The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope

by C. W. Grafton

  I retreated to the window and had time to turn the thing over in the light while he was coming at me. The writing on the front of the envelope was in ink, badly faded, but you could see that it said “Last Will and Testament of William Jasper Harper—Not To Be Opened Until After My Death.” The back of the envelope looked perfectly natural and as far as I could tell, the seal had not been disturbed. The chief was almost at me and he had mayhem in his eyes. I handed him the envelope meekly enough and said: “No offense, Chief, no offense. I was just trying to be helpful.”

  He was slightly mollified. “You do your helping by keeping your paws off of things,” he growled. “I don’t like your impudence and I don’t think you’re telling all you know. Let me catch you in a lie and I’ll turn the heat on you. Think you’re pretty slick, don’t you?”

  As a matter of fact I thought I was just a little slick but I couldn’t see any reason for saying so. We went back to the table and everybody examined the envelope and it was agreed that there was no evidence of any tampering. Then the sheriff cleared his throat and put a finger under the flap of the envelope and broke it open. We crowded around and looked over his shoulder.

  I think we all expected dynamite and we were all disappointed. The will was short and to the point and in one paragraph gave everything to his beloved wife, Alice Holt Harper, absolutely and in fee simple to do with as she might please. The following sentence said: “I am fully conscious of my obligations to our beloved daughter, Janet, but I am satisfied that her interest will be best served by leaving my entire estate to her mother without any legal restrictions whatsoever.”

  There was another sentence designating Alice Holt Harper as executrix and that was all. There were no witnesses and the thing at least purported to be all in his own handwriting. The paper was old and had turned slightly brown. The date was the 8th of May, 1915.

  42

  Nobody said anything. I read it two or three times but there was no possible way to get any other meaning out of it. After a while the chief said:

  “Where does that get us? It don’t give no motive to anybody but Mrs. Harper. What would she want to get in a hotbox for?”

  “Not only that,” Mead put in thoughtfully, “but why would she wait twenty-six years? This will was made in 1915. He could have written a new one anytime. How was she to know whether he had made a new one or not? It doesn’t make sense.”

  I took the paper over to the light and looked at it closely and turned it over and looked at the back and then held it up and looked through it. I could see absolutely no evidence that there had been any erasures or changes. I studied the edges to see if anything could have been cut off but couldn’t discover a thing. Unless there might be a later will, this looked like the business and it didn’t fit in with the pattern that had been forming in my mind at all. I didn’t like it. It didn’t fit in. It wasn’t right.

  I went back and tossed the thing on the table and said:

  “Well. Where does that leave us? Twenty-six years is a hell of a long time. Who would know if he made one later? Who was his lawyer?”

  “Frank Gregory represented him for a while,” said Mead. “How long I don’t know. Old Gregory died two or three years ago and Harper didn’t care for the other choices he had in this town and came to me. There wasn’t much to do and he paid me a retainer for a lot of routine stuff and that was all. I didn’t think it amounted to enough to even tell Henry here. He certainly never got me to make a will for him.”

  The sheriff said: “Old Frank Gregory was quite a lawyer. He represented everything and everybody around here. Died of old age at seventy-eight. I remember going to the funeral. The whole county was there and the Governor came down and we had everything except dinner on the grounds. There wasn’t any other lawyer here worth mentioning and my guess is Frank Gregory represented Harper ever since the Spanish-American War. I wonder who would have his files.”

  “Looks like that’s the next move,” said Mead. “If this is his, we’ll want to offer it for probate after a decent interval. But I think I ought to at least make a reasonable search before offering a will as old as this. Times change and people change their ideas. It seems almost certain he would have made another one.”

  “Holbert is a smart man,” said the chief, turning to the sheriff for approval. “I’ll get him in here and put him on the trail of Gregory’s files and records. It may be a tough job but I think Mead is right. Could be a new will that would make the whole thing look different and might tell us a thing or two.” He got up and went out and we could hear him on the phone.

  When he came back I stood up and stretched and yawned and said: “Well, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll be running along. I feel like I’m starving and I could do with some sleep and the hospital won’t like the way I walked out of the place.”

  None of them paid any attention to me. I started toward the door but before I could reach it someone was running in the hall and broke in breathlessly. It was a patrolman and he said:

  “It’s Ruth McClure. We found her. All trussed up like a dressed chicken and where do you suppose? Right in the shed in back of her own house in the corner behind a pile of coal.”

  We were all standing. “Dead?” asked the sheriff.

  “No, not even hurt much. Says she got a phone call and somebody said to make sure she wasn’t being followed and come back to the shed and she could get some information that would clear her brother. Naturally she went and didn’t even think about what might happen. Bingo. A blanket gets slapped over her head and she is tied up and nearly suffocates before she can think. Her feet get pulled up behind and tied with a rope that goes around her neck and if she moves an eyelash she’s a dead duck. She hollers and nobody can hear her on account of the blanket and all she can do is squirm around a little and get her feet propped so they don’t pull her head off and then everything goes black.”

