Inspector Murdoch filed the last of the papers that had cluttered up his desk for most of the afternoon and breathed a sigh of relief. As stepped out of his office and was crossing the room to the front door when he noticed Constable Crabtree at his desk hunting feverishly for something.
"What are you searching for, George," he asked. A smile toyed at the corners of the inspector's mouth as he already suspected what George was looking for.
"I'm looking for my pencil," replied the young Constable, "I had it a moment ago."
"George," said Murdoch quietly, "Check behind your right ear." Crabtree reached for his right ear and the look on his face changed from consternation to sheepishness as he found the missing pencil tucked firmly behind his ear where he had put it only a minute before.
"How stupid of me," said Crabtree.
"George," said Murdoch, "It's late and your shift is already over file those papers and go home."
That day had been a slower day than usual so Murdoch, and anyone else who could, had spent it tackling the mountain of paperwork that most of them had on their desks. Murdoch was almost out the door when he realized that he wasn't wearing his hat. Turning around he hurried back to his office. When he walked into this office he found the object in question sitting on his desk where he had left it. As he picked it up he noticed papers on his desk.
"That's odd," he thought, "I could have sworn that I filed them all." The papers were from the file on the death of one Jeffery Moorhead. The young man was a university student that had been found dead after apparently becoming intoxicated and falling from the school's bell tower during some sort of hazing stunt at a student party. The whole affair had been tragic to say the least. Moorhead's younger sister Katie was devastated.
The parents of the young man were due to arrive tomorrow to claim the body of their son. Dismissing the presence of the papers to the fact that his hat was sitting on top of them, he moved to put them back in the file cabinet.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a throaty chuckle. Murdoch whirled around but the office was empty.
"Show yourself," said Murdoch, "If this is some sort of jest it is not amusing."
"Oh it's no joke Detective," said a deep disembodied voice, "and you need have no fear of me, you are in no danger."
Murdoch looked in first one direction and then the other. The voice sounded like it was right here in the room with him but the room was empty.
"Don't bother trying to see me, Detective," said the Voice, "I am quite invisible to your eyes. It would behoove you detective to reopen the Moorhead case. "
"Why," said Murdoch, "Moorhead's death was a tragic accident?"
"Tragic, yes, Accident, No," said the Voice, "Jeffery Moorhead was murdered!"
"How do you know that?" said Murdoch,
"Check Moorhead's Medical history and you'll discover what I did, Detective," Replied the voice,
"until then, I bid good evening, Detective."
"Who are you?!" said Murdoch, "What are you?!"
"Only a passing Shadow," replied the voice. The voice gave a throaty laugh that seemed to reverberate all over the room and then he was gone.
The next morning found Murdoch telling his story to an incredulous Brackenreid.
"That's the entire story," said Murdoch, "Just the way that it happened." Brackenreid shook his head.
"Are you daft, Murdoch?" he said, "Do you expect me to let you reopen this case just because some spook told that it was murder and not an accident?"
Murdoch was about to answer when Dr. Ogden came hurrying in.
"William," she said, "Would you come with me please! I think you're going to want to see what I found." Murdoch and Brackenreid followed her down to the autopsy room. The corpse of young Jeffery Moorhead was on the table."
"Oh I see," said Brackenreid getting hot under the collar again, "You two were just going to do it anyway well let me tell you_!"
"Oh will you dry up you big blowhard!" snapped Dr. Ogden, "you sound like a fog horn with a broken valve!"
Murdoch stifled the urge to burst out laughing. Dr. Ogden was the only person other than Brackenreid's wife that would dare talk to him like that. And she didn't give him a chance to recover from her snarky comment she simply forged ahead.
"I think you may change your mind about all this when I tell you what I've discovered," she said, "In his medical history it states that he almost died when he was eight years old."
"So he almost died when he was eight," snapped Brackenreid, "What's that got to do with_,"
"If you will kindly stop interrupting I will tell you," said Dr. Ogden, "Now as I was saying, it was at a family Christmas party, his uncle was a little tipsy from drinking too much brandy and he spilled some on Jeffery who promptly had a violent allergic reaction. It was discovered that the boy was allergic to all forms of alcohol including cleaning alcohol. If it even touched his skin his throat would close up."
"If he was allergic to alcohol he wouldn't have been drinking at that party," said Murdoch, "Which means that he didn't fall off the roof because he was drunk. Therefore if he wasn't drunk what was he doing on that roof?"
"Maybe the boy took his own life," said Brackenreid
"No," said Murdoch, "the boy smelled of alcohol when he was found and there were fragments of a bottle near where he fell, which means that somebody dumped alcohol on him to make it look like an accident not knowing about the boy's allergy."
"Well Murdoch," said Brackenreid, "It seems your spook was right, this boy was murdered. You've got your investigation get on it."
Dr. Ogden looked at Murdoch.
"Spook?" she asked quirking an eyebrow.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Julia" replied Murdoch
"Try me," she said as she washed her hands. Murdoch took a deep breath and proceeded to tell her the whole story of his midnight encounter with an apparent disembodied voice. Julia didn't accuse of being daft but he couldn't tell if she actually believed his story or not.
A few minutes later…
Murdoch stood in his office looking at the bottle fragments. He and Constable Crabtree had begun the painstaking task of piecing them together. Most high end liquors came in their own distinctive bottles. Knowing the brand of liquor might help them and it might not, but at this point they didn't have much to lose.
After a better than an hour of work on their monumental task the stopped to take a break.
"Sir," said Crabtree, "What makes you so sure that it wasn't a ghost?"
"Because of something the voice said," Replied Murdoch, "He said 'I'm quite invisible to your eyes' that leads me to believe he was there in the room with me I simply couldn't see him."
"But how could a human being be invisible?" Asked Crabtree
"Now there my certainty stops," Replied Murdoch, "I'm not sure that the voice was human!"
TO BE CONTINUED…
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