Although the sun was shining on the early November morning, a mist was rolling across the gently lapping water. This caused the area to have both an ethereal and tranquil feel to it, which Murdoch found quite relaxing and pleasant. So much so, that he was finding it hard to focus on the task at hand. Luckily Crabtree was able to pull him out of his reverie by explaining the situation.

"That poor fellow found this poor fellow during his morning walk along the shore. Said he was frightened half to death and that he'd never go swimming again. I for one don't see why he's so scared. I mean, it's not like the dead man was half eaten or had worms crawling out of his eye sockets or-"

"Thank you, George," said Murdoch firmly. "Why don't you go speak to some of the other people here and see if any of them know anything more?"

"Right away, sir," he responded, completely oblivious as usual to the fact that he had acted unprofessional.

Murdoch watched as Crabtree joined Higgins in interviewing those present. They all looked horror stricken at what had occurred. He wondered if it was a bad sign that these things barely phased him anymore. Had he become desensitized to violence? Was he less human than when he first started this job? Or was it simply his way to deal with the atrocities he faced on a daily basis? He hoped that it was the latter but he couldn't say for certain.

Making his way over to the body, he found Julia already busy examining it. The deceased was a young man, most likely in his twenties. Judging by the small amount of bloating, he hadn't been dead for long, definitely less than twenty-four hours. Pieces of what appeared to be an aquatic plant were lodged in his jet black hair. Curiously, the upper half of his clothing was discoloured. There were lighter patches sporadically spaced all along his torso, with the highest concentration at his arms and shoulders. If there was a pattern to it, he couldn't see it.

Murdoch crossed himself, squatted down beside her and asked, "What have you, Julia?"

"Well, William, it appears that he drowned." She opened his eyes to reveal the tell tale sign of asphyxiation; the red and purple dots that he had become so accustomed to seeing over the course of his career.

"Petechial hemorrhages," he said.

"Yes, quite."

"Time of death?"

"Based on rigor mortis, I'd say between 3 and 9 hours ago. When I account for the time it takes for this amount of bloating to occur, it's likely on the longer side of that estimate."

"Any signs of a struggle?"

"His sleeves are a bit torn and there's a fair amount of bruising on his hands and face but that's about it."

"So the only question that remains is whether or not this was a boating accident." He said boating, for the man was not dressed for swimming. And besides which, the water was rather cold at this time of year. Not many would brave it.

"I won't be able to determine that until I get him back to the morgue."

"I'll have the men bring the carriage round and then you can be on your way."

"Thank you, William."

Murdoch called Higgins over and told him that they were ready to leave. He promptly attended to his duties.

Smiling slightly Julia said, "What are the chances that this was an accident?"

"Probably not too high."

"That's what I thought." Then she sighed and said, "It would be nice to get a break once in awhile, don't you think?"

"Absolutely, Julia. But until murder ceases to occur, someone has to do this job. After all, who else can speak for the dead?"

Before she could respond, Crabtree came over to give his report.

"None of them saw anything or know who he is," he said despondently. "According to them, he's not a regular among these parts."

It was looking more and more likely that this was indeed murder. Murdoch braced himself for what was to come.

Several hours later, Murdoch entered the morgue and proceeded to the viewing area in order to get fully briefed on the deceased. The young man lay on the cold slab, his entire body covered by a white sheet. Blood from the autopsy had soaked through the stitches and left a scary Y shaped pattern poking through. However, even though his face was heavily bruised, he appeared peaceful and at rest. If Murdoch was glad about anything, it was that.

"Now what can you tell me, Julia?"

She had been busy putting some medical supplies away but when he spoke, stopped what she was doing and came over to him.

"Let's take a look, shall we?"

He nodded and she pulled back the sheet. His torso appeared to be in perfect shape except for the incision in his chest and a few other bruises on his abdomen. The mans legs also only had a couple of markings. However, his arms were a different matter. They were quite bashed up. In fact, they were utterly brutalized.

Murdoch already knew the answer to his next question but he liked to have confirmation all the same. "Could he have sustained all his bruises simply from dragging on the bottom of the lake for some time?"

"It's possible but extremely unlikely," she replied. "If this had been natural, the bruising would be fairly evenly spaced all over his body, but as you can see, it's isolated to mostly the arms, hands and face."

"So he was trying to protect himself?"

"Yes, and I'd say from quite a furious individual."

"So murder then?"

"I'm afraid so," she said sighing.

"What else can you tell me?"

"After further testing, I've narrowed his time of death to about eight hours ago. As well, there were no foreign substances in his blood. As for the nail scrapings, they're over there." She pointed to her desk. "I haven't gotten around to examining them yet."

"That's fine," he said. "I'll do it later. What about his clothes? Do you know why they were discoloured?"

"If I'm not much mistaken, those are salt stains."

"And how would he have gotten that on him?"

"I was curious about that as well, so I analyzed his lung water."

"And what did you discover?" he inquired, knowing full well what she was about to say.

"It consisted mostly of saltwater, some micro organisms and some other debris. With a puzzled expression she said, "This doesn't make any sense though, William. He drowned in Lake Ontario."

"No, Julia," he said, "we found his body in Lake Ontario. Clearly he died somewhere else and his body was dumped there later. The murderer probably hoped to cover up their indiscretion and assumed we'd just rule it an accident."

