Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

A Surete du Quebec police officer blocks off a road in the town of Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson, Que., Wednesday, October 10, 2012, where a man reportedly stumbled into town hall after being shot. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

A bleeding man stumbled into a town hall following a double-shooting Wednesday that left one person dead, one injured, and one sleepy cottage-country municipality wondering whether it had become caught up in a Mafia war.

It was the second time in less than two weeks that Quebec provincial police were investigating a shooting in Ste-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson, a Laurentian mountain municipality of 2,700 residents an hour's drive from Montreal.

Police said they were alerted to a double-shooting when, at 9:45 a.m., a wounded man wandered into the town hall pleading for help.

He led authorities to another gunshot victim in a nearby luxury home, where the shootings are both suspected to have occurred.

The man found in the home was later declared dead, said Quebec provincial police Sgt. Gino Pare. The survivor's condition appeared to have improved, he said.

Police would not release the name or age of either man, or address media speculation that the shooting might have been linked to an ongoing Mafia war.

"It's too early to advance such a hypothesis," Pare said.