept saying all the evidence, but what did they have when it come down to it? A bruise on my face, blood stains, bits of hair. Could be anybody’s.”

  Harry rubbed his head as vigorously as if he had nits. Murdoch knew he must have appeared in the exact same way while he was in the court, and he could see how unprepossessing he was. It would have been hard to convince a jury he was innocent.

  “He showed me the photographs he’d had taken of the dead man. The wounds seemed to indicate that the blows were coming at a downward angle. The assailant was therefore taller than Delaney.”

  Suddenly Harry thumped his fist on the table. “No, Will, goddamn it! I’m not a total fool. My counsel nailed him on that matter, and he admitted that Delaney might have been pushed to the ground. If he was even on one knee, the blows would have come at that kind of angle. His killer didn’t have to be bigger than him. Semple agreed. Did he tell you that, or have you chosen to ignore it?”

  In fact, the doctor had told Murdoch of all the possibilities.

  He pushed back his chair, walked down the length of the table, and studied the photograph of Her Majesty. With his back to Harry, he said, “As we say in the police world, give me opportunity and motivation and I will show you the criminal. You had both, it seems.”r />
  “I admit I was in a temper with Delaney, but that doesn’t mean you go out and kill the man. We wouldn’t have much of a population left if that were the case.”

  Murdoch came back to his seat. “You have asked me to do everything I can to help you, but how can I?” He met his father’s eyes. “You are still lying. Unless you tell me the absolute truth, I will have to put a stop to any further investigations.”

  “I …”

  “Of course you had a fight with Delaney. You purposely went into the ravine to wait for him. You had no other reason to be there. When he came along the path, you had an argument during which he struck you on the cheek and quite possibly grabbed you by the hair.”

  Harry flushed. “That’s it then. You think I’m guilty as charged?”

  “I didn’t say that. I am just asking for some honesty here. Did you or did you not have a fight with Delaney?”

  “I don’t know!” Harry yelled. He glared at Murdoch for a moment then quickly looked away. “Lately I have had vague recollections. I’ve thought so much I can hardly tell if they’re dreams or real, but I can see his face, him standing over me. I assume he had clobbered me one. After that, it’s totally blank. I sort of remember crawling off into the bushes, but that’s all. Then there’s a man leaning over me telling me Delaney is dead. They made a lot of what I said, but I thought there’d been an accident. I was still in a bad skin. What I said didn’t mean anything.”

  “And this has just come back to you?”

  Another pause while Harry considered what to say. “Not just now. I did know it when I was tried, but I’d already denied any fight so I thought it wiser to say nothing.” He shrugged. “Didn’t seem to make a difference one way or the other.”

  Murdoch reached for the piece of drawing paper. “Do you mind if I use this?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He took out his fountain pen, reversed the paper, and did a quick sketch.

  “Here’s the bridge at the bottom of the ravine. Here’s the creek and the path that goes to the right. You were found here, Delaney’s body was in the water, just there, a few feet up from you. Why was he on that path? His house is the other way. I assume you would have been lying in wait for him at the bridge.”