Some of the crowd who gathered about him as he was being carried to a house close by identified him as a baker named Colin McCulloch, belonging to a town some miles off, but who was well known in a wide district from the fact that he went about with a bread van. He was not quite dead when found, but an examination of his wounds soon indicated that life was ebbing away.
One of these was as deep as the doctor’s finger could reach, and appeared to have been inflicted with the narrow, straight blade of a long, sharp-pointed knife.
I had been on the race-course for the greater part of the day looking for a man who did not turn up, and heard of the occurrence only when I called at the station before leaving for town. It had been decided that McCulloch was not fit to be removed, and I went to see him, but found him far beyond speech or explanation. By visiting the spot on which he had been found I discovered a girl who gave me the first clue.
She had been passing along the lane, and had been “feared” as she expressed it, to pass McCulloch, who was tottering along in the same direction, very drunk and demonstrative, though all alone. Every one was away at the races, and the narrow lane seemed quite deserted, but there appeared in front a sailor, who had no sooner sighted McCulloch than he began quarrelling with him and threatening him. Thankful of the opportunity, the girl slipped past during the quarrel, having just time to notice that the sailor was a short, thick-set fellow, and that he wore a red cotton handkerchief for a necktie. When she was at a safe distance she chanced to look back, and saw the sailor give McCulloch “a drive in the breast,” and so knock him down. She did not wait to see anything more, but hurried home, thinking that it was only an ordinary drunken quarrel.
Questioned by me, she could not say whether the sailor had used a knife. Her idea was that he had only given the man a drive with his hand to knock him down or get him out of the way. The sailor spoke in a low tone; McCulloch was noisy and defiant. She saw no knife in the sailor’s hand, and was sure he was a stranger. She did not think she would know him again, as she did not look at his face, but she knew every one about the town, and was positive that the sailor did not belong to the place. It was the sailor who stopped McCulloch, whom he seemed to know; and she thought he was quite sober, though pale and angry-looking. “Look me in the face and say it’s not true,” were the only words she could remember hearing, and they were spoken in a fierce tone by the sailor, just as she was getting beyond earshot.
Having thus a little to work upon, I tried all the exits of the town for some trace of him, without success. He had not gone away by rail or coach, and no one had seen him leave on foot, so far as I could discover; but that was to be expected in the state of the town. Dozens of sailors with red neckties might have come and gone and never been noticed in such a stir. In the town itself I was more successful. To my surprise I found that a man answering the description had visited nearly every public-house in the place. He had never spoken or called for drink; he had merely looked through the houses in a pallid, excited manner, and gone his way.
“He seemed to be looking for some one,” a publican said to me, “but he was gone before I could ask him.”
I spent a good deal of time in the place, though not sure that if I got that man I should be getting the murderer, and returned to Edinburgh with the last train. I went back again next morning, and found McCulloch still alive, and sensible enough to be able to give an assent or dissent when asked a question. But about the murderous attack upon himself he could not or would not give a sign. He would only stare, or shut his eyes, or turn away. The doctor thought he did not understand me—that the patient’s head was not yet quite clear; I thought quite the reverse. The same curious circumstance occurred when it was suggested that his deposition should be taken. McCulloch had no deposition to make, or would not make one. He seemed quite prepared to die and give no sign.
Not an hour later I was favoured with a visit from Turnbull, the travelling photographer. He had been lodging in the town, and of course had heard of the strange crime. He had heard also of my unsuccessful hunt for the sailor, and would probably have gone up to Edinburgh to see me had he not been loth to lose another day at the race-course, his stance being taken for three days.
I could not conceive what the lank, hungry-looking being could want with me, or why there should be about his lean jaws such a smirk of intense satisfaction, as he gave his name and occupation.