“So you have no knitting-needles in your possession?”
“I have not, sir.”
“Then,” said Palk, leaning forward a little, “can you tell me how this one” – placing it on the table in front of him – “got into your bedroom?”
But if he had hoped to startle the Admiral he was disappointed, for he only shrugged his shoulders as if it were the most casual thing in the world and said:
“Someone must have dropped it there, I suppose. That damned fool Simcox, I expect. He’s always losing his knitting-needles. You’ll probably find the fellow to it in his room while you’re poking round.”
Palk placed the small shagreen-and-gold lighter on the table.
“Can you tell me whom this belongs to, then?” he asked. “No one else seems to know.”
The Admiral grunted.
“Yes, it belongs to Sir Humphrey.”
“You’re quite sure of that?”
“Of course I’m sure. Only a man with a title could afford to walk around with a useless thing like that in his pocket. Besides, I offered to mend it for him not long ago – I’ve got a knack of making those things work – and I had it in my room for a week fiddling with it. I had to trim down a thicker wick for it because my own lighter takes a larger size. You can see it if you look. I only returned it to him just before dinner on the night of the concert, but I don’t suppose it works now.” Palk rasped the wheel and produced a tiny shower of sparks but no flame. “I thought not. Those things are no better than toys. Some woman gave it to him, I’ll be bound.”
“Have you any idea who murdered Miss Blake?” asked Palk finally.
“Not unless Colonel Simcox did it, mad with love,” returned the Admiral with a leering wink, as he groped for his sticks.
Chapter 11
It was Dr. Williams who spoiled the continuity of the interviews. He asked to see Palk, and pointed out to him that the Hydro was a machine whose mechanism must be maintained if it was to be kept working.
Murder or no murder, there was work to be done: food to be prepared, vegetables to be picked from the gardens, tables to be laid for meals, rooms to be cleaned, beds to be made. Palk had already interviewed the staff, could they not be released for their daily duties, and could he not also see his way to release the doctor himself, who, as commander-in-chief of that staff, had to see that those duties were carried out efficiently?
Palk treated the doctor with friendly candour, but he did not make the mistake of forgetting that he was as much under suspicion as any of the residents in the Hydro.
“Nasty business, sir,” he said, as he indicated the chair facing him.
“Very nasty indeed, Inspector Palk. A most unpleasant situation for the Hydro altogether. It’s bad enough when such a thing occurs in a private house, but it almost ruins a hotel. I can’t think what the directors will say.”
“Of course, there’s no doubt in your mind that it is murder?”
“None whatever. In the olden days men used to commit suicide by running on their swords, but I don’t see how Miss Blake could have run her head backwards on a steel knitting-needle, and she certainly couldn’t have driven it into her own head with her hand by such force.”
“How exactly did it cause death?” asked Palk.
Dr. Williams looked surprised at the question.
“Surely the police doctor –” he began.
Palk spread his fingers deprecatingly.
“He was rather technical. I should be glad if you wouldn’t mind explaining it more simply.”
The doctor automatically leaned back in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers together in the familiar attitude of the consulting-room.
“It pierced the medulla, undoubtedly,” he said. “That is the life-giving cord which runs from the brain down the spine through the vertebrae.”
“I gathered that,” said Palk; “but I can’t understand how you could pierce through solid bone with a mere knitting-needle.”
“You couldn’t,” replied the doctor; “and if the blow had been struck at any other spot at the back of the head it would not have proved so instantly fatal. You see, it’s like this. The skull is not cast in a solid mould, as many people seem to believe, it is divided into an upper and lower part, which are delicately hinged together. When the head is in an upright position with the body, the two halves of the skull are fitted closely together, but if the head is moved forward, say with the chin resting on the chest, a small space is created between them at the back. If you draw an imaginary line from the top of the head to the back of the neck, exactly in the middle, and intersect it by another imaginary line from ear to ear” – neither of them so much as smiled at the well-worn pun – “you will find the particular spot at the point of intersection which becomes vulnerable when the head is in the forward position. The medulla runs immediately behind that one spot, and becomes exposed, so that if a knitting-needle is stabbed into that little space it will pierce the medulla, cutting off life instantaneously.”
“I see. You might call it the ‘heel of Achilles’ of the human body,” said Palk reflectively. “Would you say it was an easy thing to stab anyone in that particular spot?”
“Not at all easy, I should say, but quite possible if you had time to study the back of your victim’s head beforehand and a chance of finding her with her head in the necessary position. It would have been far more difficult in the days when women wore their hair in buns at the back, stuffed with hairpins.”
“So you think that the crime must have been premeditated?”
“Oh, decidedly. The odds against anyone stabbing a needle through that precise spot by accident are so enormous as to render it practically an impossibility. Given such a weapon as a knitting-needle, most people would, I think, attempt to stab it through the heart of their victim, if they were told to commit a murder.”
“And would that be equally effective?”
