Knock, Murderer, Knock! Read online

  “What happened then?”

  “Well, Ted did happen to be there, and he cursed me like blazes when he knew I’d been looking for Miss Marston. Then I went back to the garage, and waited a bit longer. When she didn’t turn up, I had to take the car round to pick up the boss and drive him out.”

  “When did you first hear of the murder?”

  “Ted Cox was waiting for me in the garage when I got back. He told me that if you knew I’d actually opened the door of the ladies’ baths, I should be for it. He said he’d told you that I’d asked him if Miss Marston was in the baths, and made me promise that I’d stick to the same story, but I thought it would be safer to say nothing at all.”

  “Well,” said Palk, “if this story about you and Miss Marston getting married is true, I suppose you can prove it. You’ve got the marriage certificate hidden away somewhere, I suppose.”

  Matthews hesitated for a moment, then said:

  “I burned it.”

  “Burned it?” ejaculated Palk in amazement. “But it was your proof...”

  “I didn’t want to prove it,” said Matthews wearily. “I didn’t want you to find out that we were married, and I knew as soon as Ted Cox told me about the murder that you’d suspect me and search my room, so I burned it. I knew I could always get a copy if I wanted it.”

  Palk was unconvinced.

  “We didn’t find a wedding-ring,” he said. “I suppose you burned that too.”

  “She had one all right,” said Matthews, tugging at the plain gold band which fitted so tightly on the little finger of his right hand. “Here it is. It was her idea that I should wear it for her. She said no one would ever find it then. You see, she was afraid of the boss. She said he’d kill her if he ever found out.” He succeeded in pulling the thin, worn circlet from his rough finger, and placed it on the desk between Palk and Mr. Winkley. “It’s my mother’s wedding-ring,” he explained. “I wanted to buy her another one, but she wouldn’t let me. She said that what was good enough for my mother was good enough for her. She was...”

  ...A nice girl, and I could never understand,

  Why did she fall for the leader of the band,

  whistled Palk under his breath.

  Chapter 38

  Inspector Palk pushed his chair back and, getting up, walked across to the window and stood looking down at the market square of Newton St. Mary, jingling the keys and loose change in his trouser pockets.

  “Miss Marston and the car!” he said. “And I shouldn’t wonder if the car meant more to him than the girl. I wonder how long it would have taken her to get tired of life with him?” He turned to face Mr. Winkley. “I ought to have found out about their marriage,” he went on disconsolately, “though I still don’t see what clue I missed, with no ring or certificate in existence.”

  “You didn’t miss anything,” replied Mr. Winkley. “It was merely a lucky guess. It seemed the only possible explanation for Matthews’ silence, assuming, as I did, that he was not guilty of murder. The only thing he had to lose was his job, and it seemed likely, as he wouldn’t talk, that he was afraid of losing it through some connection with Winnie Marston. I don’t entirely ignore the scandal which goes on in the Hydro, because I find that scandal is usually woven round a nucleus of truth, however small. The other possibility, that he had already raped her, was knocked on the head by the doctor’s examination; her sister, who really knew her far better than anyone else, thought that she had decided to run away with Matthews –”

  “And she was a nice girl –” grinned Palk.

  “So it seemed likely that they were already married. It was just luck.”

  “That’s what you say,” returned Palk, “but the fact remains that I ought to have thought all that out for myself. I’ve tripped up pretty badly on this case. It’s what the journalists would call My Big Chance, and I’m Making a Hash of It.”

  “Nonsense!” retorted Mr. Winkley. “All your work is sound. You’ve had the job of gathering all the material together and building up the foundations; it’s dead easy for someone like myself to come along and build up the top storey.”

  But Palk refused to be comforted.

  “That depends on what material you’re using,” he said. “If you’re building a card castle, it’s the top storey that takes the most putting on.”

  Mr. Winkley leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.

  “I spend all my time at the Yard putting jigsaw puzzles together,” he said.

  Palk swung round suddenly.

  “Good lord! You don’t mean to tell me that you’re like old Admiral Urwin and his crossword puzzles, do you?”

  Mr. Winkley smiled.

  “I thought that would startle you,” he said. “No. I admit they’re not real jigsaws, but it’s a similar kind of practice. If any piece of information comes into the Yard which no one can make head or tail of, it’s dumped into my department, and I have the task of sorting it out and making sense of it. It’s all stuff which is pretty badly involved, or it doesn’t qualify for my department at all, and it means keeping a few thousands of tiny, ill-assorted facts in my mind for years, sometimes. A kind of continuity-girl stunt, if you can understand. An obscure reference to cats in 1919 might remain unintelligible until 1939, when an equally obscure reference to mice might turn it into sense. I’m all the time chiselling down pieces of information into the queerest shapes and then trying to fit them into each other. Plain routine never gets the right results in these cases, and mine is the only department, I suppose, where logic fails, and a wild guess more often hits on the truth.”

  “All right,” said Palk, grinning, “I’ll play.” He sat down again in his chair and fidgeted with his notes. “We’ll say that Matthews is innocent. I’ve had the marriage at Excester Registry Office verified by ’phone, and it’s O.K. We haven’t had time to find out whether it’s bigamous or not yet, but we’ll assume that it isn’t, and that Matthews is now telling us the truth. Where does that get us?”

  Mr. Winkley took out his cigarettes and offered them to Palk.

  “It gets us to a point where we can eliminate Dr. Williams, Mr. Marston, Colonel Simcox, and Admiral Urwin,” replied Mr. Winkley, striking a match and lighting Palk’s cigarette and his own. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Matthews stepped inside the door of the ladies’ treatment-rooms at the very moment when Winnie Marston caught sight of the murderer. He says that he thought at the time that it was Nurse Hawkins who spoke, and no man in his senses could mistake her voice for a man’s.”

  “The doctor’s voice isn’t very deep,” said Palk, “and Matthews couldn’t hear very clearly. Of course, I know that the doctor is your friend, but...” He sounded embarrassed.

  “Don’t worry about that, Inspector,” replied Mr. Winkley. “I quite realize that the doctor is a suspect, and so does he; but I think that the very nature of Winnie’s words lets him out. She might have called out, ‘What are you doing here?’ to the Colonel or the Admiral, but she certainly wouldn’t have said it to the doctor, even if she hadn’t expected to see him at that moment. She was his patient, and it was part of his job to visit the treatment-rooms at some time during the treatment. He’d be a rotten doctor if he didn’t. Do you agree?”

  Palk nodded, and they were both silent for a minute while their thoughts seemed to wreathe upwards with the erratic blue spirals from their cigarettes.

  “If the three murders are the work of one hand,” the Inspector remarked at last, “I strongly suspect Nurse Hawkins. She has the necessary training to know what kind of blow to strike to effect instantaneous death; she had as much opportunity for murder as anyone in the Hydro in the first and third crimes, and more than most in the second; there was a knitting-needle among the instruments in the men’s baths; Matthews thought it was her voice he heard, and Winnie Marston’s remarks might have expressed surprise because the nurse had returned so soon after saying she would be away for half an hour.”

  Mr. Winkley nodded.


  “I see your point, Inspector,” he said, “but in my opinion you’re stretching the facts a little, and that always leads to a distorted conclusion. Collect your facts and make a mighty guess if you like, but never stretch them in order to maintain a logical sequence of reasoning. You say that Nurse Hawkins had as much opportunity as anyone to commit the murders, but you forget that she has an alibi for that very important half-hour during which Winnie Marston was killed. I’m by no means of the opinion of Mr. Weller Senior that there’s “nothing like a alleybi’; but the fact remains that Lady Warme cannot be shaken on her certainty that the nurse was with her when she said she was. I don’t think that Lady Warme is sufficiently fond of Nurse Hawkins to perjure herself on her behalf; indeed, she rather gave me the impression that she wished the nurse hadn’t got an alibi. I don’t place any significance on Matthews’ saying that he thought he heard the nurse’s voice. It was natural for him to assume that it was hers because he was expecting to hear it.

  “Again, the argument which applies to the doctor, applies equally to the nurse. Winnie Marston wouldn’t have been surprised to see the nurse return to the massage-room, even if she had not been expecting her. All the liniments and bandages and towels are kept in the cupboards there, as you have seen. Miss Marston might have said something like, ‘Hello, back again?’ but she certainly wouldn’t have said, ‘What are you doing here?’ not even rhetorically. If only we could find the motive!”

  Palk jumped up and began to pace restlessly up and down the floor.

  “Motive! Motive!” he exclaimed. “What possible motive can there be for murdering a child? The only explanation is that someone at the Hydro is a raving lunatic, and we’re trying to find out who it is by reasoning. Why, we’re beaten at the starting-post!”

  He checked himself as Sergeant Jago came into the room, after an apologetic knock.

  “I came to report, sir,” he said. “I’m just back from the Hydro.”

  “Find anything?”

  The sergeant pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “Not a sign of anything, sir. I’ve had all the men searching the hotel and grounds all day.”

  Palk turned, with a hopeless gesture, to which Mr. Winkley replied with a nod of encouragement.

  “Come and sit down, Sergeant,” he said. “If two heads are better than one, three heads should be better than two.” He proceeded to give the sergeant a brief outline of the day’s work and the conclusions to which they had come about the two prisoners. “We’re at a dead end,” he continued, “and only a brilliant guess can help us. Let’s see what you can do in that line. If you had to pin the three murders on to one of the women in the Hydro, whom would you choose?”

  Sergeant Jago looked carefully at Mr. Winkley to see whether he was serious, decided that he wasn’t, and started to chuckle.

  ‘‘Blow me if I wouldn’t put it on to Miss Brendon,” he said. “That nurse-companion of hers, Rogers, probably pushed her along in the bath-chair, guided her hand to the victim’s skull, and carried her upstairs to her room again!”

  Even Palk could not help smiling at this idea.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t much hope of that,” he said. “But it would certainly relieve the monotony for the old lady. It must be pretty awful for her to be almost blind and lying upstairs all day, knowing that there are all these murders about the place. I don’t know that I ever thought about it before.”

  “Bless your soul, she doesn’t mind,” replied Jago. “That nurse of hers guards her like a trooper.”

  “You seem to have managed to get on the right side of her,” remarked the Inspector. “When I went to interview her, I thought her a cantankerous old – er – lady.”

  Jago grinned in delight.

  “Oh, I got to know her when we were searching her room,” he said. “You never saw anything like the amount of stuff she keeps in it. She must have been collecting it ever since she was a child, and that wasn’t yesterday, by a long chalk. The companion followed me about the room all the time, and told the old lady everything which I picked up, and Miss Brendon gave me its life history. We got on very well together. She told me that she used to be considered quite a lad when she was a girl because she used to wear bloomers when she went out cycling.”

  “Oh, kiss me, Sergeant!” exclaimed the Inspector, and Jago grinned again.

  “What on earth does she do all day?” asked Mr. Winkley.

  “Tats,” said the sergeant.

  “What?” his superiors shouted together.

  “Tats,” repeated Jago. “Yes. It’s a proper word. Tats. Makes lace on a cushion covered with bobbins. They make a noise like false teeth clicking together.”

  “Good lord! I haven’t seen one of those since I was a boy,” said Mr. Winkley. “I never noticed it when I was having tea in her room.”

  “You wouldn’t, sir,” replied Sergeant Jago, “not unless she was using it, and I suppose she wanted to talk while you were there. She’d feel quite emancipated again to entertain a gentleman in her bedroom. Talk! She never stops. It’s my belief that all the scandal of the Hydro starts in her bed-room.”

  Palk regarded the sergeant with a tolerant air, but Mr. Winkley leaned forward a little, as if he found the sergeant’s remarks of greater import.

  “That’s very interesting, Sergeant,” he said.

  Sergeant Jago, not used to praise, tossed his head from one side to the other as if to counteract any tendency it might develop of becoming swollen.

  “Well, that’s just my idea, sir,” he said. “You’d think that these murders would have put an end to the scandal for a bit, wouldn’t you? But they haven’t, though. They’re all at it again now.”

  “Oh!” said Mr. Winkley. “Who are the victims this time?”

  “Dr. Williams and that quiet mouse of a secretary, Miss Lewis,” replied Sergeant Jago, “and as for being victims, sir, all I can say is that all the ones who’ve been murdered so far were young and better-looking than the others, so perhaps Miss Lewis will be the next one!”

  To their amazement, Mr. Winkley suddenly jerked up his arm and pointed a forefinger at a spot between the sergeant’s eyes.

  “That’s it!” he cried. “I’m beginning to see the truth now. We should have seen it before if we hadn’t got each case tucked away in a compartment of its own. It’s the first murder which should have given us the clue. We’ve been concentrating on the wrong ones. Motive? There’s plenty of motive, and it’s still there, but we’ve no evidence, and we shall never be able to prove it unless –” He got up abruptly, and, picking up his overcoat from a chair in the corner, began to struggle into it. “I’m going to make an experiment,” he said, turning to Palk. “I’m going back to the Hydro now. You and Jago are to follow me there. I shall be in the doctor’s rooms. Come in by his private door, and mind no one sees you.”

  He picked up his hat and made for the door.

  “But – what arrangements…?” asked Palk. “Don’t you want any men?”

  “No. Just you and the sergeant. I’m not going to make an arrest. I’m only going to arrange an experiment. So long!”

  And before the Inspector could protest, he had crammed his hat on his head and had swung out of the room, leaving Sergeant Jago gaping in utter bewilderment.

  Chapter 39

  The following evening at eight minutes past ten, Ada Rogers tiptoed into Miss Brendon’s room to make sure that her mistress was asleep, closed the door softly, and went to pay her nightly visit to Mrs. Dukes, the housekeeper. The hour rarely varied by so much as two minutes, for a cup of tea and a gossip in the housekeeper’s sitting-room was Rogers’ only recreation in the Hydro. Regarding herself as superior to the housemaids, and herself regarded as an inferior by Nurse Hawkins and the doctor’s secretary, Rogers had a considerably limited participation in the social amenities enjoyed by the rest of the staff. The housekeeper was the one being in the Hydro by whom she was accepted as a friend, and with whom she could relax.

  S
he found Mrs. Dukes sitting in a worn arm-chair, with an old blade from a safety razor in her hand, and one bare foot resting on a hassock.

  “Come in quick, Ada, and shut the door,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m sure, that you’ve found me like this, but I just couldn’t bear my foot any longer. I know you don’t mind.”

  “You poor thing,” sympathized Rogers. “You do suffer something cruel with your corns. It’s a shame that you have to stand on your poor feet the way you do all day.”

  “Well, I have had rather a day of it today, I don’t mind telling you. Just when I thought I’d finished, the doctor sent for me and told me to have Miss Blake’s bedroom that was, cleaned out so that Miss Lewis can sleep there. It’s been under lock and key since the police arrested Sir Humphrey, who was always so nice to us, and I’m sure I don’t believe he ever murdered the girl though they do say seeing’s believing; so you can just imagine the state it was in and me with my feet aching like this. I should have thought to-morrow would be time enough to turn it out, but no, he must have it ready tonight. So I said to him, ‘Well, Doctor, if Miss Lewis doesn’t mind, I’m sure I don’t,’ and I just got hold of two of the girls and now it’s finished.”

  “I should think Miss Lewis didn’t mind, neither,” remarked Rogers. “Why, it’s one of the prettiest bedrooms in the house. What does he want to give it to her for, I’d like to know. Putting ideas into her head, I call it, as if she isn’t stuck up enough already and me always as nice as pie to her. I don’t see why anyone should mind sleeping there; after all, it isn’t as if that poor Miss Blake had been done to death in her bedroom.”

  Mrs. Dukes suppressed a shudder.

  “That’s as may be, Ada,” she said, “but I wouldn’t sleep in there, no, not if you were to crown me with a golden crown. That room’s haunted, you mark my words. Not but what it’s a good idea of the doctor’s, though.” She gave a final pick at the offending corn and drew on her stocking. “There, that’s better. Now I’ll make you a nice strong cup of tea.”