Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries) (5 page)

Bradshaw opened a door to an empty room on the front of the house and crossed to the window. He saw his son and Paul digging, Mrs. Prouty reading under an umbrella, and his students launching a kite into the air. Missouri was not with them.

They returned to Hornsby’s office where they found the doctor in his white suit, looking as if he’d not slept much.

Sensing the doctor would appreciate a businesslike approach to keep his emotions at bay, Bradshaw launched directly into his investigation. He asked the deputy for the door key, and after opening it as he had the night before with his fingertips, he pulled his magnifying glass from his pocket to inspect the glass knobs on both sides of the door. The pristine flat planes of the cut glass on the outer knob sparkled with reflected light. He detected a faint whiff of vinegar.

“How often are the doorknobs cleaned, Dr. Hornsby?”

“Daily. Every morning by seven, when we have guests. Abigail was here cleaning this morning, but she only cleaned that outer knob.”

Bradshaw aimed his magnifying glass at the inner knob with slightly more hope. Smudges dulled the reflection of several flat surfaces. He’d need more light to see if distinct fingerprints were visible.

“Abigail hasn’t cleaned that knob since Monday.”

Monday. The morning of David’s death. He asked for more light, and Hornsby produced one of the lanterns from the previous evening. The light shining up through the glass revealed two muddled prints, one on top, likely a thumb, the other on a lower right facet, likely an index finger. But they were layered, one print on top of another, and impossible to separate. The prints told him only that since Abigail had cleaned the knob Monday morning prior to seven, only right-handed visitors had turned the knob. He vividly recalled that Arnold Loomis was left-handed.

He took the light to his electrotherapy outfit.

“Before David’s session on Monday morning, when had the machine last been used?”

“I don’t give treatments on Sundays, so it would have been the day before that, Saturday, on Mr. Thompson, the only other guest undergoing electrotherapy.”

“What time Saturday?”

“Ten in the morning. We finished at half-past the hour.”

“Between half-past ten on Saturday, and David’s session on Monday at—?”

“At about a quarter of ten, it was supposed to be earlier, but Martha sent him up to the garden for blueberries, so he was delayed.”

“For those intervening hours, was this room used? Did anyone other than you or David enter?”

“Mrs. Thompson came to speak to me Monday morning, before David arrived. She didn’t enter, though. She stood in the open doorway.”

“On Sunday evening, Doctor, did you observe the phenomenon of the glowing sand?”

“Glowing sand? Oh, yes. I’d nearly forgotten. Seems a lifetime ago.”

“Did you go out and walk in the sand?”

“Certainly, we all did. All the staff and patients. It’s very rare to see that phosphorescent glow. I’d only seen it once before myself. It actually sparked when you kicked it. We were like children out there playing. David had us all laughing….”

“Pardon me? Glowing sand?” The deputy leaned forward.

Dr. Hornsby said, “It’s a marine phenomenon, rare this far north. The crest of waves glow with bluish light, and the wet sand emits a blue glow when you walk on it.”

“I’ll be damned. I’d like to have seen that. I was in Aberdeen on Monday night. What makes it glow?”

Hornsby said, “Some sort of phosphor in the water, I believe. Is that right, Professor?”

“That’s what’s commonly believed,” he said, sticking to his habit of not muddying an investigation by adding previously unknown facts. The truth was more complicated than simple phosphor. The glow was created by ocean plankton. Always present, when the conditions were right, they experienced enormous blooms. The action of the waves and the impact upon the sand triggered the tiny creatures to glow in a process known as bioluminescence.

Hornsby’s brow suddenly furrowed, and then he gasped with a sharp intake. “The glowing sand, Professor, it didn’t affect the apparatus here, did it? Is there some electrical aspect to it? It sparked!” Panic filled his voice. “Should I have not have performed an electrotherapy treatment so close to such an event?”

“No, Doctor Hornsby. The glowing sand did not alter your equipment.”

Even so, tears rolled silently down Hornsby’s cheeks and welled in his mustache.

