Death in Albert Park

by Bruce, Leo

  But how could he enter the Mitre? Impossible to have struck that blow without some bloodstains. Perhaps his coat…perhaps…

  Carolus began to walk down Crabtree Avenue at a fast pace. That was it! A hope, anyway. For at the foot of Oaktree Avenue, on the far side of the park and opposite to the park-keeper’s lodge, there was a prominent notice Public Conveniences. These were so constructed that sexual segregation began at the top of two separate staircases, euphemistically marked Ladies and Gentlemen. Did this useful institution contain an attendant? Did it supply its clients with a Wash and Brush-up? Was there running hot water? If the answer to all these was affirmative, Carolus might be on the verge of something more definite.

  He hurried along Inverness Road and reached his objective. Yes, there was an attendant. Yes, there were wash-basins. As Carolus gazed round him he felt himself scrutinized by the attendant, a bad-tempered-looking gnome with an old pair of spectacles repaired with sticking-plaster who pulled at an empty pipe.

  “Evening,” said Carolus.

  “Um,” said the attendant curtly.

  “I should like a few words with you. But perhaps you’re tired of answering questions.”

  “What about?”

  Straight to the point, thought Carolus.

  “About the night of the murders.”

  The attendant blinked.

  “Come in here,” he commanded, indicating his tiled den. “You may believe it or not,” he began impressively, “but do you know not one single soul has been to ask me anything about it? It’s not to be credited, is it? All those police paid out of the taxpayer’s money and not one of them been near me? It’s enough to make you weep. With all I’ve seen and know about it, there hasn’t been a soul come to me ever since it happened.”

  “You didn’t think of reporting what you knew?”

  “Not me. If they can’t trouble to come to me, I thought, it’s not likely I’m going traipsing up to see them. They’ll wake up to it sooner or later, I said, then they won’t half be sorry they didn’t think of it earlier.”

  “Perhaps, yes.”

  “It isn’t as though they don’t come down here. There’s two of them in plain clothes up and down every night watching for Goings On, I suppose. As if I wasn’t able to stop any Goings On there might be. I know my job. I very soon tell them, if I see any of that. Not that I’d get them in trouble like these two I was telling you about want to do. But I won’t have any of that in my Convenience…”

  “You were saying you noticed …”

  “Yes. I did. I’ve got eyes in my head. I shouldn’t be surprised if what I noticed on the two nights of those first murders wouldn’t be enough to tell anyone straight away who done them. Only not a single solitary blind soul’s been to ask me about it.”

  “I have,” said Carolus.

  “Yes, but you’re not the police. What I thought, what anyone would have thought, was that the police would be down the very day after it happened. But no. I might as well have been blind and deaf and dumb so far as they’re concerned. And the papers are just as bad. You’d have thought they’d have wanted to put my picture in the papers five or six times over for what I could tell them. But not one has ever set foot in the place to ask me. It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  “It certainly does,” said Carolus inevitably.

  “I don’t see how I can tell you,” regretted the attendance. “It’s the police ought to have asked me. If I go and tell you I shan’t hear no more about it and there I shall be. I might as well have not noticed anything.”

  “What is it you want?” asked Carolus.

  “Well, I could do with something, couldn’t I, after all that trouble? Then again you’d think the papers would send someone. I’ve never been a witness in anything like a case before. The police don’t like it that they’ve never had anyone up for Goings On in my convenience. They don’t like that at all. They used to send a young chap down to try and start something and then grab them but I wouldn’t have that. ‘No Goings On’, I’d say before he’d had time to get anyone into trouble. So I’ve never been a witness.”

  Carolus tried a five-pound note.

  “Much obliged,” said the attendant, putting it away, “only I did think the newspapers …”

  “If your information leads to anything I’ve no doubt the papers will be interested,” said Carolus rather pompously. “What did you see?”

