Knock, Murderer, Knock! Read online

  Palk did not pursue the subject.

  “You know that there has been a murder in the Hydro?” he asked.

  “Know it!” The Colonel almost jumped off his chair. “Of course I know it! I’m not likely to forget it either, after being made to sit all morning with all the old hags in the Hydro, penned up like a lot of cattle. Why, dammit, sir –” He broke off abruptly. “Well, well, got to be done, I suppose. Court martial, Inspector, eh? Court martial?”

  “That’s it, sir. I’d be glad if you would answer a few questions.”

  “Anything, anything. Glad to help you if I can. A dastardly crime, sir, a dastardly crime, and I hope you get the one who did it. Miss Blake was a lovely girl. Can’t understand why anyone should want to murder her. Now, if it had been one of those old hags in the Hydro, I could understand it well enough. I’ve often wanted to murder some of ’em myself.”

  “Did you know Miss Blake well?”

  Colonel Simcox, who by this time had put down his knitting on the table in front of him, fumbled for his monocle and pushed it with a self-conscious air into his right eye.

  “Well – I – I – well, I did. Dammit, I may as well tell you that I was, that is, that Miss Blake and I – well, that I was thinking of making her my wife.”

  In spite of himself, Palk expressed his surprise as he mentally compared the bowed shoulders and choleric face of the old Colonel to the beautiful figure and features of Miss Blake. And perhaps his mind unconsciously recorded a mark against the murdered woman as he said:

  “This must be a terrible blow for you, then, Colonel. I had no idea that Miss Blake was your fiancée.”

  The Colonel looked flustered, and pulled heavily at his moustache.

  “She wasn’t my fiancée,” he protested.

  “But you’ve just said –”

  “I know, I know, but that was only in a manner of speaking. I was very fond of her and she seemed to like me well enough until that tailor’s dummy of a baronet started making eyes at her.” He glared at Palk. “You don’t know what it is to be a bachelor all your life.”

  “Oh yes, I do,” returned Palk with a smile. “I happen to be one myself.”

  “Oh – ah – well,” stammered the Colonel. “You get tired of it, that’s all, and I thought – fond of me – beautiful wife – so I meant to ask her. But I never did and now I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “You mean the publicity?”

  “No, no, I mean it wouldn’t have done. You know that as well as I do. Makes me sound a cad, sir, but the fact is I’m not feeling her death as much as I ought to. You can see it, Inspector. Can’t play the distracted lover at my age. Mind you, I’m appalled at the callousness of the brute who did it. Would do all I could to catch him, but I can’t help feeling relieved that I’m still unattached. Used to looking after myself for years – knit my own socks... Doddering old fool to be attracted by a girl young enough to be my daughter. No, dammit, you shall have the truth!” He suddenly thumped the table with his fist. “She was young enough to have been my granddaughter, sir!” He sighed. “She was a very charming young lady, and made me feel young again.”

  Palk, secretly thinking that the Colonel was either very sincere or very clever, asked:

  “Have you any idea why Miss Blake came to the Hydro in the first place?”

  “Why, yes, she told me herself. Said she spent her whole life going from one hydro to another. I never asked her the reason. A younger man might have done so, but in my day it wasn’t considered the thing for a man to discuss bodies with a woman. She always looked healthy enough, but if she came here for treatment the doctor could tell you.”

  Palk picked up the knitting-needle which the sergeant had found in Colonel Simcox’s bedroom. “Do you recognize this?” he asked.

  The Colonel looked at it suspiciously.

  “No,” he said sharply.

  “Miss Blake was murdered with a knitting-needle like this,” Palk continued, “and this one was found in your room.”

  The Colonel’s face assumed a purplish tinge, and he looked for a moment as if he might be about to fall down in a fit of apoplexy.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been nosing into my private possessions?” he shouted. “No gentleman –”

  Palk interrupted him quietly.

  “I’m investigating a case of murder.”

  The Colonel subsided a little.

