"What have you doctor?" he asked squatting down across from Dr. Grace, crossing himself.

The body before them was that of a slightly red faced, bespectacled, middle aged balding man. They were in the middle of a damp forest and as a result Murdoch found himself a bit chilled. The man's walking companion said that he had complained of feeling ill and then simply collapsed.

"Cause of death remains unknown. There doesn't appear to be any puncture marks of any sort but I won't know for sure until I get him back to the morgue."

Unsurprisingly, the older the victim, the harder it was to ascertain if foul play was involved or if they simply died due to a heart attack or stroke. However, this lack of evidence by no means ruled out murder.

She looked across the body at him, "Do I have your permission to remove the deceased?"

"Of course, doctor."

They both stood up and he waved at two constables to come and collect the body. He watched as the young men loaded the older one into the waiting carriage. Shortly after this, George assailed him.

"Have you uncovered anything that could shed some light on this matter?"

"I'm afraid not, sir," he replied looking apologetic. "The only witness was his friend, Mr. Cardell...do you think he could have done something to Mr. Dasgard?"

"It's possible, I suppose, but I don't think it likely. Why would he volunteer himself as the sole witness if he himself was guilty of committing the crime."

Assuming there even was one.

"I see your point, sir."

"However, it would be prudent to search the area for additional clues." George looked around them and the somewhat vast forest, with a dour expression. "Get Henry to help you."

After interviewing Dasgard's housekeeper who informed Murdoch that her employer had appeared perfectly healthy earlier that day, Murdoch occupied himself with working on his latest creation. There was no point investigating further until he knew for certain that this was murder. He supposed maybe he should have held off on having George and Henry scour the forest. But the longer they waited to search, the higher the risk that any potential evidence would be damaged by wildlife.

"Playing with your toys again, Murdoch?" the inspector said, grinning.

They're not toys...

"Don't you think a man who is about to get married should give that nonsense up?"

Murdoch stared at him blandly and didn't respond.

"Speaking of," Brackenreid continued, putting a hand on his shoulder, "how are you holding up, me old mucker? Any second thoughts?"

"Not at all, sir. I am quite pleased to finally be wed."

"And bed, no doubt," said Brackenreid, laughing.

Exasperated at his crudeness, "Sir, please, that is hardly appropriate subject matter for work."

"You need to lighten up, Murdoch. Women like a man who can have fun once in awhile. Dr. Ogden especially. Take it from me, if you want to hold on to your lady for the foreseeable future, you need to learn how to relax."

Murdoch pondered that for a moment. "I'll take that into consideration, sir."

"Of course you will, I'm always right."

With a wink and a click, the inspector was out the door.

"There's no doubt, detective, this was murder. He was definitely poisoned."

"With what exactly?"

Dr. Grace frowned. "I haven't determined that yet."

"Then how do you know he was poisoned?" he asked politely, raising an eyebrow.

She moved aside to reveal the mans heart on a pile of ice. It was severely discoloured and sickly looking as if a necrosis had taken hold. Far more than one would expect from a simple heart attack.

Removing a hand from behind his back he pointed and said, "I take it there are no genetic defects that could account for that?"

"None that we know of."

"But it's possible?"

"Well, yes, but I'm almost certain he was poisoned." He gave her an enquiring look waiting for her to elaborate. "He had extreme hyperglycemia-"

"Forgive me if I'm much mistaken, doctor but doesn't that simply mean he had Diabetes Mellitus?"

She seemed rather ticked off at him for interrupting. For whatever reason he had never come to like Dr. Grace very much and so wasn't bothered by her cold(er) demeanor.

"Why, yes, detective, he did. I examined his pancreas and there was a small amount of damage to it,"

...ie. destruction of the islets of Langerhans...more specifically insulin, the isolation of which, by the Canadian Frederick Banting, led to the first treatments of Diabetes in the early 1920s...

"indicating that he did indeed suffer from that condition, but it was hardly enough damage to have accounted for such extensive hyperglycemia. Besides, Diabetes would not cause the cardiac necrosis."

"Oh? Then what does?"

"As I was trying to say before, the unnaturally high glucose levels indicate that his body was under a lot of stress, and it was probably trying to fight off an infection. And this infection was likely the result of a poison of some sort."

That's a lot of assumptions...but I would tend to agree with you. Complete suppression of insulin, when there is no undue cause, would indicate that something foreign had probably entered his system. Unless...unless this was the result of an autoimmune disease...but that is extremely rare and was not first described until the 1950s...I can't bring that up...

Sometimes he really wished he didn't have a near photographic memory because most of the knowledge he acquired in the future was useless to him here.

Apparently he had been silent for too long prompting Dr. Grace to say, "Detective?"

"So someone was attempting to make this look like his Diabetes had killed him?"

"That would be my guess but only a very poor pathologist would have been fooled by such a ploy."

"Have you located an injection site?"

"Not yet."

"Anything else, doctor?"

"Not at the moment."

"Carry on then."

Murdoch was back in his office tinkering away again when George and Henry barged in without first knocking. Both were dishevelled and dirty and appeared to be in a sour moods.

"Did you find anything, constables?"

"Afraid not, sir," replied George wearily. "We combed a large area, stem to sternum and couldn't find any clues."

"It's stem to stern, George."

"What?"

"The expression," butted in Henry, annoyed. "Can't you get anything right? I thought you were supposed to be a writer?"

"So I made one mistake, Henry!" retorted George. "As if you never have!"

