Knitting Needle Murder

Found this while catching up with my knitlist reading...



Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 01:35:56 -0000

From: "CRAFTYONE_99" <craftyone_99@yahoo.com>

Subject: Another Knitting Needle Murder



I read a short story years ago, about an English nurse who was well

into her late fifties, when she had as a private patient, a handsome

and well-off man. He had had a stroke, and she nursed him back to

health.  They fell in love, and he proposed to her.

It seems that, the whole time she was doing night duty at his bed

side, she sat there knitting (all night! what a perfect job for a

dedicated knitter!).  He said he fell in love with her while

watching her knit.  So she thought she'd found the perfect man

(because she really REALLY loved to knit!)

Well, after the honeymoon, pretty soon the knitting started to get

on his nerves, and he made her promise to quit for a few hours in

the evening, in order to keep him company while he read his evening

paper and listened to the BBC (this was pre-tv).

Well, she did this, because he was so loving and treated her so

well, but the whole time, her mind was on that "lovely navy blue

wool" and other things knitting.

So she made a bargain with him that she would go into another room

to knit, but he kept calling her and distracting her, and THEN, when

she finally knitted that "lovely navy blue wool" into a sweater for

him, which she thought he'd love, he laughed at her effort (LAUGHED,

I TELL YOU!!!) and he said that he could buy any sweater in any

store, and he didn't want her knitting for him, he wanted her

undivided attention and wanted her to give up knitting.

And THAT was the last straw, and she began plotting how to get rid

of the rotter.  So being a nurse, she determined the exact spot on

his scalp where she planned to insert a certain needle-sharp

knitting needle (it must have been a steel lace needle, right?)

and one evening after he'd had a brandy and she was brushing his

hair (yes, he had her do that.  No wonder she killed him), she

reached behind her (or maybe she reached into her knitting bag) and

brought out this steel needle, which she had spent some time honing

into a needle sharp point, and she rammed it inbetween the bones of

his skull, and quickly withdrew it.  He of course died, and she,

being the good nurse that she was, washed and dried his hair to get

rid of the telltale blood, and combed it carefully and lovingly into

his usual pompadour. 

People who came to the funeral all said, Poor dear, she married him

even though she knew he might have another stroke and die.

And she sat there at the funeral, and planned her next sweater.

Great story, eh?

Rosemary

and my husband never minds when I knit while sitting on the couch

next to him! (and I don't think he's ever read this story, either!)