  “Of course, of course; martial law, martial law. But I tell you that I don’t like it, sir, behind my back. Why couldn’t you have asked me for my permission? I hope those men of yours haven’t broken the top of my new trout rod.”

  “You can take my word that they have damaged nothing,” said Palk, tapping the needle on the table between them.

  “Well, I hope I can.” The moving steel seemed to mesmerize him and he spoke with an effort. “If you found that in my room, it must be mine, I suppose. You can see that it isn’t the same size as my sock needles, but I believe I did buy two like that one some time ago, when the doctor’s little girl wanted to show me how to knit garters.”

  “I didn’t know that Dr. Williams had a daughter,” remarked Palk.

  “Little girl, about nine. Not a bad child, but noisy. All children are a confounded nuisance in a hydro. They ought not to be allowed.”

  Palk felt like prefixing his next question with the words, “Well, Mr. Grouser, sir,” but resisted the temptation.

  “Why have you only one knitting-needle left?”

  The Colonel looked startled, then got to his feet and jerked his chin forward at the Inspector.

  “God bless my soul! You don’t think that I murdered her, do you? Whatever for? Just because a younger man with a title cut me out? Don’t be a fool, Inspector. You surely don’t think that a soldier who has served under three sovereigns in all parts of the British Empire would murder a woman with a knitting-needle, do you? Damned rot, sir, damned rot! I’ve a perfectly good Service revolver upstairs in my drawer, as I’ve no doubt you already know. I should have shot her, my good man, I should have shot her. That knitting-needle was a woman’s weapon, and I can tell you who used it and stop you wasting your time on people who had nothing to do with it.”

  “I shall be most interested to hear,” replied Palk politely.

  “Nurse Hawkins,” said the Colonel triumphantly. “I don’t like accusing a woman, but it’s obvious. Admiral Urwin has been neglecting her lately for Miss Blake, and she’s a jealous woman. And now for heaven’s sake let me get on with my knitting!”

  Chapter 9

  Continuing the chain of evidence, Palk sent for Nurse Hawkins.

  She was a fairly tall woman of about thirty-five, with auburn hair and a figure that was well defined without being plump. She wore a white overall, fastened in Russian style down the left side, with sleeves rolled above her elbows, showing her strong, muscular arms. Her freckled face was pale under her fly-away headdress, but she looked perfectly calm, having the trained nurse’s rather callous familiarity with death.

  “You don’t object to answering a few questions about Miss Blake?” asked Palk, when she was seated in front of him.

  “Oh no, poor thing! I’ll do all I can to help.”

  “Did you know her well?”

  “I’m afraid not. You see, I’m usually so busy with my patients that unless people need treatment here, I don’t come into contact with them much.”

  “I understand that Miss Blake did have treatment.”

  “Oh no, not unless the doctor was giving her injections, and even then I should have known of it. Perhaps she was on a diet. She often spoke to me when I had time off. She seemed a very pleasant young lady, who didn’t think herself too classy to talk to a nurse, like some of them I could mention.”

  She sniffed.

  “You’re quite sure that you never gave her treatment of any kind?”

  “No, never. She didn’t need treatment, a young girl like that. I should think she was well under thirty. Most of our patients
are fairly old and come here for rheumatism or obesity, and things like that. I have to give them special baths or massage or electric treatment. Miss Blake was very slim and supple. You could see that she didn’t need treatment of that kind.”

  “I see. Then you have no idea why anyone so young as she should have stayed at this hydro for so long?”

  “Well, I haven’t really; but I did think that she was perhaps some society girl who had got fed up with cocktail parties and had come for a rest. I used to be at a fashionable West End nursing-home, and I know the type, you see. I don’t think she ever meant to live here permanently; in fact, I had the impression that she meant to leave here fairly soon, though I can’t say that she ever told me so.”

  “Thank you, Nurse. Have you any suspicion as to who is responsible for Miss Blake’s murder?”

  Nurse Hawkins pushed an imaginary piece of her strong auburn hair under her becoming headdress, looked down at her lap and smoothed the spotless, shiny surface of her white overall with her fingers. Her face looked serene, but when she looked up Palk saw that her eyes were troubled.