“Not nearly. The chances of failure are far greater. There are all the ribs to feint past, which make a far more impassable barrier than the writers of detective stories seem to think. Also, death would not be instantaneous, and might be a very long time coming. This is a far cleaner way of killing anyone, in more ways than one.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Palk. “All this argues some very specialized knowledge. There can’t be many people in the Hydro who know about it, with the exception of yourself and the nurse.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed if you work on those lines, Inspector,” replied Dr. Williams. “Anyone inside the Hydro might have known as much about it as I do.”
“But surely –” objected Palk.
“I don’t mean that all the residents have had the specialized training you mention, but certainly anyone who can read could have found out all about it from one of my medical books.”
“But if you could remember to whom you had lent the books we could soon narrow down the inquiry.”
“It’s not so simple as that, Inspector. To my knowledge I have never lent anyone in the Hydro one of my books, but there are plenty of them scattered round the building. You know how it is. You start off with a certain number of books and gradually accumulate bigger and better ones till they overflow from one room into the next. If you yourself want to verify the information I have just given to you, you have only to consult the blue book with the gilt lettering on the bottom shelf of the wall-bookcase behind you.”
“I see,” reflected Palk. “Do you think, then, that the murder was actually committed by someone in the Hydro?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “I’m afraid I do.”
“Well, then, you won’t mind giving me some idea of the kind of people you have here. Does your establishment differ in any marked detail from the usual type of hydropathic hotel?”
The doctor hitched up one perfectly creased trouser leg before crossing one leg over the other.
“Well,” he began, “Presteignton Hydro is not the most fashionable type, such as the Im
perial Hydro at Tormouth. We are an old-established place and usually get our visitors by recommendation rather than by advertisement. During the summer months we have a number of casual visitors who generally move on to a more modern hotel when they find that we have no licensed bar, but at this time of the year we have some twenty visitors, most of whom are permanent, and most of whom take treatment.”
“Are they people of any particular type or class?”
“Well, I hadn’t thought about it particularly before, but I suppose they do come from the same class. We get men like Admiral Urwin and Colonel Simcox, who have retired from the Services, and women who are often either the widows or daughters of officers too.”
“Then they all have money?”
“Well, as far as I know, none of them works for his living, so I imagine they all have private incomes.”
“Have all the people in the Hydro now been here for some considerable time?”
“For years, most of them. Except Sir Humphrey Chervil and Miss Blake.”
The Inspector looked interested.
“Did they come here together, then?”
“Oh no, quite separately. They didn’t even know each other until quite recently, I believe. Miss Blake came in June and Sir Humphrey about a month or six weeks later. I can find the exact dates for you by looking up their accounts if you like.”
“Don’t bother, thanks,” replied Palk. “I can see them for myself in the visitors’ register.”
The doctor looked uncomfortable.
“You may not be able to find them,” he said. “We’re not very strict about keeping it up to date.”
Palk banged his hand on the table.
“That’s always the way,” he said irritably. “You people can’t keep even the simplest law properly, and we poor policemen get all the blame.”
“Well, you know how it is, Inspector, you can’t be bothering people* all the time, and I don’t know why it is, but so many visitors hate signing the book when they first arrive.”
Palk snorted.
“You’ve soon caught the habit,” remarked the doctor.
“What habit?” snapped the Inspector.
The doctor laughed.
“Snorting,” he said. “They all do it here when anything irritates them. I have the greatest trouble in the world to stop myself getting infected.”
“Then there is a queer atmosphere about this place,” said Palk.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Dr. Williams. “I do think so sometimes, but it’s really no more than you get anywhere where the company is a little old, a little warped, a little lonely, and never quite in good health.”
“Are they all suffering from some complaint, then?”
“All of them in some minor degree, except –” He stopped abruptly.
“Except...?” prompted Palk.
“Sir Humphrey Chervil and Miss Blake,” finished the doctor slowly.
Palk looked pleased at this second association of the two names.
“Didn’t it strike you as strange, Doctor, that those two should be at Presteignton Hydro at this time of the year? Surely October is too late for the stragglers of the summer season to be here still.”
The doctor thought for a moment before replying.
“No, I can’t say that I thought it strange,” he said. “You see, they came at the beginning of the summer and just stayed on. I rather wondered that Miss Blake did stay – I think that we all did – for we have no young company, and I don’t think she got on well with the others.”
Palk asked him to explain.
“Well, she got on too well with the men and too badly with the women, and they were all so much older than she was that there was bound to be a certain amount of jealousy.”
“Did anyone appear to dislike her more than the others?”
“N – no.”
Palk did not pursue this line of questioning.
“I understand that there is an old lady upstairs who keeps permanently to her room. Is there any chance that she is not really bedridden?”
The doctor laughed again.
“You won’t find the murderer there,” he said. “She’s eighty to my knowledge, and half blind; she’s quite incapable of using a knitting-needle for knitting, let alone for murdering anyone. She’s genuine all right, and so is Ada Rogers, her attendant. You’d better see them, together. I’ll show you their room if you like.”
