Let Darkness Bury the Dead

by Maureen Jennings

  “Could you determine what kind of weapon was used, Doctor?” he asked.

  Howitt dabbed at his mouth with one of the linen napkins. “The cut was jagged. I found several splinters of brick. Reddish colour. It was wielded with great force. The blow struck the head quite in the middle of the skull, which suggests the attacker was not striking downward, or upward, for that matter. He would have been on a level with the victim. The young man is almost six feet tall so his assailant might be about the same height.”

  “Or he could have been standing on a higher elevation.”

  “You’re right. It could be that. I was getting carried away. Perhaps the post mortem will reveal more.”

  Murdoch blinked at him. “Post mortem? You don’t think the lad will survive, then?”

  “Most unlikely, I’m afraid.”

  Tea and civility dispensed with, Murdoch was conducted to the recovery room where Morris had been taken.

  “Don’t expect too much from him,” said Howitt before they entered. “He’s been heavily sedated.”

  Mr. Swartz was sitting beside the bed.

  Dr. Howitt beckoned to him. “Let’s wait over here, sir. The detective needs to talk to your son.”

  Swartz offered no protest and moved to the door. Murdoch went to the bed and leaned very close to the young man’s head, which was swathed in bandages.

  “Morris. This is Detective Murdoch. Can you hear me?”

  A barely perceptible flicker of his eyes. He seemed to be scarcely breathing, and his lips were dry and caked.

  Murdoch raised his voice. “You’ve been wounded. Don’t give up. You’re going to be fine.”

  He wished he truly believed that.

  MEMORANDUM ON THE TREATMENT OF INJURIES IN WAR, BASED ON EXPERIENCE OF THE PRESENT CAMPAIGN

  ON THE FILLING UP OF TALLIES.

  Much trouble has been caused on the arrival of cases in the casualty clearing stations, stationary and general hospitals by the incompleteness of the details inscribed on the tallies.

  Observances of the following rules will much facilitate the work of the hospitals to which the patient is transferred.

  All tallies should bear—

  1. The stamp of the Unit through which the case has been passed.

  2. An accurate description of the injury, for example—

  “Compound fracture of skull,” not “G.S.W. head.”

  “Compound fracture of femur,” not “Shrapnel wound of leg.”

  3. Time of last dressing.

  4. Concise account of the operation performed.

  5. Amount of tetanus antitoxin injected.

  6. Whether morphia has been administered and in what amount.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  MURDOCH WENT TO THE MATRON’S OFFICE, where he was able to ring the station. He had hoped to send Madge to fetch Mrs. Swartz but she wasn’t in yet. Wallace himself had just arrived. Murdoch gave him instructions to convey the directive to Detective Herb Crowther, who was on reserve. He thought Crowther would be more inclined to be sympathetic and tactful toward Mrs. Swartz than his partner, Lennox.

  “I’d like to call an emergency meeting at nine o’clock. Gather as many of the detectives as you can. No. Better make that half past nine. Give them time to wake up. I’ll be there within the hour.”

  He hung up, and requested Morris’s clothes from the nurse waiting discreetly by the door. Miss Gillespie herself brought them to him. They’d been neatly folded into a cardboard box.

  The cap and wool overcoat were heavily bloodstained. As Mr. Swartz had said, there was a yellow cross chalked on the back of the coat. It was about six inches long and about half an inch wide. Murdoch tested the chalk with his finger. It was powdery. No smell. As far as he could tell it was ordinary school chalk. He examined the rest of the garments carefully but there were no other marks.

  He returned the clothes to the box. He sincerely hoped Morris Swartz would get to wear them again.

  Murdoch left the hospital to find a city coming awake; people were going about their business. A weak sun was even struggling to come through. As he bicycled down Centre Avenue he had to stop suddenly at the corner of Edward Street to allow a woman to cross. She was wheeling a perambulator, and from her dress he guessed she was a nursery maid out with her charge. He’d been so preoccupied he’d almost sailed right past her. She flashed him an indignant look and he tipped his hat apologetically.

