Dear Reader: Now—be honest—did you see that coming? I confess…I dunnit! I just could not let James Gillies live to become a sociopathic murderer and torture our heroes in any A/U of mine…. But did he kill Marguerite? Or didn't he?… & Where does that leave the suspect list?

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Chapter 11

The commotion brought nearly everyone charging to the second floor, where each person took in events with varying amounts of disgust and disbelief. Higgins barely recovered his dignity, and his pants, in time to greet them. Still breathing heavily as people crowded around, the constable brought every ounce of authority he could muster to his command: "Everyone out!"

He asked for the lamps that Nurse Ogden and Mr. Brackenreid were carrying and put them into the small room so he and Jackson could reconnoiter. Unlike their exploration of Miss Brown's death, this was clearly a legitimate crime scene. James Gillies was fully dressed and splayed on the commode, a large gash in his head pronouncing the cause of death. There was no weapon evident.

Jackson took his colleague aside and whispered. "Er… Higgins, who do you think did this to him?"

"I have no idea." Higgins answered. "We can't just leave him there…It's undignified and the space is too narrow to work in." He suppressed another shudder about his encounter with the corpse.

William finished his offering of prayer and refocused on the scene in front of him. The two constables looked at each other for a long time, obviously flummoxed by this turn of events. Catching the eye of his trio of compatriots, each of whom nodded in return, William made a small noise to get everyone's attention.

"Gentleman, if I may. I think we need to take care of another matter first." William said clearly and calmly, as he checked his watch and put it carefully back in his vest. "Constables, I suggest we need to determine if there is someone else in this establishment we don't know about. Perhaps Mr. Brackenreid, as a representative of authority by virtue of his past police experience and as ex-alderman, will systematically search with Constable Jackson, starting in the attic, for instance? " He paused to test how his suggestion was being received. "I think everyone else needs to be gathered up and sequestered in a public area, perhaps?"

Higgins thought about it for a second and agreed it was a sound idea. "And then we can make notes on the body and move it?..." he continued.

William shifted his gaze. "Perhaps to Miss Brown's room on the third floor? Mr. Crabtree could get some blankets to use as a stretcher so we can get Mr. Gillies up there. And then Nurse Ogden can look at the wound for you if you like," William said, with Julia nodding encouragingly.

Neither Higgins nor Jackson were completely comfortable about accepting the help of potential suspects, but their resources were limited. Higgins took Brackenreid aside. "Sir, this seems most irregular," indicating with a gesture the whole tableau.

The older man chuckled. "I have found, in my experience, constable, that when there is a great problem ahead of you, it helps to enlist the smartest man in the room." Brackenreid gestured with his head to William, who was standing where he could observe everything.

Higgins coughed, finding the waver in his voice had not completely passed. He declared: "All right then. As long as either myself or Constable Jackson accompanies you and observes what you are doing, I think that you can help us start sorting this out. Please don't touch anything else: this is all evidence of a crime." No one argued with him.

George whispered to William before splitting up for their tasks. "I wonder what the other two of us found upstairs?" indicating Julia and Brackenreid.

"Yes." William countered, eyes narrowed in concentration. "I don't believe in coincidences."

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Moving the body to the third floor was harder than expected, but James Gillies was finally placed on the floor of Marguerite's room. Once alone with his corpse, Julia gave a brief summary to Constable Higgins of her observations: a single blow to the head with what was likely a piece of wood, as evidenced by no blood cast off marks and some wood particles in the wound and on the victim's clothing. It did not help that practically everyone there handled wood that evening—so slivers or scrapes or sawdust on hands or clothing was useless as evidence. Considering how many fires were burning in various stoves and hearths and the kitchen, disposal of the weapon was also likely to have already been accomplished, but Higgins planned to take the time to look in each fire and each wood pile.

"Constable? May I have a word?" Julia asked. She hesitated a moment, but decided holding back this one portion of what she and Brackenreid discovered was ill-advised. "I was wondering if you would take a look at this with me?" She motioned Higgins over to Marguerite's body and showed him the bricks, illuminating her work by bringing the lamp over more closely.

He listened carefully. "So if Miss Brown was kept warm, then she could have died much earlier than originally thought. I am aware that temperature can be altered, and that the cold surrounding Mr. Gillies also throws any calculation off." He speculated about what else Nurse Ogden could add, and then discarded that. These deaths were tragic and as much as Higgins wanted to solve them, he also knew he needed to have good evidence and to follow procedures.

