Knock, Murderer, Knock
A review of Knock, Murderer, Knock by Harriet Rutland
Harriet Rutland is another new author to me, the pen name of Olive Shimwell, whose three crime fiction novels have been rescued from obscurity by Dean Street Press. This is her first, originally published in 1938, and whilst not a classic, is enjoyable and raises some interesting aspects. Rutland has an engaging style and writes with humour and is particularly adept at satirising English snobbery and the garrulousness and petty vindictiveness of the old. The title comes from Shakespeare’s Scottish play, as the acting fraternity say, and heralds the denouement but the opening quotation from Pickwick Papers sets the scene for a story set in a Hydro in Devon, Presteignton, whose guests in the main are old, wealthy, ailing, with plenty of time on their hands, and waiting for the grim reaper.
The murderer’s choice of weapon is intriguing, a steel knitting needle thrust into the medulla through the gap between the top and bottom sections of the skull. The gap only reveals itself when the head is bent forward, and the method of despatch requires great precision and strength. However, it is perfectly in tune with the setting as most of the residents of the Hydro are old women. Just to ensure that the list of potential suspects is not limited to the females at the hotel, Rutland includes a Colonel who knits!
One of the hallmarks of Golden Age detective novels is that the victim or victims are generally obnoxious characters, over whom the writer spends little sympathy and whose demise generally leaves the reader unmoved. Here, though, Rutland goes somewhat against the grain and this is perhaps one of the reasons why I did not find the novel as satisfying as I had hoped. The first victim, Miss Blake, is standard murder victim fare, a beautiful young woman who stands out a mile in the Hydro, goes out of her way to upset the female guests and flutter her eyelashes at the men, wanders around in her swimming costume, cavorts with the young Sir Humphrey Chervil, and is generally up to no good. Sir Humphrey is the last to see her alive, is found with her jewels and is arrested by the local investigating policeman, Palk.
The other two victims are more troubling. The young girl who is having a fling with her father’s chauffeur and the third, a cheeky young boy, are really just fodder for the plot and Rutland is not really concerned about the consequences of their murders, such as the impact on their families, instead using them to hurry along the plot, which at this point was in danger of stalling. That they were murdered in exactly the same way as Miss Blake suggests that Palk had made a grave mistake in arresting Sir Humphrey.
There are lots of suspects, almost too many, and Rutland takes her time in introducing them to us and then allowing them to detail their thoughts and suspicions about Miss Blake’s murders as they are interviewed in turn by Palk. Although the suspects are many, including a female writer of detective fiction whose plot line presaged the unusual method the murderer used to kill their victim, the motivation for killing these three very different victims is suggestive of a very particular world view and makes identifying the culprit relatively easy.
Palk is making little headway in his investigations, when a new character, Mr Winkley, enters the story in the guise of an amateur sleuth. To Palk’s annoyance he stages a reconstruction of the first murder. Eventually, Winkley reveals that he is from Scotland Yard, there at the doctor’s behest and the three join forces to bring the culprit out into the open. Winkley reveals exactly who Sir Humphrey and Miss Blake were and what their game was at the Hydro and by further reconstructions, involving the Doctor visiting his secretary’s room late at night, thereby unlocking their feelings for each other, he brings the culprit out into the open to make their fatal knock on the door.
The book was good fun, but the pacing was patchy and the two extra murders and the entry of Winkley were necessary to stop the story grinding to a halt. I will definitely read her other two books.
