Blue Murder (29 page)

Little is known of the author's early life but in 1926 she married microbiologist John Shimwell, with whom she moved to a small village near Cork in Ireland. This setting, transplanted to Devon, inspired her first mystery novel
Knock, Murderer, Knock!
which was published in 1938. The second of Harriet Rutland's mysteries,
Bleeding Hooks
, came out in 1940, and the third and last,
Blue Murder
, was published in November 1942. All three novels are remarkable for their black comedy, innovative plots, and pin-sharp portraits of human behaviour, especially concerning relationships between men and women.

Olive and John were divorced in the early forties, and Olive apparently did not publish anything further. She died in Newton Abbot in 1962.

Knock, Murderer, Knock!

Bleeding Hooks

“I think,” said Palk slowly, “there's a homicidal maniac loose in the Hydro, but who it is, God knows.”

Presteignton Hydro is a drably genteel spa resort, populated by the aged and crippled who relish every drop of scandal they observe or imagine concerning the younger guests. No one however expects to see gossip turn to murder as their juniors die one by one – no one, that is, except the killer. The crusty cast of characters make solving the case all the harder for Inspector Palk – until the enigmatic sleuth Mr. Winkley arrives to lend a hand.

Knock, Murderer, Knock!
was Harriet Rutland's sparkling debut mystery novel, first published in 1938. This edition, the first in over seventy years, features a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

‘Very well written, intelligent story of triple murder... acid characterization'
Kirkus Reviews

Mrs Napier walked slowly to the middle of the terrace, noted the oncoming car, looked round to make sure that she was fully observed, crossed her legs deliberately, and fell heavily on to the red gravel drive.

“Just look at that old hag!” exclaimed Admiral Urwin, chuckling.

“A bloomin' acrobat, that's what she is,” muttered Matthews, the chauffeur, who had just managed to bring the car to a standstill in front of her.

Amy Ford, the chambermaid of the front corridor, leaned from an upper-storey window to shake a duster, and retired, convulsed with laughter, to call, “Molly, come here, do; she's fallen down again. If that isn't the fifth time this morning!” She jumped quickly back to her work as she heard the housekeeper's sharp voice behind her: “Slacking as usual, Amy Ford!”

“She's down again, miss,” commented Ada Rogers, Miss Brendon's personal maid, drawing the curtain back from the bedroom window.

“Who? Who?” croaked her bedridden mistress, looking like an ill-fated owl.

“Why, Mrs. Napier, to be sure, miss. She did ought to be in a loony home, that she ought, but they do say that her family's that fond of her that they couldn't abide to let her go.”

“That woman ought not to be allowed to reside in the Hydro,” said Lady Warme indignantly. “She's a public nuisance.”

“But she's grand copy, poor thing,” replied Mrs. Dawson, taking out her little red notebook.

Miss Blake lifted her mascara-lidded blue eyes to Sir Humphrey Chervil, Baronet, who was affixing the orange-and-black striped canopy of her deck-chair over her head, and shrugged her smooth, bare shoulders.

“It must be terrible to grow old,” she said, with a little assumed shudder. “If I ever thought that I should grow like that woman, I'd kill myself.”

“You never will,” Sir Humphrey assured her, gazing with admiration at her stream-lined figure in its skin-tight sunbathing frock. “You're a sight for the gods in that get-up, and whom the gods love, die young.”

The little group of people on the croquet lawn looked up towards the terrace.

“There she goes again!” exclaimed Winnie Marston.

“Who? Tishy?” asked her younger sister, Millie, laughing.

“Hush, girls. It's unkind of you to take any notice of poor Mrs. Napier,” said their mother. “She's not quite –”

“They're all ‘not quite',” wheezed Mr. Marston asthmatically. “How I ever keep sane myself in this god-damned hole, I don't know!”

Colonel Simcox looked up from his deck-chair, snorted, and buried himself again in his newspaper.

“My God!” ejaculated Dr. Williams, who was standing with his secretary, Miss Lewis, regarding the little scene from his surgery window. “One day I shall commit a murder in this place.”

“The silly old fool!” said Nurse Hawkins, savagely stamping out a forbidden cigarette. “Now I suppose I shall have to go and pick her up.”

Mrs. Napier lay still in an agony of mind.

“No one is coming to help me,” she thought. “I shall have to get up by myself, then they'll all laugh at me. No one knows what I suffer. Nobody understands. They wouldn't leave me here if they did. It's unkind of them, cruel. They know I can't get up... Perhaps no one saw me. Perhaps I chose the wrong moment, when they were all looking the other way. But this chauffeur person saw me. He's looking at me now; looking at me in a way that no man should look at a woman. I shall scream...”