  “It wasn’t Goings On, or anything like that,” said the attendant. “Nor yet it wasn’t anyone giving trouble which I often do have, when they’ve had a few. It was just this man.”

  Carolus could not help it. “Which man?” he asked.

  “This man who came in here just after each of the first two murders and had never been in before or since.”

  “How do you know it was just after the murders?”

  “It said what the times was in the papers, didn’t it? Must have been just after. I close at ten and it wasn’t long before I closed. Only the first time it was earlier than the second, same as the murder was, so it said in the papers.”

  “What about this man?”

  “What about him? He was the murderer, of course.”

  “Why? Was he wearing a cloth cap, glasses and a raincoat?”

  “No he wasn’t. That’s what makes me think. He’d taken them off.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well it stands to reason, doesn’t it? Here’s a man in the depths of winter coming down here without a hat or a coat. What else could it have been?”

  “I see your point. What more did you notice about him?”

  “What didn’t I? It’s not many wants a wash-basin and towel at that time of night, but he did. You should have seen the way he washed. Taking his time over it. Then when he’s not washing any more he’s standing looking at himself in the glass till I thought he’d drive me out of my mind. This way, that way, looking at his sleeves and his trousers. All I can say is if he hadn’t just done those murders I don’t know who had.”

  “Nor do I,” admitted Carolus. “What did he look like?”

  “Just like anyone else,” said the attendant disappointingly. “Bout your height only older than what you are. In his forties, I daresay. Or perhaps his fifties. Nothing much to notice about him. Dressed quiet. Nothing to call the attention.”

  “You are sure you’d never seen him before?”

  “Well if I had he must have slipped in here and out again when I wasn’t looking. Some of them do do that.”

  “You know many of the local residents by sight?”

  “I daresay I do. You get to, in this job. Only I don’t know their names.”

  “You know the park-keeper opposite?”

  “Jack Slatter? Course I do. Known him for years.”

  “Was the man who came here on those two nights anything like him?”

  “Like Jack? Now that you mention it you’re not far off. It wasn’t him, of course, but much the same style of man. Only better got up, if you know what I mean.”

  “You say this man was here some time?”

  “Must have been. All that washing and looking at himself in the mirror and examining his clothes.”

  “How long would you say?”

  “Five minutes or so. May have been no more than four. There was people coming and going all the time.”

  “Do you think he knew you were watching him?”

  “No, I don’t. I can keep an eye on anyone without their knowing anything about it. You have to in this job.”

  “Did he seem upset about anything?”

  “Calm as a cucumber. That’s what they say about those that do murders. They don’t turn a hair.”

  “Would you know him if you saw him again?”

  “Know him? Certainly I should. Pick him out anywhere. That’s what the police ought to have done. Had an identification parade. I’d have spotted him all right. It isn’t as though he’d only come in the once. Twice, he was here. Each time just after a murder.”
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  “But not after the third murder,” pondered Carolus.

  “Stands to reason, doesn’t it? He wasn’t going to do that. Not the third time, with everybody looking for him. Though for all the police know or care he might have done. Fancy their not even coming to ask me. It passes belief, doesn’t it? They can dress up and come down here trying to get a case against someone for Goings On, but they can’t come and ask a simple question when anyone knows something.”

  “I think you should report what you know to them.”

  “Me? What do you take me for? Let them do the asking. I’m not holding back anything. But I can’t speak if I’m not asked, can I?”

  “Yes,” said Carolus. “You could go to the detective in charge of the case and tell him what you know. It’s your duty to do so.”

  “Duty? It’s my duty to keep this Convenience clean and tidy and see there’s no Goings On, that’s all. It’s their duty to catch this Stabber they talk about. Though I must say he didn’t look much like a stabber. Too quiet and well-behaved, I should have thought, for any lark like that. Though you can’t tell.”

  “Why do you think he came here?” asked Carolus curiously.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? He wanted to make sure there was no blood on him before…”

  “Before what?”

