Death in Albert Park (24 page)

But the greatest ordeal for Carolus came next day when the Queen's School, Newminster, had assembled for the new term. At first it was difficult to predict just what the attitude of Mr. Gorringer, the headmaster, might be. He accepted the cheerful greeting of Carolus after morning prayers with a silent and severe inclination of his head. Two periods of teaching were safely negotiated and the eleven o'clock Break had begun before there was any demonstration.

Carolus was the first in the Common-Room and
seized the
Times
crossword with avidity before Hollingbourne could ravish its virginity by the dubious solution of two clues. But when the rest of the staff had gathered there was an unprecedented interruption. The school porter appeared.

Muggeridge was a disgruntled individual who for many years had resented the headmaster's orders that he should wear a uniform consisting of a frock coat and gold-braided top-hat.

“These niceties of appearance,” Mr. Gorringer explained, “help to keep a certain dignity for this ancient foundation.”

“There's not much dignity when my topper goes for a Burton,” grumbled Muggeridge.

But the uniform remained and now appeared in the doorway of the Common-Room.

“He wants you,” said Muggeridge. The three words were adequate. The headmaster wanted Carolus.

“Don't ask me what for,” went on Muggeridge. “He's got one of his high and mighty fits on. I could tell as soon as I heard the way he rang that blasted bell. I was just having my tea when it started.”

Carolus regretfully abandoned his crossword which was taken up by Hollingbourne.

Muggeridge's tale continued as he followed Carolus down the passage.

“I found him sitting up there like a heathen idol. ‘I want to speak to Mr. Deene', he says. ‘Well can't you speak to him,' I asked him, ‘without me running about all the morning? I was just having my tea,' I said. He puts on his grand manner and says ‘Kindly summon Mr. Deene, Muggeridge, and make no further comment'. So there you are.
I
don't know.”

It was obvious to Carolus, too, that the headmaster
was enjoying one of his ‘high and mighty fits'. He was writing at his large desk when Carolus entered and beyond indicating a chair with the end of his fountain pen, showed no sign of awareness of Carolus's arrival. There was a long silence broken by Mr. Gorringer clearing his throat with a mighty rumble. At last he put down his pen and looked up.

“Now, Deene,” he said, and paused again.

“What I am about to say to you is in the highest degree painful to me. For many years now we have been colleagues, and, so far as it is allowable between a headmaster and one of his senior assistants, friends. I have never belittled, nay, I have frequently applauded, your unique abilities as a teacher of history, and I do so again. But I should be failing in my duty to the Governors of the Queen's School, to the parents who entrust their sons to our care, to the old boys, to the staff and not least to our pupils if I did not—with the deepest regret, mark you—ask you to resign your post here.”

“Certainly, headmaster. On what grounds?”

“Grounds, Mr. Deene? In the circumstances I should scarcely have thought you would wish me to particularise. Let the words of the Coroner be sufficient. I have nothing to add to them. That an assistant of mine should have laid himself open to public reprimand in a matter so alien to his rightful profession, that he should actually be threatened with prosecution over his conduct is … seems to me … I am sorry. I find it too painful to talk about. I am outraged, Mr. Deene. I can use no other word.”

“Yes. I see you are. But don't you think the relatives of the three murdered women feel outraged too, headmaster?”

“The feelings of these unfortunate people, much though I sympathize with them, are no possible concern of ours in this quiet backwater of learning. And may I ask what you have done to relieve them? As I understand the matter the identity of their murderer is not yet entirely removed from the realms of speculation,”

“That's so.”

“Had you gone quietly to this unhappy suburb and by dint of your undoubted though misdirected talents been of some assistance to the police investigating, had you as in other cases, anonymously indicated a possible solution to a difficult problem, I might have found some answer to the Governors. I might have assisted you to ride the storm of opprobrium which you have raised. But you have not done so.”

“I know who is the murderer, if that's what you mean,” said Carolus quietly.

For a moment Mr. Gorringer pretended to ignore this, though his great red ears with their hairy orifices, almost flapped as he heard the words.

“You know, Deene,” he said, relaxing a little. “How very painful all this is to me. You say you
know
who is the guilty party?”

“Yes.”

“In all three of these … hm … assassinations?”

“In all four.”

“It is actually the same man—or woman?”

“It is.”

“Have you given this information to the authorities?”

“Not yet. I can't prove my case. The police will have to do that.”

“But you
have
a case, Deene?”

“Oh, certainly.”

“And you intend to state it?”

“If I can get Dyke, the Detective Superintendent investigating, to listen.”

“I see. It does not unhappily alter the position vis-avis the Governors of this school, but it relieves my private feelings somewhat. I have told you before, Deene, that under this academic gown there beats a very human heart, and it was partly the feeling that you had failed in this case which disturbed me. I cannot yet withdraw my request for your resignation. That, alas, is out of my hands. Sir Boxley Withers, our most respected Chairman, was on the telephone to me this morning.”

“What did he want?”

“I am bound to say he was temperate, most temperate, in his disapproval. He even showed a certain levity in his approach. But I can read between the lines and it has come to my ears that others of the Board feel strongly. If events should conspire to justify your conduct, Deene, it might be possible to persuade the Board to take a more lenient view. But for the moment I must insist on your resignation.”

“I'll send it you in writing,” said Carolus cheerfully.

“In the meantime, if as I suspect you intend to formulate your arguments, to state your case, as it were, I will take the bold step of asking Sir Boxley to be present. It might—who knows?—soften the blow this has been to him, and all of us.”

