ACT IV

(FADE IN. Inside the house, in the office. The office is as it was on the day of the murder, but without the body and without any overt signs of blood or that any crime had occurred there. The office doors are closed. A large box of sand rests on the desk. There are some grains of sand that seem to have splashed out of the box onto the desk, and the surface of the sand seems to have been disturbed. CRABTREE holds a gun against a pillow. CRABTREE fires a shot through the pillow into the box of sand. The shot disturbs the sand and some sand is ejected from the box. The gunshot noise [SFX] is loud, but not as loud as an unmuffled shot.)

MURDOCH'S VOICE (yelling, offscreen)
Again, George! But this time—

CRABTREE (yelling in answer)
Understood, sir!

(CRABTREE cocks the pistol, holds it against the pillow, and aims at the box.)

CRABTREE (screaming loudly like a woman)
Yaaaah!

(While screaming, CRABTREE fires a shot through the pillow into the box of sand. Again, the shot disturbs the sand and some sand is ejected from the box. The gunshot noise [SFX] is heard over the scream. Moments later, MURDOCH and BRIGGS, after opening the door, enter the office from the dining room.)

BRIGGS
I heard both of those shots as well, in the kitchen.

MURDOCH
And I heard them both, in the library. Screaming did not drown out the second shot. The noise of the first shot sounded to me almost exactly like the noise we heard: moderately loud that it would attract attention, but not immediately recognizable as a gunshot. (Sighs.) I'm afraid that I must abandon two of my theories.

BRIGGS (interested)
Which were, may I ask—?

MURDOCH
In one scenario, the shooting took place before George and I arrived. Some of the guests had seen Mr. Tate in this office before we arrived. I wondered whether someone, Mr. Smithson, say, might have shot Mr. Tate, at a time earlier than we had thought.

CRABTREE
If that had happened, the guests would have heard that loud sound earlier than they actually did.

MURDOCH
Yes, or they would have reported hearing two noises, one being the real shot that killed Tate, and a later noise being some sort of false gunshot. Of course no one remembered two such noises, and it makes no sense that people would investigate the second strange noise but ignore the first.

BRIGGS
And your other theory?

MURDOCH
That the noise we thought was a shot was not really a shot, and that Mrs. West actually shot Mr. Tate when she, er, discovered his body.

BRIGGS (getting it)
And screamed to cover the noise of the actual shot. Clever.

MURDOCH
Except: if that first noise that drew everyone's attention was not a shot, what was it? Also, as we just demonstrated, if Mrs. West had fired a shot while screaming, screaming would not cover the gunshot noise. So once again, that would mean there would be two distinct noises, which no witness reported hearing. We know that the use of the pillow softened the noise of the shot, but did not silence it.

BRIGGS
The pillow made it just so the shot couldn't be immediately identified for what it was.

MURDOCH
Yes. It seems clear from this evidence that there was only one noise, and the noise we heard was that of Mr. Tate actually being shot.

BRIGGS (wryly)
Well, I guess my alibi continues to be quite solid, then.

MURDOCH
Hmm.

BRIGGS
Oh, did you check into what I said about the cottage on Lake Ontario?

CRABTREE (uncomfortably)
Yes, I did. It seems that Mr. Tate had a rather nice cottage built for himself. The people who built it are somewhat upset; apparently nobody was paid a cent for any of the work.

BRIGGS
No, that's not true! Mr. Tate discharged their debts to him, nearly four hundred dollars' worth!

CRABTREE (mumbling)
And in return he got a cottage worth at least twice that.

MURDOCH
Mr. Briggs, this door (indicating the door to the hallway), you say it is always locked?

BRIGGS
From the hallway side, yes, but you can open it from this side.

(MURDOCH pulls open the door from the office side. MURDOCH tests the knob from the hallway side. The door is locked, the knob will not turn.)

MURDOCH (playing with the lock, but not unlocking it)
How many keys are there?

BRIGGS
Just mine and Mr. Tate's.

MURDOCH
May I use your key, please?

(BRIGGS extracts a keyring holding five keys and swings one unusually-shaped key up from the set, then hands the set to MURDOCH. MURDOCH uses the key to unlock the mechanism from the hallway side. The lock is a bit stubborn, but eventually opens with a soft "clack" [SFX]. MURDOCH re-locks the door, and again the lock is stubborn, there is a much louder and somewhat different-sounding "clack" [SFX], startling MURDOCH. MURDOCH hastily examines the other keys on the keyring; they are all different lengths from the hallway key and obviously would not fit the lock.)

BRIGGS (warily)
You think the killer used MY key?

MURDOCH
No. (MURDOCH checks the door. From the hallway side, the door is locked. MURDOCH continues to examine the door.) If the killer had used your key, the killer would have to have had some opportunity to return it to you. There was no such opportunity.

CRABTREE (producing a keyring with several keys)
This is Mr. Tate's set of keys, sir. He had them on his person when he died.

