The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope

by C. W. Grafton

  I could hear breathing—not even, peaceful breathing like when people are sleeping, but something irregular and almost explosive.

  The next thing my troubled mind got around to focusing on was my mouth. It was full of a big dry tongue about the size of a cow’s tongue and I couldn’t open it because there was tape all over my face. I wondered if I could open my eyes but didn’t much care whether I could or not.

  There wasn’t any use rolling over on my back because I would be lying on my own hands and that wouldn’t be any fun at all. I just lay there and hoped that I was dead and didn’t know it.

  I must have moved or maybe the tempo of my breathing had changed because someone walked heavily across a wooden floor and kicked me in the pit of my stomach. It was enough. I went out again.

  The next thing I knew I was soaking wet and gasping and with an effort I did not know I was capable of, I wrenched myself up to a sitting position and put my head down on my knees. I experimented with my eyes and they came open, somewhat to my surprise, and I was looking down at rough boards with cracks in between them. Someone cuffed me hard on the side of my head and I nearly fell over again. I didn’t feel the sting but what it did to my head was a special kind of torture that should be reserved only for the Japs.40 An anger that took me as close to insanity as I ever want to be boiled up from somewhere and if my mouth hadn’t been taped up I think I would have taken a blind bite in the hope of getting a shinbone in my teeth. If that had been possible, what I would have done with it would have made a Doberman pinscher go home and take lessons.

  I raised my head and turned and looked up at Miles. He was grimmer and tougher than ever. If they have bouncers in hell, the head man of them all must wear a chauffeur’s uniform. He didn’t even need horns and a tail to complete the illusion.

  “Well!” he said, “we have company again.”

  He reached down and tore the adhesive tape off of my face with one gesture and if he didn’t take half my skin with it, it’s because he took the whole face. The stuff had stuck to my lips somewhere and he took off a strip that burned like fire and I could feel the blood running down my chin. If he had been a little closer, I would have bitten his foot off like a shark. The circulation was beginning to operate in my right arm again and the pain made me close my jaws tight until they ached.

  Miles said: “You and I are going to have a nice little talk.”

  I said: “Go ahead.”

  He made a motion with his hand and I thought he was going to hit me again and I cringed like a dog. He laughed.

  “Yellow, aren’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Start singing and I mean start right now.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Don’t give me that stuff. Start talking.”

  I looked around for the first time to see where I was. Janet was in a chair with her hands tied together behind the back of it, and tape over her mouth. Her eyes were open and she was watching with a sort of horrified fascination. I went on from there and found we were in a one-room cabin with no ceiling, so that the rafters showed. There were two windows and two doors and it was still night outside. Over by the second door was something I had to look at twice before I believed it. Hillman Jolley was lying on the floor pretty much as I had been except that I couldn’t see any goose egg on his head. His feet were tied together and his hands were out of sight behind him. His eyes were open, too, and they were bright and watchful.

  I stared at Jolley and he stared back at me. I was so surprised that I almost forgot where I was. I looked up at Miles and he evidently had no trouble reading my expression.

  “Fooled you, didn’t I?” he said with a chuckle. “Old Perry Mason himself. Runs around all over everywhere finding out all kinds of bright things and making all kinds of smart cracks and all the time he’s fooled like a third grader. I’ll bet you still believe in Santa Claus.”

  I said: “No, not any more. I’ll talk. What do you want to know?”

  “What was in that safety deposit box?”

  “I don’t know. We never got in.”

  “You’re lying. Tell it or I’ll kick your ribs in.”

  “That’s all. They wouldn’t let us get into the box. Said they couldn’t be sure John McClure was John McCall and anyway you can’t get into a dead man’s box without the tax people being there. We had to make a date for this morning. If it still is this morning.”

  That stumped him. I evidently sounded like I was telling the truth because instead of kicking me as he had promised, he went over and sat down in a cane-bottom chair by the table under the window and drummed on the table top with his fingers.

  Presently he said: “If you’re kidding me, you’re going to be sorry.”

  The blood was drying on my chin and it itched. The circulation had got down to my right hand and it was throbbing. I said:

  “I wouldn’t kid you.”

  “Well, what did you expect to find?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t the faintest idea. It would never have occurred to me to try and get a look except somebody wanted that key awfully bad.”

  “You wanted to stick your nose into the books of Harper Products Company. What’s the big idea?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’m asking the questions. Keep talking or I’ll smack you down.”

  “Is there something in the books I shouldn’t see?”

  He crossed the room swiftly, put his foot on the side of my head and shoved me over hard.

  “That’ll give you an idea, Mr. Wisenheimer. Maybe you think you’re playing mumbly-peg in the backyard.”

  He grabbed me by the collar and jerked me up to a sitting position and hit me in the mouth so that my lips started bleeding again. I said:

  “You don’t have to do that. Give me time. I don’t even know what you’re getting at.”

  He went over and sat down again.

  “You were plenty curious about something. I want to know what.”

