Knock, Murderer, Knock! Read online

  “Did he smoke?”

  “He did have a fag in his hand, sir.”

  “Who is he? What does he do?”

  “Bert Matthews, sir. He’s Mr. Marston’s chauffeur.”

  “He had no business to be in this part of the building at all,” put in the doctor.

  “Which way did he go out?” asked Palk.

  “By the door leading to the main corridor, sir, the same way that he came in. He just came to the door and then went away again.”

  “Did he close the door after him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So that you didn’t see where he went after he left you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And what did he come here to say so specially?”

  Cox moistened his lips.

  “I – I’d rather you asked him that yourself,” he said miserably.

  “You’re not doing him any good by refusing to answer.”

  “Well, then, he wanted to know if Miss Marston was in there,” he said, jerking his thumb towards the ladies’ treatment-rooms.

  Chapter 25

  Palk returned to the ladies’ treatment-rooms and began the serious business of questioning Nurse Hawkins.

  “What time did Miss Marston come in for treatment?” he asked.

  “Treatment was fixed for ten past eleven and she was almost on time.”

  “By that clock?” glancing at the round, wooden-rimmed clock which hung on the wall.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me all that happened from the moment that she came in.”

  Nurse Hawkins gave him a clear account of all that had occurred from the moment of Winnie’s entry into the rooms to the moment when she had made her gruesome discovery.

  “How long did the douche last?”

  “About twelve minutes. It is just to bring the blood to the surface of the skin to assist the massage.”

  “Then she dried herself. That would take a good five minutes, I suppose,” went on Palk.

  “Oh no! Not more than two, I should think.”

  The doctor smiled.

  “Women never dry themselves properly,” he said. “They use one large towel instead of two small ones, and have no idea of giving themselves a brisk rub down. I don’t suppose she troubled to dry herself properly.”

  “Say three minutes at the outside, then. That brings us to eleven twenty-five. How long did the massage take?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “Eleven forty-five. Why didn’t she get up and go then?”

  “She did want to,” replied the nurse, “but I wouldn’t let her. She said she had an important engagement, but all patients have to rest after treatment.” She glanced at Dr. Williams.

  “Yes, most essential,” he agreed, rather unnecessarily, Palk thought. “The limb needs rest after the treatment. Massage is really more strenuous than most people seem to think. The body needs to get back again to a normal temperature. Rest is most essential. The fact that patients feel naturally sleepy afterwards is sufficient indication of this.”

  “Miss Marston was your first patient this morning, Nurse?” Palk continued.

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  “So that there was no one else in these rooms at eleven-forty?”

  “Yes. I had another patient down for that time for electric treatment. She was waiting for me in the next room when I’d finished with Miss Marston.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Mrs. Dawson.”

  “That confounded woman again!” the Inspector said to himself, as he moved into the electric-room and asked what kind of treatment Mrs. Dawson had been having.

  The doctor explained.

  “Mrs. Dawson is suffering from strain to her right arm,” he began. (Palk’s brain supplied: “Writer’s cramp. Why doesn’t he say so?”) “She would be sitting in this chair facing the thermostat machine, with this bath” – indicating a deep, narrow bath fixed to elbow-height by an adjustable iron stand – “on her right, her forearm lying beneath hot water.”

  “The chair and bath haven’t been moved since she was here,” added the nurse.

  “You put on the usual pad, of course, Nurse,” the doctor inquired.

  “Yes, Doctor”

  She picked up a thick, folded bandage of white lint and handed it to the Inspector. He took it into his hands and noticed that it was soaked through with water.

  “That pad is placed on the arm, with this,” the doctor held up a square metal disc, attached by a black rubber tubing to the machine, “on top. They are bandaged to the arm, and the machine is turned on.”

  The nurse turned a switch at Palk’s request, and the room was filled with loud humming, like the sound of an electric vacuum-cleaner.

  “So Mrs. Dawson would be virtually attached to the machine?”

  “That is so,” replied the doctor.

  “Could she move?”

  “Oh, yes, but I don’t suppose that she did. Nurse Hawkins will tell you that we find our patients usually get a complex about this machine. They feel tied down by it and will hardly even turn their heads during treatment. It’s rather like a hen who think she’s tied to a string if you draw a chalk-mark from her beak to a stick in the ground.”

