Death in Albert Park (27 page)

“Now comes an interesting problem. Had he already planned the murder of someone who was to appear to have committed suicide as the Stabber? Or was this, as I have been inclined to suppose an afterthought? It may have been in conversation with me that he first
realized that someone with a motive might be sought. ‘You can't discount motive', I said. ‘Oh, I thought you could with a madman,' Crabbett replied. ‘Not even then', I told him. It may be that from this moment he decided that he would establish the Stabber's identity in the way he sought to do. Yet there is one consideration against that. If he had no plan for the fourth murder why did he not at once dispose of the raincoat, the cloth cap and the glasses and disembarrass himself of the butcher's knife? It is a point which has yet to be cleared up.

“At all events he still had these articles and set about finding his victim, as we have seen. On the night he murdered Slatter I heard on the telephone from Chumside the landlord of the Mitre that he had been in deep conversation with Slatter, but I was in pursuit of what by then seemed to me almost certain proof—information from Heatherwell that it had been Crabbett who called on the previous night when he thought Heatherwell was alone.”

“And did you obtain that information?” Dyke allowed himself to ask.

“Not in so many words because Heatherwell is a man who tries to keep his promises. But to my own satisfaction, yes. When Heatherwell realizes the importance of the information he will certainly give it. And the lavatory attendant will be able to pick Crabbett out on any identification parade. But you won't have much difficulty in getting evidence, Superintendent, as you very well know. Think of the juicy lines of enquiry you have. (But you
are
thinking of them.) The sleeping tablets. The knife. The raincoat, with its possible bloodstains still to be found under the microscope and perhaps traces of something which connect it with the
boot of Crabbett's car. The cap—that alone might hang him. His flat and Slatter's lodge where I have no doubt you have already made discoveries. The spectacles. The clothes Crabbett wore, if he has not destroyed them.

“Yet I doubt if you'll need to work on these. If I read the man rightly you will have a most detailed and proud confession as soon as he realizes that you seriously suspect him. His belief in his own cleverness and invulnerability once exploded he will seek another outlet for his paranoia, and will boast freely of what he has done.”

“If you read the man right,” said Withers suddenly, speaking almost for the first time that evening. “If—but it is certain you do. You have read him all along with most uncanny skill.”

“Bravo, Deene,” said Mr. Gorringer beaming. “I join our Chairman of Governors in his congratulation. But there is yet one question I would fain ask. You warned both Slatter and Heatherwell, I believe. How did you know that the murderer intended to add this fiendish afterthought to his misdeeds?”

“I didn't
know.
But we all have a little of the murderer in us and I perhaps more than most…”

“You alarm me, Deene!”

“I mean that to investigate crime at all one must be able to put oneself in the place of the criminal, turning about in the rat-trap he has created for himself. That is what I did in this case and saw that he might mistake this for a way of escape.”

“A most felicitous conclusion by which you were able to save Heatherwell's life.”

“But not Slatter's,” said Carolus.

Dyke made no comment, then or thereafter, but rather abruptly took his leave.

Six weeks later, when Crabbett had, as Carolus predicted, made a full confession and was awaiting the trial that would send him for a lifetime to Broadmoor, Carolus decided to pay one last visit connected with the affair, the visit he had promised to Eamon Starkey at the Crucible Theatre.

He drove there alone and found the posters changed now bearing the stark words “Exp
7
Rev
Oedipus Limbo
by Tho Wilk” in letters of green on a yellow background. Hy Nox was again near the booking-office, stroking his thin red beard mournfully.

“Yes,” he said, “I remember you. Your name's Car Dee and you're a friend of Index Eleven, aren't you? He'll be out in a minute. He has only a small Exegesis in Execution One. Do you want to wait for him inside?”

“I'd like to buy a ticket.”

“Not one left, I'm afraid. We're packed every night for this. It's great, great. Tho Wilk at his most terrific. You'll just be in time for the shattering interloc between Indexes One and Seven.”

Carolus saw as he entered the auditorium that only one bema was illuminated, the one on the left. It seemed crowded with skinny torsos and beards where a number of men wearing only loin clothes moved in rhythmic patterns as they talked.

“Ancient Britons?” asked Carolus.

“No. Ciphers. Nullities. Non-Existences.”

Two of them punctuated the talk of the others with periodic clashing of dustbin lids which they held as cymbals. Each wore a lavatory chain with the handle falling on his breast and the bema was festooned with toilet paper. The talk seemed to be of plumbing.

“The poetry of it!” sighed Hy Nox.

“Is it poetry they are speaking?”

“Emancipated, yes.”

A woman in over-alls interrupted the Non-Existences. She was lanky and her hair fell in sticky-looking strings, so that she looked like an Addams character.

“Venus Anadyomene,” explained Hy Nox.

“Is that why she's nursing a lobster?”

“Of course. You're beginning to get the idiom.”

Suddenly the other bema became illuminated showing three seated figures dressed and be-wigged as judges.

“Why
three
judges?” asked Carolus.

“They're plumbers,” explained Hy Nox severely and the Mutual Consciousness went on.

Eamon Starkey when he emerged seemed contrastingly sane and commonplace.

“Let's go over to the Wheatsheaf,” he said.

Not until they had their drinks was any mention made of the matter which had first brought them together.

“So there was method in his madness?” said Starkey.

“That exactly sums it up,” Carolus replied. “It was madness. But there was method of a rather hideous kind.”

“And my sister was the victim of both?”

“Yes. Of the Stabber and of the wife-murderer. The only thing that can possibly be any kind of a remote sort of consolation to you is that he knew his job and death was instantaneous. In those two years of planning he learnt the nearest and easiest way to the heart.”