  “Suppose he had to go somewhere where there was people. To fix his alibi and that. Well, he couldn’t go if he had bloodstains all over his clothes, could he? Or on his hands.”

  “And had he?”

  “I’m not to know, am I? I couldn’t go and watch him all the time. I didn’t actually see any bloodstains. I’ll admit that. But there must have been. You can’t stab someone to death and drop them in the garden without getting blood on you.”

  “And you’re sure you’d know him? If I were to come down here with him one day, you’d be able to tell me afterwards?”

  “Yes. I’ve told you I should. Couldn’t mistake him.”

  “Perhaps I will,” said Carolus.

  “Mean to say you know him?”

  “I know a lot about him,” said Carolus, “and you’ve helped me considerably. I’m glad I thought of coining to you.”

  “That’s all right. Only it’s past talking about that the police didn’t do it weeks ago.”

  “One other thing I’d like to ask you. If you’d met this man in the Mitre …”

  “I’m strictly T.T.”, said the attendant. “Never been in the Mitre in my life and never shall. Or any other place selling alcoholic refreshment,” he added unctuously.

  “Good-night,” returned Carolus.

  Carolus at last escaped from the attendant’s tiled cubby-hole and with some relief ascended to the windy air of Inverness Road.

  Fourteen

  NEXT morning, a Sunday, Carolus woke to find one of those freakishly warm days which occasionally happen in the spring and cause English people to walk about saying “we shall have to pay for this”. It reminded him of one area of the suburb he had not yet explored, Albert Park itself, that railed-off plot of trees and grass from which the whole district took its name. He decided to spend a few hours there and taking The Sunday Times and The Observer, folded to expose Mephisto and Ximenes respectively, he set out, reaching the gates by the lodge as a harsh little bell stopped ringing in the Victorian gothic steeple of St. Luke’s down the road.

  Near the lodge gates he saw the park-keeper in uniform. Here was another man of medium height and Carolus began to ask himself when, in this case, he would find someone really tall or short, someone obviously excluded from Miss Pilkin’s description of the man she had seen hanging about in Salisbury Gardens before the third murder—“of average height or perhaps a little smaller.”

  Slatter was of average height but so was every other male in the district or connected with the murdered women. Or so it seemed.

  Carolus said good morning to Slatter as he passed to receive a nod and half-smile in return. But the weather was so splendid after the long misery of winter that Slatter could not resist adding—“Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

  Carolus had no intention of questioning the park-keeper at this time but he wanted to know something of the man and said—“Yes. Lovely. You’ve a fine show of spring bulbs.”

  This was not strictly true of the few sooty daffodils visible from where Carolus stood, but it seemed to please Slatter.

  “I like to see a few nice daffs,” he said smiling proudly.

  “What do you think of all these murders?” asked Carolus in a chatty way.

  “Dreadful,” said Slatter with conventional solemnity. “Dreadful thing. And I’m right in the middle of it, as you might say.”

  “So you are. You live here, I suppose?”

  “That’s my little place,” said Slatter indicating the stucco lodge.

  “Convenient,” remarked Carolus. “Not damp, is it?”

  “Dry as a bone and I should know because I used to get rheumatism when I was in the army and I’ve never had so much as a twinge of it since I came here. No. My trouble is I can’t sleep.”

  “Can’t sleep?”

  “Very seldom. Insomnia, they call it. I’ve got it terribly bad. I’ve tried everything to cure it, but nothing seems to do much good. If I sleep a couple of hours in a night I’m lucky.”

  “That’s bad,” said Carolus.

  “It is bad. Someone tried to tell me it was cheese caused it. I always eat a bit of bread and cheese before turning in. So I knocked it off for a few nights. But it didn’t do a bit of good. I soon went back to it and never been without it again. But I still can’t sleep.”

  “I don’t envy you. All alone, are you?”