“We will discover the truth of what happened here, but it will be difficult for you.”

Hornsby nodded. “That doesn’t matter. Whatever you need, I’ll do.”

“First, tell me. Was David in here alone at any time?”

“The sheriff asked me that, too. He was alone for a few minutes that morning. As I said, Mrs. Thompson had come to speak to me. Freddie, her husband, had a severe bilious attack during the night and was still feeling poorly. I went to see him, and determined his usual treatment might improve his condition, so I escorted him back to my office and got him settled there. By then, David was here waiting for me. During that time, I suppose it’s possible he tampered with the settings, but probable? No! Why would he? And you said you saw nothing wrong.”

“But David was killed, and so we know something went terribly wrong.”

“But I can’t believe he’d do anything so foolish, and I couldn’t live with myself if I falsely blamed David for his own death. He was a good man, devoted to my daughter. I loved him like he was my own son.”

“I understand. But I still must ask you what David knew of electrical matters.”

“Quite a bit, although he wasn’t a trained electrician. His knowledge was all practical. He was very clever. You’ll see for yourself when you visit the powerhouse and laundry. He knew enough to never have done anything to harm himself or others.”

“Can you say with complete certainty that nothing had been altered on the machine when you entered the room?”

“No! If only I could, this tragedy would never have occurred. If I’d seen it had been touched, I would not have continued with the procedure! I looked at the machine, as I always do, and I saw nothing unexpected. I didn’t examine the entire outfit, you understand, or open the panel. Why would I? I’ve kept up on the maintenance, and I knew the Leyden jars had adequate saline solution. I looked at it in the usual way with my mind on the procedure and saw that the settings were as they should be for administering autocondensation. My eye met nothing unusual and yet I can’t say for certain now what I saw.”

Bradshaw spent the next half hour running standard tests on the individual components and found all in perfect working order. He asked Dr. Hornsby and the deputy to stand back at a safe distance, then he threw the knife switch, energizing the machine. At once it began to thrum, and a tiny spark buzzed across the narrow gap of the spark interrupter. The glass electrode wand that Bradshaw had attached by cord to the diathermy post glowed purple. He touched the tip of it with his knuckles, feeling a slight stinging buzz, then he picked it up, shook back his cuff to expose his wrist, and applied the end to his skin. He felt a pricking heat, and smelled the sharpness of ozone. He glanced at Hornsby and saw him shaking his head, his eyes wide.

“I understand you weren’t using diathermy on David, I’m simply checking the output.”

“It’s not that, Professor. It’s the sound. The sound is different. It was different.”

“The sound emitted by the spark interrupter you mean? How so?”

“Now it sounds as it usually does. Crackling, and with that small bright arc. But with David that morning, it was different, more like a hiss. And the arc flamed.”

Hornsby’s confused expression showed his lack of understanding, but Bradshaw’s chest tightened. He knew what that change in sound indicated. He unplugged the machine, discharged the Leyden jars, then examined the interior closely. Using a magnifying glass he examined the insulating space between the primary and secondary coils, then he went over every inch of the Leyden jars, spotting two inconclusive darkish smudges on the outer foil and the connecting posts of the caps.

He straightened, leaving the machine open.

“Doctor, would you step into your office, please? Leave the door ajar. Have a seat, and when I tell you to, please listen carefully.”

Hornsby did as asked without question, for which Bradshaw was grateful. He was about to attempt to replicate what had happened to David Hollister and it was unnecessary for Hornsby to put himself through it. It would be enough that from the adjoining room he would be able to hear the sound of the spark gap.

Deputy Mitchell rubbed his chin, looking uncomfortable. “Where do you want me, Professor?”

“In the doorway is fine if you want to observe.”

The deputy took up a position in the door where he could see both Bradshaw and Hornsby.