Palk sprang to his feet.
“Do you mean to tell me that one of the staff is on duty in that room and has not yet been interviewed? Why wasn’t I told about her? She might be destroying evidence while we are all down here.”
Dr. Williams lost his temper.
“Oh, don’t be foolish, Inspector!” he said. “Whoever your murderer is, it’s not a bedridden old lady or her attendant. Miss Brendon hasn’t the strength, and if Rogers wanted to murder anyone she’d murder her mistress. She stands to gain five hundred pounds by her death.”
“How do you know that?” asked Palk sharply.
“I can’t help hearing things,” answered the doctor wearily. “If you knew this place a little better you’d realize that everyone in it knows everything about everyone else, and what they don’t know they invent. They mean no harm, but they’ve nothing else to do all day. I don’t mind telling you that I don’t envy you your job of sifting the evidence.”
Palk intimated that the interview was at an end.
“Thank you, Doctor. Have you any idea who did it?”
“Not an idea in the world.”
Palk gave him a crooked smile.
“You may be interested to know that so far you’re the only one in the Hydro who hasn’t,” he said.
Chapter 12
Inspector Palk looked up with interest as Sir Humphrey Chervil came into the library. He was a good-looking man of medium height, probably thirty-nine years old. His straight black hair was severely plastered upon his head with brilliantine, so that it shone like the head of a painted wooden doll. He was clean-shaven, but down his cheeks there was a dark suspicion of side-whiskers, as if left deliberately to accentuate the resemblance to some old family portrait. His nose was long and straight; Lady Warme called it aristocratic.
Altogether he had an intelligent and interesting face, but at the moment he looked badly shaken. His dark-brown, almost black eyes were heavy with trouble; his sallow-skinned face looked haggard with anxiety and apprehension; he walked as if his knees trembled, and his hands were not quite steady. Palk noticed that he glanced almost fearfully at the two constables on duty before sitting down. Then he almost tumbled into the chair that Palk indicated and started as his gaze fell upon the little shagreen-and-gold automatic lighter.
“Your name?”
“Sir Humphrey Ch – Chervil.”
Palk pointed to the lighter which Admiral Urwin had identified.
“Is that yours?”
“Why – yes.”
“You know that Miss Blake was found murdered on the settee in the drawing-room?”
“Yes.”
“That lighter was found down the side of the settee. Can you explain how it got there?”
The evident suspicion in Palk’s tone seemed to penetrate to Sir Humphrey’s consciousness. He pulled himself together and looked the Inspector full in the face.
“I expect it slipped down when I was sitting there with Miss Blake after the concert,” he said.
“You admit sitting there with her, then?”
“Of course I do!” exclaimed Sir Humphrey. “What object could I have for hiding it? In any case, the whole Hydro saw us and I don’t suppose it’s a thing they’d keep quiet about.”
“Wasn’t it rather strange that you should ignore the rest of the gathering so completely after the concert by staying in the drawing-room when everyone else had gone out for refreshments?”
“I don’t think so. They’re not a very inviting crowd, are they? It was quite natural that I should prefer to remain there alone with Miss
Blake.”
“Had you ever met Miss Blake before you came here?”
“No, I hadn’t. What makes you think that?”
“You arrived here within a month of each other. You are both the same kind of people...”
Sir Humphrey looked truculent.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You are both younger than the others, and neither of you was here for treatment,” Palk explained. “It seems likely that you had been friends before and that you had quarrelled perhaps. Then you followed her here and tried to make it up.”
“And when she scorned my advances I murdered her!” Sir Humphrey smiled at last. “If you must know, I stayed on in this god-forsaken hole because she was here. I was very much attracted to her, but I didn’t get much of a chance to see her alone because she always had one of the old men hanging around, and for all I knew she might have preferred them. I have taken her for a drive or a walk occasionally, but last night was actually the longest time I had spent with her alone in the hotel.”
“Were you in love with Miss Blake?”
“No,” replied Sir Humphrey frankly. “But I was deeply interested in her.”
“Forgive my asking, but did Miss Blake appear to reciprocate your – interest?” persisted Palk.
“I have every reason to believe that she did.” Sir Humphrey suddenly covered his face with his hands and shuddered. “Oh, it’s horrible, horrible! Can’t you do something, Inspector? It’s such a terrible thing not to know anything about it. She was only twenty-six, too young to be brutally murdered.”
Palk looked at him reflectively.
“We are doing all we can, sir. You can help me very much by answering my questions. Now, what time was it when you and Miss Blake left the drawing-room?”
Sir Humphrey passed a hand over, his smooth black hair. “It must have been about one o’clock when I went upstairs. Miss Blake went straight out of the drawing-room and I went through the writing-room which adjoins it.”
“Wasn’t that rather strange?”
“I don’t think so. We didn’t want to be seen going upstairs together.”
Knock, Murderer, Knock! Page 7
