Investigator: Dr. Magdalena Murphy

Specialty: Biology, Medicine

Dahlia was horrified by the corpse in the graveyard—it wasn’t underground like all the others. The dried flowers fell from her gloved hands, landing softly in the fresh snow. At first she gasped, struggling to breath, then she let out a shrill shriek. After a minute to steel her nerves, Dahlia stepped closer, pacing in a slow circle to get a better look, snow crunching underfoot.

It was the body of a cloaked man. His skin was blue from the cold, frost on his face near his eyes and mouth. He had been wearing an old backpack. The man’s side was bloody, and he left a red trail in the snow for about twenty feet’s worth of staggered footsteps. There were no other footsteps around him, just a blank canvas of untouched snow.

The groundskeeper of the graveyard, a hale old man, appeared from around the bend. “Is everything all right over here? Oh God, is he… he’s frozen solid.”

“I just found him like this,” said Dahlia.

“That’s a lot of blood,” said the groundskeeper. He had removed his hat and was twisting it in his hands.

“We should call the constabulary, don’t you think?” said Dahlia.

“Yes, of course,” said the groundskeeper. “They’ll know what to do.”

Dahlia noticed a woman on the hill nearby, wrapped in a thick, black coat, and peering curiously over the edge. She slipped in the slick snow, and tumbled down, rolling head over heels through the powder. Dahlia and the groundskeeper shared a concerned glance. The woman popped back up out of the snow and patted it off of her front and back, then strode closer. She waved and smiled.

“Hello!” she said. “Is that what it looks like?”

“We just got here,” said Dahlia.

“Who is he?” said the woman.

“I’m not sure,” said Dahlia.

The groundskeeper shrugged and shook his head.

“Catastrophic blood loss,” said the woman. She was speaking more to herself than to Dahlia and the groundskeeper. “Looks like a wound to the side, was it inflicted last night? Was he shot?”

“A gunshot?” said the groundskeeper. “I didn’t hear anything last night, and I live right over there.”

“But, that’s odd, his attacker didn’t leave any footprints,” said the woman. She stepped close to the body and knelt down, reaching for the bloodied cloak. “Nobody approaching, and nobody departing.”

“Hey, hey, do you really think you should be touching?” said the groundskeeper.

“Oh, I’m allowed, I do it all the time,” said the woman. “Magdalena Murphy, nice to meet you. I work for the Detecting Company.”

“Terry Plundell,” said the groundskeeper. “Detecting Company?” He peered at her skeptically. “How’d you get here so fast?”

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“Oh, I was just visiting some old friends when I heard the two of you,” said Magdalena. “My curiosity got the best of me.”

Dahlia thought of the stories she had heard of the Detecting Company. They could untangle any mystery. She distinctly recalled the tale of Lord Elmstone’s kidnapping and ensuing rescue—apparently, one of the Detecting Company investigators had deduced Elmstone’s whereabouts over a cup of morning coffee. Terry had heard stories too, that some investigators never slept, and they could sniff out blood like hounds.

Magdalena touched the cloak with gloved hands. “Lots of blood, but where’s the hole?” She shifted the cloak, pulling it up to inspect the cold skin, finding the frozen wound. It was a thin wound, yet it had produced an inordinate amount of blood. His skin was spotted with light bruises. “It doesn’t look like a ballistic wound, no, I’m certain it’s not. Time of death is hard to say in the cold, though I’m pretty sure it stopped snowing at eight o’clock last night, so he couldn’t have died until afterward.”

Dahlia noticed the lack of snowfall on the dead man’s back, and the crispness of his bootprints. He had started staggering and trailing blood in the snow briefly before collapsing. She imagined a midnight walk through the graveyard, and the bite of an apparitional blade. She imagined a killer that left no footprints.

A shadow fell over Terry’s face. “Something is very wrong about this. A man walks around the graveyard alone at night, and someone, or something, cuts him down without leaving any trace. I don’t like this at all. What was he doing out here?”

“Tomb robbing, I suspect,” said Magdalena. “There are some fancy burial vaults on the northern edge of the graveyard, the direction from whence he came, and look at the cobwebs and dust on his clothing. Judging by the depth and angle of his bootprints, he has something heavy in his pack weighing him down. Let’s see the loot.”

Magdalena opened the pack and pulled out a pry bar and a thick gold plaque engraved with the name Bartholomew Walstrand. She struggled with the weight of it. The plaque had been dislodged from the inner walls of the Walstrand burial vault.

“Disturb the dead, and they will return the affront,” said Terry. “Perhaps we need an agent of the church over the constabulary for this.”

“Perhaps,” said Magdalena. “But before we resign all science, let’s consider the possibility that there was no murderer at all, corporeal, ghost or otherwise.”

“Then how do you explain the murder?” said Terry.

“Do you mean that he cut himself?” said Dahlia.

“Suicide by stabbing oneself is extreme, but not unheard of,” said Magdalena. “But where’s the weapon? And why a cut to the side in particular? I don’t see any knife on or around the body, and I didn’t see a hole in the cloak where a knife would have pierced through. I propose that he suffered this wound at least one day prior, and, mistakenly believing it was fully healed, he reopened it when attempting to carry the heavy gold plaque out of the graveyard. This plaque weighs over one hundred pounds, more than enough to rupture a healing injury. It’s difficult to be certain with the frozen flesh and blood, but there do seem to be signs of partial recovery around the wound, and irritation on the skin from the recent application of bandages.”

“You’re saying he bled out, just like that?” said Terry. “Wouldn’t he have noticed?”

“I think he realized too late,” said Magdalena. She chipped off a small sample of frozen blood with a metal pick and dropped it into a glass vial from inside her jacket pocket. “It was cold, dark, and he was presumably numb and tired, so a sudden loss of blood would be particularly exhausting, and could go temporarily unnoticed. He bled quickly, relative to the size of the cut, so we have to consider the possibility of a blood condition: hemophilia.”

“Hemophilia?” said Dahlia.

“It’s a rare condition in which the blood doesn’t clot properly,” said Magdalena. “In extreme cases, a small scratch or nosebleed can lead to significant blood loss. Note the bruising on his skin, and the signs of chronic joint swelling… both are symptoms of hemophilia. I’d like to study a sample of the blood in my lab to say for sure though.” Magdalena returned to full height. “Graverobber steals from final tomb. That’s my bet for the headline, unless they want to emphasize the cursed gold angle, that would probably sell more copies. Or, perhaps more accurately, Man with blood clotting condition reinjures himself with fatal consequences. What an interesting morning this turned out to be!”