  What he couldn’t get out of his mind was Mr. Swartz’s comment about his son. And how he had rushed to the bedside.

  He will know I’m there. He will live for me.

  While Amy was dying, Murdoch hadn’t left her side for an instant. Between one intake of breath and the other, her life had stopped as abruptly as if an electric light had been switched off. Afterward he was forever grateful he had been present at that moment of separation between body and soul. Ironically, just days before she died, Amy had received word that a former colleague was seriously ill and she had gone to visit him. When she returned, she had been in a strange mood. “I thought he was dead. He looked like a corpse and he wouldn’t wake up. I thought he was sailing off to that unknown bourne. The nurse sent for his wife. She came in, didn’t seem perturbed. We said we couldn’t wake him. ‘He will for me,’ she said, and then she called his name softly in his ear. Sure enough, he started to wake up.”

  Amy had put her arms around Murdoch. “Is that what love is, Will? Is the beloved the one you’ll always come back for?”

  Constable Fairbairn was standing outside the Swartz grocery store. As Murdoch approached, Fairbairn was turning away two customers, stating that Morris had been taken ill and the family was at the hospital. Murdoch overheard one of the women say she’d go and call on Golda right away. He thought the real story would be revealed very soon.

  When they walked away, Fairbairn acknowledged Murdoch.

  “I believe I’ve found the weapon, sir.”

  He lifted a piece of tarpaulin that was underneath one of the vegetable bins. It was covering a bloodstained brick.

  “It was used as a block for the barrow. The attacker must have grabbed it when he approached Morris Swartz. Then he discarded it. It was lying just over there by the curb.”

  Murdoch crouched down and studied the brick. “I’ll send a constable to relieve you. I’d appreciate it if you’d bring this to headquarters and we can have it examined for fingerprints. It’s not likely to yield much evidence, given the rough surface, but we’ll try. Wrap it in the tarpaulin. Anything else?”

  “No, sir. The young lad hadn’t had time to unlock the front door but it has not been tampered with.”

  “So everything happened out here.”

  “I’d say so. There are no further blood stains on the pavement. Morris didn’t move after he was struck down.”

  Murdoch looked around. The houses were close together but the street itself was wider than many of those in the Ward. Where had the attacker come from? Morris Swartz had been walking north along Centre Avenue. The street would have been dark but it would also have been quiet. Surely Morris would have heard or at least sensed somebody was following him. Had the attacker been in hiding, waiting for him? There was only one place that Murdoch could see where that might be possible.

  “Constable, would you mind going to that entry? There, between numbers 73 and 71. Hide yourself for a minute. I’m going to stand in this doorway. See if you can sneak up on me.”

  They took up their positions. Murdoch pretended to fiddle with the lock on the door. Suddenly there was a tap on his shoulder. Murdoch hadn’t heard Fairbairn at all.

  “That seems to suggest the attacker was already lying in wait, wouldn’t you say, Constable?”

  “I agree, sir. But why was young Morris his target? This has been my beat for a long time. I’ve seen the young fellow grow up, as it were. They are a decent, hard-working family. I don’t know why somebody wanted to do him in.”

  “Thank you, Constable. You’ve been very helpful.�
�

  “I’ll drop off the brick as soon as I’m relieved, sir.” Another woman was approaching. “I’ll just head off this lady.”

  Murdoch left him to deal with her and rode off.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  MURDOCH CHECKED IN WITH Wallace at the front desk.

  “I could only round up six of the detectives, sir. Mr. Archibald and Mr. Rawlings have both come down with the flu. ‘Laid flat’ was the term Mrs. Rawlings used when she rang in.”

  Murdoch knew who was going to be blamed for that.

  “Inspector Kennedy is also a goner.” The clerk looked anxious. “Hope I’m not going to catch it.”

  “Hold your breath at all times, Wallace. It’s the only safeguard. Is Constable Curnoe here?”

  “Yes, sir. She’s in the duty room with the others.”

  Murdoch divested himself of his hat and overcoat and hurried down the hall. He never liked his detectives to feel they had to wait at his convenience if it wasn’t necessary.

