Knock, Murderer, Knock!

by Harriet Rutland

  They had never been content to tramp the easier, wooded paths which skirted the edge of the moor. Each day had seen the conquest of yet another of the highest tors, and they had dared the long road which swept down to the little grey village of Widdicombe, only to shoot up again to an equal height on the other side in a gigantic switchback. In those days she had skipped along the crisp loamy undergrowth as actively as a goat, often running to the top of a rise before Mortimer, and calling, in the high-pitched voice he had loved, upon all the new beauties of form and colour which lay before her eyes.

  Now she could no longer run, or even walk, and she pretended that she was happier for it. Such joys as she and Mortimer had experienced had vanished, she said, with the charabanc, whose noisy, motley crowds of boisterous holidaymakers so often disturbed the peace of the country. But in her heart she knew that she envied them, just as she envied the straight, lissom limbs of Miss Blake and Winnie Marston, who could still tramp the red turf of the moors while she had to be wheeled about in a bath-chair.

  The rolling sound of the great Chinese gong from the entrance hall of the Hydro cut across her mind. It imbued the scattered figures in the grounds and on the terrace with a sudden, single purpose. They passed through the double swing-doors, leaving the brown-clad figure of Mrs. Napier alone.

  She remained there until the cheerful rattle of knives and forks echoed through the open dining-room windows, then, looking round furtively to make sure that no one was in sight, she walked steadily towards the front doors into the Hydro.

  Chapter 2

  Presteignton Hydro is a rambling greystone building set on the cliff above a private beach in Devonshire Bay. To reach it by road you must drive along the whole sleepy length of Excester and swing round to the right, taking the road which leads direct to Newton St. Mary with its chief hotel, “The Angel and Child,” dairy, police-station, and bank, all standing within a few hundred yards of the circular, covered, old stone market stalls against which half of the people of Britain and the United States must have been photographed at one time or another. If you are not already familiar with the district you are not likely to happen upon Presteignton by accident, for in this part of the county the high Devon hedges with their wealth of wild flowers have not given place to non-skid motor roads and pseudo-thatched cottage garages. In spite of the shining black-and-yellow sign on the main road advertising Presteignton Hydro as an A.A. hotel (in the book it boasts two modest stars), only one person in a thousand ever breaks his journey to turn up the hill, for thirty miles ahead of him lie the red-roofed bungalows and wooden huts which mark the beach at Tormouth, and here he can park his car on the front and open up his luncheon basket without further expense.

  But for all its unassuming airs, Presteignton was in existence long before the more popular Tormouth, and Presteignton Hydro had been built in an age when people visited hydropathic establishments more for the sake of fashion than of health, in a leisurely age when rooms were booked by letter a month or more in advance, and the telegrams which made the lives of hotel proprietors so erratic in these uncertain days were unknown. The old weather-beaten oak board, bearing directions to ostlers and still fixed for sentiment’s sake to the corner of the palatial stables, now mostly converted into lock-up garages, bears testimony to this. But these days have long since vanished from Presteignton just as they have vanished from Matlock and Bath, and although the position of Presteignton Hydro ought to have secured for it the patronage of younger generations, set, as it is, on the high, red cliff looking across the whole vast sweep of the bay, it remained too conservative to attract them. While other hotels were adding squash rackets courts, artificially coloured swimming-pools, and even small golf-courses, the building and grounds of Presteignton Hydro remained unaltered, except for the addition of a sun-lounge, and still retained old-fashioned wash-stands with their attendant cold water and slop pails, while its more progressive rivals boasted fitted wash-basins with running H. & C.

