The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope
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44 The source of the phrase—meaning “living in luxury”—is unknown, though it became popular during World War I. “Riley” was a proverbial figure in Irish ballads of the nineteenth century, but luxury was not associated with the figure.
45 Proverbially, a concealed fact or motive. The original phrase used a racist term in place of “boy.”
About the War
This is written at a time (March, 1943) when the aggression of the Axis nations seems to have been brought to a halt on every front. The Russians have regained much of the territory lost to Germany in the summer of 1942 and are hammering at Smolensk, although giving ground in the area around Kharkov and Belgorod. The British and Americans have backed Rommel against the sea in Tunisia and appear to be ready to move in. The Australians and the Americans have stopped the Japs in the Solomons and New Guinea. We are between rounds.
History holds the pen as the story of 1943 is written. In this year we will learn whether a weary and exhausted enemy can stalemate the rising might of our United Nations, or whether the hammer blows that are being prepared for him will be enough to crush, to demoralize, to disperse.
At best, we will have our hands full for a long time to come. Many of us who are not yet in uniform will be called into service, and we will be ready. Those of us who are not suitable for military or naval service, or who are required for the farms or production lines at home, will have to be ready, too—ready for more sacrifices, more work, harder work, more sorrow, even, and heartache.
But of this we may all be certain: That the things we love and live for will be preserved for our children, and their children after them; that they will enjoy these things because of us, and because of what we are doing; that the day will come when we can once again take up the instruments of peace, proud in the consciousness that we did not stumble or falter when the job was before us.46
—C. W. Grafton
46 Unfortunately, the war wore on for more than two years, with tens of millions more dead, wounded, or displaced, not ending finally until Germany’s unconditional surrender in May 1945 and Japan’s surrender in August.
Reading Group Guide
1. Why do you think Ruth McClure decided to get help from a lawyer from outside Harpersville?
2. Why do you think Gil Henry decided to take the case?
3. How does Gil’s behavior with Ruth compare to what you’d expect from someone in the current year?
4. Is Tim McClure praiseworthy for his behavior?
5. What do you think about the behavior of Miss Katie? Nurse Knight?
6. Do you think William Harper’s conduct over the years was morally correct? What about John McClure’s?
7. How do you think Janet Harper should have behaved in the circumstances of her father’s death?
8. Was Alice Holt Harper blameworthy for what she did over the years? Or did she behave morally?
9. What’s your ultimate assessment of Gil Henry? A commendable guy? Too smart for his own good? Out for himself?
10. Did you deduce who was the murderer? How did you know?
Further Reading
Grafton, C. W. The Rope Began to Hang the Butcher. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944.
———. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1950.
Baker, Robert A., and Michael T. Nietzel. Private Eyes: One Hundred and One Knights, A Survey of American Detective Fiction, 1922–1984. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1985.
Geherin, David. The American Private Eye: The Image in Fiction. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1985.
Klinger, Leslie S. Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s. New York: Pegasus Books, 2018.
Madden, David. Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968.
Van Dover, J. K. Making the Detective Story American: Biggers, Van Dine and Hammett and the Turning Point of the Genre, 1925–1930. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010.
About the Author
Cornelius Warren (“Chip”) Grafton (June 16, 1909–January 31, 1982) was born and raised in China, where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries. He was educated in Clinton, South Carolina, studying law and journalism at Presbyterian College. In 1932, he married his childhood sweetheart, Vivian Boisseau Harnsberger, and they settled in Louisville, Kentucky, where he became a municipal bond attorney. They had two children, daughters Ann and Sue.
Vivian and Chip were both alcoholics, their daughter Sue recalled. While Chip was serving in the military during World War II (he served as a deception officer, working under Lieutenant-Colonel E. O. Hunter),* Vivian was a responsible mother; when Chip returned home in 1945, she deteriorated rapidly. Sue described her father as “the family’s functioning alcoholic.” She said he “downed two jiggers of whiskey and went to the office” every day.47
Sue also recalled that as a child, she spent a good deal of time reading mystery novels, an activity encouraged by her father, who kept the house filled with them. Vivian died in 1960, and Grafton married Lillian Fleischer, who was nine years younger than him.48 Lillian survived Chip by seven years, and they are buried together in the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville.
C. W. Grafton wrote four books, the present volume (1943); The Rope Began to Hang the Butcher (1944), also featuring Gil Henry; a non-mystery novel, My Name Is Christopher Nagel (1947); and another work of crime fiction, the highly regarded Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1951). The latter is about a young lawyer who commits a murder and then, using his legal skills, tries to avoid conviction.
In an interview, Sue called her father “probably the greatest influence in my decision to write mystery novels because he was always so passionate about the genre itself… The titles of his projected eight-book series are based on an English nursery rhyme… I have the partial manuscript of the third novel, ‘The Butcher Began to Kill the Ox,’ which he never finished.”49 In a short memoir of her father,50 she recalled that he set aside his writing career when he realized that he couldn’t support his family by writing. He planned to take writing up again when he retired at age 75. Sadly, he died at age 72.
William L. DeAndrea, in his monumental Encyclopedia Mysteriosa, observes, “Time and Fate have arranged things so that C. W. Grafton’s greatest fame in the mystery world will forever be that he is the father of Sue Grafton, but his own contributions to the genre should not be ignored.”51
47 Quoted in Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Carol McGinnis Kay, “G” Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997).
48 There is a “Lillian” mentioned in the dedication to Grafton’s second novel as working in Grafton’s law office—the same woman?
49 Brandy McDonnell, “Sue Grafton sees mystery behind ABCs; Author to visit city,” Daily Oklahoman, April 15, 2007.
50 Sue Grafton, “Legacy,” Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Wisdom of Dads (Cos Cob, CT: Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, 2008), 218–22.
51 William L. DeAndrea, Encyclopedia Mysteriosa: A Comprehensive Guide to the Art of Detection in Print, Film, Radio, and Television (New York: Prentice Hall General Reference, 1994), 140. It is ironic that the other major surveys, Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection by Otto Penzler and Chris Steinbrunner, and Rosemary Herbert’s Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, do ignore Grafton. His three books are mentioned kindly, however, in A Catalogue of Crime by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor.
That Affair Next Door
The first book in an exciting new classic mystery series created in partnership with the Library of Congress, That Affair Next Door follows Miss Amelia Butterworth, an inquisitive single woman who becomes involved in a murder investigation after the woman next door to her turns up dead.
Miss Amelia Butterworth, an admirable woman in her fifties, is an observer of human natur
e. Such an observation is made late one evening when Miss Butterworth notices a man and woman enter the supposedly empty house next door. Looking out from her window, she notices the man leave the house some time later, but not the woman. The next morning Miss Butterworth’s curiosity gets the better of her, but when her knocking at the door is met with silence, she calls on the police.
When she convinces the officer to enter the house, they are greeted by a shocking scene; they find the woman dead, crushed under a cabinet. Though Detective Ebenezer Gryce leads the murder investigation, Miss Butterworth does her own sleuthing to try to solve the murder.
“Cleverly plotted mystery… This inaugural volume in the Library of Congress Crime Classics series, featuring the first woman sleuth in a series, is a must for genre buffs.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
For more Library of Congress Crime Classics, visit:
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