  “How long did Mrs. Dawson’s treatment last?” Palk asked the nurse.

  “An hour altogether. Half an hour for electric treatment and half an hour for massage. I stayed in here for the massage instead of going into the other room, because I thought it would be warmer.”

  “So that Mrs. Dawson would be ready to go at a quarter to twelve.”

  “No, later than that, Inspector. It takes nearly a quarter of an hour to prepare the electric treatment, fetching hot water and fixing the bandage on the arm. I did not finish the massage till one o’clock.”

  “Did you remain in here while Mrs. Dawson was having the electric treatment?”

  “No. I went upstairs at twelve to give Lady Warme her massage in her bedroom.”

  “So that for half an hour you and Lady Warme have an alibi?”

  Nurse Hawkins flushed, but did not reply.

  “Is it usual to leave a patient alone when she is having treatment?”

  “It depends. I should not think of leaving a stranger at any time for the first few treatments, but Mrs. Dawson was familiar with the procedure, and could have turned off the current if anything unusual occurred.”

  “Oh, could she?” exclaimed Palk. He calculated a little. “Then you were here till about twelve, when you had prepared Mrs. Dawson for treatment. At twelve-thirty you came back and remained in the electric-room until one o’clock. You say that you called out to Miss Marston at twelve-thirty, so that she must have been alive then.”

  Nurse Hawkins looked upset.

  “How do I know that? That’s the awful part of it. If I’d looked... But I just called out that it was time for her to get up, and didn’t wait for a reply. Then I went to fetch a table for the massage, and saw the curtain of her cubicle move, so I imagined that she was dressing. I called out to her again, but, you see, I never expected an answer, so I don’t know whether she was still alive.”

  “She was most probably killed, then, while you were upstairs with Lady Warme,” said Palk. He walked into the larger room in which Miss Marston had had the douche. “Which cubicle did Miss Marston use?” he asked.

  Nurse Hawkins walked to the fourth one from the left.

  “This one,” she said, jerking back the curtains, and there, sitting on the upholstered bench among her own clothes and Winnie’s, attired in a linen apron and a bathing-cap of red rubber, sat Mrs. Napier, scowling in hatred at the nurse, and gibbering between her clicking, ill-fitting teeth.

  Chapter 26

  Miss Blake had been merely a corpse to Inspector Palk, but he had spoken with Winnie Marston and had seen her walking about the Hydro, so that this second murder affected him personally far more than the first. Miss Blake, as far as he could ascertain, had no friends or relations, but Winnie Marston h
ad parents and a younger sister: he did not relish the forthcoming interviews with them.

  Mr. Marston came in first; a man of athletic build with blue eyes, reddish hair, a cruel mouth, and a reputation for bad temper unrivalled even in the Hydro.

  “Well, couldn’t you have stopped it?” he barked at Palk. “You knew that there was a killer about, didn’t you? The whole lot of us will be murdered before you find him. Why don’t you do something?”

  Palk pointed out that the previous murder had been committed by Sir Humphrey Chervil, who was already in prison.

  “Nonsense!” Mr. Marston stamped up and down the room, drawing in noisy, asthmatic breaths. “He never murdered anyone. He’s the wrong type. He might be a twister, but he’s no murderer. If he’d got a girl into trouble he’d have run away. You want to use a bit of psychology, Inspector. I could have told you at the time that he wasn’t guilty. Now perhaps you’ll believe that I’m right.” He sat down suddenly and bowed his head to his hands. “Oh God! Why did he have to choose my Winnie?”

  Palk, making every allowance for Mr. Marston’s grief, remembered, nevertheless, that Winnie Marston had been alone for one fatal half-hour, during which anyone could have had access to the ladies’ baths unseen, and that Mr. Marston was as much under suspicion as anyone else in the Hydro.

  “He?” he repeated. “Do you suspect Matthews then?”

  Mr. Marston looked up in amazement.

  “Who? Me? Suspect Matthews? Of murdering my daughter? My chauffeur? Good God, no! Why should I?”

  “It appears to be an understood thing in the Hydro that they were in love with each other,” replied Palk.

