Two bodies are found buried under a shed on industrial land during rebuilding work at an electroplating factory. The postmortem examination shows they had been poisoned by cyanide, a chemical used in the factory.
It emerges that the shed had stood on the spot for a few years, but then a question arises as to how the bodies are so well preserved after those years . The answer lies in the peaty soil. Bodies preserved in peat have turned up elsewhere in the world, and soon word spreads so that telegrams begin to arrive from universities asking to be kept informed.
A glass eye sported by one of the victims is found to date back several decades, to a time when the land was in farming use, meaning that nobody at the factory could be implicated.. The search turns to the owner of the farmhouse, who denies any knowledge.
Dr Ogden then discovers a tattoo on one of the victims which shows him to have been a soldier in a regiment that fought in the war of 1812, when the land didn't even have a farm on it, only some civic plans to build a lunatic asylum. Constable Crabtree traces a complete history of land ownership from municipal records. The couple who bought the plot of land to build the farm sold it well after the presumed date of the murder to the man the police have already interviewed. everyone is in the clear. How can Murdoch possibly solve the crime?
From then on, pure detective work does find a way into the problem, but even then, Murdoch finds over and over again that folk are not telling the truth, or at least, not the whole truth. Meanwhile, Inspector Brackenridge has been courted by no less a journal than the New York Times about the story, and makes arrangements to be interviewed by a journalist, so the pressure is on Murdoch to cut through the web of deceit spun by the people he has been questioning.
I shan't give the solution away, other than to say that once the puzzle is solved, the Inspector is left with a story that will be harder to tell than he would have liked.
This is an exceptionally well crafted episode, and it is hard to believe that so many layers could be peeled back to get to the truth in the 45 minutes of the show.
It emerges that the shed had stood on the spot for a few years, but then a question arises as to how the bodies are so well preserved after those years . The answer lies in the peaty soil. Bodies preserved in peat have turned up elsewhere in the world, and soon word spreads so that telegrams begin to arrive from universities asking to be kept informed.
A glass eye sported by one of the victims is found to date back several decades, to a time when the land was in farming use, meaning that nobody at the factory could be implicated.. The search turns to the owner of the farmhouse, who denies any knowledge.
Dr Ogden then discovers a tattoo on one of the victims which shows him to have been a soldier in a regiment that fought in the war of 1812, when the land didn't even have a farm on it, only some civic plans to build a lunatic asylum. Constable Crabtree traces a complete history of land ownership from municipal records. The couple who bought the plot of land to build the farm sold it well after the presumed date of the murder to the man the police have already interviewed. everyone is in the clear. How can Murdoch possibly solve the crime?
From then on, pure detective work does find a way into the problem, but even then, Murdoch finds over and over again that folk are not telling the truth, or at least, not the whole truth. Meanwhile, Inspector Brackenridge has been courted by no less a journal than the New York Times about the story, and makes arrangements to be interviewed by a journalist, so the pressure is on Murdoch to cut through the web of deceit spun by the people he has been questioning.
I shan't give the solution away, other than to say that once the puzzle is solved, the Inspector is left with a story that will be harder to tell than he would have liked.
This is an exceptionally well crafted episode, and it is hard to believe that so many layers could be peeled back to get to the truth in the 45 minutes of the show.
