by Bruce, Leo
“So you see,” said Priggley, “this time you’ve had it. The best I could do to save your face was to put it about that the police were acting on a tip-off from you.”
“Idiot.”
“Don’t get irascible, sir. This was bound to happen sooner or later. You can’t be lucky every time.”
“Out of my sight,” said Carolus.
“I’ll wait downstairs. You’ll need my warm-hearted sympathy.”
But worse things came to Carolus. He had scarcely finished breakfast when Mr. Gorringer was announced.
“Ah, Deene! Ah, Priggley,” he said. “I thought you were spending your holiday with the Hollingbournes?”
“I was, sir, but unfortunately one of their children was caught with a glass of port and I was held to blame. I felt it more tactful to withdraw.”
“I’ll go into that at a more opportune moment. Meanwhile, Deene, I come to congratulate you. A splendid job. Splendid. In so short a time, too. I am referring to the arrest last night.”
“Oh that. I had nothing to do with it. And it was not an arrest, as far as I can gather. A man is held for questioning.”
Mr. Gorringer gave his dramatic chuckle.
“Come, Deene, you are too modest. You won’t convince me that it was not on your information that the police acted in so timely a fashion. It bears all the marks of your peculiar talent. I said to Mrs. Gorringer this morning, ‘another triumph for Deene’ and she replied wittily, though somewhat obscurely ‘Albert Park and the lion.’”
“I’ve only just heard of this development,” said Carolus.
“Now, Deene. You can’t catch old birds with chaff, you know. It is true I have asked you, for the sake of the school’s fair name, not to associate yourself publicly with these matters, but here you are amongst …” he glanced at Priggley, “you are in the presence of your headmaster. You must tell me how you achieved this prompt and welcome result.”
“I’m not sure there is a result. If there is I had nothing to do with it and it goes flat against any possible ideas I was forming.” Carolus seemed to forget his audience. “How can it have been a stranger to the district?” he asked. “How can a man who has till now shown such cunning—even if a madman’s cunning—have walked straight into a police trap? Not even a trap. He must have known Crabtree Avenue was being watched.”
Mr. Gorringer rose dramatically, his large ears flushed crimson.
“You are not going to suggest, I trust, that the arrested man is not the murderer?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t enough to go on to suggest anything. But I don’t see how it can be.”
“He was, I suppose,” began Mr. Gorringer with lofty scorn, “a peaceful citizen enjoying the evening air. He just happened to have with him a lethal weapon similar to, or identical with, that used in three recent murders in the same area.”
“Stranger things have happened.” said Carolus.
“You tempt me to speak incivilly, Deene. What you suggest is beyond all credibility.”
“The truth so often is. I must get over to Albert Park.”
“You are not proposing to return to that suburb?”
“At once, yes. Whatever this is, it provides a god-sent opportunity of clearing up one or two small points.”
Mr. Gorringer prepared to leave.
“You confound all logical expectations, Deene. You intend once again to pit your theories against the wisdom of an experienced police force and against all factual probability. I despair of appealing to your reason.”
He left the room without taking his leave.
“It does seem a bit off, you know, sir. This character they’ve arrested must have been on the job.”
“So far as we know he has not been charged yet. He was taken to a police station and according to this paper was ‘still there at a late hour’ last night. Dyke is no fool.”
Whatever Carolus, or the headmaster, or the Press, thought about the incident of the previous evening, the people of Albert Park seemed to have no doubt that their troubles were over. To get rid of Priggley for a time Carolus told him to move about the suburb and later give him a report of public reactions to the news and he presented lively details of conversations overheard in shops, cafés and the Mitre.
“So they’ve got him!”
“Good job, too!”
“It was about time, that’s what I think.”
“He was just going to do it again, wasn’t he?”
“Still, its a blessing we shall be able to walk about.”
And so on.
But Carolus meanwhile was busy. His first call was on Eamon Starkey at his flat on Blackheath. He found the actor finishing a late breakfast.
“I must say I’m relieved,” said Starkey.
“Why ‘relieved’?”
“Obvious, isn’t it? Anyone could be suspected.”
Carolus looked at him fixedly.
“Now that it’s all over,” he said. “Would you like to clear up something that has puzzled me? You made a great point of your alibi for that night. Why did you think it was necessary?”
“Because I hadn’t got an alibi, really.”
“You were at the Crucible Theatre.”
“I went there, yes.”
“You mean?”
“Look here, Deene. I saw the other night that you weren’t quite satisfied with what I told you. I trust you, for some reason, and would have told you the truth then but for the fact that no one knew who had killed my sister. You must remember that at first there was no reason to think it was one of a series of murders. The police asked me the most searching questions and I naturally used my alibi. They seemed satisfied with it, but you weren’t. Were you?”
“No. It occurred to me at once that anyone could wear a mask and shout ‘Live, live, live, live’ and so on. It would not have to be you.”
“It wasn’t, on that night. This is what has worried me, till now. A friend of mine, or I thought he was a friend of mine, took it on and no one suspected. Actually all I wanted was to go out for a drink. I didn’t go to the Wheatsheaf, of course, but to another pub called the Crown. I got talking there and stayed far too long.”
