Vignette: After tainted meat has killed a participant in the Madison Fine Beef Culinary Challenge, Murdoch and Brackenreid call on George to make sure he's still among the living. Filling a gap in S11E13, "Crabtree à la Carte."
Detective William Murdoch and Inspector Thomas Brackenreid stood outside the entrance to George Crabtree's boarding house, each silently wishing the other would lift the brass knocker and bang it against the door. It was five o'clock in the morning, well before sunrise. Both were dressed in rumpled, casual clothes, and each had greeted the other with nothing more than a grim, wordless nod and a tip of the hat.
They stood side by side for some time, neither quite able to bring himself to look at the other again. Instead, they stared at the patterns the flickering gaslight made on the whitewashed front door. Brackenreid finally spoke.
"Murdoch," he said noncommittally.
"Sir." Murdoch looked down at his own feet.
"Fancy meeting you here." Brackenreid took his newsboy cap off, and started to turn it around in his hands.
"Likewise, sir."
There was a long, uncomfortable pause.
"I couldn't sleep, sir."
"Nor could I, me ol' mucker. Nor could I." Brackenreid stared balefully at the knocker.
"Sir?" Murdoch ventured. Once again he tried to will the inspector to be the one to incur the wrath of George's formidable landlady, Miss Pratt. She was apparently quite testy, he remembered George saying, especially when the household was disturbed between ten o'clock at night and six in the morning.
Brackenreid glowered.
"Bloody hell, do I have to do everything myself, then," he groused, and raised a beefy hand to tap sharply at the door.
"I… I'm sorry, sir. I had assumed you would wish to do it," Murdoch found himself lying smoothly.
The inspector glared at the detective. "Of course you did, sunshine."
Murdoch hooked his thumbs on his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and shot Brackenreid a brief, rueful look.
They waited.
Neither man would say so, but both were still smarting from the quarrels they'd had with their respective wives, for very different reasons, about the visit to Crabtree's home.
Margaret Brackenreid, George's competitor in the Madison Fine Beef Culinary Challenge, had eaten from the same potentially contaminated batch of tinned meat as George, but she was quite unconcerned. As she was going to bed, she had smugly repeated that she was of a sufficiently robust constitution that any possible botulism would certainly not affect her, and if it eliminated any of her weaker rivals, so be it indeed.
The inspector was incensed. For all the grief he had given to the eccentric, flighty constable over the years, he was deeply fond of his right-hand man's right-hand man. The first time she intimated that she would relish Crabtree's death so she could win that blasted contest, they were at the station house, and he had held his tongue, not wanting to row with his wife in his own office. At home, though, he had several hefty belts of scotch in him, and he was not nearly so diplomatic. Words were exchanged, and Thomas Brackenreid had ended up sulking in the sitting room for the night.
Murdoch, on the other hand, had argued with the pregnant and hence increasingly erratic Doctor Ogden about why he was not waiting out the night with Crabtree at his boarding house. William pointed out that he had not been invited, but Julia was adamant that an invitation was unnecessary. George needed his friends, she told him. William, however, tried to convince her—and himself—that the best course of action was to give the man his privacy.
William was still ruminating on his excruciatingly awkward conversation with George at the station house about George's potentially imminent demise. Though Murdoch's work had long since inured him to the sight and smell of death, he loathed contemplating his own mortality and that of those close to him. To see Crabtree so distressed, and yet be able to offer no words of reassurance, was mortifying. He felt ashamed that he had not even been able to look his terrified friend in the eye.
He had no idea what exactly Julia expected him to do for George, and truth be told, he felt sick at the possibility of finding his best friend's lifeless body. Although perhaps it would be worse, he supposed, if the unthinkable happened and he saw it for the first time on the slab at the morgue.