  “Yes. I don’t mind that part of it. I’ve lived alone for nearly twenty years now since my wife was Taken. It’s being right in the middle of it all I don’t like and having the police round asking questions.”

  “That must be annoying.”

  “It seems I could have done them—all three of them,” explained Slatter rather too jovially, Carolus thought. “There’s not many placed as I am between them. And living alone I’ve got no one to say where I was those nights.”

  “But surely…”

  “I don’t say they actually suspect me but they asked questions about where I was and that. It’s not very nice, is it?”

  “It’s not at all nice. The whole thing’s unpleasant. Have you told many people about your being questioned?”

  “I’ve made no secret of it. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Then don’t let anyone into your lodge at night,” said Carolus with sudden vehemence. “Not even someone you know.”

  Slatter stared at him.

  “Whatever’s come over you?” he asked.

  “I mean what I say,” said Carolus. “Don’t take any chances about this. Keep your door locked.”

  “Well I don’t know,” said the astounded Slatter. “And who might you be to tell me anything like that? You’re not from the police, are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am,” said Carolus. “Take a warning when you get one.”

  “I don’t know what to think. First the police asking questions then you as good as telling me the Stabber’s after me. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Don’t I have enough troubles as it is, trying to stop the kids trampling on the flower beds and see people keep their dogs on the lead?”

  Slatter looked thoroughly baffled. He had a good-natured face, set now in lines of perplexity.

  “I can only beg you to listen to what I told you,” Carolus said, and nodding curtly walked on to find a seat.

  In spite of the gay spring weather he thought the park a dismal place of asphalt paths, weedy grass and geometrical beds and the people of the district more than usually unpicturesque in their Sunday clothes. He found a place from which the lodge and gates at the exit to Inverness Road were visible. Since Slatter continued to wait about in that region, apparently having a kindly word for most of those who entered, he too remain
ed in sight.

  Presently a familiar figure appeared. Outsize and awkward in a coat and skirt, the calves of her legs formidable over her square-toed shoes, Grace Buller strode in. She stopped to chat with Slatter for a moment and as both of them took side glances at him he gathered that Slatter was giving the gist of their recent conversation.

  Carolus felt impotent and alarmed. There were some people who could not keep their mouths shut, whatever was at stake.

  Grace Buller strode straight up to Carolus.

  “Hullo,” she said. “What do you want to scare poor old Slatter for?”

  “Good morning,” said Carolus. “I remember you told me Slatter was ‘a dear old man’. I suppose he’s quite a friend of yours?”

  “Oh, we’re great friends. I play tennis here in the summer and he always manages to give me a court.”

  “So you come to see him even in the holidays from… where is it you live, Miss Buller?”

  “Woolwich, actually. But I often come this way.”

  “On the scooter?”

  “When I can get it to start,” said Grace Buller with a broad smile. “I came on it this morning. Went like a bomb.”

  “Good. When does your term start again?”

  “Tomorrow week. We always go back on a Monday. I don’t know what it’ll be like next term. I’m sure half the parents will take their children away. Unless the Stabber’s caught in the meantime, that is. You can’t blame them, can you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Well, I must be off. I usually walk a couple of times round the park on Sundays. Training, you see. Bye.”

  She strode manfully away and Carolus welcomed this for he had just seen another group enter of people he knew—the Goggins and a man whom Heatherwell had pointed out to him as Tuckman. They did no more than nod to Slatter and when they had settled on a seat some two hundred yards away from him, Carolus walked across.

  He was introduced to Tuckman, a talkative, opinionated character who at once launched into a dissertation on the murders while Ada Goggins sustained herself with cakes from a paper bag.

  “What you’ve got to look for,” he told Carolus, “is someone suffering from one of the various mental disorders which produce murderers. Persecution mania, for instance. If someone is going about with the belief that an enemy is trying to kill him he may strike back. In this case it would be someone who believes his life is threatened by a small woman living in Albert Park. So he would look for such people and strike.”