Dead Boarder

After ensuring her boy is minding her directions, Florence returns back to the doorway to find half of the group already nosing around in the room, opening cabinets. "What are you vipers doing? Get out of his things, they're not for picking through. I-I'm going to call the police. It won't due for you lot putting your fingers all over everything." He eyes linger on the corpse again as Otto's body shifts to allow her to see. Oh James, she thinks, holding back tears.

"The police, Mrs. Baker," Lang replied as he knelt beside the body and looked at its face to make sure it was (or wasn't) James. If Jim really was dead, Lang had something else to do here before any authorities arrived but he had to be sure first.

"Jim? My God," Lang said quietly. "Call the police."

"Ja, gut, send for police," Otto says, searching for the knife but also eyeballing the piece of paper between the candles.

There was so much blood, so much slashed flesh. Was this really his friend? And if not Jim, then who?

"Damn it, Jim," Lang sighed. "Who would do this to you?"

He considered moving the body over but decided against it.

"We... We shouldn't touch anything. The police... They'll need everything as it was to catch whoever did this."

Sam hears people mentioning the police a little too much for his comfort. Trying to abstract himself from the fuss, he concentrate on his search.

Sam reaches for the gun, maybe using any piece of cloth he finds lying around, to check if it seems to be in working order and if it has been used recently.

Otta frowns powerfully at Du Bois. "Who would do this? Perhaps first question is what nonsense this man has been up to here, in his room. I hear chanting, strange prayers, all hours of the night. Rarely leaves his room. How do you know him? What language is this, on this paper?"

He sees the knife, Otto does, but decides to leave it where it is for the moment... despite seeing one of his other neighbors pull a small automatic from the wardrobe.

"I don't know what his faith was, not really. Some kind of spiritualism. Not something to murder him over," Lang said as he rose and went to inspect the paper Schmidt indicated.

"I own Ex Libris Rare Books. Jim and I struck up a friendship about that. He didn't deserve this, no matter what he believed in."

Florence steps back into the hall and shouts up to her son. "Tommy! Son! Come here!"

Momentarily the boy appears again at the top of the stairs. "Yes, mama?" he asks.

"Run along Tommy and go get the police. Right now, don't you delay, I need you to hurry," she says loudly. The boy does precisely what he's told and hustles down the stairs, around the corner and out the door to fetch the police.

Florence steps further into the room. "Mr. Gardiner was a nice man, a good man. Of course he didn't deserve this...this...whatever this is."