  “I don’t know anything,” she faltered.

  Palk nodded sympathetically.

  “Any impression you can give me may be of the greatest value,” he said, “and you may be sure that I shall only make use of information which materially helps me to solve the murder.”

  “Well, then, if I had to say somebody, I should say Mrs. Napier,” she replied reluctantly. “She is one of my special patients, and I am with her more than the others at the moment. Hers is a peculiar case. She’s not normal, of course, but sometimes she’s worse than others. She likes making a scene, especially if there are plenty of people near to see her. She pretends that she can’t walk if I’m near her, but if she wants to she can walk as well as you or I. It’s a kind of hysteria, and the doctor says she’s quite harmless; but I think there’s no knowing what she might do if she had a sudden fit of wanting to do it. She only pretends to be weak; she’s very strong really. I don’t think I could hold her if she became violent.”

  “So you think she’s capable of m–”

  “I’ve never known her anything but gentle in her ways,” interrupted Nurse Hawkins firmly. “She says dreadful things sometimes, but then, they all do that. I wouldn’t like to say any more except that if I had to give a name I’d give hers.”

  “Thank you. You said that you’d been in a West End nursing-home. Have you been here long?”

  “Two years.”

  “And you like it?”

  “It has advantages and disadvantages, like any other place. I hated it when I first came. It seemed all petty scandals and back-biting, with everyone calling everyone else names, like a crowd of kids. I missed the company of the other nurses, too. I’m the only regular nurse here except when the Hydro’s full, which isn’t often.”

  “And the advantages?”

  “There’s not nearly so much work to do here. There’s no dusting or taking meals to patients who have to have treatment in bed. The maids do all that, and I must say that they wait on me here as if I were a lady of leisure. All the same, I was going to leave next spring, only...” She looked down again.

  Palk waited. All at once she looked up defiantly.

  “Oh, I expect you’ll hear all about me from other people. They can’t stop talking about other people’s business here. After all, I don’t want to be a nurse all my life.”

  Palk let this inadequate explanation pass unchallenged.

  “You are a properly trained nurse?” he asked, looking at the bronze-and-enamel badge she wore on her breast pocket.

  “Oh yes. London-trained in general nursing, with special certificates in massage and radiography.”

  “Then it would be true to say that you know a good deal about anatomy?”

  “Certainly. I couldn’t do any massage without that knowledge. My training was a very thorough one. You see, you must know the position of all the bones and nerves and muscles in the body or you might do a great deal of harm by giving the wrong treatment.”

  “So you understand how it is that a knitting-needle thrust through the back of anyone’s head would cause immediate death?”

  “Yes, it would pierce the –”

  She broke off abruptly as she perceived the significance of his question. A deep flush spread over her face down to the neat Peter Pan collar of her silk blouse which turned back over the top of her overall. Her eyes widened with fear.

  “Yes, I – I understand,” she whispered.

  Chapter 10

  Mrs. Napier entered the library, leaning heavily on the constable’s arm, and turning her ankles over more than usual to attract the Inspector’s sympathy. She managed to mix her legs up inextricably with those of the chair and table that Palk came over to help in response to the appeal in the constable’s eyes. As she stumbled against him he felt the tensed muscles of her lean arms and marvelled at their strength. With some difficulty they managed to lower her square-shouldered figure into the chair, and Palk cursed the luck which had led him to investigate a murder case amongst such a selection of strange characters. He did not expect much assistance from Mrs. Napier.

  “You knew Miss Blake?” he asked abruptly – a little too abruptly, he thought.

  Mrs. Napier nodded.

  “She was kind to me. Not many people are kind here. I have a great burden to bear.”

  “You know that she is dead,” went on Palk.

  “Murdered!” she exclaimed excitedly. “I know who did it.”

  The familiar words irritated Palk, and he said without his habitual caution:

  “You think it was Nurse Hawkins?”

  Mrs. Napier’s eyes stared at him from behind the thick spectacles.

