Free Such Is Death by Leo Bruce

last shelter he was thirty yards or so from the road. The garden had iron railings and before approaching the shelter Carolus turned in to it and spoke to a man working there.
    â€œIs this garden loogked at night? “he asked.
    â€œHow many more times?” asked the man. “If I’ve been asked that question once I’ve been asked it a score of times since this murder’s happened. Yes, I lock it myself every evening at eight in winter and ten in summer. Never do to leave it open. You’d be surprised what they get up to if a garden’s open at night.”
    â€œNo I shouldn’t,” said Carolus truthfully. “It was locked on the night this man was killed?”
    â€œCertainly it was. That’s not to say someone couldn’t have popped over the iron railings if he was a bit nippy. It’s been done before. We had a lot of plants stolen last year.”
    â€œYou’ve no reason to think anyone did so that night?”
    â€œNo, I haven’t. The police was examining all along the railings and in the flower-beds and that. I don’t know whether they found anything. They don’t say. But I sawno sign of it having been got into. If this murderer was the sort of Jack the Ripper I think he was …”
    â€œSurely you’re thinking of Spring-heeled Jack?”
    â€œYes, that’s what I meant to say. It wouldn’t have been much trouble to him to nip over.”
    It would not, thought Carolus, and, again not approaching the shelter, he crossed to the railings on the other side, below which was the beach.
    Here, too there would be no difficulty. The pebbles were perhaps four feet below the level of the promenade and anyone, even a determined woman or elderly man, could have made that descent, then crept along under the promenade wall till he wished to climb up again. But why? It was dark and the murderer was, presumably, alone. Why not walk openly back?
    At last he came to the shelter itself. He did not know exactly where the murdered man had been found and it did not matter. It was the situation of the shelter which interested him rather than its interior. Quite alone, nearly a hundred yards from a house, beyond the usual limits of pedestrians’ passage even in daylight and almost certain to be deserted on a dark windy night, it was the ideal place for a carefully planned murder. Retreat from it afterwards was easy.
    There was something eerie about it, here in the fading light with the sea roaring grimly not many yards away and the harsh scream of sea-gulls audible. Whoever had chosen this place had imagination of a macabre sort and a taste for the dramatic.
    Carolus stood gazing at the shelter and the beginnings of a notion came to him.

7
    S INCE Carolus had been ‘called in’ by Mrs Dalbinney he decided to see her that afternoon. He found Prince Albert Mansions easily enough, a mighty piece ofmasonry occupying one side of an open square. He went up to the first floor and found Mrs Dalbinney wearing something that he believed was called an ‘afternoon frock’ or a ‘tea gown’. Her sustained gentility rather irritated him. He longed to say something vulgar. But he held his tea-cup and nodded gravely while she talked.
    â€œActually, Mr Deene, we do not feel that your intervention is necessary now in view of the exorbitant fees you mentioned. The whole unpleasant matter seems to be evaporating.”
    â€œEvaporating?”
    â€œThe police have asked us no further questions and the unfortunate gossip in the town has subsided. We begin to think that it may be better to let sleeping dogs lie.”
    â€œYour late brother Ernest being the sleeping dog, I take it?”
    Mrs Dalbinney looked rather haughty.
    â€œI was speaking figuratively,” she said. “I meant that this very disagreeable incident will soon be forgotten.”
    â€œYou don’t want to know who killed your brother?”
    â€œYou seem anxious