"But there are no oceans anywhere nearby," she said, her features becoming even more confused. "Surely someone wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of drowning them in the sea and then transporting the body all the way back here. Besides which, he was definitely in the water for many hours. There's no way it's even possible to have had the time to travel back from the ocean, deposit his body in the lake and still have his body look like that. So where on earth was he murdered?"

Where on earth indeed.

The first and only thing that came to mind were public aquariums. From what he had read about them, they housed all the animals that zoos couldn't. But there were none in Toronto. In fact, there were none in Canada at all. The closest one was located in New York and had been operating for almost three years. But he wasn't about to hop on a train there until he had more to go on or had exhausted all his leads here. So for now, he would remain home-bound.

Back in his office, he had finished examining the nail scrapings. Other than some skin cells and dirt, there was nothing else present. On top of that, the cells weren't irregular in any way so they were a dead end. Next he began checking the clothing for additional clues. He combed the entire thing with his magnifying glass, looking for any trace evidence. Eventually he found something. There was a single brown hair stuck on the inside of the right sleeve cuff. Once he examined it under the microscope, he learned that it was indeed human hair. But beyond that, there was naught to ascertain. The lake water must have washed away everything else.

Murdoch wondered if a day would ever come in which forensic techniques would allow him to identify a person solely on their hair follicles. He liked to think so but doubted he would be alive to see it actually happen.

Refocusing on the remaining item to inspect (a sample of the plant from the dead man's hair), he again used his magnifying glass to get a closer look at it. Slowly flipping through the pages of the aquatic plant life book he had previously brought out, he compared the drawings to the specimen at hand. When he reached the end of the book, no more the wiser, he stared at the plant for awhile as if trying to divine what it was that way. Snapping out of the trance, he decided to go through the book once more. And once more came up empty handed. Obviously this species was not a very common one. If only he could figure out what it was, maybe he could also figure out where the man had been killed. For until he had an actual crime scene to investigate, he would likely never solve this case.

Since there was no public library, he opted for the next best thing: the university downtown, otherwise known as the University of Toronto. Not a very original name he thought but nonetheless very succinct. His hope was to find an expert in the field of aquatic plant life there, probably within the marine biology department. The only problem was, he didn't exactly know where this was located and just the science and engineering campus was quite large. He knew this from personal experience as he had been there on several occasions getting help with the logistics of some of his inventions, most notably the daylight in a box.

So rather than wasting time getting lost on campus, he decided to simply call the marine biology department and speak with the head of the operation. Either they would be the expert he sought or else, they would know the right person to be directed to. Or, and he dreaded to think it, no one would be able to help him and he would have hit a brick wall.

After speaking with the operator, he was patched through to the head of the department.

"Hello," said a surprisingly quiet spoken man, "who is this?"

"Hello, professor, I'm detective Murdoch of station house four and I was wondering if you would assist me in an investigation."

"Oh," he almost whispered, "this is rather unexpected. I don't believe we've ever had the constabulary contact us before." There was a slight pause. "How can I help you?"

"Well, I have this aquatic plant specimen and I can't seem to determine what it is. Do you know someone who might be able to come down here and examine it?"

"Plants, eh? Um, that's Jarvis's specialty. He may have only been here for a short while but I assure you, he's more than capable at his job. I'll go see if I can find him."

"Thank you, sir."

The line went silent and Murdoch let his mind wander. Mostly he thought about Julia and how much he wanted to take that next step forward with her. But unfortunately there was always this small part of his mind, this annoying voice in his head, telling him that the time was not yet right. After all, she was now having nightmares about plummeting to the earth in the hot air balloon. Which was not surprising considering that they had only had their casts removed about a week ago. But to make matters worse, she was still having nightmares about being married to her late husband.

Even though she had admitted to seeing Dr. Roberts for some experimental brain shock therapy, it didn't seem to be healing her completely. Maybe some wounds were too deep to heal? Sometimes he wondered if she would ever get over it; could ever get over it. And as he told her on that fateful, terrifying day in the hot air balloon, he wanted to have a fighting chance at having everything they've always wanted. But how much longer would he have to wait?

"Um, detective. I'm sorry but I can't seem to find him. He's always gallivanting about, it can get a bit annoying after awhile. Maybe I can help you instead?"

"Of course, sir. Would you mind coming down here as soon as possible?"

"Station house four, right?"

"That's correct."

"All right, I don't have any lectures to give for several hours. I should have enough time to come down there."

"Forgive me for not asking this sooner but what is your name?"

"Oh, I'm Professor Farnsworth."

"Thank you very much professor."

"Um, it might be wiser to save that until after I've helped you detective. Assuming I even can."

"Sir," said George as he knocked on Murdoch's office door, "there's someone here to see you."

"Tell him to come on in."

George turned around and waved at the man by the receptionists desk.

That's not what I meant. I could have done that myself.

Murdoch got up to greet the balding man, with oversized glasses and rather tatty looking suit.

"Professor Farnsworth I presume," he said as he shook hands with the man.

"Oh, yes, that's me," he said smiling politely. "Now where is this plant you wanted identified?"

"Right over here, sir."

The professor took one look at it and his smile disappeared. Then he said something even quieter than usual. Murdoch asked him to repeat himself.

"I said, where did you find this?"

"It was on the deceased's body."

"Well, then, detective, I think I've just located Jarvis."