🕑 Added 2015-06-11 01:50:55 +0000 UTC
Testimonial Three: Seward Bradley
I made certain not to eat too heavily at lunch — if my investigations took a turn darker than I anticipated, then I may be revisiting it later — in part because of the stares and whispers that accompanied me into the tavern. The local townsfolk made no secret their curiosity or, in some cases, their disdain. I was, to some, a peculiarity to be gawked at, and to others, an outsider whose mere presence was a stain upon their community.
Consequently, I ate swiftly and lightly, and after paying for my meal — what I was sure was a heavily modified Dutch recipe — I left back into town, then down the street to the undertaker's quaint little shop. I knocked politely, and when a soft voice beckoned me inside, I stepped out of the bright sun and into the dark mortuary.
"Welcome," the owner of the voice greeted me. "How may I help you?"
The room was small and sparsely decorated, though from the size of the building, I estimated that this front room was his office, he lived out of the second floor above, and there was another room in the back where the grimmest of his tasks was completed. There was a desk — oak or mahogany, perhaps, a very sturdy looking thing — strewn with parchments, quills, and ink bottles, a pair of rather rickety chairs that seemed to me as though they would collapse if anyone would dare to sit upon them, and what appeared to be a half-finished casket propped up in one corner.
The ambience of the room was unnervingly dark, despite its rather Spartan furnishings. The walls were a dull color that I could not immediately identify, the floors were scuffed and so dirty that it was only with difficulty that I could see the wood slats, and a sensation of gloom seemed to choke what little light streamed in through the windows.
But I was getting ahead of myself. There was no certainty that this man was the one I was looking for, so it would be best to ascertain his identity, first.
"Perhaps you may," I replied. "I was looking to speak with the undertaker, if you might know where he is."
"I would. If you're looking to speak with the undertaker, you need look no further — I am him."
"Ah. Forgive my impertinence then, Mister…?"
"Doctor. It would be Doctor Seward Bradley. In addition to providing mortuary services to the unfortunate dead in Sleepy Hollow, I also tend to the living as a physician."
"Doctor Bradley, then."
Seward Bradley was a thin man, a slim figure who seemed to have an excess of neither muscle nor fat. He was possessed of a frame and pale complexion that I imagined I might were I to shut myself in my study for a month and eat only a single meal per day, and his beady brown eyes were slightly sunken into his face. The hair on his head was beginning to recede and was streaked through with gray, and a pair of spectacles sat perched low on his narrow nose. His back seemed perpetually hunched — a condition, I suspected, which may have come from spending hours upon end leant over a book, or else from a tragically bent spine.
He struck me as a very mild-mannered man, prone to fits of neither intense happiness nor intense anger, but rather placed solidly in the middle. His eyebrows were ever so slightly raised over his half-lidded eyes, and his mouth was set in a stolid line — a placid expression unmoved by excitements and passions, and which spoke of a temperament perhaps more similar to my own than any I had yet found in Sleepy Hollow.
"And what is it that you've come to me for, Mister Crane?"
"Ah — then you've heard —"
"— about your arrival, yes. Sleepy Hollow is a rather small town, Mister Crane. News travels very swiftly, here."
"Then you would also know about the ghost?"
"As much as anyone in this town does, though perhaps somewhat more about its methods than anyone else."
"Then, can you tell me…that is, what exactly happens when…"
I didn't know quite how to describe the murders committed by this supposed ghost, because I didn't know quite how they happened. From the description of decapitation given by Baltus Van Tassel, I had surmised that a bladed weapon of some sort — an ax, perhaps, or a sword — was involved, but I had yet to receive any kind of confirmation.
Regardless, my intent was clear enough that the good doctor didn't need any further clarification.
"I see. So you want to know how it kills, do you? Perhaps I should show you one of the bodies?"
"Er…" Even on a light lunch, I rather thought the idea an ill-conceived one, and later, I considered that perhaps my discomfort had been Doctor Bradley's intention. "No, thank you. A description will suffice."
Something like a smirk pulled then at the corner of his lips. "If you're sure. Very well."
From the top of his desk, he drew a sheaf of parchment and held it up, and with his free hand, he adjusted the spectacles perched upon his nose.
"Subject: male. Age: approximately twenty-seven. Cause of death: decapitation with a sharp instrument, likely a large ax or sword. Based upon marks left on the bone and the precise nature of the cut, it was performed with a single blow of enormous power, and based upon the angle of the cut, likely from horseback. The victim was found on the road in front of the church, lying front-down with his limbs splayed as though he had been running."
As Doctor Bradley read to me the details of one of the victims, I found myself perturbed by the evidence. Based upon the sheer physicality of the act, this terrible murder, it seemed only more logical and more palatable to assume the perpetrator a living, breathing human being, but the testimony given me by Baltus kept returning, and I could not remove from my mind his certainty that there was no man in Sleepy Hollow twisted enough to kill so indiscriminately. In spite of it all, however, it seemed even harder to believe that a mere ghost could kill a person, let alone so many.
And once I thought of it, I realized that I had yet to ask exactly how many people had been killed thus far.
"Doctor Bradley, forgive me for interrupting, but how many people have been killed thus far?"
Doctor Bradley frowned at me and set his parchment down.
"Thirty-six, in these past two months."
"And they were all killed in the same manner?"
"All of them, yes, decapitated out on the road. The position of the corpse varied depending upon whether the victim attempted to flee or how swiftly he was capable of running, but on the overall, they were all the same."
"I see. And was there anything…out of the ordinary, shall we say, about the bodies?"
Doctor Bradley eyed me shrewdly.
"If what you're asking is whether I believe the tales of ghosts slaughtering anyone foolish enough to go out at night, then I will say to you now, Mister Crane, that I have no opinion in one way or the other. I can give you only the cold truth, devoid of opinions and fantasy."
"I see. Thank you for —"
"However, if what you're looking for is peculiarities, then perhaps I do have something you might find striking."
He raised the parchment again and peered at it down his nose.
"Decapitation…sharp instrument…enormous power…road in front of the church… Ah, yes, here we are. Peculiar blackening occurred along the inner tissue at the center of the cut, largely around the area of the esophagus. Based upon observations made at the scene, it appears as though perimortem burning occurred during the removal of the head, resulting in partial cauterization of the wound."
I took a moment to consider this new piece of evidence. "As though the sword were red hot when it struck?"
Doctor Bradly frowned at me again. "Weren't you listening? No. Most of the wound consisted of an ordinary cut — the blade was extremely sharp, but appears to have been an ordinary blade. It was only around the esophagus that the burning occurred, as though something incredibly hot passed through the throat at the moment of death. In all my years, Mister Crane, I have never seen such a thing, not once, until these murders started. Take that how you will."
Shortly thereafter, I was ushered out of the mortuary, and I left in something of a daze. My head spun in circles, cycling through the facts and information I had received thus far and unable to come to a solid conclusion.
My decision to speak with Doctor Bradley had indeed borne fruit, and the information given to me was perhaps the first piece of solid evidence I had yet found. However, it did nothing to alleviate my questions and concerns, and though the peculiarities of that final detail seemed too supernatural to belong to a wholly human murderer, the query still remained strong in my head.
What kind of ghost was capable of committing murder?
