Sprawled face upwards on the verandah,
lay the body of an elderly man, his head
resting slightly against the door post. There
seemed to be no one around but a lean black
hound which paced the verandah, watching
the intruder’s every movement.

Lucas was a natural detective. In addition,
he had served four years on the San Fran-
cisco police force before he came to Sumas
City. He approached carefully, taking in
every detail of the scene. He soon made
friends with the dog, and then he bent over
the dead man. A swarthiness betrayed his
Latin ancestry—but it was a swarthiness
paled by death. There was a bullet hole in
the forehead, just above the eyes, and bluish
powder burns circled the wound.

“Close quarters,” muttered Lucas.

The man was dressed in rough work
clothes, and on his feet were a pair of home
made slippers. And then Lucas noticed
something else. On the verandah near the
left hand trouser pocket lay a purse. The
Marshal picked it up and checked the con-
tents—a ten dollar bill and forty cents in
silver. He replaced the contents and put
the purse back as he found it. As he did
so, he noticed a tobacco pipe lying in the
crook of the dead man’s folded arm.

“Anyone around,” called Lucas, as he
peered into the cabin’s intertor. The silence
was only broken by the faint whimper of
the ownerless dog, and the uneven drip of
rain from the overhanging eaves.

Stepping across the threshold, the Mar-
‘shal looked around the cabin’s interior. A
plain kitchen table was laid for a meal—a
meal for two which had apparently been
finished. In the middle of the table was a
coal oil lamp, still burning. There was
bread and butter, and the remains of some
meat and potatoes. The only thing out of
order was a chair, tipped over backwards.
There was no evidence to the casual observer
that the cabin had been ransacked or
searched.

TOURIST HEADQUARTERS

ARLINGTON HOTEL

A. A. Ercolini, Manager
Hunting and Fishing Information
Phone 231
P. O. Box 39 Alberni, B. C.

“Queer,” thought Lucas. “If he was
murdered, why did the murderer leave the
purse. Or if he committed suicide—where’s
the weapon?” He looked around and found
only an unloaded Winchester rifle hanging
on the wall. He took it down and examined
it. It hadn’t been fired for some time.

Lucas was puzzled, however there was
nothing to do but wait for the arrival of the
Provincial Police. His visit served an impor-
tant purpose. Attracted by morbid curi-
osity, an occasional townsman came along
the bush trail to peer at the building and
the grisly occupant of the porch, but Lucas
permitted no one to enter the house, not
even on to the verandah.

B. C. PoLicE ARRIVE

A little after two in the afternoon, Chief
Constable Wm. Moresby of the B. C. Police
arrived on the scene, accompanied by the
Coroner, and a trapper named Airheart. It
was Airheart who had discovered Marshall’s
body at 5:30 that morning. He had heard
dogs barking, and thinking there was a
bear in one of his traps, he investigated.
Finding the trap empty, he then went to
Marshall’s cabin. He hadn’t entered the
building, he just took one brief look at the
corpse and hastened off to Huntingdon to
wire the police at New Westminster.

Moresby, a veteran of twenty-five years
in the B. C. Police, was grateful to Lucas
for looking after things until he arrived,
and he quickly assured the Marshal that
his further assistance would be welcomed.
With the coroner, the officers made a closer
examination of the body, and made the
startling discovery that Marshall had been
shot twice—once through the forehead, and
once through the back of the neck at the
base of the brain. There were powder
burns around each wound, indicating that
the weapon had been held at close range.
Little of value was found on the clothing
and the body was removed to Huntingdon.

Turning next to the interior of the cabin,
Moresby first extinguished the lamp on the
table, noting the time and the quantity of
oil remaining. Then he and Lucas made
a thorough search of the building. In the
bedroom under some sacks of grain, the
Chief Constable found a purse containing
$90.00 in bills, and in a tea chest on one of
the shelves, Lucas found a buckskin bag
containing four twenty-dollar gold pieces.

This evidence seemed to set aside one
motive—robbery. The two officers came to
the conclusion that Marshall had been killed
on the previous evening. Had he lit the
lamp in the darkness of the early morning,
reasoned Moresby, he would have put on his
work boots or gum boots. The slippers
indicated the end of a day’s work. And
then there were the remains of meat and
potatoes on the table—hardly a breakfast
meal.

Returning to Huntingdon, the two officers
watched the doctor probe out two bullets
from the body. They were apparently .38
calibre revolver bullets, and it seemed that
each had a distinctive score visible on the
limited surface, for they had battered against
bone structure. The doctor gave it as his
opinion that the bullet fired from the rear
caused instantaneous death by severing the
spinal column.

The inquest was set for Saturday, April
22nd.

Moresby and Lucas held a council of war;
for there would have to be some intensive
enquiries, and without delay. Moresby, the
veteran, knew that Lucas would be invalu-
able with his local knowledge. Little did he
know how valuable an assistant his Ameri-
can colleague would prove.

First of all they had to find out who last
saw Marshall alive. Were any shots heard
on Wednesday evening? Did Marshall’s
dog bark that night? Who had eaten the
last meal with the old man, and what
interrupted it? There were plenty of blanks
to fill in.

THE First CLUE

The afternoon was drawing to a close
when they got their first lead. A Hunting-
don resident named William Porter had
been doing some ditching near Marshall's
place on Wednesday afternoon. He told
Moresby that about two p.m. on Wednes-
day, young Al Stroebel had come from

Phones: Port Alberni 440, Nanaimo 253

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Port Alberni, British Columbia

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Page Twenty-eight

THE SHOULDER STRAP