Death in Albert Park Read Online Free Page A

particularly it would seem for women, but also, it might be, for men. A certain apprehension surrounded the Park. One side of Crabtree Avenue was open to it and though the railings were close together, pointed and tall, it was felt that they would not be sufficient to exclude the kind of demon the Stabber might be. A certain confusion perhaps existed between those two lethal Jacks of the last century, Spring-Heel Jack and Jack the Ripper. The Stabber was rapidly becoming a legend.
    â€œThe only way I can see in which he may be caught,” said Tuckman importantly, “is
in flagrante delicto.
Jack the Ripper was never caught. A man who seeks only to
kill,
without any ulterior motive, is almost undiscover-able unless he can be taken in the act. None of the ordinary rules of detection apply.”
    â€œIn that case you think some other poor woman…”
    â€œNot necessarily. We may be lucky enough to catch him before he does it.”
    There was an unfortunate sequel to this. A few nights later when Tuckman, Whitehill and young Gates were making what Tuckman called a routine patrol of the avenue, they saw a ‘mysterious figure’ ahead of them, a man in a felt hat and a raincoat which was buttoned high against the wet and driving wind. His movements from the first were highly questionable, he “seemed to materialize” from the trees near the school gates and start down the pavement in an abstracted way. When he approached the empty house the three Vigilantes stopped to watch him and when he actually pushed open the gate and disappeared into the garden they became tense and perhaps somewhat over-excited.
    â€œWe’ve got him,” whispered Tuckman. “He can’t get out of there unless he has a key of the house or the side-door. Come on!”
    They went and found the stranger standing on the overgrown small lawn of the empty house gazing about him. With a rush the three were upon him and in the scuffle the stranger went to the ground.
    â€œCall the police!” shouted Tuckman.
    â€œI
am
the police,” said the stranger mildly, from underneath young Gates.
    And so it was. There were apologies and regrets for a ‘little misunderstanding’ but the incident did nothingto improve the already strained relations between the residents and the Law. Dyke became a somewhat rude and savage man. This was, he said, the
hell
of a case. There was nothing to get hold of and every prospect of another lethal attack on a woman. Not all the patrolling he could give to the district could eliminate the possibility of this and another corpse would blast his own reputation and that of the police. Yet what more could he do to prevent it? His only chance was to find some clue to the Stabber’s identity and so far none, absolutely none, had come to light.

Three

    T HE third was … but before there was a third victim, the case aroused the interest of Carolus Deene.
    This was scarcely to be wondered at, for the Stabber was the most widely discussed murderer since Christie. That case had reached headlines only after the victims were found and the murderer arrested; this received its daily measure of newsprint while the murders were still, as it were, going on, and newspapers could scarcely refrain from speculating on who might be the next unfortunate woman to be stabbed.
    Crabtree Avenue, a few weeks before one of hundreds of ugly Victorian streets in the suburbs, had become famous and pictures of it had appeared in most of the national newspapers. Number 46, the Empty House, in the garden of which Hester Starkey’s body had been discovered, first appeared and it was a matter of some disappointment that Number 18, the home of Lionel and Ada Goggins was almost a replica of it. Lionel Goggins who had discovered the second body in his frontgarden had, however, looked solemnly out of news sheets.
    That two weeks precisely separated the two murders was noticed and there was a school of