“Did you go on your motor-bike?”
“Good Lord, no! Everyone would have heard me starting it up.”
“Unless you wheeled it down the road a little way.”
“Well, I didn’t, anyway.” Starkey stared as though he had suddenly realized something. “You mean I could have gone to Albert Park?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t gone into times and so on. But it had occurred to me.”
“Thank God the thing’s all cleared up, then.”
“A lot of people are saying that. Now I must rush away. See you again, perhaps.”
“I hope so,” said Starkey genially. “What about coming to see our new show at the Crucible?”
“I’m relieved to hear you calling it a show.”
Starkey smiled.
“It’s a revival. The most successful thing we’ve done. It was written by Thomas Wilkinson.”
“Neoteric, I understand?”
“Enormously. Will you come?”
“Yes. When all this is cleared up. If your play’s still on.”
“Is that a promise?”
“It is.”
Carolus drove from Blackheath back to Albert Park. He heard from Priggley some more hearsay details of last night’s incident, including the fact that young Gates had been present at the time and according to some reports had actually assisted in the arrest. As it was a Saturday afternoon he hoped that Gates might be at home and drove to number 52 Crabtree Avenue.
Stanley Gates came to the door himself, a rather self-satisfied young man with a crewcut, heavy spectacles and a neat moustache. He had a jocular ‘old boy’ manner which grated somewhat, but he was ready enough to talk of last night’s incidents, indeed had done so to a number of reporters.
“Most extraordinary thing I ever saw,” he began chirpily when he had a
sked Carolus to sit down. “I still can hardly believe it happened. I decided to give the avenue the once-over before joining the old folks in the other room for their television session. They don’t seem to enjoy it if I’m not there, being bored stiff, of course. I went out …”
“What time would that have been?”
“I was forgetting that. You sleuths are all for the unforgiving minute, aren’t you? Must have been just after seven. It was a fairly bright night. I thought I’d just walk up to the top and back, and see if anything was doing. Vigilante stuff.”
Carolus had the feeling that the story had been told several times before and had grown more detailed with repetition.
“I passed one or two bods in the lower part of the avenue. Old Goggins walking home. Mrs. Sparkett. I passed a copper who came out of Perth Avenue and went on down Crabtree.”
“Did you know him?”
“By sight. Yes. He’s one of our regulars since this happened. The police have done what they can, you know. I knew he’d be hanging about for the next hour or so. Oh, by the way, I looked in the garden of the empty house where the first body was found. Number 46. Nothing in sight. I passed the park gates opposite Perth Avenue and as I reached the upper part of the avenue I saw this figure.”
“Which figure?” asked Carolus annoyingly.
“This figure of the man we ran in. The Stabber in fact, though you wouldn’t have thought it. It seemed he had been waiting in one of the gardens because he seemed suddenly to materialize in front of me.”
“Which garden?”
“Well, it might have been Turnwright’s. Somewhere about there. Turnwright’s is 28.”
“What did you notice about this man?”
“His most extraordinary behaviour. He was capering, old man, I can only call it capering, up the pavement in front of me. The next thing I saw was that he was wearing a raincoat.”
“Did it fit him?”
“What d’you mean? Of course it fitted him. Why shouldn’t it?”
“Never mind. Do go on.”
“He was wearing a raincoat, a cloth cap and glasses. So I thought to myself, this is it. Well, there couldn’t be much doubt of it, could there?”
“Yes,” said Carolus. “What did you do next?”
“What would you have done? Gone up and asked him if he was the Stabber? No, I went and found this policeman I had seen. Golding, his name is. I told him exactly what I had seen and no more. He had the sense to realize this was It and we walked back up the avenue to where I’d seen him last.”
“And of course he’d disappeared.”
“Yes. But we soon found him. Most extraordinary thing. He was in one of the gardens making a sort of squeaking noise. Like a mouse.”
“Have you ever heard a mouse?”
“I suppose not. But this is the sort of noise they’d make. The creature was barking mad. Well, we’ve always thought so, haven’t we? Barking. We walked up to him and he began to threaten us with this dam’ great knife.”
“To threaten you?”
“Yes, old man. I thought this was It. I started …”
“How do you mean, ‘threaten’ you?”
“Just that. He threatened us.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t merely showing you the knife?”
“I ask you. What would he want to show it for if he wasn’t threatening?”
“What did he want to squeak for if it wasn’t to call your attention?”
“I tell you. He was batty.”
“Exactly. But go on. You and the policeman disarmed him.”
“Well, yes. It wasn’t so easy…”
“Did he say anything?”
“He was babbling. He’d done them all, he said. With that same knife we’d taken off him. His name was Samuel Hoskins and he lived in New Cross. He’d intended to do another one tonight and he did not know how many more. You should have seen his eyes! He had the most beastly stare I’ve ever seen. Talk about homicidal mania.”
“How did the policeman manage?”
“Old Goggins came up just then and we got him to phone for a squad car. But we had to wait with him there for about ten minutes and it wasn’t pleasant, I can tell you.”
