Free Death in Albert Park by Leo Bruce Page B

distance. It was all hypothesis and speculation.
    Carolus heard nothing about it that evening when he returned from the Crucible Theatre and had to gain his knowledge next day from newspaper reports. These were lurid in the extreme and according to one the butcher’s knife was actually raised above the girl when neighbours, hearing her screams, had come to her rescue. Carolus decided to be content with what he read rather than attempt to see Viola for the present. The hostility of Dyke and his own lack of status in the whole affair made it difficult for him to do any more than wait and hope that presently he might have an opportunity of meeting the Whitehills and their niece and asking his own kind of seemingly innocent questions.
    In fact, he found this case exhausting and decided to return to Newminster for the week-end. The method he had chosen seemed to him to give some hopes, but it would be a lengthy process for he yet had to examine the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Joyce Ribbing and Mrs. Crabbett.
    It was a relief to come from the murky respectability of those Hibernian-titled avenues to his own quiet house and be among familiar objects. But when Mrs. Stick brought in his bottle and siphon on a scrupulously polished tray, he saw at once that he was under suspicion.
    â€œIt’s to be hoped you’ve been having a nice holiday, Sir,” she observed with a note of enquiry.
    â€œSplendid, thank you, Mrs. Stick.”
    â€œPerhaps you’ve been down at the seaside.”
    â€œNo. No. Not the seaside this time.”
    â€œWe
did
hear, though I’m sure we didn’t wish to believe it, in spite of someone telling us straight out, that you’d been up to that Albert Park where all the murders are. I was only saying to Stick, I don’t believe it, I said. Mr. Deene would never get himself mixed up with anything as nasty as that, not after all he’s said in the past. Because if he was to, I said to Stick, we should have to go, that’s all. We couldn’t have another upset like that last one, when we never knew from one day to the next whether you wouldn’t be banged over the head with a hammer.”
    â€œYes, that was an unpleasant affair, wasn’t it, Mrs. Stick?”
    The little woman watched Carolus through her steel-rimmed glasses.
    â€œIt’s not for me to ask questions, Sir,” she said. “But with my sister already half thinking we oughtn’t to be where we are, with all these murders and that, I must go so far as to say that we couldn’t have another. We should have to give our notice. But lets hope they were telling us wrong about Albert Park.”
    â€œWhat have we got for dinner, Mrs. Stick?”
    â€œWell, I thought you might like it for a change, Sir. I’m going to do some brochits. Shooshky babs, they call them. Over charcoal, which I got in specially. Then there’s some cream fright afterwards.”
    Carolus stared for a moment.
    â€œCrème Frite”
he gasped as understanding dawned. “Excellent, Mrs. Stick.”

Seven

    W HEN Carolus reached Albert Park next morning he drove straight to Dr. Ribbing’s house and asked for him. He was received by a smiling little man.
    â€œI’m Ribbing’s
locum,”
he explained. “Poor chap has been sent away for a holiday. He broke down altogether, you know.”
    â€œSorry to hear that. Can you tell me where I can find him?”
    â€œNo. I certainly cannot. If you’re a patient of his I’ll see you.”
    â€œI’m not a patient,” Carolus explained. “It was a personal matter.”
    â€œIt will have to wait for his return in about a week’s time, then. I can’t give his whereabouts to anyone.”
    Carolus, thinking this over at the Golden Cockerel, decided that it was not a serious setback. There was no reason why he should, in his casual-seeming investigations, follow the same order as the murderer. He