  When he entered the room he was met with the usual fug. All of the detectives were smoking, either a pipe or a cigarette. Madge was sitting by the front desk, notebook open. He wouldn’t blame her if she took up smoking in self-defence.

  He went straight to the chalkboard.

  “Morning, Miss Curnoe. Morning, gentlemen. Thank you for gathering at such short notice. We have another serious case on our hands and I didn’t want to waste time getting on it.”

  He took the chalk and drew three vertical lines on the blackboard. At the top of the columns he wrote “AGGETT,”

  “SWARTZ,” and “SAMUELS?”

  They all knew the details of Aggett’s murder, and he filled them in on the death of Daniel Samuels, and also the events of the past night and the attack on Morris Swartz.

  “Let’s see if there are any points of comparison. Although Samuels was a suicide, I’ve included him. I’d like to find out more about him and his state of mind.”

  He drew more lines, this time horizontal, and labelled them: LOCATION; TIME OF DAY; AGE; PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES; RELIGION; OCCUPATION; MARITAL STATUS; KNOWN ENEMIES; WEAPON.

  Madge was copying this down in her notepad.

  Fenwell was the first to speak. “The most obvious similarity to me is the timing and the location of the two attacks. Both took place in the Ward, and Centre Avenue and Chestnut Street are only one block apart. Both happened in the early hours of the morning.”

  Murdoch wrote that on the board. “I’ll put a checkmark for Samuels. He died at the City Baths, also within easy walking distance of Centre Avenue. A different time of day, however. Mid-afternoon. Age and physical attributes? Arthur Aggett was twenty-three years old, a big fellow. About six feet, strong build. Fair-haired. Moustache. Daniel was twenty. Morris Swartz is slight of build. About five-foot nine. Twenty-one. Dark-haired. Clean-shaven. So there are some common denominators, some differences.”

  “Would religion be a factor? The unfortunate suicide was Jewish,” interjected Mitchell. He was undeniably the most devout on the squad. A Baptist, he tended to judge all occurrences on a moral scale.

  Murdoch wrote “Jewish” beside both Daniel’s name and Morris’s. Aggett was Christian.

  “Next. Occupation? Aggett was a teamster with the Dominion Brewery. Swartz worked at his father’s grocer’s shop. Samuels was a clerk for a company that makes monuments, but he had recently been fired. No obvious connection among the three of them there.”

  “How long had Aggett worked for the brewery?” asked Charles Croome, an ardent teetotaller. “The reason I’m asking is that, with the Temperance Act, he might have been expecting to find himself out of work soon.”

  Rubridge gave a derisive snort. “Surely that is more significant with the suicide. Unless Aggett hired somebody to bash him on the head out of sheer despair. However, according to the post mortem, he did exit with a skinful, which must have made him happy, at least.”

  Croome’s jaw tightened. There was no love lost between the two men and they had had some hot discussions about the value of the new law. Murdoch decided to slide over this flare-up.

  “I believe Aggett had worked at the brewery for three years. I have not heard what Dominion is doing with their employees. They can still export what they make. Okay. Next. Marital status. Aggett was the only one married.”

  Guthrie grinned. “Then there’s no reason to believe they were killed by a posse of disgruntled wives. You know how women can be when they feel hard done by. Right, Miss Curnoe?”

  To Murdoch’s relief, Madge didn’t rise to the bait. “I certainly do know, Detective Guthrie. Thank goodness.”

  That last comment was ambiguous but Guthrie grinned again. He was the oldest member of the squad, white-haired and close to retirement. Murdoch had the feeling he wasn’t looking forward to it. Not much to go home to. He had a tendency to hang around Madge and lob teasing comments at her.

  “Next. Known enemies? None that we are aware of. None of them has been in trouble with the law, although Peter and I believe that Aggett was gambling the night he was killed. We have yet to identify the other players. Finally, we have the matter of a weapon.”

  Murdoch faced the men. “We have not yet located the weapon that was used to kill Arthur Aggett. The physician thought it was metal. Swartz was hit with a piece of brick. I can only assume that was opportunistic because the brick was being used to brake the barrow in front of the shop. In Aggett’s case, because so far we have not found any traces, the killer may have both brought the weapon with him and carried it away. Interestingly, the attacks had similar features in that both came from behind, with great ferocity.”

