The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope

by C. W. Grafton

  She handed me the slip of paper with the address and phone number and went to the door. With her hand on the knob she stopped and looked thoughtful a moment.

  “There’s something else that may be important. There is a condition.”

  I waited.

  “He says he wants to help me straighten out my father’s affairs. He says I’m to turn over everything to him and he and his lawyers will handle everything.”

  She went out and closed the door. If there were a couple of puzzled wrinkles between my eyebrows at that moment, they were certainly in their proper place.

  I went out into the reception room and jerked my thumb at Mr. Mead’s door inquiringly. Myrtle contrived a combination of shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders which I took to mean that there was no reason why I shouldn’t go in, so I knocked on the glass panel and walked in without waiting for an answer.

  Mr. James Mead is the senior partner of the law firm which trickles out to practically nothing by the time it gets to me. He is six feet tall which lets him look over the top of my head without a great deal of difficulty and he has a ruddy complexion and a bristling mustache cut close and neat at all times, just beginning to be gray in spots. Mr. Mead is probably forty-five years old. I said:

  “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be hired to look into the affairs of Harper Products Company?”

  I knew that he had been seeing a lot of Janet Harper and I wanted to make sure that I was not getting into something that would displease the boss. He said:

  “Who wants you to look into them and for what?”

  “A young lady. She has inherited some stock and wants to know what it is worth. She won’t accept market quotations. Wants to pay me to go down and see what I can find out.”

  “Better get paid in advance. The odds are you won’t find anything and then she won’t want to pay you.”

  “I’m sorry. She wanted to pay in advance and I wouldn’t let her.”

  He lit a cigar and blew out the smoke slowly.

  “Well, it wouldn’t amount to much anyway.”

  “No reason why I shouldn’t do it?”

  He seemed a little annoyed. He knew perfectly well that I was asking because he had been showing a great deal of interest in William Jasper Harper’s daughter and I am not sure that he liked it. He said: “Of course not,” rather shortly and that was the end of that.

  2

  Being unmarried and with no family connections, I live demurely at the YMCA. I came in from a picture show around 9:30 that evening and found a message that I was to call Operator Two in Harpersville.3 I recognized Miss McClure’s voice immediately. She was a little excited.

  “Is this Mr. Henry?”

  I admitted that it was.

  “I forgot to tell you. Mr. Harper wanted an answer yesterday and I didn’t give it to him.”

  I didn’t think the information was of great importance and was about to say so but she went on:

  “I have been trying to get you ever since I got home. Someone broke into the house today and apparently made a thorough search.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “There’s nothing missing that I can see. I want you to come down.”

  “Now?”

  “Just as soon as you can get here.”

  “Car’s being repaired. Tomorrow OK?”

  “Can’t you come tonight? Get a U-Drive-It.4 I’ll wait up for you.”

  I didn’t want to go and the whole thing sounded absurd but I couldn’t sit and talk all night so I said noncommittally:

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  She said: “Thanks. Don’t think I’m silly. I’ll wait for you,” and hung up.

  Mr. Mead has two or three cars and in a pinch we can always get one of them for firm business. I called his residence and when he came to the phone I said:

  “This is Gil.”

  “All right.”

  “The lady in Harpersville is all excited and insists that I drive down right now. My car is in the garage. Could I take the Ford?”

  He did not answer me for a long moment.

  “Sure you’re not getting into something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right. The car will be parked in front of the house. You can pick it up whenever you like.”

  That was all there was to say but he held the receiver so I held on at my end. It must have been ten seconds before the click came.

  3 It was not uncommon, even in the 1940s, for a caller to ask an operator working for the telephone company to relay a message to a recipient who failed to answer a call (in this case, “Operator Two” in Harpersville). This seems a bit unusual, however, for a caller to a law firm, who would have had a receptionist to take messages.

  4 That is to say, a rental car. Rent-a-Car, Inc. (later Hertz) was founded in 1916 and was sold to John Hertz in 1923. Hertz in turn sold the company to General Motors, which owned it until the 1950s. Another early competitor was Saunders Drive-It-Yourself System, founded in 1915, which had expanded to eighty-five cities by 1927. The “U-Drive-It Corporation” is known to have issued stock as early as 1925, but whether the name simply became generic or the company continued to conduct business in various localities is unclear.

  3

  Hawthorne Place is wide and curving with magnificent trees on both sides and it is really one of the snazzy places to live. I paid my cab driver in front of the Mead residence and found the Ford parked in the shadows with the keys wedged up on the top of the sun visor as usual. I checked to see that the oil and gas were in good shape and then made a U-turn contrary to the statutes in such cases made and provided. As I reached the city limits I turned on the radio and caught a hot swing band with one of these women crooners who sounds as if she has gallstones. It was starting to rain a little and the black-top road was shiny like seals in the circus. This was before Pearl Harbor5 and no one was thinking about a rubber shortage, so I stepped right along at probably sixty miles an hour as is my custom when uninhibited. The run to Harpersville took no time at all and presently I came over a rise and could see the lights of the town a mile or so away. I was about halfway down the steep hill when there was a sharp explosion and the car jumped and twisted under me like a hula dancer. I went down that hill in a wild zigzag, keeping to the road for fifty or seventy-five yards by pressing my hundred and eighty pounds against the wheel and trying to anticipate each move. Then I went into a spin and the last thing I heard was the high whine of the tires skidding sidewise.

  I ought to be dead. How many times the car turned over I don’t know but when I came to, I was hanging halfway out of the door by the driver’s seat and the car was upright some thirty feet off the road down a slight incline. I felt terrible and on top of the bruises and knots, I was soaked to the skin as far down as my hips.

  I crawled out with considerable effort, got the flashlight out of the glove compartment, and saw that the left rear tire was not only flat but chewed to ribbons, as I thought. I crawled up the bank on my hands and knees and started walking toward Harpersville and pretty soon the headlights of a car picked me up and I got a ride with a farmer and his wife. Just as I started to get into the car I thought of something, begged their pardon, closed the door and started back up the hill. I could see they thought I was crazy and I guess I thought so myself, but I suddenly wanted to know something and decided it couldn’t wait.

  I went back to the wreck, propped the flashlight against a rock, took off what was left of that left rear tire and went over it as carefully as if I had been looking for fleas. I didn’t know what I was looking for and I didn’t find it at first. Then I went over the rim with my fingertips and suddenly felt something that made me stop and take a glance with the flashlight. I looked inside the casing and then looked around in the weeds but I knew that was hopeless. On an off-chance I picked up t
he tube and shook it. Something was inside. I split open the tube with a piece of broken glass and put what I found in my pocket. Then I walked on in to Harpersville.

  5 The surprise attack by Imperial Japanese military forces on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu occurred on December 7, 1941. While the United States was assembling its armory preparatory to entering World War II and for much of the war, rubber was in short supply for civilian uses (such as automobile tires).

  4

  I guess it was nearly midnight when I got to the square in Harpersville. Everything was closed down for the night and I went into the Hotel Harper where the desk clerk was dozing in a chair behind the counter. He jumped up and glared at the way I was dripping on his rug but I was in no mood to make explanations. I asked for the telephone and he nodded toward a booth in the back corner of the lobby. I entered the booth and then went back and got two or three dollars in change and it was apparent that the desk clerk still wished that I wouldn’t drip on his rug although I guess I looked so tough he hesitated to complain about it.

  I put through a call to the Mead home back in the city and shifted my weight impatiently until I heard Mr. James Mead’s sleepy voice at the other end. I said:

  “This is Gil Henry. I’m in Harpersville. Does anyone want you to be dead?”

  I could almost hear him wake up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that. Who would want to kill you?”

  He said cautiously: “Are you drunk?”

  “No, but I don’t know why I’m not dead. I had a wreck in the Ford. I’ve got in my pocket something that looks like a soft nose .38 slug that was not put in my tire by the manufacturer. Who knew I was coming to Harpersville?”

  “There was a party going on here when you called and I didn’t make any secret of it. I couldn’t just walk out of the house without explaining to my guests so I told them that my junior partner had a hurry call to Harpersville and was coming by for one of the cars. Are you sure about what you said?”

  “The explosion didn’t sound like a blowout. When I got to thinking about it, I thought it came from a distance. You can’t tell anything from the tire but there’s a big dent in the rim and I have the slug in my pocket. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. Who were your guests? Never mind, I’ll talk to you about it later. Better write out a list before you forget and we’ll look over it some other time.”

  He said: “Are you badly hurt? Have you seen a doctor?”

  I told him I hadn’t but I would if I needed one. Then I hung up and called Ruth McClure. I told her what had happened and that I had better get a room at the hotel and get these wet clothes off. She pointed out very sensibly that I would have to have some dry clothes and I told her that was not the half of it, I would have to have some new ones. One leg of my trousers was split open and there was a gash down the back of my coat. She insisted that I come out to her place, but remembering my YMCA connections I took the precaution of asking did she think that would be proper and what would the neighbors think. She was very emphatic about the neighbors and, hell, I’m no puritan, so the next thing I walked right past the desk clerk without saying a word and strolled out into the rain again. I looked back and saw that he was still brooding about where I had dripped on the rug.

  I have a bad habit of thinking of things at the wrong time. I doubled back into the lobby and dripped on the rug again while I asked the desk clerk if by any chance he had back numbers of the local newspapers—back to, say, two weeks ago. He said he didn’t so I went out again.

  5

  I would be a lot better off if I didn’t think so much. I found Ruth McClure’s house, a small cottage that could have used a coat of paint. She was in the door with the light behind her and I should have noticed how pretty she was, but instead, because I think too damn much, I stood and dripped on the door mat and said:

  “Where did your father get ten thousand dollars?”

  It took her about two seconds to follow me and then she frowned and said:

  “I never thought of that. He never had that much money in his life. Come in and get out of those wet clothes. The water heater is on and you can have a hot bath. You will probably want some whiskey too. Tim’s clothes will fit you like a circus tent but you can roll up anything you trip on.”

  I said: “Who’s Tim?”

  “Tim McClure.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He lives here.”

  That didn’t answer my question and I said so. She took my shoulders and pushed me into the living room without caring whether I dripped or not.

  “Don’t be silly. You can find out some other time.”

  Then she pushed me toward an open door and I saw dry clothes and a pint bottle and I could hear hot water running in the bathroom. I suddenly realized again how I felt and without bothering to do anything else first, I drank out of that bottle until I choked and sputtered. I am no great shakes at drinking and I thought the lining of my throat and a good part of the alimentary canal, as a matter of fact, would never be the same again. It did feel good though and almost instantly a big lump of warmth radiated through me.

  I am no ladies’ man and girls have never thought much of my short pudgy figure and I do not know why I do things like this. But as a matter of fact, with that whiskey inside of me and hot water running in the next room I felt so much better I took Miss Ruth McClure by the shoulders and kissed her on the cheek with astonishing warmth before I pushed her out and closed the door. In the moving pictures it seems that people do this every day and think nothing of it, but I was rather appalled at the thought of what I had done and wondered again who Tim McClure might be and how big.

  6

  I tell you, I never think of things at logical times. I got out of the bath tub with soap all over me and wrapped a towel around my middle and peered into the living room from behind the door. I said:

  “Don’t look now but who knew I was coming down here?”

  “Nobody. I didn’t tell a soul. Of course, Tim. He was here. But nobody else.”

  “You didn’t tell me who Tim is.”

  “Never mind, I’ll tell you later. You get some clothes on.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “All right. My father adopted him. That was years ago. He has been Tim McClure as long as I can remember.”

  Well, that was that. I got back into the tub and almost immediately stuck my head around the door again and said:

  “How old were you when Tim was adopted?”

  She thought a minute.

  “I don’t remember. I am told I was about two.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  She looked at me and made a face:

  “Rather a roundabout way of getting at it, but I am twenty-eight.”

  “I’m thirty myself.”

  I went back and finished my bath but I was not through with what I was thinking about and made a mental note to ask another question in my inimitable way.

  7

  I began to get a pretty good idea of what Tim McClure might look like when I tried to put on the suit I found on the bed. It may not have been a zoot suit6 but the way I wore it, it certainly had a drape shape. I rolled up probably eight inches around my ankles and the overlap at my waistline was something to look at. The shoulders of the coat hung down almost to my elbows and, of course, my hands were clear out of sight up the sleeves. No wonder Miss Ruth McClure laughed when she saw me. I was a dead ringer for the smallest of the seven dwarfs and sure enough she called me Dopey.

  I asked her where the stock certificates were and she got a black tin box off of the mantelpiece. It was an ordinary cheap tin box, rather flimsy, with a built-in lock of the type that is just the next thing to being no lock at all. The top was badly twisted where someone had pried it open with something like a screwdriver. Before I looked inside I said:

 
“This was part of the search, I see.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything missing?”

  “I don’t think so but I can’t be sure. There was nothing of value in it except the stock certificate and it’s still there.”

  The stock certificate was the top thing. It was a single certificate for one hundred shares of the common capital stock of Harper Products Company. It was made out in the name of John H. McClure and was dated in May, 1915. I turned it over in my hands once or twice while I was thinking of something else.

  “Is this the only stock he had in Harper Products Company?”

  “I think that’s all the stock he had in any company. I never heard him mention any other.”

  “How much did he make at the company?”

  She looked down at her hands and said:

  “Not very much. The wages at Harper have never been very high.”

  “How much?”

  “Thirty-five dollars a week. It used to be less.”7

  I thought that over for a moment.

  “You went to college.”

  It was not a question. She nodded.

  “Where?”

  “Sweetwater.”8

  “Tim?”

  “Princeton.”

  I got up and walked around the room until one trouser leg came unwound and I tripped on it, nearly pulling my pants off. She said:

  “Now that you put it that way, it does seem odd. I wonder why it never occurred to me before.”

  “What kind of car did you have?”

  “A Buick.”

  “New?”

  She was thinking too. She said:

  “He traded nearly every year.”

  She did not like what I was thinking about and I didn’t like it myself either. Something else began to gnaw around in the back of my mind and I got up to walk around some more but remembered the trouser legs and sat down again. The big coat hung around me like a horse blanket. I tried to be gentle with my next question: “You say he was killed in an accident?”