Murdoch rubbed his temples thinking, I feel the beginnings of a headache coming on...

"You called the detective's lie detector a mograph thingie! I distinctly recall that!"

Henry opened his mouth but Murdoch silenced the pair with a simple, "Constables." Once their attention was back on him he continued with, "You've had a long day. Perhaps you should head on home?"

They glared at each other once more and then exited through separate doors.

A little while later he received another visitor.

"Julia," he said smiling. "What a pleasant surprise." She made her way over to him and he put down his tools. "I wasn't expecting you tonight." He took her hands briefly to kiss them. "I thought you were busy with the last minute preparations?"

"Yes, well, Ruby was more focused than usual and we achieved all of our goals faster than anticipated." Julia smirked. "She was quite determined to make sure we were married without a single hitch."

"How considerate of her."

Julia laughed. "That's not a quality often attributed to my sister."

"No, I suppose not." Slight pause. "Does that mean you are free all day tomorrow?"

"I believe so, barring any emergencies." She gave him a coy look and placed a hand to his chest. "Why do you ask? Are you planning on being AWOL early?"

"Julia," he said glancing around, "what have I told you about using that kind of language?"

Her smile widened. "No one else is here, William, you've got nothing to worry about."

"That's not the point, Julia..."

She rolled her eyes. "No one forced you to give me a lesson in twenty-first century vocabulary."

"I beg to differ."

Julia smiled innocently in response and he sighed.

"You have yet to answer my question, William. Are you planning on being off work early tomorrow?"

"Planning, yes, but whether or not I can be will be determined by how much progress is made on this case. As of yet, we are virtually nowhere. And I can't just leave George and the inspector to fend for themselves before we leave for our honeymoon."

"William, they are going to be on their own for a month, they will have to learn sooner or later how to do your job."

He gave her a look and it was her turn to sigh.

"Perhaps I can be of assistance?"

"That would be most welcome," he replied, smiling. "I'm sure Dr. Grace would be thrilled to work with you again." She just stared at him. "At any rate, it is late." He held out his arm, "Shall we?"

After a minute of silence she decided to try and break through his defenses once more. Though he had told her some words, whether on purpose or by accident, and filled her in on the specifics to what happened to him, she was still completely in the dark about certain future events. Mostly she was curious about the ones involving women's rights and when they would get the vote and be treated as equals, both in wages and status. She was sure that this happened even though he hadn't said so because the Julia of the future had been a detective! This had amused her exceedingly because William had once made a joke about her making a very good one.

"So, William," she said, "about the future...I find I can't help thinking about it."

"I know, Julia, and I would love to tell you but as I have told you before, I am almost certain that you would be haunted by the answers because you would be powerless to effect change in a more timely manner."

"You keep saying that but why exactly would I be powerless to effect change? Why can't we interfere with the natural course of events?"

He was silent for a moment and then said, "First of all, how would it look if I suddenly started producing devices decades ahead of their time? Or curing all of the world's current diseases?"

"You invent plenty of things..."

William became a bit irritated. "How many times must I say this, my creations are simply slight reworkings of existing technology...they aren't inventions."

"Well in any case, you wouldn't have to cure the diseases yourself." She smirked. "You could let me do it."

He gave her a look.

"I'm joking, William."

Sort of.

"But you could just anonymously tip off the relevant authorities on the subject matter and speed up their rates of discovery."

"Yes, I could but there's no telling what kind of effect that would have on the future. It could change things in ways we couldn't imagine."

While she heard what he was saying she still couldn't get passed a single notion. "You mean like making the world a better place, free of so much sickness and needless death?"

"It's not that simple, Julia." He sighed and then she got her wish. "As far as I could tell, there were far too many people on the planet as it was, their resources were quickly dwindling, their streets were full of cars and smog and garbage, crime was at an all time high...think about how much worse things would be by then if I, if we interfered now? Humanity must find a balance with nature like all other living organisms or the result is chaos. There is a reason God deemed it necessary that his creations life cycle's must come to an end."

This bleak look at the future threw her for a moment but then she found the ground again.

"And what about the children who continue to suffer? Is that part of God's plan too?"

"Julia..."

"Don't you Julia me!" she snapped, stopping their forward momentum. She extracted her arm from his. "I don't understand how you can be so nonchalant about all of this! How can you just stand idly by when you know you can do something?!"

William just looked at her sadly. The depth of this melancholy hurt her more than words could express. "If you think this is easy for me, you don't know me at all."

"William, I-I'm sorry," she said placing a hand on his forearm.

"It's quite all right, Julia," he replied, patting it.

They continued walking again.

"I suppose I've just illustrated your point perfectly. I would not be able to handle the full truth. I'm no William Murdoch."

"No but you are a wonderfully passionate individual who simply desires equality and wellness for everyone. That is a most noble goal and it is just one of the many reasons that I love you so much."

They smiled at one another and then she huddled a little closer to him. She always felt so safe and secure when he was by her side. Though she would never admit it to anyone, she didn't much like walking around at night by herself. One never could tell who was lurking just around the corner.

They reached her home.

"Care to come in, detective?" she asked coyly.

"Thank you but I'll pass."

"You'll pass?" she said, arcing her eyebrows. "Now who's using the wrong century language."

"Ah, that was an accident," he said apologetically, as if he had sworn at her most profusely. Sometimes he was so adorable that she just wanted to grab him and never let go. "Good night," he added hastily.

"Good night."

He leaned in for a kiss that ended far too quickly for her liking, tipped his hat to her and continued on down the street.