Miss Astill, a thin woman wearing an old-fashioned dress which had originally been black in colour, but now looked rust-brown in the morning sunlight, walked jerkily forward and spoke to the recumbent figure on the gravel.

“What's the matter, Mrs. Napier?” she asked softly. “Why don't you get up?”

Mrs. Napier rolled her eyes upwards and made a few movements with her body like a wounded bird.

“I'm dying!” she gasped. “Poisoned! My enemies have had their revenge; they know that I have the King's shoe. Oh, nobody knows what I go through in this dreadful place.”

“God knows, dear,” soothed Miss Astill. “You must have faith. He will take care of you.”

Two firm arms tightened around Mrs. Napier and raised her to her feet before she had realized what had happened. She clung hysterically to Miss Astill's bony frame as Nurse Hawkins came running up to them.

“What's happened to you, Mrs. Napier?” asked the nurse.

“Happened?” Mrs. Napier glared at her through her thick-lensed, gold-framed spectacles. “I've been lying here for hours. I might have died for all that you care. You all hate me. I'd far better be dead. I pray that you will never be like me.”

“Amen to that!” exclaimed Nurse Hawkins fervently. Then, in softer tones, she added: “There, you'll soon feel better now. Let me see if you can walk to the nearest pillar. Ups-a-daisy! Don't fall down again; left, right, left, right. I'll go and fetch the bath-chair for you.”

The thought of the bath-chair acted like a spur, and Mrs. Napier began to walk slowly, still crossing her legs one over the other, to the pillars which supported the open, glass-covered verandah which ran round the south front of the Hydro. There she left her.

“That dreadful nurse!” said Mrs. Napier. “She neglects me so. I think I shall have to go away from here. Nobody cares about me.” She began to whimper.

“Oh no, you can't mean that,” protested Miss Astill in her gentle, ladylike voice. “Nurse Hawkins is very trying, we know, but you must have patience with her. She has all the faults of an unbeliever. But you must never think of leaving the Hydro. Where else would you ever find such comfort and peace, and anyone so thoughtful as the dear, kind doctor? The one fear of my life is that I might have to live somewhere else. You surely could not deliberately choose to go away. Besides, we should all miss you so much.”

Mrs. Napier smiled.

“Perhaps I spoke hastily,” she said. “If you want me to stay, of course, I will. You are always so kind.”

“That's right,” replied Miss Astill with an encouraging smile. “Now I must leave you. I am going to take my morning exercise along the shrubbery path.” She jerked herself away.

Mrs. Napier began dusting down the front of her shapeless brown woollen cardigan suit with a large silk handkerchief. A burst of laughter from the croquet lawn arrested her attention, and she looked up.

“Those horrid Marstons,” she thought. She could never make up her mind which of the four she hated the most; the supercilious mother, the bad-tempered father, or the two stupid, giggling girls. What did any of them know about suffering like hers?

Another laugh. Mrs. Napier glared suspiciously at them.

Were they laughing at her? No, it was at Mr. Marston, who was driving all the croquet balls off the edge of the lawn because he was annoyed at losing the game. And his language! Really, she could not stay and listen to it.

She made two steps, crabwise, holding on to the nearest pillar, then relaxed as she saw that they were not going to play any more. As they walked away Mr. Marston's loud voice could be heard discussing, like any bridge-player, every wrong stroke which had been made during the whole course of the game, both by his partner and by his opponents.

Mrs. Napier looked beyond the croquet lawn to the grassy edge of the bright-red cliff, and across the sunlit sweep of Devonshire Bay to the opposite arm of land from which the distant, vast expanse of Dartmoor rose in a dim purple haze. The thought of the moors soothed her. As she stood there on the terrace gazing across towards them, a deep peace enfolded her, and she forgot the troubles of the morning. It was thus that the moors had looked down with unchanging brows on the troubles of countless generations, so big were they, so calm, so remote.

She remembered the time when they had not been so remote to her. Thirty-five years ago she and Mortimer had spent their honeymoon on those same moors, and had tramped for hours among the tors. She in a short plaid cape and long tweed skirt, and he in ulster and deerstalker, with a half-plate camera strapped to his back. What fun that camera had brought to them! How often had they been turned away and refused food and shelter because some worthy farmer's wife had mistaken it for a pedlar's pack or for part of the equipment of the scorned tinker folk.

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.