  Roy Rubridge took a draw on his cigarette. “So it’s hard to conclude at this point whether or not the attacks were premeditated and whether or not the targets were intended.”

  Murdoch sighed. “Certainly, they both took place in darkness and at an hour when most of the city was asleep, which might suggest planning.”

  “Maybe we’re dealing with somebody who’s insane,” said Guthrie. “Anybody escaped from the lunatic asylum lately?” He made a chopping motion.

  “A man-hating ex-wife, you mean?” said Madge, her voice sweet as honey.

  “It’s not completely out of the question,” retorted Guthrie. “Look at the Jack the Ripper case.”

  “I thought that was a man murdering prostitutes,” said Fenwell.

  “I was simply using it as an example of a killer targeting a specific class of people.”

  Rubridge stabbed his cigarette in Guthrie’s direction. “A far-fetched example, if I may say so. We’ve only got two attacks and a suicide. Hardly a pattern.”

  “Can I say something, sir?” Madge said.

  Murdoch nodded. “Of course.”

  “Acts that are random or apparently unconnected might still be intended.”

  “You’ve lost me there, Miss Curnoe,” said Guthrie. “The workings of the female mind do sometimes elude me.”

  “All right. Let me elucidate. I might, for instance, randomly choose a streetcar to go home. That one and not the next, for example. But that does not mean I have no intent. Clearly I do. My intention is to catch a streetcar to take me home. Which one I end up on is destiny.”

  “Meant for you, as it were?” chimed in Montgomery.

  “Just like you and me,” muttered Guthrie.

  Madge ignored him.

  “You make a good point, Miss Curnoe,” said Murdoch. “Did the victims have the sheer bad luck simply to be out when our murderer wandered by?”

  “We are looking at a madman, then,” said Mitchell.

  Fenwell shook his head. “If he’s that insane he still has enough savvy to act when there is nobody else around. In both cases, the police constable on his beat had just passed by.”

  “I agree,” said Murdoch. “It might be sheer animal cunning, or it might be careful planning.”

  “That would suggest he did know the lie of the land,” continued Fenwell. “He is famili
ar with the area. All of our constables’ movements are predictable. We’ve always considered that this provides a sense of security to the populace.”

  Madge spoke up again. “Excuse me, sir, but I can’t let go of my theory. What is the intention? Is our attacker prowling around the city in search of a particular kind of victim? Back to Jack the Ripper. He didn’t seem to care what prostitute he killed as long as she was a prostitute.”

  “I’m telling you, Miss Curnoe,” said Guthrie, “it’s a bitter woman we’re after. She wants to destroy any young man she finds. Intention? To rid the world of bachelors. Think of Miss Havisham tenfold.”

  “Arthur Aggett had a young wife,” said Madge.

  Murdoch intervened. “There is something I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet. It seems that the person who attacked Swartz chalked a yellow cross on his back.”

  “What do you mean, ‘chalked’?” asked Croome.

  “Exactly that. It was done with the kind of ordinary chalk you find in a tailor’s shop, a schoolroom, a toy store. The cross is about six inches long. The arms are of equal length.”

  He drew a cross to illustrate. “I am assuming it was significant to the attacker.”

  He stepped back and surveyed the board. “What, then, do the three men have in common? Not marital status, not occupation, not religion, not physique.”

  “While you’re doing the ‘nots,’” said Rubridge, “you should add not soldiers. One was about to try for an exemption. Swartz was already exempt on the basis of ill health. Even Samuels wasn’t enlisted.”

  Suddenly, Montgomery blurted out, “I know what that cross stands for. I know exactly. My son mentioned it once. It’s a mark the Germans put on gas canisters. It means they contain mustard gas.”

  The others all stared at him.

  “Why go to the trouble of scrawling that on somebody’s back?” asked Croome.

  Rubridge drew on his cigarette. “Aren’t we forgetting one important thing? Yellow is also the colour of cowardice.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE