Knock, Murderer, Knock! Page 5

  Amy and Molly, who had the task of turning out the drawing-room and writing-room this morning, went downstairs together. They both made their way into the little writing-room, where Amy immediately began to collect a few scattered scraps of paper in the paper-basket.

  “And what in the name of heaven do you think you’re doing?” demanded Molly. “Isn’t it myself did the drawingroom yesterday morning, and it the biggest room? Get you in there yourself now!”

  Amy, grumbling as usual, went through the communicating door into the drawing-room. She switched on the light over the piano and walked across to the windows, pulling at the side cords which swung the heavy velvet curtains silently back. She grimaced at the rows of chairs left over from last night’s concert, hating the extra work which was entailed by sorting them out and restoring them to their original places.

  She was always the one to come in for the extra work, she grumbled to herself, and it was a downright shame, it was. If ever there was a concert or a party in the Hydro you could be sure that she would be the one on duty for that week. She often thought that the whole system of exchanging corridors was specially arranged to pay her out, and what had she ever done to anyone, she would like to know? Nothing!

  Last night had just been typical of her luck. She had had to wait up till one o’clock until Sir Humphrey and Miss Blake had gone to bed, and they’d gone together for all that she knew. It was all very fine for Miss Blake to stay up spooning till all hours of the morning, but she had to get up at six o’clock, no matter what time she went to bed. And when she tried to get a few extra minutes of sleep, what must that damned housekeeper do but come in and pull all the clothes off her, to say nothing of opening all the windows and trying to give her her death of cold. And as if all this wasn’t enough without it being her morning to turn out the room that was all topsyturvy with last night’s mess. What did an occasional squint at the concert last night count against this?

  Well, one day they’d see, she thought, banging the chairs about. She’d get her ambition of being the one to find out some dreadful scandal in the Hydro before that skinny hussy Rogers nosed it out.

  She always went about with her eyes open, and she’d be sure to come across it before long. It would be something really juicy, too, that far surpassed anything the Hydro had ever heard yet. Then she would be famous. Everyone would hang on her words at meal-times in the staff room. She’d be given the best cut off the joint and the largest piece of cake. And as for that old cat of a housekeeper – blast her eyes! – she wouldn’t treat her like dirt any more. Not she. She’d come shining up to her more like, her big ears twitching to hear all the details at first hand so that she could pass them on to her friend Ada Rogers, that stuck-up piece who thought she was better class than a mere housemaid because she waited on a blind old lady and didn’t wear a cap. She didn’t wonder that Miss Brendon had gone nearly blind either, considering the number of years she had been looking at a face like Rogers’. It was a pity that Sir Humphrey and that flashy piece of goods Miss Blake hadn’t given her a chance to make up some scandal about them. But though they had been sitting on the settee in the drawing-room till one o’clock in the morning, depriving her of her sleep, Amy knew that she could not hope to invent more scandal about them than had already been invented by all the others in the Hydro.

  She made her way over to the fireplace, and seizing the nearer arm of the large high-backed settee which stood in front of the dead embers of the fire, she gave it a vicious pull.

  She started back, then began to scream in terror as the slim figure of Miss Blake rolled off the settee to the floor, the subdued light from the single electric bulb over the piano glinting on something like a steel arrow which projected from the back of her head.

  Chapter 7

  Inspector Palk, a broad-shouldered man of about fifty, with only a touch of grey in his hair, looked up from his seat at the table in the centre of the library and glanced inquiringly at the frightened girl standing in front of him.

  "Your name is Molly O’Shea?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The constable who was sitting at a smaller table in the far corner of the room dashed off a series of dots and dashes and curls in his official notebook.

  “You were in the writing-room when the housemaid found Miss Blake’s body?”

  “I was, sir, God help us all!”

  “Tell me what you know about it.”

  “I was after raking out the hearth when I heard a screeching, and Amy rushed into the writing-room, hopping about like a hen on a hot griddle. She caught hold of me and said that the poor young lady was after being killed.”

  She gulped at the recollection.

  “Did you go into the drawing-room to look at the body?”

  “I did not, sir. Why would I? I took Amy off to tell the housekeeper.”

  “Did the housekeeper seem surprised?”

  “She did not, sir; but ’twould take an almighty shock to. surprise that one. She shook Amy till the teeth were nearly rattled out of her head and went to see for herself. Then she sent me to fetch the doctor.”

  “Did you like Miss Blake, Molly?”

  “I did indeed, sir. Sure, didn’t we all? She was a great lady for the tipping, and she had a smile and a kind word for every one of us. There’s many of the others would be expecting you to fetch and carry for them all the day long with never a ‘Thank you’ at the end of it, but she was never like that. Sure, she didn’t deserve to be murdered, the poor young lady.”

  Palk placed a little gold-and-shagreen petrol-lighter on the table in front of him.

  “Have you ever seen this before?” he asked.

  Molly looked more frightened than ever.

  “No, sir,” she whispered.

  “Don’t you know whom it belongs to?”

  “No, indeed. It doesn’t belong to me.”

  “Have you any idea who killed Miss Blake?”

  “It wasn’t me, sir, but it might be that it was Amy had something to do with it. She did tell me that Miss Blake would come to a bad end, and she has a holy fright of a temper, that one.”

  Palk dismissed her and sent for Amy, and the women residents decided that he was no gentleman for keeping them waiting while he first gave his attention to the staff.

  Amy, pale, trembling, weeping, thoroughly unnerved by her recent experience, was shown into the library. Inspector Palk took one look at her and shouted, “Sit down!” in a voice which any sergeant-major might have envied. She ceased weeping and obeyed. Before she had time to begin again, he hurled a question at her:

  “Did you kill Miss Blake?”

  “Who? Me?”

  This was the last straw on top of all the injustices of the week. Amy promptly forgot to be hysterical and, growing indignant, launched into a tirade against big-footed policemen who tried to frighten confessions out of hard-working servant-girls. Palk noted her rising colour with satisfaction, and cut short her words.

  “All right, forget it,” he said, and proceeded to question her about the finding of the body. But he elicited no information from her beyond a dramatic description of how Miss Blake had rolled off the settee and what a fright it had given her.

  Palk indicated the little petrol-lighter on the table and asked if she knew to whom it belonged, but here again she was of no help.

  “How did you know that Miss Blake was going to be murdered?” he startled her by saying next.

  Amy stared in amazement, and said again:

  “Who? Me? I didn’t know, sir, and I never said I did, and anyone who says so is a liar.”

  “You told Molly that you knew Miss Blake would come to a bad end,” said Palk calmly. “What did you mean by that?”

  “Oh, that!” replied Amy in tones of relief. “I didn’t mean anything, so to speak, if you understand me. Me and Molly was having an argument about what kind of a girl Miss Blake was.”

  “And what kind was she?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said t
he flustered girl, “but I did think that she’d perhaps come from London and stayed here for a rest, and when she went back she’d be gadding round drinking at night-clubs or roadhouses, and wouldn’t end up as an honest woman. It was only for the sake of argument, as you might say. I always liked Miss Blake.”

  “You never actually saw Miss Blake drunk, then?” persisted Palk.

  “No, I never did, and what’s more, nobody else ever did neither. She was very genteel while she was here and I never heard it said that she ever came from London. It was just to contradict that Molly that I said it.”

  “All right,” said Palk again, and was about to dismiss her when she startled him by saying:

  “I can tell you who murdered her, if you like.”

  “Well?” he asked.

  “The housekeeper,” Amy whispered vindictively. “She’s always up first in the mornings, even before us girls, and she’d murder her own mother, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  Mrs. Dukes, the housekeeper, a dark, fluffy-haired, brown-eyed, tight-lipped woman of about forty-five, was sent for. She sat upright in the chair opposite the Inspector with her hands clasped together in the lap of her black dress, her whole attitude denoting disapproval of the proceedings.

  Yes, she said, she was always up first in the morning, and a disgraceful thing it was, too, for a woman of her age to have to call young chits of girls who were too lazy to get up when the alarm went off at six o’clock. She’d never been used to doing any such thing before and she was glad that it had been made public at last, because now perhaps the doc-tor would do something about it. If her husband had been alive she wouldn’t be working at all, but she’d buried two. Oh, she wasn’t grumbling; it was her burden, and she could bear it... No, she knew nothing about Miss Blake’s murder. She had indeed scarcely ever seen Miss Blake. Her duties as housekeeper were mainly connected with the maids, and that gave her quite enough to do without her having time to keep an eye on the visitors as well. She knew that Miss Blake always had her breakfast in bed and, in her opinion, it ought not to have been allowed, although meals in bed-rooms were extra. It meant that Miss Blake never got up till nearly luncheon-time, and it was a great mistake. The chambermaid couldn’t do out her bedroom at the right time, and it upset the household arrangements all round. She had always been accustomed to working to a regular time-table, but you couldn’t expect the maids to keep to it if the visitors set them such bad examples.

  Yes, certainly she had been very much surprised when Amy and Molly had come running in to her, shouting at the top of their voices that Miss Blake had been murdered. No, of course she had not shown her feelings in front of the maids; they’d have gone into screaming hysterics if she had. As it was, she had shaken Amy until she had shaken a bit of sense into her, and had gone into the drawing-room to see for herself. Of course, she could see that Miss Blake was dead, and she didn’t need to touch her to find out, either. She had stayed in the drawing-room until Dr. Williams came in answer to her message. She had thought it the best thing to do. Molly was the more composed of the two girls, so she had sent her for the doctor, and she had kept Amy outside in the corridor where she could see her through the open door, so that she wouldn’t go about scaring the whole Hydro.

  She didn’t hold with murder, and no one could say that she did. No doubt the Inspector would soon clear it up. If it came to that, she could tell him who might have had a hand in it, herself. Who? Why, that little slut, Amy, of course. Hadn’t she found the body? Wasn’t she in the drawing-room after everyone else last night and in it again before anyone else this morning? You could never tell what those girls might get up to next!

  Inspector Palk, proceeding in his usual way, liked to interview people on the plan of Clock Patience. As long as one person introduced another, they followed, each other in natural sequence; when the sequence was broken, as with the turning up of a king in the card game, he started afresh. The housekeeper’s evidence having just returned in a circle to Amy Ford, he had to choose another person to interrogate, and was just running his finger down the typewritten list of names, which the doctor’s secretary had provided, of those in the Hydro when the murder was committed, when Sergeant Jago came into the room.

  The Inspector looked up.

  “Well, did you find it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Where?”

  “Everywhere!”

  Palk’s expression plainly said that this was not the moment to be facetious.

  “I sent you to find the knitting-needle which makes a pair with the one we found stabbed into the back of Miss Blake’s head,” he said.

  “Yes, sir, I know. Well, we found one corresponding to it in nearly every bedroom in the Hydro. Some rooms had two or three or more; all of them were of the same size and make, but only two rooms had one single needle apiece. I’ve brought them all down. They’re labelled with the number of the room they were taken from.”

  Palk looked closely at the various bundles of steel knitting-needles which the sergeant placed on the table before him, some tied with tape, some tied with ribbon, some with string, some with pieces of frayed rag; and all alike in being plain, straight, rustless steel needles without knobs, and without any name or size stamped on them.

  “They’re all the same size,” said the sergeant again. “I tested them in the gauge from the needlework shop. We handled them with gloves very carefully.”

  “That won’t help us much, I’m afraid,” said Palk. “There were no finger-prints on the needle which killed Miss Blake.” Sergeant Jago made a gesture indicative of extreme disgust. “That’s the worst of this craze for detective fiction,” he said. “I must say that no one could be more interested in a new thriller than I am, and I get plenty of good ideas from them, too. It’s all right for me because it’s my job, but it gives the general public too much information about finger-prints and police procedure. It doesn’t give us a chance.”

  Palk shook his head.

  “It isn’t that,” he said. “No one could have got the grip necessary for such a blow on the smooth surface of that needle. There must have been a handle of some kind. I should have thought that you’d have noticed that after reading so many thrillers. I want you to go over the rooms again with a toothcomb looking for it.”

  “It’ll take time,” said the sergeant dubiously.

  “You’ve plenty of time. I shan’t have finished with these people till the evening; they’ve all got so much to say. Try the maids’ rooms and every nook and corner in the Hydro. It’s an old-fashioned house with all kinds of holes and crannies; don’t miss any of them. It doesn’t matter about leaving everything exactly as you found it; it won’t hurt them to know that their rooms have been searched. Look in the bath-rooms and cisterns, hot press, electric-light plant, everything you can think of, if the building possesses it. The very fact that the handle was removed shows that the murderer knew it would be incriminating. The whole damned thing is far too clever for my liking.”

  He turned again to the little bundles on the table in front of him, with their identifying labels, and looked up the names of the occupants of the bedrooms from the secretary’s list.

  The first room from which one odd needle had been taken was occupied by Colonel Simcox!

  Chapter 8

  Colonel Simcox came into the library holding a half-knitted sock in one hand and a ball of wool in the other, while strands of wools of different colours led to each pocket of his faded tweed sports jacket.

  “Colonel Simcox?”

  “Lieutenant-Colonel retired, sir, and what the blazes d’you want to send for me for when I’m just in the middle of a most intricate pattern? Look at it, sir, look at it! ‘K. one red, P. three blue...’ Why couldn’t you send for me when I was doing the top?”

  Palk ignored the question, which he rightly supposed to be a rhetorical one.

  “Knitting is not a very usual occupation for a man,” he remarked quietly.

  The Colonel’s face grew red b
eneath its hardened coat of tan.

  “Got to do something to pass the time away here. Better than drinking, even if one could get a drink in this confounded place, which one can’t. And why the devil shouldn’t men knit if they want to? Women are a damned sight too keen on doing our jobs, even if they have left the Army to us up to now. Why shouldn’t we do their jobs for a change? I know a colonel who makes the most beautiful tapestry – the real stuff; and a major who does petit point – he’s a marquis, too. Surely I can do a bit of knitting if I want to. It’s easy to see, sir, that you have never been in the Army.”

  “I served in the Great War,” replied Palk diffidently; “but no doubt you wouldn’t think that the same as being a regular trooper.”

  The Colonel shot a glance at him from beneath his shaggy grey eyebrows.

  “What d’you call yourself, sir?” he asked suspiciously, “Major? Captain? General?”

  Palk smiled. “No, just Inspector.”

  Colonel Simcox relaxed.

  “Ah, very good. So many of these war titles about these days in this corner of the world. It’s damned bad taste, sir, that’s what it is. Half of them have never seen that hole, Woolwich, let alone Sandhurst. Good fellows and all that; couldn’t have got on without them, but it’s damned bad taste.”

  “May I ask your regiment, Colonel?” asked Palk.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” He glared angrily at the Inspector, then suddenly changed his tone and said, “Queen’s Own,” as if he expected this to be challenged.

  But Palk went on with his questions without comment. He produced the little shagreen petrol-lighter from his pocket and asked whether the Colonel could give him any information about it.

  “Not mine,” said the Colonel curtly. “Don’t smoke, so nobody would be likely to lend it to me, either. Wait a minute, though. I’ve an idea I’ve seen it somewhere before. It might be the Admiral’s – no, too dainty for him. No, I can’t remember.”