  That reminded me of something. I put my hand into my coat pocket frantically, and was relieved to find that that was where the hospital people had put the junk they took out of my pants. I pulled it all out and when I didn’t see what I was looking for I got down on my hands and knees and put it all on the floor and sorted it out carefully. The key wasn’t there. I looked again but there was no doubt about it. The key was gone.

  43

  I looked through all the rest of my pockets and then went out and called the hospital and after the nurse at the desk got through being indignant at me, I finally had a chance to talk to the voluptuous little thing who wanted me to get back in bed. She wanted to give me a lot of back talk but I cut her short.

  “Listen,” I said, “and listen good and get it the first time. Go into that room I had and look everywhere. Look under the bed and in the bed and through my shirt and underwear and on the dresser. Look in the gobboon33 and everywhere. It’s a key I had and now I haven’t got it. It’s flat and looks like it’s made of brass and I need it the worst way. Now run and don’t argue and I’ll hold the phone.”

  “I don’t have to look. We put everything you had on you in one of the pockets of your coat and you have the coat. If it isn’t there, you either didn’t have it or you lost it since. We’re not in the habit of stealing a patient’s belongings. What are you trying to do? Put me on the spot?”

  I said: “Woman, don’t argue. I didn’t say you stole anything. I only said it was gone. Now be a good girl and go and look and some day I’ll come over and give you a great big kiss.”

  “You’ll get a slap in the puss,” she said shortly, but she didn’t hang up the phone and I could hear her go away. She was gone a couple of minutes. “All right, I looked. It’s just like I said. There is nothing there but your clothes and if you don’t come and get them we’ll put them in the incinerator.”

  She hung up with a bang and I doubted very much whether I would ever get any kisses.

  I went back into the dining room and learned that t
hey had taken Ruth to a doctor for a checkup and then she had raised so much stew they had given in and let her go home to get a bath. A man was waiting right outside of the bathroom door and she would be brought out for questioning in a few minutes. Mead and the sheriff and the chief were discussing this new development and getting reports on the search for Tim so I went out and across the hall and knocked on Mrs. Harper’s door. It was opened quickly by a tall, prim woman of maybe sixty or sixty-five with white hair. She looked as pure and proper as the Chairman of the Women’s Auxiliary of the ME Church but right now she was looking at me with the utmost severity and she had her finger on her lips and was “sh”-ing me. She stepped out and pulled the door shut behind her softly.

  “Go away,” she said in a heavy whisper. “Mrs. Harper is taking a nap. It was a great shock and everyone has been so noisy she hasn’t had a wink of sleep until a few moments ago.”

  I wanted very much to have a talk with Mrs. Alice Holt Harper but I could see it was no use pressing the point. I nodded and said I would come back later. I assumed this was Miss Knight and I watched her go back in and close the door quietly.

  I went over to the guard at the front door and asked where Mr. Jolley had gone. It seems that he had asked for Janet and had waited until the maid brought a message that he could come up to her room.

  I went upstairs and looked around. A door was open and through it I could see Janet in a pretty snakey sort of negligee. Hillman Jolley was sitting beside her on the chaise longue and he was holding one of her hands and they were talking together very low.

  I could have been more diplomatic but I wanted to see what their reaction would be so I stalked into the room and said:

  “Excuse it, please. Don’t pay any attention to me at all. We found out something downstairs and I thought you’d be interested—both of you.”

  I turned to Janet but out of the corner of my eye I was watching Jolley as well.

  “We opened your father’s will. It leaves everything to your mother, lock, stock, and barrel.”

  I thought possibly I was dropping a bombshell but if so it didn’t go off. Neither one of them batted an eye. Janet stood up but didn’t seem to be either surprised or alarmed or annoyed or shocked. Jolley went over and put his arm around her and from the look she gave him I thought he was probably handing me the straight stuff when he told me that they had what he called an understanding. Jolley said brusquely: “Really, I don’t think this is a very appropriate occasion to be discussing things. Janet was devoted to her father and she is naturally distraught. She has had a horrible night and what she really needs is a sedative.”

  I said: “Sorry, my mistake. I shouldn’t have blundered in this way in the first place.”

  I turned on my heel and went out and down the stairs. I was nearly to the front door when the door of Mrs. Harper’s room opened and a man in a chauffeur’s uniform came out and looked around. The cook was dead right when she said he looked like Humphrey Bogart, only Humphrey Bogart never looked as tough. The guy looked around and saw me and I kept on going but he caught up with me on the front steps.

  “Mr. Henry?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This way please. Mrs. Harper wants to talk to you.”

  “She probably wants to talk to Mr. Mead.”

  “No, she said you especially. This way, please.”

  I hung back. “There must be a mistake,” I said. “I want to talk to Mrs. Harper but she couldn’t have sent for me. She doesn’t even know who I am. If it’s because she thinks I’m still Mead’s partner, tell her I’m not.”

  I wanted very, very much to talk to Mrs. Harper but I was sure she must be sending for Mead and I didn’t want to talk to her while he was around. If he was the man she wanted then I might as well be spending this time trying to get in a word with Ruth McClure while I might have a chance.