He ordered her down to the ground floor, closed and locked the door, and followed her to the stairs. As a constable, he had assisted at any number of crime scenes and picked up a trick or two, but the detectives he worked under never had much of a spark, tending to share little in the way of insights or innovation. Probably jealously guarding their positions, he groused to himself. Then he sighed and wondered, not for the first time, what he thought he was playing at. For God's Sake!...This one happened right under our noses. Higgins tried very hard to focus on his duty, rather than on worrying that his and Jackson's careers were about to implode.

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Once again, William, Julia, Brackenreid and George were by the service bar, talking in low tones. Five other people huddled by the hearth in the common room, the three remaining students surrounded a table nearest the stove in the dining room, and Mrs. Kitchen took a place at another table where she brought some apples to peel and crust to make and roll. Higgins and Jackson, feeling utterly at sea, retreated to their own corner where they would not overheard to sort out what they knew …More to the point, what we don't know, thought Henry.

"Is this one accident and one murder, or two murders by separate individuals?" Jackson pondered.

Higgins was thinking out loud also. "It is hard to believe that there would be two separate, unconnected murders, and two separate murderers. In all my years I have never seen that before." He blushed briefly at the idea he should be talking like an old timer. "We need a motive."

"Motive indeed," Jackson echoed. Both officers shared a glance and sat back, contemplating two groups of people, currently the remaining suspects, within their scope of vision.

"Say…where did Mr. Brackenreid and Nurse Ogden come from? I did not see them downstairs," Higgins asked.

Jackson answered. "I didn't see them either. We will have to ask. Henry, we have more questions than answers."

He finished Jackson's thought. "Starting with how these deaths are related."

"If we take Mrs. Kitchen's word for things, I don't see where Mr. Crabtree had motive, despite having opportunity, to harm Miss Brown or Mr. Gillies. Even if he quote, 'Kills people for fun, dear, in those stories he writes,' unquote," Jackson read from his notes. "Mr. Brackenreid and I checked everywhere. We found no one and no evidenced of someone else being at the Inn. There was no indication the back door had been opened, in fact between the blowing and drifting snow it would be hard to see any foot prints. The door was nearly snowed-in, however, so as far as I can tell no one came in or out to harm Mr. Gillies. That does not cover Miss Brown's demise however." He grimaced and ran his hands through his hair. "Speaking of Mr. Crabtree, this does start to sound like one of those penny-dreadful stories of his."

Higgins shared the frustration. "I told you that Nurse Ogden showed me how Miss Brown's time of death might have been earlier than was first thought. At least Mr. Brackenreid doesn't seem to have had motive or opportunity. Nor the people who blew in with them from the trolley, since no one can place any of them above the ground floor before the discovery of Miss Brown or during the time when young Mr. Gillies died."

"So if they could not have been implicated for harming Miss Brown, which I still think is going to turn out to be a terrible accident, we need to consider what motive someone might have to harm Mr. Gillies," Jackson followed the logic. "Who does that leave us? One of the other students?"

Higgins frowned and flipped though his notes. "I have another thought. That teacher, Mr. Murdoch—he had an argument with Miss Brown. He had access to her and Mr. Gillies, and could have been alone with Mr. Gillies and unobserved during the time when the student was likely killed. What if Mr. Murdoch did do something to the girl and Mr. Gillies figured it out? Or figured out the reason for the argument? His classmates, even Mr. Murdoch, commented on how bright a student he was—gave his teacher a run for the money in class." He tried to imagine what his detective at Station House No 4 would do at this juncture in an investigation, and waved distractedly to Mrs. Kitchen who pantomimed putting pie in the oven, while the two men contemplated their situation.

Jackson squared his shoulders and sat up abruptly. "Speaking of money—is that a motive? Maybe Mr. Murdoch dipped into his wards' estate to manage his debts and Miss Brown discovered it—and was going to tell."

"And he was so insistent Miss Brown's death must be an unfortunate accident." Higgins was getting a little excited. "He also knew that we wanted to talk with Mr. Gillies again."

Jackson scratched his head, his big bluff face wrinkling. "But if all of that is true, why has he been so helpful?"

"Mr. Murdoch is supposed to be so smart himself—maybe he has been pretending to be helpful just as a way to dirty the water for us." Higgins felt his neck flush and his skin prickle uncomfortably. I wonder if Jackson and I have been taken for fools, he thought. He looked towards the bar and at the soberly-clad, supposedly upright teacher in a whole new light.

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