The End of the Line by Stephen Legault

I’ll have to pay a visit to the laundry, won’t I?”
    Armatage nodded his agreement. “And maybe to Tom Holt’s store to see if anybody has replaced a coat in the last few days.”
    Durrant said, “Give me a hand, will you?” He hung up the lantern again and turned back to the body. “I want to check his pockets. It will be easier for you than me,” Durrant said, holding up his twisted right hand to illustrate his point.
    Armatage smiled a narrow smile and put down his forceps. He dug his hands into the pockets of Deek Penner’s trousers. Durrant watched him. The doctor came out with a handful of blasting caps and fuse wire, and a crumpled up sheet of paper.
    â€œWhat have you got there?” said Durrant.
    Armitage smiled. “Looks like some of Deek’s tricks of the trade. Caps and fuse.”
    â€œThe note?”
    Armatage opened it and scanned it. “It’s a wire. It’s in code.”
    â€œLet’s have a look,” Durrant said, taking it in his left hand and holding it up to the light.
    â€œIt’s not the NWMP code, that’s for certain,” said the doctor, “unless you’ve changed it in the last two years.”
    â€œWe haven’t. I don’t recognize it. Penner was just a foreman. What would he be doing with a coded wire?” asked Durrant.
    â€œI’m just a doctor, Durrant. You’re the investigator.”
    Durrant was quiet a moment, holding the folded sheet of paper up before the flickering light. While the message was a mystery, the name at the bottom was clear: the wire was from a man named Kauffman. It was possible, thought not probable, that within the code’s secret message was the key to Deek Penner’s death.

FIVE
THE WIRE
    WHEN DURRANT FINALLY PULLED THE tarp back over the disfigured face of Deek Penner and shouldered the door of the shed shut, it was nearly noon. He had told Armatage that he wanted some time alone with the body, and the doctor had smiled and nodded and left wordlessly. Before Armatage reached the door Durrant said, “Saul, I have to ask . . . Where were you on the night Mr. Penner was murdered?”
    Armatage’s smile broadened. “Durrant, you haven’t changed one bit. I was at Banff Station. Repairing a man’s shattered tibia. He had been crushed when the load he was hauling in a push cart shifted and came down on him. I came back on the train the day before you arrived.”
    Durrant nodded. “I had to ask.”
    â€œOf course you did.” Armatage’s smile remained generous. He turned and left the shack without another word.
    Left alone in the cold room, the light of the lamp flickering above his charge, Durrant spent the better part of an hour examining Penner, making sure that nothing had been overlooked. In particular he was looking for something obvious—like a gunshot or stabbing wound—that might lead him in another direction. In the end, there was only one conclusion: Deek Penner’s life had ended suddenly and violently, with a crushing blow to the head and face. The man’s hands were scratched but not bruised, and there was no blood or skin under his nails, meaning that it was unlikely that the killing blow had come at the end of a long struggle or fight. Penner had been taken by surprise.
    Once he had covered up the man, Durrant had looked again at the folded sheet of paper and its unknown code scrawled on it. He knew well enough that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of codes in common use across the telegraph service that now stretched from the Atlantic shores all the way to the end of steel. The NWMP had their own that he was proficient in. The CPR also used a common code that Durrant knew well, having sent and received cables for the last year in Fort Calgary. This one, however, was a mystery to him. He folded the sheet of paper and placed it in his breast pocket for future examination.
    During his