  “Somebody paid me to look and I was looking. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I walked out of Jolley’s office with some financial statements and after I got them they were just a jumble of figures. If I saw anything, I don’t know what it was.”

  “You lying little bastard.”

  “Why would I lie to you? I didn’t understand the figures. That’s nothing new. If anything was there, the bankers and brokers didn’t seem to understand it either. I’m no accountant. What makes you think I could find something even the directors don’t seem to know, assuming anything’s there?”

  He was tough but he wasn’t too bright and when his mind turned over it was like a cold motor. If he wanted to count up to ten, I’ll bet he did it on his fingers.

  “Well, maybe so and maybe not. It said in the papers you were traced in Louisville after you swiped that stuff and you were asking a lot of questions about somebody named Murdoch. What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know that either. I don’t know who she was or who she is or where she is. That’s what I wanted to find out. I thought you would know. I don’t know where you get the idea I know all these things. If I knew as much as you think I know, I wouldn’t be here and you would be on your way to the electric chair.”

  I shouldn’t have said that. This time he took a gun out of a holster under his arm and held it by the barrel and walked over and hit me with it. I didn’t go out completely but I made out like I did. Everything seemed red and hazy and there was a roaring sound in my ears. There was a gurgling from Janet and the chair creaked a little. From the exclamation that came out of Miles, I gathered that she had fainted.

  Miles came and stood over me and then there was a sound of some sort outside because even without looking I could tell that he had stiffened to attention. For a long moment the room was very still and the
n he tiptoed over, turned the oil lamp down low, and went out quietly, closing the door behind him.

  I squirmed around so that I had my back to the wall and could see whatever might happen. Janet was slumped over in her chair with her head hanging down. Jolley was as bright-eyed as ever and his face was red with effort. The sweat was standing out on his forehead and I could see that he was working with his hands. Pretty soon he gave a grunt and one hand came out from behind him and then the other. He pushed himself up and leaned his back against the wall and rubbed his hands together, flexing the fingers to get life back into them. Then he bent and untied his feet and wiggled his ankles a little. He looked over at me, caught my eye and made a movement indicating silence. He didn’t bother right away with the tape over his mouth but tiptoed over to the table, keeping out of line with the windows. There was a gun on the table. He broke it open, twirled the cylinder with his thumb and clicked it together again. He started over to Janet and then brought up short in the middle of the floor, listened a second, gave me that same gesture of silence again and slipped out of the door across the room from the one Miles had used. I heard his first step or two and then the place was still again and under the floor a cricket started its senseless chirping.

  There was not a sound for a minute or two and then I heard what could have been a couple of footsteps on gravel, quite a distance from the cabin. Then there was an exclamation and three shots followed by what could have been someone crashing around in the underbrush. Then a car started with a roar and there was a scraping of tires as it went into gear with a jerk and then it was gone.

  40 The book was published at the height of the war with Imperial Japan.

  58

  I supposed Mr. Hillman Jolley was dead. Probably Miles had shot him in the dark without knowing who it was, and then had taken flight on the assumption that someone had followed him and was beginning to close in. If so, it was the rankest kind of assumption, since there I lay and there Janet sat without anything happening at all. After about ten minutes it seemed plain enough that help was not on the way, so I started experimenting around with the ropes. Miles was no amateur, and when he tied me up it was for keeps. I worked with my wrists until I had rubbed all the skin off. The knot didn’t feel like it was slipping, but the rope was fairly old and it stretched just enough to give me a little hope.

  Janet stirred and raised her head. She was the color of one of these “white papers” that the State Department is always talking about. She opened her eyes and looked straight at me, but there was a fuzzy look in them and I knew she was looking through a fog.

  I said: “Hey!”

  Her eyelids fluttered and then popped wide open.

  I said: “Hi, Sport. It isn’t as bad as all that.” She brought her eyes around to bear on me like the main turret of a battleship. The sky was clearing fast. When she took me in, the horror came back and she made a convulsive move to get up, but the chair teetered around dangerously and she was lucky that it didn’t fall over. She was wide awake, but with all that stuff over her mouth all she could do was look like a haunted house. She said, “Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmmm-m-m-m.” I said: “That’s a hell of a thing to say to your prospective husband. Save language like that for the revenooers.41 I’m the fair-haired boy, remember?”

  A spot of color appeared on her cheekbones, and she began to look better. I wriggled around in the rope some more, but my wrists were so sore that I stopped to think it over. You can’t lie around tied up like a Christmas package forever. Even Christmas packages don’t have any fun until December 25. I don’t like rats, but I could have made a nice deal with even that kind of loathsome creature if I thought it would gnaw through the rope like in the nursery rhyme I had quoted to Ruth when I was a comparatively young man.

  There didn’t seem to be but one thing to do. My hands were pudgy like the rest of me, and flesh will give even if a rope won’t. I was hurting in so many places already that I didn’t think it would make much difference if I opened up a new front. With a great effort I rolled over and by getting in the corner of the room and doing a lot of hunching against the wall, I finally managed to stand up. By acting like an animated pogo stick I somehow got across the room and fell against the table while I caught my breath. Janet was watching me with a mixture of encouragement and perplexity. I squirmed around with my back to the table, bent my knees a little and got the rope hooked under the corner. Then I turned a little sideways and rested my weight on the table to keep it from coming off the floor. The stage was all set, but I rested there a minute to get my courage up.

  When someone else hurts you there is nothing you can do about it, but when you hurt yourself you have got to have your mind made up or your muscles rebel when the going gets tough. After a while I drew in all the air I could hold, set my teeth hard, and gave it everything I had. I gave it plenty with my left arm, leaving the right arm as limp as I could to make it easier. It came out, but the way it felt I half expected to hear my right hand come off and fall on the floor. I hadn’t expected it to be that easy, and I lost my balance and fell off before I could catch myself.

  The pain was pretty bad, and I just lay there for a minute and damn near bit a piece out of my tongue. I’ll never know whether I whimpered or not, but tears came out of my eyes and stung me sharply where Miles had ripped the sticking plaster off. My right hand was raw and swelling a little, but I was able to worry the knot at my feet with the other hand and it finally came off. One foot was sound asleep. When I put my weight on it, it turned under me and I finally had to go over to Janet on my hands and knees. With my one good hand I got her loose with an effort, and then I lay back on the floor while she untied her feet. She pulled gently on the tape over her mouth, and when a corner of it came loose she went down on her hands and knees beside me and said: “We’d better get out of here. Can you make it?”

  I said: “Can you?”

  “Oh, I’m all right. All they did was tie me up. It will be a while before I feel like riding a horse, but I’m a long way from being non compos mentis, or whatever you call it.” Then she touched my face gently and said: “Poor Humpty Dumpty. I’m afraid all the King’s horses and all the King’s men will never put you together again. Is it too bad?”

  “The first time he hit me it was too bad,” I answered wearily. “After that it didn’t matter much one way or the other. The next time I meet that son of a bitch I hope I have a 37mm. gun and I don’t mean with blank ammunition either. If you will rub my ankles a minute, I think I can recognize my feet again. I know what they mean when they talk about having one foot in the grave.”

  41 That is to say, the IRS (then known as the Bureau of Internal Revenue)—hence, the “revenuers.” The “revenooers” enforced stamp taxes on liquor manufacture and so were unpopular with “moonshiners” operating outside the law.

  59

  It was beginning to rain when we got out of the cabin, and if it is darkest just before the dawn, that’s what time it was. I couldn’t tell whether we were on Brooklyn Bridge or in the middle of a broccoli patch. Janet held my best hand and we stood there waiting for the darkness to get thinner, but all we got was wet. I said: “Well, it’s lots of fun holding your hand, sweetie, but I can think of things I would rather do just at the moment. Which direction would you say is up?”

  “Don’t you hear something?” she asked.

  “Sorry, but I don’t. Do you mind?”

  “No I mean seriously. Sounds like running water.”

  The revolver butt had clipped me on one ear, and it was about like a disconnected telephone. I don’t know whether you can strain an ear or not, but plenty of good writers say you can, and I strained the other one to the best of my ability. All I could hear was my hand swelling and it sounded like the Lost Chord.42 Janet must have been doing a better job, because she started walking, pulling me after her.

  The ground fell away rather sharply and under foot there were rocks and gravel. I
stumbled along after her and we ran into a few trees and miscellaneous things. There was a path, but we did not have much luck staying on it and every now and then one of us would have to get down on the ground and feel for it. Presently I heard the sound she had been talking about. It was the burbling of a mountain stream and it wasn’t far away. We got there eventually and the water was pretty cool even at that time of year. I found a pool, knelt down on a rock beside it, and stuck my whole head under water. It felt swell. When I got up my foot kicked against something metallic, and when I found it I had a revolver in my hand. Janet was splashing water on her face, and I didn’t tell her. I broke the thing open and felt the cylinders. They were full. Evidently this was the one that Jolley had taken with him. If that were so, then his body was probably close by, but it might have been in any direction and I did not see any use looking for it. We hadn’t heard a sound except for the running water and we didn’t hear any now.

  “Let’s go,” said Janet. “I feel better. I also have a rough idea of where we are. Foothill country is east of Harpersville, and that is the only place we have a stream like this. There is usually a trail of some sort down the bottom of these valleys. Let’s look.”

  To call it “looking” was just a figure of speech. It was strictly feeling, and after this I would rather do my feeling in the inside of a concrete mixer in full operation. Between the boulders, the trees, the vines and the briars, it was no fun at all. When I finally stumbled into the rutted mountain road I felt like singing. Janet was fifty feet away in another direction, and we called back and forth while she blundered over to me. I didn’t dare move for fear I would lose the road and never find it again.