  If it had been an ordinary hotel it would long since have fallen into oblivion, but whereas the rest of the hotel remained unaltered through the years, the equipment for the baths and treatment rooms had been kept surprisingly up to date, chiefly because few doctors stayed longer than two years, and each one as he arrived demanded some new machine with which he could try out his own pet theory. It thus catered for patients who suffered from some bodily infirmity requiring periodic treatment, for which the resident doctor and nurse were responsible. In addition, it suited people who steadfastly set their faces against all progress and change, and as such people as these are greater in number than is generally supposed, the Hydro was by no means deserted. Locally known as THE Hydro, the once fashionable meeting-place and matrimonial bureau had become a hotel for middle-aged or elderly people who had either sold their homes or passed them on to their grown-up children, and sought greater comfort combined with less expense in the Hydro’s special residential terms.

  It was not, therefore, surprising that the advent of anyone so young and attractive as Miss Blake, followed some weeks later by that of Sir Humphrey Chervil, presumably a rich bachelor, had occasioned a wave of curiosity in the Hydro which, even after several months, had scarcely died away, but still gave rise to interested speculations as to the reason for such a prolonged visit.

  “The poor lady, ’tis languishing for love she is,” sighed the Irish chambermaid, Molly, who spoke in terms of cheap novelettes when off duty.

  “Love! Your mind’s for ever running on love!” returned the more practical-minded Amy. “She’s been going the pace more like at night-clubs and cocktail parties. I’ve seen folks like her in the society papers when I’ve been doing out the library. She’ll come to a bad end, you mark my words.”

  “’Tis love, I’m telling you,” persisted Molly. “I’m reading a gorgeous sixpenny now where the beautiful heiress is after being carried off by the wicked Sir Jasper, with a look of unearthly pallor on her face. She’s just like Miss Blake on the cover.”

  But there was no lack of colour on Miss Blake’s carefully made-up cheeks as she strolled downstairs at ten o’clock one Sunday morning and walked out on to the terrace. She wore a brilliant cerise-and-white ensemble, evidently not intended for church-going, and had a “neat, unhurried, bite-your-thread” look which she might have learned in the United States if she had ever been there.

  Colonel Simcox, who had been awaiting her appearance ever since breakfast, hurried after, her, carrying three balls of different-coloured wools and four knitting-needles.

  “I was just looking for you, Miss Blake,” he said. “You know you promised to help me with my new socks. What I want to know is, what am I expected to do with the red and green wools when I knit the blue? It says here...” He pulled a crumpled page of instructions from his pocket, dropping a ball of wool as he did so. Miss Blake stooped to pick it up. “Thank you. It says: K.1. red, P.2. blue, K.6. green. But what in the name of goodness happens to the other two colours when I ‘K’ the red?”

  “It sounds like a new form of billiards,” smiled Miss Blake. “You know, you’ll have Miss Astill on your track if you start knitting on Sundays.”

  “It’s very irritating, dammit... I beg your pardon, but these books are most annoying, they leave the important part out altogether. Written by a woman, I’ve no doubt.”

  “Now, Colonel, don’t be so cross,” returned Miss Blake. “If you will choose such a complicated design, you must expect to find it difficult. I’m sure I couldn’t manage to knit with three balls of wool at once. I can’t think what you are worrying about, all the same. It seems quite easy to see what to do. You just leave the colours you are not knitting in little loops behind, I should think.”

  “I can’t do that, it would look such a mess. My God! What a mess it would look.”

  “But no one would see the inside of the socks.”

  “No, but I can’t do things like that. You women don’t care, you’re held up by safety-pins half the time.”
r />   Miss Blake laughed.

  “Not nowadays, Colonel,” she objected, but the Colonel did not seem to hear.

  “Perhaps I’m old-fashioned,” he went on, “but I have to have my things just right. I’m an old bachelor and very particular about my clothes. It’s my belief that most married men look untidy because they rely on their wives to mend their clothes for them, and most women have no idea how to do it. Here, let me have another look.”

  He took the booklet from her and muttered under his breath as he read it, his forehead so wrinkled that his eyeglass fell with a tinkle against the black button of his morning coat, which he wore in deference to its being Sunday.

  Admiral Urwin hobbled towards them between his two walking-sticks, carrying a folded paper underneath his arm.