  “How did you know? Has someone been spying on me? I’ve heard whispering at the keyhole. I have enemies all around me.”

  “No, no, Mrs. Napier, nothing of the sort, I assure you,” replied Palk with forced heartiness. “But it is not surprising that you should suspect the nurse. Perhaps you find it a little difficult to get on well with her.”

  Mrs. Napier began to dust her dress down with her hand-kerchief, a sure sign of pleasure from her. She leaned forward confidentially, and tears stood in her eyes.

  “You understand,” she said earnestly. “I was thinking myself alone and misunderstood, but you understand. You will protect me. Perhaps you understand Nurse Hawkins too. No one has a good word for her. She makes my life a misery. She tortures me. I am covered with bruises where she has let me fall. And she is so strong; she can lift me as if I were a little child. The bruises! But not so bad as she would like. I fall soft, thank God! She murdered that poor girl, and one day she will murder me. I am so afraid.” Her mouth puckered like the mouth of a child about to cry, but she did not stop talking.

  “It’s all because we have seen her flirting with the Admiral. It’s a disgrace to the Hydro. They do say that he buys all her clothes, and she has got a new fur coat. What does a nurse want with a fur coat? I haven’t got one. They say that when a man gives a woman a fur coat he gives her something to put under it. You must put her in prison or she will kill me.”

  Further questions only brought forth similar accusations, and Palk dismissed her in disgust. Not until she had gone did he realize that he had not asked either her or Nurse Hawkins about the little petrol-lighter.

  Admiral Urwin hobbled in heartily on his two sticks, and though his bloodshot blue eyes held their perpetual twinkle, his bluff, red face wore a grave look which sat rather oddly upon it. He made his way to the chair opposite Palk and, subsiding into it without any invitation, slid his sticks underneath with a rapidity which showed constant practice.

  “This is a bad business, Inspector,” he said.

  “It is indeed, Admiral,” replied Palk. “I’m afraid I must ask you the usual routine questions.”

  Admiral Urwin waved an understanding hand.

  “Of course. Carry on. I hope I shall be of some help.�
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  “Did you know Miss Blake well?”

  “I can’t say that I did. Fairly well, would be more accurate. That’s about as well as anyone gets to know anyone else here under six months. I know that she was a very charming girl who seemed to have no hobbies except reading and playing the piano; that she was fond of pretty clothes and furs and jewels, as every pretty woman ought to be; that she was kind-hearted enough to try and help me with my crossword puzzles although they bored her to tears; but who she was and where she came from I don’t know, and I’m sure nobody else in the Hydro knows either, or we should have heard of it before this.”

  “Would you call yourself an admirer of hers, Admiral?”

  The Admiral shook with suppressed laughter.

  “That’s Simcox’s idea, I’ll be bound,” he said. “The doddering old idiot got quite upset if she spoke to anyone else but him. I used to join them for the fun of the thing, and he looked as if he could murder me, I can tell you. No, I wouldn’t say that I admired her exactly. I liked to see her pretty face, poor girl, but that figure? – no, thank you! I like a woman to show that she is a woman. I like her to stick out a bit here, and go in a bit there...” His gestures left his meaning in no doubt. “Nurse Hawkins, now, is more my type; she’s a fine figure of a woman if you like. Knows a good joke when she hears one, too. Nurses always know what’s what, eh?”

  His eyes twinkled lasciviously, and Palk felt that with the slightest encouragement he would begin to tell his favourite Stock Exchange joke.

  “Have you any idea why Miss Blake came to the Hydro?” he asked hastily.

  “No. Never even thought about it.”

  Palk changed the subject.

  “Do you knit, Admiral?”

  The Admiral swore an oath which must have come out of the stokehold of his ship, and even the constable winced at the sound.

  “Me? I’m a man, sir, and a member of the Senior Service. Admirals don’t knit! I may do an occasional crossword puzzle to pass the time because I can’t get about as much as I used to, but knitting is an old woman’s pastime, and, by God, there are enough old women in this place without me turning into one!”