The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope

by C. W. Grafton

  I was stopped when I turned into the entrance and asked a lot of questions. The police wanted to know was I a reporter and didn’t I have cameras and flash bulbs and such, and when I said that I didn’t, they looked into the car anyway and poked their fingers here and there like the Department of Agriculture looking for Japanese beetles or cow ticks. This seemed to be the sole function of the men at the entrance and when they were finally satisfied that I was not connected with any newspapers, I was allowed to go on up to the front door. There were a lot of cars and it took me quite a while to maneuver into a little crack between a Cadillac about the size of a locomotive and a police car.

  A county patrolman and a city police officer were at the big door and each one acted as if the other wasn’t there so I had to answer two sets of questions and finally neither one of them could decide whether I could go in or not. One man sent a message to the sheriff and the other sent a message to the chief of police and apparently both had the same idea at once because I was finally escorted down to the basement and into a big playroom where I was told to wait.

  I didn’t like it very much but there was nothing I could do about it, so I looked around to see what I could see. It was a gorgeous place and it could have been the main room of a country club as far as I was concerned. The house was built on ground that sloped from front to rear so that you could walk up three steps, through a door and out on a big lawn that ended in a pair of tennis courts made of asphalt. There was a big fireplace on one side of the room and plenty of comfortable chairs and a billiard table and a pingpong table and a bar. The space over the mantelpiece was full of a perfectly enormous mounted fish with a revolting expression on its face and on the mantel itself were a flock of trophies, mostly big silver cups with a few shields and other miscellaneous objects symbolic of various kinds of prowesses. No one seemed to be in any hurry to talk to me so I strolled over and started reading the inscriptions. The fish was the unfortunate prey of William Jasper Harper himself and there was an occasional solid silver trifle which he had won yachting and fishing at various play spots on the Eastern coast. The rest of the silverware had been awarded to Janet Harper for everything except throwing the 56 lb. weight. Apparently she was quite a tenniser and golfer and what she couldn’t do with a bow and arrow, an Indian wouldn’t want to do, but the thing I was particularly interested in was a series of gadgets testifying as to her excellence with pistol, rifle and shotgun.

  Maybe you have played gin rummy and you hold a spread of four sixes, plus the eight and nine of diamonds. Then you draw the seven of diamonds right in the hole between the six and eight and so you shift your hand around and make one spread of three sixes and a four-card diamond spread on the side. This business of guns and Janet Harper was the seven of diamonds in my hand and since I did not want to overlook any bets, I shifted my cards accordingly and wondered about one thing and another.

  While I was standing there, the door opened and you did not have to tell me that I was looking at Janet Harper. She was fairly tall and her face was inclined to be a little horsey, although not to such a degree that you could say she was unattractive. She was heavily tanned on all visible parts and her figure was good in a muscular sort of way. When she walked across the room, the calves of her legs showed the outlines of hard muscles. In a strangling contest, I would want somebody else for a partner.

  She came clear over to the fireplace before she spoke to me and the closer she got the more I was reminded of a sleek panther, although there was nothing feline about her eyes. The air of composure and assurance that she carried around with her was one of a person content with all her assets and undisturbed by the opinions of others. You have seen people like her and you will know what I mean when I say that you did not have to read the racing form to know that she had won her last six starts and would probably win the next one.

  She looked me over coolly and objectively and I had the feeling that in her racing stable I was roughly the equivalent of a one-eyed burro with hoof and mouth disease, but I also had the feeling that for the time being she might treat me like Whirlaway.28

  I waited and presently she said:

  “I believe they said the name was Mr. Gilmore Henry.”

  No argument so far. I thought I might as well wait and see what was coming and anyway if I opened my mouth there would be that tooth business and I already looked disreputable enough.

  “My father mentioned you. He didn’t like you much.”

  “I think that’s a fair statement of known facts,” I contributed cautiously.

  “My father was a man who made up his mind quickly and sometimes violently.”

  “That was my observation.”

  She kept looking straight at me and my time was not too valuable so I looked straight at her. After a while she said:

  “I hope you don’t expect us to be too cordial. Especially at a time like this.”

  “No.”

  “I believe they said you were a lawyer and that you represent Timothy McClure.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I suppose you will cause all the trouble you can and will look for anything which will put my father in an unfavorable light.”

  “That depends.”

  “I suppose people who are accused of crimes have rights and people are supposed to respect those rights whatever their personal inclinations may be.”

  “That’s what it says in the books.”

  Something about me had her puzzled but I could not tell whether it was my face, shape, condition or maybe the fact that I was not giving her any sass or argument. She had a direct way of looking at me that made me want to look away, but I didn’t do so. Finally she said:

  “Exactly what do you want?”

  I shrugged my shoulders very slightly.

  “I’m a lawyer and I have a client. You want to convict him of killing your father. I didn’t ask him, but I’m quite sure he doesn’t want to be convicted. I want to look and talk and listen, here and elsewhere, now and whenever it may be necessary.”

  “And look around for any dirt you can find?”

  “If there is dirt, who put it there?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” she admitted. “Another way of looking at it might include the thought that if there is anything here, it’s strictly the business of the family.”