  “Ah, there you are, Miss Blake. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I’ve a new crossword puzzle for you in today’s Observer. It seems even more difficult than usual. I can’t think of a word... of a word of... let me see... twelve letters, meaning... twenty-four across, I think it is – yes, twenty-four across. Pom, pom, E, pom, A, pom, T...”

  The Colonel snorted.

  “That old fool and his crosswords,” he muttered to Miss Blake. “What a hobby for the Senior Service! Senile Service is more like it if he’s any example. Oh, damn! I’ve dropped a stitch. Can you pick it up for me?”

  Miss Blake sat down on the nearest green wooden seat, the Colonel seated himself on her left, and the Admiral subsided at her right with his usual grunts and clattering of sticks. He took a silver propelling pencil from his pocket and carefully adjusted the lead, then applied himself to the puzzle.

  “Now then, Colonel,” he said breezily, “this is in your line. A weapon of three letters, beginning with G.”

  The Colonel snorted again.

  “Gun, I suppose,” said the Admiral in answer to his own question. “G-U – no, it isn’t. That’s funny.”

  “Very funny, sir,” said the Colonel in biting tones.

  “Gat,” suggested Miss Blake.

  “Gat? Never heard of it,” said the Admiral.

  “Short for gatling, sir,” remarked the Colonel.

  “Never thought of that,” said the Admiral. “Clever of you both. ‘The gatling’s jammed and the Colonel dead’ – I beg your pardon, Colonel.”

  The Colonel snorted.

  “There’s the stitch,” said Miss Blake sweetly, handing back the Colonel’s knitting. “Now don’t drop any more.”

  “Gat is right. Now, Colonel, perhaps you can do this one. A word of fifteen letters –”

  “I do not like crossword puzzles, sir. I refuse to assist you with them. In my opinion it is an old man’s game, sir.”

  “It’s more dignified than knitting socks, anyway,” retorted the Admiral. “That’s an old woman’s game. There are enough old women in the Hydro, God knows; why don’t you leave the knitting to them?”

  Miss Blake sat quite still, looking like Tenniel’s illustration of Alice between the two queens. She looked up as footsteps crunched towards them on the gravel and saw Sir Humphrey, dressed in a Harris tweed sports suit with leather buttons, making his way to the seat on which she was sitting. He halted in front of them and exchanged a few conventional remarks with the two men, then spoke expressly to Miss Blake.

  “Would you care to come for a walk?” he asked. “It’s a glorious morning.”

  “Thanks, I’d love to,” she replied, and, rising to her feet, looked down with a smile at the Admiral and Colonel as if she were sorry to leave them. She and Sir Humphrey walked away like two children who share a secret.

  The Admiral chuckled.

  “That looks like a match,” he remarked, putting away his pencil and taking a heavy gold repeater from his pocket.

  “What does?” asked the Colonel, without raising his eyes from his laborious knitting.

  “Why, Miss Blake and the baronet, of course.”

  “Stuff and nonsense!” exploded the Colonel. “Just because a man asks a girl to go for a walk with him, you think they’re going to get married. I’ve no patience with you. You’re as bad as all the other old women gossips in this place.”

  “Well, there’s no need for you to get so crochety about it. Anyone would think that you were after the girl yourself.” He leaned across and nudged the Colonel in the ribs.

  “Keep your offensive remarks to yourself, sir,” replied the Colonel.

  Admiral Urwin looked carefully at the Colonel’s crimsoned face, fumbled under the seat for his sticks, and levered himself to his feet.

  “If I’m not wanted, I can go,” he said. “So that’s why you wanted to know whether I thought you’d look younger without your moustache, eh?” He stood between his two sticks, shaking with laughter. “Well, they do say there’s no fool like an old fool. If you’re going to church this morning you’d better get ready.”

  He limped off, still chuckling.

  Colonel Simcox tried to continue with his knitting, dropped five stitches in as many seconds, drove a needle into his finger, then, with an oath, thrust needles and wool into his pocket, and strode off in the same direction as the Admiral, pulling savagely at his moustache.