(MURDOCH compares a key received from CRABTREE to the key received from BRIGGS; they look the same. MURDOCH returns the original set of keys to BRIGGS. The keys dangle from BRIGGS's hand. MURDOCH tries the key from CRABTREE; the key opens the lock with a soft "clack" [SFX]. MURDOCH re-locks the door with a louder "clack" [SFX].)

BRIGGS (again wary)
Do you think Mr. Tate's key was used?

MURDOCH (cocking an eyebrow)
There would be no reason for Mr. Tate to give a key to anyone, would there, Mr. Briggs?

(BRIGGS seems thrown off-balance by the question, but MURDOCH goes on before BRIGGS can reply.)

MURDOCH (maintaining his focus on BRIGGS)
To answer your question: no, I do not think anyone used either your key or Mr. Tate's key to enter this door.

(BRIGGS seems relieved, but not completely so. MURDOCH examines the door a bit more, and is puzzled. CRABTREE motions to BRIGGS, to ask BRIGGS whether CRABTREE can see the keys dangling from BRIGGS's hand. While BRIGGS is engaged with CRABTREE, MURDOCH closes the door, but he has to give it a bit of a shove to get the lock to engage with a soft click [SFX]. CUT TO: A TEA ROOM, where MURDOCH and OGDEN are seated, enjoying cups of tea.)

OGDEN
William, try to relax.

MURDOCH
I am. Trying. To relax.

OGDEN (Coyly)
Shall I solve this case for you?

MURDOCH (Off guard)
I—

OGDEN
From what you've told me, there seems to be a clear solution. (Pause.) They're all lying. They're all in it together. Every one of them hated this man Tate and so they all decided to kill him and to give each other alibis. Think about it: How many of the guests did you and George actually see at the time of the shot?

MURDOCH
Just one. Mr. Smithson.

OGDEN
So the only person whom you know for certain did not shoot Tate is Smithson. Smithson could have been given the job of keeping an eye on you and George, or distracting you and George, while one of the others—

(OGDEN feels no need to explain her theory any further.)

MURDOCH (mildly impressed)
It's an intriguing theory. But it would assume a carefully planned conspiracy involving up to nine people. Unfortunately, we have evidence that these people were all essentially strangers to one another, and we have no evidence that these people all got together to plan anything before that day. And if the plan was to give everybody an alibi, why didn't they explicitly vouch for Mr. Crawford, the way they did for the others? There's also the question of how they could have known in advance—

OGDEN (seeing her theory has difficulties)
Never mind. Never mind.

MURDOCH (smiling)
It IS an interesting theory, Julia; but— for one thing— it's too complex. The larger a conspiracy, the harder it is to keep the conspiracy a secret. Let me offer you a simpler scenario. Besides Mr. Crawford, there was one other person who was unseen at the time of the shooting: Mr. Ross. Now, Mr. Ross says he was in the washroom, and Mr. Pascal says he saw Mr. Ross go into the washroom. But what if Mr. Pascal lied about Mr. Ross's whereabouts, and Mr. Ross actually committed the crime?

(This scenario makes perfect sense to OGDEN. She brightens up.)

OGDEN
That's brilliant! And that conspiracy requires the participation of only two people, Ross and Pascal, instead of everyone!

MURDOCH
A conspiracy of two is more likely to be kept secret than is a conspiracy of eight or nine.

OGDEN
The washroom could have been empty, and Mr. Ross could have been hiding in the office, or maybe he could have entered the office from the dining room without being noticed. He committed the crime, exited out the hallway door, and joined everyone else.

MURDOCH
Yes. Now, is it a plausible scenario? (Shakes his head.) No. Mr. Ross could not physically have committed the crime. His left hand was seriously injured while he was in jail recently, which a jailer in Markham has confirmed. Mr. Ross's hand was dressed and was almost useless. It seems fairly certain that the killer, whoever he was, needed two good hands: one to hold the pillow, and the other to fire the gun.

OGDEN
Someone, one or more of them, must be guilty.

MURDOCH
I ask myself: which? And: how do I prove it?

(Constable HIGGINS enters, sees MURDOCH and rushes up to MURDOCH.)

HIGGINS
Pardon me, sir, (tips hat to OGDEN), Doctor, (turns back to MURDOCH) but Crawford has been arrested for assault.

(It is surprising news. MURDOCH rises, and hastily puts payment on the table before going with HIGGINS. OGDEN rises as well.)

HIGGINS
Seems he injured a man rather seriously. Says the other man was trying to rob him, and he acted in self-defence.

MURDOCH
(To OGDEN) Forgive me, Julia; until tonight. (To HIGGINS) Is Mr. Crawford in our custody?

HIGGINS
No, Station Two has him.

MURDOCH (More to himself than to HIGGINS)
Rob him? Did Mr. Crawford somehow come into some money?

(FADE OUT.)