  He was unprepared for the effect of his words. Mr. Marston leaped to his feet, his face suffused with anger, and pumped his arms up and down in the air amid a stream of profanities which he might have learned from Admiral Urwin.

  “It’s a lie! A damned lie!” he yelled. “Do you think I shouldn’t have known about it? Do you think I should have kept him in my employment if there’d been a word of truth in such a scandalous insinuation? My daughter has been murdered... murdered, I say... and you sit there listening to gossip! Why don’t you do something?” He stood still, breathing audibly, then placing his hands on the table, he leaned across towards Palk. “Will you find the man who did this terrible thing?” he asked quietly. “I’ll give a hundred, five hundred, a thousand pounds if you’ll only find him.”

  His lowered voice was impressive, but the effort to keep it in check was too great for him. The sight of Palk sitting immobile aroused him to further fury, and he thumped his fist on the table.

  “Will you do something,” he yelled again, “instead of sitting there like a smug ape? Get up and do something!”

  Palk got up, a good head taller than Mr. Marston, and thumped the table in return.

  ‘‘Sit down!” he ordered, in the same tones he had used to quell the hysterics of the chambermaid, Amy, and Mr. Marston, surprisingly, sat down. “I haven’t time to listen to your histrionics, Marston,” the Inspector went on. “If you want me to find your daughter’s murderer you’ll answer my questions soberly...”

  “Soberly!” roared Mr. Marston. “Do you mean to suggest?”

  “I haven’t time to waste in idle suggestions,” cut in Palk. “I know that you’re upset, and I’ve tried to make every allowance for that, but you’re hindering me considerably by this objectionable manner, and you will please curb your temper and answer my questions as concisely as possible. Your daughter’s murderer is still at large somewhere in, or near, this building, and the longer you keep me here the better chance he has of going free.”

  “Keep you here! Me? Why, I’m trying to –”

  Palk ignored him.

  “You say that you did not suspect any kind of love-affair between your daughter Winnie and your chauffeur?”

  Mr. Marston made as if to rise from his chair, caught Palk’s eye, and subsided, replying in surly tones:

  “No. There was nothing, I tell you, nothing. They had been out together several times. I don’t deny that. He was giving her driving-lessons. Everyone in the Hydro knew it.”

  “You’re quite sure that there was nothing in it? A young girl alone in a car with a young man... surely there was some temptation there?”

  Mr. Marston controlled himself with difficulty.

  “There was no temptation. He was not a young man in her eyes; he was only a chauffeur, and no more to her than the steering-gear of the car. She was my daughter, a Marston of Marston Magna; she would no more dream of allowing a chauffeur to take liberties with her than – than I should dream of taking liberties with a chambermaid!”

  “You don’t consider that Miss Marston’s life was so restricted here that she might have been driven to seeking the company of someone young and good-looking whom she would not otherwise have noticed?”

  “Certainly not. What was wrong with her life here? She had her mother and sister and me, and a reasonable allowance, and no worries of any kind. What more could a young girl of twenty want?”

  “You think that she was quite happy, then?”

  “Of course she was. She’d have been very foolish if she had been anything else.”

  “How do you account for the fact that Matthews went to the treatment-rooms and asked the bath-attendant if Miss Marston was in there this morning?”

  “I don’t try to account for it, Inspector,” retorted Mr. Marston. “That’s your job. Why don’t you ask Matthews? He was there; I wasn’t. He certainly didn’t mean to stay there long, I can tell you that, because he knew that I’d ordered the car for twelve-thirty, and when I give orders, Inspector, I see that they’re obeyed.”

  “Mr. Marston,” asked Palk finally, “can you give me any idea who murdered your daughter, and why?”

  “No!” replied Mr. Marston flatly. “That’s your job. For God’s sake get on with it!”

  Millie Marston’s reaction was different.

  “I want to ask you some questions about your sister,” Palk began, and to his consternation Millie burst into tears.

  “It’s awful to think of her lying there alone like that!” she sobbed.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Palk sympathetically. “It must have been a great shock to you. I suppose you were great friends.”

  “No, we weren’t,” replied Millie, when she could control her voice. “We never got on well together, and it wasn’t my fault, either. I always wanted to be friends and share her secrets, but she was so reserved; she treated me as if I was a baby, and she was only two years older than I.”