From his electric kit, Bradshaw found a length of copper wire, and he stood for a moment considering it. He glanced around the room at Hornsby’s electrotherapeutic supplies, searching for something of the right size and conductivity. The electrodes and knives all possessed insulated handles. A small spool of copper or a roll of sheet block tin would suit his need, and many physicians who worked on their own machines and fashioned their own instruments possessed them. He stepped to the doorway and asked Hornsby about them.

Hornsby shook his head. “I don’t keep wire or tin in here. David has those in the washhouse. If I ever needed anything, I’d simply ask him.”

“I see. Thank you.”

He returned to the open cabinet of the outfit and positioned the copper wire across the Leyden jars in a manner that shorted the path of the current passing through them. With a glance to the doorway to see that the deputy wasn’t paying attention, he pulled the patty pan squash from his pocket, and inserted a small electrode into the flesh to ensure a current path. He turned the machine’s dials to the autocondensation settings, soaked the felt pad in salt water and placed it over the squash on the therapy chair, which he also attached to the machine. His last step was to wire an ammeter into the circuit to measure the current. When all was in readiness, he screwed the plug into the light socket and threw the knife switch. The spark gap produced a glowing, hissing flame, distinctly different from the earlier crackling spark. He heard a gasp from the other room. The ammeter registered a lethal amperage. The felt pad steamed.

David Hollister would have been dead almost instantly. With a small tremor, and perhaps a silent gasp. Or an attempt to gasp. His heart would have stopped, irrevocably damaged.

Bradshaw cut the knife switch and slipped the warm patty pan into his pocket before asking Dr. Hornsby to return. The deputy stepped aside to allow Hornsby, pale and trembling, to enter.

Bradshaw asked, “Did you recognize the sound?”

“Yes, that was it exactly. What did you do?”

In short-circuiting the capacitor, he’d sent a fatal current from the coil directly to the electrodes, but he hesitated explaining this to Hornsby. He unattached the ammeter, weighing the disclosing of information against the gathering of further testimony. It was Hornsby’s devastated eyes that decided him. He had no evidence, but he didn’t believe Dr. Hornsby was to blame.

He could perhaps lessen some of the doctor’s overwhelming feeling of guilt by revealing this fact with a partial disclosure. “I altered the configuration, increasing the current to the electrodes.”

“I don’t understand. How could it have made that sound when I ran it? Can it do that all by itself, spontaneously?”

Not if the machine was in good working order, which it was. He said simply, “No.”

Hornsby began to tremble. “I thought—I noticed the sound—but I thought it was simply operating efficiently. It sounded so smooth. I didn’t know it might mean—”

Hornsby sat heavily, dropping his head into his hands. For several minutes, throat painfully tight with emotion, Bradshaw pondered the implication of the change in the spark interrupter’s sound emission, while Dr. Hornsby was swept by grief and Deputy Mitchell stared out the window at the ocean.

When Hornsby’s sobs quieted, he whispered in horror, “But who? Why?”

Bradshaw said, “It could not have been David. The evidence has been removed.”

The deputy’s head snapped around.

Bradshaw said, “It would be best to keep this to ourselves for now. The sheriff must be told, of course, but no one else.” The deputy nodded his understanding, but Hornsby was too stunned to respond.

“Dr. Hornsby, I must ask you to mention this to no one, not even your wife.”

“Not Miriam?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to tell her.”

“Safe? Oh, yes, of course. I’ll keep her safe. Not a word.”

“Good. Now, tell me. What happened next. After the incident?”

Hornsby took a deep breath. “I went into my office. Mr. Thompson was still there, waiting for his session. He asked me what was wrong. I frightened him, I think. I must have been a sight. I told him there’d been a terrible accident and to go get Mrs. Hornsby. He did so. And Martha came…after awhile, after I administered a sedative to Martha, and my wife got her to bed, I locked the door. I left to report what had happened. The tide was high, so I walked to Copalis. By the time I arrived, the tide had dropped, and I got a ride the rest of the way, with the mail. I wired you from Hoquiam after I talked to the coroner. The sheriff and deputy and coroner returned with me.”