The Edge of Terror: An Anthony Bathurst Mystery by Brian Flynn

Author:Brian Flynn [Flynn, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B08F6RMQJC
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2020-10-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV

CONSTERNATION

After these happenings, Bathurst hitched his waggon to my star for good. What traps he had brought with him to Bligh’s in the first place he lugged round to my show and generally made a stay of it. The arrangement certainly suited us both. He was free to come and go when he liked, and I could mingle ordinary work with “sleuthing” to my heart’s content.

There was one great barrier, however, to progress. Kreutz, whom fingers itched to hold, had, to all intents and purposes disappeared from the face of the earth. The statement may sound incredible, but it is true all the same. Goodaker enlisted all the services and resources that the police authorities had at their disposal. But all to no purpose. This man, of unusual appearance, to say the least, who, we had every reason to believe, had been in the heart of Chelmersley on the previous evening and had murdered Elsie Rhodes in such a place as the “Beaufoy” Cinema, vanished as effectively and as completely as though he had never known existence. Neither Melsheimer’s nor Mrs. Rhodes’ establishment heard a whisper of him.

Bathurst was in touch with Goodaker almost hourly and the ’phone, which, come to think of it, had been in it since the jump-off, was going incessantly. But it brought us nothing. I was disappointed, but Bathurst imperturbable. One might almost have imagined, from his outward manner, that he was pleased with the way that things were going.

On the second morning after the third murder, I had left Bathurst alone at “The Rowfants”, barring the Ramage, of course. A woman over at Little Steeping had sent for me urgently to look at one of her youngsters, and I had discovered, when I arrived there, that what she had been afraid was erysipelas was nothing more than an alveolar abscess.

The kid’s face was considerably swollen, but it was a case for a dentist in the very near future, and I was able to allay maternal fears and forebodings and breeze back to “The Rowfants” by lunch-time.

Upon arrival, I saw that there was something doing; there was an air of excitement amongst the people that I found in my little dining-room that spoke eloquently of activity on all fronts. Bathurst and Goodaker were there, with Jack Tabernacle and a man of Chelmersley whom I knew as Torrelli.

His full name was Pietro Torrelli and he kept what was usually known as the “posh” restaurant in West Street. This restaurant was the very next building to the “Beaufoy”. I knew him fairly well, if only for the reason that I had sometimes dined there, and had also bought my last bus off him six months or so previously.

I quickly gathered from the conversation that our three guests had not arrived in one party. Jack had drifted in to see me on his own, and Bathurst had explained the position to him. He had elected to wait for my return, and the inspector and Torrelli had come in upon them later.

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