  Humphrey Bogart looked at me and his face got even tougher. He said: “Mrs. Harper knows you and Mead have busted up. She said you particular. Why is no skin off my nose but that’s what she said and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  You couldn’t look at him and doubt that I was going to have an interview with Mrs. Harper if he had to carry me in by the seat of my pants. We stared at each other and finally I shrugged my shoulders and said:

  “OK, lead the way.”

  33 A cuspidor or spittoon.

  44

  Mrs. Harper was sitting up in her wheel chair with a pillow behind her and Miss Knight was in a chair right by her side taking her pulse. There was a four-poster double bed which had been out of my line of vision when I looked in the night before, and rolled under the bed was a low pallet on wheels like they have in hospitals.

  I was glad to have a good look at Mrs. Harper. She was either about eighty years old or she had been an invalid for a long time. Her face was almost like wax and was dead white and almost translucent so that her veins showed clearly and you could see the pulsations in the artery in her neck. However, her eyes were alert and bright, almost feverish. She looked tired and drawn.

  She gave a little gesture of dismissal and said: “Thank you, Miles, that will do.” The chauffeur looked as if he wanted to stay and see what was going on but after an instant of hesitation he went out and closed the door behind him.

  I said: “I’m Gilmore Henry. He said you wanted to see me.”

  She fumbled for a pair of glasses, put them on and studied me closely. I half expected her to ask if she could look inside my mouth like you would inspect a horse. You could see every detail soak in, not excepting my missing tooth, the bandage, my funny proportions and everything. If I had been looking at myself, I would have gained a very poor impression but if she felt that way, there was no sign of it.

  “You have dissolved your partnership with Mead and the others?”

  “You know that?”

  “So I was told.”

  “And you still want to see me?”

  “I want to have something done. I want someone I can trust—not only trust in the usual sense but trust not to talk. Not to anyone. I haven’t time to fool around. From what I’ve heard, I am inclined to take a flier on you, sight unseen and no questions asked. Yes or no?”

  I didn’t know what was coming. This was not at all what I had expected. I thought I would be asking questions and she would be answering them. Furthermore, as Mead represented the family and the estate, I had no desire to muscle in and I also had no idea of tying myself up in anything which would embarrass me in my representation of Tim. “I represent Tim McClure. He’s under arrest and they think he did that,” I said pointing in the direction of the study. “He’s a fugitive. They would like to think he did the other thing too. You know about that?”

  “I have been told about all of that. I still want to know. Yes or no.”

  “It would depend on the job. I’d have to know first. I can’t give you an answer until I know.”

  “I don’t want to tell you until I know your answer.”

  “Then get somebody else.”

  If that was the purpose of the interview, it was at an end. I stood up and said: “Sorry.”

  She fiddled with a handkerchief in her lap and looked out of the French windows and back at me for a long time. “I haven’t very much choice. There is no one in Harpersville who will do and I don’t know anyone in the city. Give me your word first. If you decline, this conversation will never go any farther.”

  I looked hard at Miss Knight and back to Mrs. Harper. She said: “Miss Knight is all right. She is more than a nurse. She is a friend and a companion and has been for years, ever since my first attack.”

  I put my hat on the bed, looked around and saw a chair with its back against a door that probably connected with the study. The knob had been taken out of the door and from the way the furniture was arranged it was apparent that the door was not in use. The chair was no
t too far from Mrs. Harper and was where she could see it so I went over and made myself comfortable. “All right, go ahead. Only remember that if it is something inconsistent with what I’m doing I can’t accept. And if it is something that will help me clear Tim, I cannot receive it in confidence but will use it as I think best. You’ll have to take that chance. If it doesn’t suit you that way, don’t start.”

  She bit her lips and looked me all over again and then made up her mind and drew in a deep breath. “I want to know if you can prepare a will that’s no good.”

  Life is full of surprises but I had been getting them so fast and so continuously in the last couple of days that I was learning to roll with the punches. I said: “I can. Whether I will or not is something else. You don’t ask a doctor to perform a bad operation. You shouldn’t ask a lawyer either. If I start making bad wills, I’ve got to quit being a lawyer. What do you want with a will that’s no good?”

  “Why I want it is my business. All I’m asking is whether you will do it or you won’t do it. I have ample means and I will pay well. Name your own price. I won’t argue about it.”

  I got up and took a turn around the room and came back. I got out a pack of cigarettes and asked a question with my eyes and she nodded so I lit one and inhaled deeply. Miss Knight got up and found something I could use as an ash tray.

  “Mrs. Harper,” I said, “you are evidently troubled in a very serious way or you would not be talking to a lawyer you know nothing about. I am not as stupid as I look and I will take a guess that before we got through I would probably be in position to blackmail you out of your eyeballs. Do you realize that?”

  “Young man, I wasn’t born yesterday. I used to go to the races when I was younger and in better health. There are times when you want to put everything you’ve got on a horse—to win. When you do, you have to trust the jockey and pray.”