The door opened slowly, and Murdoch and Brackenreid realized George had not exaggerated Miss Pratt's intimidating demeanour and ill humour. Thomas Brackenreid, one of the toughest men in the Toronto Constabulary, was cowed by the small, wiry, beady-eyed woman in a nightdress who opened the door bearing a cast iron pan and staring daggers at them. Alarmed, Murdoch glanced at a wide-eyed Brackenreid, and began to speak in haste. "Good morning, Miss Pratt, I'm Detective William Murdoch and this is Inspector Thomas Brackenreid of the Toronto Constabulary. We're here to see your lodger Constable George Crabtree." Murdoch tried to keep his tone as neutral as possible, but he faltered a little on George's name.
Miss Pratt squinted at them in the dim light, and lowered the pan slowly. "Constabulary, eh?" she said in a stage whisper, clearly keen on the excitement of having two members of their ranks on her doorstep. She smiled broadly, and welcomed them inside. "Police business, then!" she declared happily. "And what brings you here? What sort of deviltry is in progress that requires the attention of both a detective and an inspector at this hour of the morning? What, pray tell, is Constable Crabtree needed for? Is it a robbery? A… murder?" She was nearly quivering with glee.
Murdoch cleared his throat. "It's a personal matter, Miss Pratt. Most urgent." His heart was pounding at the prospect of what they might find in Crabtree's room, and he was in no mood to entertain the salacious inquiries of George's fearsome landlady. "Please, just show us to his room." Brackenreid nodded, and scowled some more.
Miss Pratt studied the men's faces. Apparently realising she would get nowhere with either of them, she weighed her options for a moment. "This way," she finally said, sullenly, and gestured for them to follow her.
"Thank you, ma'am. Inspector?" He held out a hand to gesture for Brackenreid to go first. The older man bowed his head in thanks to Miss Pratt, and started after her down the hall, Murdoch close behind him.
They stood in front of George's door, and Miss Pratt remained, watching them expectantly. "Would you please excuse us, ma'am," Murdoch asked her, and glanced back down the hall in a subtle hint for her to leave.
She huffed. "Well, I never. And in my own home, too!"
"Ma'am. Please." Brackenreid said imploringly, and Murdoch gazed at her with his giant, sad, impossibly brown eyes.
Finally she relented. "I suppose. But remind him that the rent is due Monday." She huffed again, and disappeared.
Murdoch knew better than to ask the inspector to be the one who knocked again. He swallowed hard, glanced at a closed-eyed Brackenreid, and struck George's door sharply with his knuckles. Once. Twice. Three times. A pause, and then a muffled voice: "Who's there?"
Brackenreid laid a hand on the knob, and took a moment to meet Murdoch's eye. Both men exhaled sharply, and nearly dissolved in relief. George Crabtree was still alive.
George was lying on his bed, wrapped in a blanket, his knees pulled up nearly to his chin. His hair was wild and unkempt, and his expression was slightly manic. His demeanour brightened tremendously at the sight of his guests. "Sirs! You came!" He threw off the blanket and scuttled across the room to embrace them. "I'm not dead, sirs! I'm alive!"
The usually stolid Murdoch broke into a wide grin as George hugged him. "Indeed you are not, George! I confess you are a welcome sight."
"As are you both, sir!" He turned to hug Brackenreid, who smiled in spite of himself. "Now listen, Bugalugs, I won't have you skiving off work today…" he began with gruff affection.
"Of course not, sir!" Crabtree replied earnestly. "I need to let the lads know I'm alive!"
"Have you had any sleep, George?" Murdoch inquired kindly.
"Not a wink, sir. Not one. But I did have a most productive night." He gestured at the desk, which was piled high with scribbled and typewritten notes, topped by six envelopes fastened with wax seals.
"What are those envelopes, George?"
George reddened slightly. "Ah… never you mind, sir. They won't be necessary now."
Brackenreid had seen enough soldiers' letters home from the front, written late at night in anticipation of a particularly fierce battle, to know exactly what those envelopes contained. Hell, he had even written such missives himself. George had been saying his goodbyes.
"Welcome back, me ol' mucker," he said, and clapped George on the shoulder. "We'd have missed you."
"We would have indeed, George." Murdoch met and held his friend's gaze, and shook his hand. "We'd have missed you indeed."