  “I don’t suppose you could have any idea who killed her then,” said Palk.

  Millie brushed away the last of her tears.

  “Oh yes, I could!” she exclaimed. “It was Matthews. I know a good bit more about Winnie’s affairs than she thought I did. If she wouldn’t tell me, you can’t blame me for trying to find out, can you? After all, you do want to know when it’s your own sister. She and Matthews were as thick as thieves, I can tell you that much. Winnie was crazy about him.”

  “But if she never told you anything, how could you know?”

  Millie sniffed.

  “I could tell,” she replied with a superior air. “I used to rag her about Matthews. If there’d been nothing in it, she’d only have laughed, but she didn’t. She used to fly into a temper as bad as Father’s, and say that she’d kill me if I ever breathed a word about it.”

  “You did tell someone though, didn’t you? Someone must have started the rumours about them in the Hydro.”

  “Well I didn’t,” said Millie truculently. “The only thing I ever said was that everyone in the Hydro was talking about Winnie and Matthews. I told Mother, and she boxed my ears for me.”

  Palk could well understand it; he was possessed with a desire to do the same himself.

  “So you think that Matthews murdered her. Why?”

  "Who else would want to?” retorted Millie. “She never had anything to do with any
body else. Do you know what I think? I think that they were planning to run away together this very morning! Winnie was excited about something, anyway, and goodness knows, there’s nothing to get excited about in this foul hole. It’s worse than being at school. I don’t think that she wanted to go for her treatment this morning at all, and she cried with temper when she twisted her leg at tennis, but she had to go. She daren’t cry off in case Mother or Dad suspected anything.”

  “But why should Matthews murder her? If he didn’t want to go away with her, as you seem to think, surely he could have gone away without telling her?”

  Millie grinned.

  “You didn’t know Winnie,” she said. “She was one of the clinging sort, and if she wanted a thing badly enough she’d get it whatever anyone else said. If he’d tried to go away from her she’d have screamed blue murder!” She stopped, scared by her own words, then went on suddenly, “If she’d only told me, I’d have helped her. It’s because she was so secretive that I was mad with her. I’d have helped her to run away with him, even though he was only a common chauffeur. Dad’s always talking about the honour of the Marston family, but it’s not much use to anyone in a dead-alive hole like this. We never have a chance of any fun. Besides, Matthews might turn out to be a duke’s son who has to earn his living for a year before he can succeed to the title. I saw a film last week in Newton St. Mary with Cary Gable in it like that…”

  Mrs. Marston was the calmest of the family. Small, plump, and pretty, she gave the impression of being naturally a vivacious and talkative woman, but now she sat quietly in her chair, and Palk felt her grief hanging like a semi-transparent curtain between them.

  Yes, she would tell the Inspector everything she knew, though it seemed rather late, didn’t it? She didn’t much care about having anyone hanged; revenge couldn’t give Winnie back to her, could it? Still, for the sake of other people... Millie might be the next, mightn’t she?

  Yes, she had heard rumours about Winnie and Matthews. When? Oh, quite recently. Within the last week, she thought. It was Millie who had first drawn her attention to them. It happened in this way. They had arranged to go for a drive. Charles had been in one of his frequent tempers and was stamping about outside, throwing gravel at her bedroom window because they were late, and really it was his own fault, for until the very last minute he had said he wouldn’t go with them at all. She had sent Winnie to the garage to tell Matthews to hurry, and Millie had said that if she wanted him to come quickly she ought not to have sent Winnie. Asked for an explanation, Millie had said that it was all over the Hydro that Winnie and Matthews were “mad about each other.” No, she didn’t believe it. She had boxed Millie’s ears and forbidden her to speak of it again. But no doubt the people in the Hydro had gossiped about Winnie and Matthews; they talked nothing but scandal about anyone. Of course there was no truth in it whatever. Winnie was a good girl and well brought up, not flighty like that poor Miss Blake who was always ogling the men, even if they were other women’s husbands. Well, really, she had seemed to set her cap at Charles, and he was so susceptible to a pretty face, even if it belonged to a chambermaid...