“Big man?”
“Medium size. Pretty powerful customer, though. They say lunatics are unnaturally strong. I can quite believe it.”
“Did he struggle?”
“Not after we’d got the butcher’s knife off him. I don’t know what happened later. I wanted to go along with them to the Station but the copper in charge thanked me and said it wouldn’t be necessary.”
“I thank you, too, Mr. Gates. Seen Viola Whitehill lately?”
“Viola? Yes. I see her. But she’s not really my type. Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity,” said Carolus. “It’s a vice of mine.”
He was not surprised to find, when he reached Inverness Road and bought a newspaper, that Samuel Hoskins had left the police station without being charged. The police, it seemed, had satisfied themselves that he could not have been responsible for any of the murders. His family had undertaken to look after him ‘for’, one of them said, ‘we’ve had this sort of trouble before with Uncle. He’s perfectly well-behaved generally and the doctors say there’s no cause for anxiety but we shall have to see that nothing of this sort occurs again.’
“Now, I suppose,” said Priggley that evening, “you’re going to congratulate yourself on being so remarkably shrewd.”
Carolus smiled.
“It didn’t need much shrewdness,” he said. “But it served one good purpose.”
“He was one of these confession fiends, I suppose?”
“Yes. There are always a few after much-publicized murders. They’re a nuisance to the police. Dyke had to check up on the man but I don’t suppose he was fooled for a moment.”
“And now?”
“Now Joyce Ribbing,” said Carolus shortly.
Ten
CAROLUS thought that six o’clock in the evening would be a good time to call on Goggins and his wife. His ring was answered by Goggins himself who stared at him suspiciously. Carolus explained himself, wisely adding something to suggest that Goggins as a Vigilante and an observant man might have sources of information untapped by the police.
When he was first shown into the sitting-room, Carolus thought he had disturbed the couple at tea, for the pot was still standing there.
“Stone cold, I’m afraid,” said Ada Goggins. “We have tea at four. But have a cake.”
Carolus refused but Ada bit off more than half a cream bun and continued to munch happily. Carolus discovered that one meal in this house only really ended when another began, at least for the hostess. Goggins was smoking, appropriately, a meerschaum pipe.
“I don’t know whether there’s anything I can tell you,” he said ponderously.
“He was alone that evening,” said Ada Goggins, attacking an eclair.
“Which evening?” Carolus asked.
“The evening when Joyce was murdered. That’s what you want to see us about, isn’t it?”
“Partly, yes. But the first murder …”
“We don’t know anything about that. Never seen the woman, to my knowledge.”
“You had a friend here that evening, I believe?”
“Did we? Oh yes. Williamson from my husband’s office,” said Ada, scattering cake crumbs from her mouth as she remembered the occasion.
“I am what you might call semi-retired,” explained Goggins. “Williamson is an accountant in my firm, Marryat, Goggins, Richmond and Partners. We’re chartered accountants. Offices in Chancery Lane.”
“He doesn’t want to know all that, you old silly,” put in Ada, returning to the bread and butter. “It’s the murders he’s interested in.”
“What time did Mr. Williamson arrive that evening?”
“About this time, I should say,” replied Goggins thoughtfully.
“And stayed till?”
“Nine-ish, wasn’t
it, dear?” said Ada.
“About nine,” replied Goggins judiciously. “Scarcely surprising that we heard nothing, therefore.”
“There’s not much traffic in Crabtree Avenue at night?”
“Very little indeed.”
“Have you yourselves got a car?”
“No. We had until two years ago but we’ve given it up.”
“You’re not pestered by young people on motorbikes?”
“Oh no. It’s a quiet residential neighbourhood,” said Goggins seriously, “that is why we selected it.”
“But you must sometimes hear a motor-bike?”
“Occasionally, I dare say. Very occasionally.”
“You don’t remember hearing one that night—when your friend Mr. Williamson was here?”
They both looked thoughtful.
“I have no recollection of it,” said Goggins.
“I do seem to remember one about that time,” Ada said brightly. “Several evenings about then, I think. I can’t be sure it was that night, though. Why? Had the Stabber a motor-bike?”
She had turned away from the tea-things and opened a large box of chocolates.
“You never noticed any strangers about the avenue, I suppose? I mean before any of this happened.”
“Tell him about the tall woman,” said Ada, unwrapping a chocolate.
“Oh that. I scarcely think that would be of interest,” replied Goggins. “But I’ll tell you, for what it’s worth. It was about ten days or a fortnight before the unfortunate schoolmistress was found. I was returning to the house late one afternoon at about five o’clock in fact…”
“Oh get on!” pleaded his wife, battling with a hard centre.
“I was about to open the gate when I noticed a somewhat tall woman coming down the steps from the front door. Presuming it was a friend or acquaintance of my wife who had just emerged, I raised my hat and opened the gate for her, at the same time saying good-evening.”
“Trying to get off,” said Ada gaily, playing for safety with a peppermint cream.
“Did she reply?” asked Carolus.
“She bowed, and passed on. There was something odd about her.”