  He was worried about this new turn of events. He had never disguised from himself the fact that he was deliberately fostering his friendship with Miss Blake in the hope that it might lead to a deeper emotion, however much he had disguised it from everyone else. His intentions were, of course, honourable. By his code, the intentions of a retired colonel who had passed through Sandhurst and served three sovereigns with honour in many countries, could be nothing else, but he had been content to drift along and to monopolize her company unchallenged. Sir Humphrey had never deliberately sought out Miss Blake’s company before in all the weeks that he had been at the Hydro. With his entry into the lists as a rival for Miss Blake’s favour, the Colonel was confronted with the necessity for making some sort of declaration, and never since the Major’s daughter had refused him behind the palms at a regimental dance in his subaltern’s days in Malta had he ever proposed to a woman.

  He made his way up to his bedroom and walked over to the mirror of his dressing-table, still fingering his moustache.

  He wondered whether he would really look younger without it. After all, there was no sense in looking older than one’s years in these days.

  He took a coloured silk handkerchief from the neat pile in the left-hand top drawer and held the end across his upper lip, but somehow it only contrived to make him look like a stage pirate, and he folded it into its careful creases and returned it to its exact former position.

  He could not imagine himself without his moustache. Even in his subaltern days he had worn one, very long, with pomaded ends. The ladies used to like them like that, and they had certainly looked very smart with the old dress uniforms. During the Great War he had altered it to a shaggy toothbrush, and had worn it in that shape ever since.

  He frowned at his reflection in the mirror, shook his head at himself, and went to get his top hat out of its hatter’s box ready for church.

  In the meantime, Miss Blake and Sir Humphrey had passed along the whole length of the terrace and turned down the path leading through the little pine wood to the sea. Had they wished to create a scandal in the Hydro they could not have chosen a safer path nor a better time, since all, except such patients as Mrs. Napier and Miss Brendon, were grouped outside the front porch, ready to set out for church.

  “I only hope she doesn’t get hold of him,” murmured Mrs. Dawson, who, as a widow on the right side of forty, had great hopes of getting hold of Sir Humphrey herself. “It’s obvious that she thinks of nothing but attracting men.”

  “And it’s a downright pity that a few more women in this place aren’t the same,” said Mr. Marston, regarding the circle of badly dressed women who were standing on the porch.

  “I have never met a man with sufficient intelligence to realize that beauty is only skin-deep,” remarked Miss Astill.
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  “Obviously,” returned Mr. Marston, gazing pointedly at her tattered toque, faded costume, grey cotton gloves, and low-heeled black shoes.

  “Hush, Charles!” said his wife.

  “I wouldn’t mind so much,” put in Lady Warme, “if they were not going through the woods. There are so many other walks that are more open, but just as pretty, that it does look as if...”

  “It does, indeed,” agreed Miss Astill, her colour heightening at the unspoken thought. “They ought to go to church in any case. I don’t believe in all this modern talk about worshipping God in nature and seeing heaven in a butterfly’s wing. My poor dear father used to see that I went to church regularly every Sunday and went himself, though he had to be wheeled there in a bath-chair. And how he suffered! I know, for I nursed him for years. Psalms and a sermon once a week are what everyone needs, I say.”

  “I can’t think what you are all making such a fuss about,” said Mr. Marston. “Why can’t they go for a walk if they want to? I bet any one of you ladies would jump at the chance if Sir Humphrey ever asked you, which he’s not likely to do as long as Miss Blake is here. It’s far too nice a morning to sit in church, and I don’t suppose that they will misconduct themselves in broad daylight, if that’s what you are all thinking.”

  “Charles! How can you be so coarse in front of the girls? As if anyone had suggested such a thing!” exclaimed his wife.

  “How very vulgar!” said Lady Warme. “But still, as you have suggested it, it is a fact that Miss Blake is to be changed into an upstairs bedroom tomorrow.”