  I said: “Do you have some particular dirt in mind?”

  She flushed quickly and I thought she was going to flare up, but she didn’t.

  “That’s not fair,” she said, with more composure than I expected. “My father was a fine man and his life was as clean as most. But a mind with an evil turn in it can make anything look bad.”

  “I can see that you think that’s the kind of mind I have. Well, you may be right. I already know a lot I was not intended to know and I expect to know more than that before I am through. I could remember a lot of things and maybe if I’m wrong about what I’m thinking—maybe you understand—I could keep them to myself. You don’t trust me, do you?”

  “When I came in here, I didn’t. Maybe I still don’t. And then again maybe I don’t know. You’re funny.”

  She turned on her heel and walked over to the door and closed it behind her without looking back. I tried to remember whether the rhythm of her footsteps was like the clicking of heels in the corridor outside my office a few hours before, but I couldn’t tell for sure. While she was talking to me, I suddenly remembered that although I had unconsciously assumed that the person who hit me was a man, yet I had never seen the person and the shadow on the door had not been conclusive one way or the other. A lot of new avenues were opened up and I could see that I was going to have to do a lot of exploring before I knew where I was.

  28 Whirlaway was the American thoroughbred horse that won the Triple Crown of racing in 1941.

  35

  I waited maybe five minutes more expecting eith
er the sheriff or the chief of police to come in for a conference, but there were no signs of anything doing. I could faintly hear people walking around upstairs and doors were opening and shutting every now and then. I didn’t see any reason to cool my heels in solitude so I walked up the three steps, opened the glass door that led out to the lawn and looked around. Although it was well after midnight, every light in the house was on and when you say that about a place like the Harper home, it means you could have played night baseball in the back yard.

  I walked away from the house and turned and looked up. Immediately above the playroom where I had been was what looked like the dining room and one branch of the law (I couldn’t tell which) had taken over that room as headquarters. There seemed to be a butler’s pantry next to the dining room and behind that in the corner of the same floor, to my right as I faced the house, was obviously the kitchen. Through the window of the kitchen I could see a heavy-set woman puttering around and I didn’t see what she could be doing at that hour unless she was fixing coffee and maybe some food for the law. The idea interested me strangely. There was no door leading from the kitchen into the back yard where I was standing, so I wandered around the corner of the house and there sure enough was a door and some steps discreetly veiled behind heavy bushes so that blue-blooded guests who might gambol on the lawn need not be upset by domestic sights.

  I walked on up to the door and went in without knocking. There was a divine odor of coffee that set me to trembling. The heavy-set cook had her broad behind in my direction and was carving slices from a tremendous ham. She turned and glowered at me and she had a faint fuzzy mustache on her upper lip.

  “Who’re you?” she asked, with more resignation than hostility.

  “Another one of the crowd,” I said casually and my salivary glands were in full operation. “Investigating crimes always makes me hungry. Particularly for ham and coffee in the middle of the night. Be a sweetheart, will you?”

  She did not act very gracious but even so I could see her soften up perceptibly. People who fix things to eat like to see other people eat them, especially when they are hungry and say so, and I was so hungry it must have been shining out of my eyes for anybody to see. She kicked a chair around as if to indicate that was where I could sit and while she stomped around grumbling and muttering about people who wanted to eat at all kinds of filthy hours, she was nevertheless getting me a plate and a cup.

  This suited me fine. I wanted to ask plenty of questions but even more than that I wanted to wrap myself around a considerable percentage of that ham and I knew I might have to do it before it was discovered that I was no longer in the playroom like a good little boy.

  I went through a big thick sandwich like a snow plow and you could not have gotten rid of a cup of coffee any faster if you had poured it on the floor. The cook looked at me with something akin to admiration and awe but what she said was:

  “You keep on eating like that the rest of your life and you’ll rot all your insides out. If you want another sandwich get it yourself. I don’t want anybody snapping off three fingers if I’m not quick.”

  I said: “Lady, there is something beautiful about you here in this pastoral setting with a pot of coffee in one hand and life-giving substances at your beck and call. If you would massacre a couple of eggs for me, I would strike a medal for you in honor of the occasion. When they made the original hungry man, they used me as a model.”

  She snorted: “Eggs! I’m not running a hotel. Ham and coffee are good enough for the others and they’re good enough for you too.”

  Then she got out a frying pan and brought two eggs from the refrigerator and turned up the gas. I went to the refrigerator right behind her and took out two more eggs and tried to look at her like a setter dog about to lick your hand and so I had four scrambled eggs, very good indeed, in almost no time at all. After a while I said:

  “Is this where you were when it happened?”

  “Do I have to go over all that again?”

  “There’s no telling what dumb babies you have talked to before. I’m the only smart one in the whole outfit. I expect to have this whole thing figured out in maybe twenty-four hours at the most and I’ll probably sleep twelve of them at that.”

  She really did not expect to get out of answering questions. “Wait until I come back,” she said over her shoulder and I hurried after her just in time to hold open the swinging door to the butler’s pantry so she could get out with the coffee pot and a big platter of sandwiches. I was careful not to show myself at the other swinging door that led from the butler’s pantry into the dining room.

