Free Death in Albert Park by Leo Bruce Page A

like. How many paces? She didn’t know. He had been advancing on her for a long time while she couldn’t scream. But where she had fallen was only seven yards from where the car stood. She couldn’t tell that. It seemed ages, anyway.
    The detective inspector examining Viola asked his next question with concealed suspense. He had some experience of hysteria and the curious contradictions of its victims.
    â€œDid you notice the car, Miss Whitehill?”
    â€œOh yes. The man was sitting in it.”
    â€œDid you notice what make it was?”
    â€œNo. Not the make.”
    â€œWhat colour was it?”
    â€œBlack, I think.”
    â€œSure it wasn’t light grey?”
    â€œIt might have been.”
    â€œThere was a green car standing there this evening.”
    â€œThat was it. Green. Or was it blue? So hard to tell in that light.”
    â€œWas it large or small?”
    â€œNot very large. Not a mini-minor, or anything tiny like that. Yes, fairly large, now I come to think of it. I saw the man through the windscreen. I knew at once who it was. I can see his eyes now …”
    â€œBut could you
then,
Miss Whitehill? There couldn’t have been much light on him and you say he was wearing glasses.”
    â€œYes, I’m sure he was wearing glasses. I saw them when he got out and started coming for me. I can’t remember any more. I can’t even remember twisting my ankle.”
    â€œThat was when you fell down. Was the man coming for you then?”
    â€œNo, no,” said Viola with sudden lucidity. “No. Not when I fell. He was getting back into the car then. I saw the car drive away, fast down the road.”
    â€œYou didn’t, of course, see anything of its number?”
    â€œOh no. It just went away. I can’t tell you any more.”
    â€œOne other thing, Miss Whitehill, while it’s fresh in your memory. Was the man tall or short?”
    Viola tried to think, but shook her head.
    â€œJust ordinary, so far as I could tell.”
    â€œHad you ever seen him before?”
    â€œNo. I don’t think so.”
    â€œDid he remind you of anyone?”
    â€œNot at the time.”
    â€œHas he made you think of anyone, since?”
    â€œA little, yes, of my father.”
    â€œIs your father living?”
    â€œNo. He died twelve years ago.”
    â€œThank you, Miss Whitehill. If anything else occurs to you, you’ll let us know, won’t you?”
    â€œI’ve told you everything.”
    The doctor arrived soon afterwards and gave her a tranquilizer. But Viola, as her aunt said crisply, was never quite the same again. She had fits of vacancy and had to give up Bridge-playing because she could not concentrate.
    â€œA tragic thing,” said Stella Whitehill, and for her and her husband it was.
    It was not even of much help to the investigation. It was quite possible, as Dyke had at once realized, that the stranger in the car was a normal citizen waiting for someone to join him from the house outside which he was parked. This was Number 28, and questioning of its occupants, the Turnwrights, and those of the neighbouring houses, revealed nothing. But the man could have been quite harmless and when he started to get out it could have been to reassure Viola when he saw her stop in the road. The glaring eyes and the knife could be the result of hysteria, the crouching approach was almost certainly this. As for the man’s quick retreat —the most harmless person, knowing what had been happening in Crabtree Avenue, might have done what the man did. Finding himself screamed at by a youngwoman he could easily have fled before the neighbours came out of their houses.
    On the other hand it could, of course, have been the Stabber, scared away at the last moment by that piercing scream, the first uttered by one of his victims. If it was, a car may have been used in the other cases and the Stabber have come from a considerable