“I don't mind old Withers being there. He's not without intelligence. But the man I have to get is Dyke.”

“And when, may I ask, do you intend to expatiate?”

“I need some days to work on my notes.”

“I appreciate that. I must remind you, too, that another term has begun and we must not neglect our pedagogic duties,” said Mr. Gorringer blandly.

“Say next Wednesday? If you and Withers would care to dine?”

“I shall have to consult Sir Boxley on his engagements. For my own part I am fortunately free on that evening.”

“I shall feel like Scheherazade,” said Carolus. “Yarning to avert the ax.”

Mr. Gorringer did not permit himself to smile.

“I think my ears caught the sound of the school bell,” he said severely. “Our third period has begun.”

On returning to his house at lunch-time Carolus found his troubles multiplying.

“They've been coming here all the morning,” stated Mrs. Stick crisply. “Nor they won't take no for an answer though I threatened to call the police if this went on. One of them went so far as to put his foot in the door.”

“Who has been annoying you, Mrs. Stick?”

“Reporters, they said they was. I've scarcely had time to turn round and lunch won't be ready till I don't know when. I wonder they haven't broken into the school after you.”

“As they haven't I don't think you need worry any more. It's nearly twenty-four hours since the Inquest so I'm quite pass£ as news. These must have been strays.”

“Whatever they was they upset my cooking. I was going to do you a
sole mew nair.”

“Do by all means, Mrs. Stick,” said Carolus abstractedly.

Somehow he had to persuade Dyke to listen to him. It was the only hope of clearing his own conscience and winding up this whole lamentable case. He had certain information which the police had not, but it was of a kind, in itself, that would make very little appeal to
them. If he merely catalogued this and handed it over, Dyke would probably ignore it and think him impertinent and interfering. He had to go farther and persuade Dyke to hear what conclusions he had drawn from it.

Perhaps it would be best to return once more to Albert Park and take the bull by the horns. Dyke had had his pound of flesh and heard the Coroner's scathing remarks to Carolus. He might relent sufficiently to listen to him. After all, in what Carolus guessed to be Dyke's point of view, even the murder or suicide of Slatter was irrelevant to the main problem and the continuing danger. A maniacal killer had stabbed three women and was still unidentified. Jack the Ripper, who provided the only known precedent in English criminal history for a series of murders of this kind, had twice waited five months or more between two of his murders and there seemed no reason why the Stabber should not do the same. Could Dyke afford to ignore someone who claimed he had a theory to identify him?

After school that afternoon Carolus drove back to Albert Park and was relieved to find that Dyke agreed to see him at once.

“You see what comes of meddling, Mr. Deene?” the Superintendent greeted him.

“I see what comes
otnot
meddling. All I wanted was that the police should seemingly make that discovery for themselves. That's why I waited for the morning to see you. However, I shan't lose any sleep over the Coroner's remarks.”

“What do you want to see me about this time? Found any more corpses?”

“Not yet. I came to invite you to dinner on Wednesday.”

Dyke stared at him.

“Now what's this?” he said. “You ought to know by now that if there's one thing I hate it is a practical joke.”

“So do I. Detest them,” said Carolus. “I'll be perfectly frank, Superintendent. I have got a theory in this wretched business which I very much want you to consider. I understand that in your official capacity you cannot listen to the lucubrations of amateur detectives, but as a private individual after a dinner party you could surely do so.”

“I could, if I thought it would help me. Are you suggesting that you have identified this Stabber?”

“Provisionally, yes.”

“What do you mean by provisionally, Mr. Deene?”

“Unless I can persuade you to consider my theory at least as a possibility it will die stillborn. I have not a scrap of proof—only a lot of circumstantial evidence. But if I am right the hard proof is there for you and your forensic experts to uncover.”

Dyke smiled.

“You speak as though I had formed no opinions of my own,” he said. “All right, Mr. Deene. I accept your invitation and am grateful for it.”

Carolus arranged to come over in the car and pick him up.

Back once again in Newminster he was amazed to find a faint smile on the lips of Mrs. Stick.

“I've had a letter from my sister, sir,” she said almost amicably. “I was never more surprised in my life. She says her husband says you were quite right and it was a wicked thing for that Coroner to start on you like that, when all you was doing was your duty as a citizen. You could have bowled me over when I read it. You never can tell with people, can you, sir?”

“Indeed you can't, Mrs. Stick.”

“So all things considered and Stick not liking to give up his garden, I thought…”

“Just so. I quite understand and am delighted. Now I want to give a small dinner-party on Wednesday. Only six of us, a stag party. Can you manage that?”

A shadow of repressed doubt crossed Mrs. Stick's face.

“Well,” she began.

“The headmaster and one of the school Governors, Sir Boxley Withers, will be among them,” said Carolus hurriedly.

“Then I must see what I can do. We could start with a nice
print an year
soup …”

Carolus left Mrs. Stick happily planning her menu.

A
T
dinner on the following Wednesday Mr. Gorringer was jovial. It was impossible for him to be in any gathering without in some sense taking the chair and in spite of the presence of Sir Boxley Withers he did so now.

“Ah Deene,” he congratulated. “Your enviable Mrs. Stick is excelling herself. She is indeed a treasure. When I told my wife that I was dining here tonight she made one of her happier witticisms. ‘Screw your courage to the sticking-place', she said. I must say I laughed heartily.”