  She was back in a moment and I could hear her making a great clatter with the cups and saucers in the butler’s pantry and after that she finally came back and sat down, so I started all over again.

  “Is this where you were when it happened?”

  “Yes, the family finished their dinner sometime before eight and after the table was cleared we had our dinner here in the kitchen. Then I washed the dishes and I was tired and in no particular hurry, so it must have been nearly nine o’clock.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me and the butler and the chauffeur and the maid. The nurse is too good to eat with us and not good enough to eat with the family so she and Mrs. Harper have their dinner separately on a little table in Mrs. Harper’s room.”

  “The nurse?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Harper’s nurse. She’s been an invalid ever since the Lord knows when. They tell me she had some kind of sickness and it left her heart awfully bad. Just how sick she is I wouldn’t know, but the way she’s treated looks like somebody thinks she’s three-fourths dead.”

  “All right, so you were washing the dishes. Were the others still here?”

  “The maid was still in here talking to me while I did the work, but the butler and Mr. Miles had gone.”

  “Mr. Miles?”

  “He’s the chauffeur. He don’t talk much. He looks like Humphrey Bogart and he’s as cold as an eel.”

  “So just you and the maid were here. Then what?”

  “Then was the noise. Boom. Kinda muffled and far away but we could hear it and it could have been a heavy chair falling over down in the playroom or it could have been a shot off some place else in the house or maybe it could have been a door slamming real hard. Didn’t seem like anything to worry about so we listened a minute and didn’t hear any yells or screams or anything and I went right on washing dishes.”

  “I’m listening. Tell it your own way.”

  “Well after a little while Miss Knight—that’s the nurse—came back here and said did we hear a noise and we said that we did and she asked if we knew what it was and we said that we didn’t. Then she said she was upstairs herself but Mrs. Harper gave her a buzz and wanted to know what was going on. She said Mrs. Harper was dozing and the noise woke her up and if we couldn’t locate what it was we were to ask Mr. Harper in the study since it sounded kind of close to her. So Miss Knight is a pantywaist about investigating noises and the maid had her shoes off so I wiped my hands and tagged along. We knocked on the door of the study and I was feeling pretty silly and we didn’t get any answer. We knocked again and then went next door into Mrs. Harper’s room to ask should we go on in and she said that we should, so we went and there he was, as dead as a dead mackerel.”

  “The paper said shot. Whereabouts?”

  “In the back of the head. He was sprawled in the middle of the floor on his face.”

  “The paper says there are French windows. Were they open or shut?”

  “Open. We noticed that first thing.”

  “Gun anywhere around?”

  “Didn’t look at first. Miss Knight hollered and ran out and I went out too and pretty soon everybody was running from every which direction and when I peeped back in the door again, there was the butler in his shirt sleeves with his pants half unbuttoned an
d the chauffeur and Miss Janet came running down from upstairs and pushed by me and went in too.”

  “How did Miss Janet act?”

  “She stood and looked but she didn’t scream or anything and pretty soon she walked out without saying anything and I could hear her telephoning. Mrs. Harper was raising Cain29 and why didn’t anybody tell her anything, so I went in and told her. Then they shooed me back to the kitchen and that’s all I know.”

  “You say Mrs. Harper’s room is next to the study?”

  “Yes, I understand it used to be a downstairs sitting room for the family so they wouldn’t have to sit around in the hotel lobby they’ve got for big occasions, but when Mrs. Harper got sick they made it over into a bedroom for her and built in a private bath and everything.”

  I got up and walked around the kitchen once or twice and carelessly ate another sandwich. I had not heard anything startling and if there was anything I wanted to be it was startled. I had spent enough time in the kitchen and there were some things I wanted to know before the sheriff started looking for me as I knew he would be doing any minute. I thanked the cook and told her to come see me if she ever happened to be out of a job and then I went back into the yard again.

  Exploring around cautiously I found that the driveway took a wide sweep around the far side of the house and looped back behind the tennis courts to the garages and servants’ quarters which were set back from the corner where the kitchen was. Inside the loop was the lawn, about the size of a national park, and the tennis courts. Both sides of the drive were lined with thick bushes and when I walked around I could see through them into the French windows of the room on the other back corner of the house which was obviously the study and where I could see a lot of people milling around taking pictures and things. Between my bushes and the French windows there was a terrace paved with big square red tiles ending in a balustrade and a drop of eight or ten feet down to the level of the back lawn. The terrace extended on up toward the front of the house and there was another set of French windows opening out on it. I have a good deal of Peeping Tom blood in me and I walked up a few steps and did some of my best peeping. What I looked into was a room where a scrawny looking woman was sitting in a wheelchair with her head back against a headrest and her eyes closed. She looked very fragile and was as pale as the Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar.30 I wanted very much to have a talk with Mrs. Harper but she had gone through plenty and looked as if she were asleep. The French windows were open and I could not help wondering if they were open about nine o’clock that evening and just how sick Mrs. Harper was. And one of these days I wanted to have a heart to heart talk with Miss Knight.