The Rasp

by Philip MacDonald

  ‘Yes, yes,’ muttered Hastings. ‘Say, say—put down—say—’

  ‘“—and are stricken aghast at the calamity which has befallen them”,’ suggested the girl.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Hastings, composure recovered. ‘By the way, did you tell Williams to get on with that padding? That sketch of Hoode’s life and work? We’ve got to fill up that opposite-centre page.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Williams started on it at once.’

  ‘Good. Now take this down as a separate piece. It must be marked off with heavy black rules and be in Clarendon or some such conspicuous type. Ready? “The Owl, aghast at this dreadful tragedy, yet arises from its sorrow and issues, on behalf of the public, a solemn exhortation and warning. Let the authorities see to it that the murderer is found, and found speedily. England demands it. The author of this foul deed must be brought swiftly to justice and punished with the utmost rigour of the law. No effort must be spared.” Now a separate paragraph, please. It must be underlined and should go on the opposite page—under Williams’s article. “Aware of the tremendous interest and concern which this terrible crime will arouse, The Owl has made special arrangements to have bulletins (in the same form as this special edition) published at short intervals in order that the public may have full opportunity to know what progress is being made in the search for the criminal.

  ‘“These bulletins will be of extraordinary interest, since we are in a position to announce that a special correspondent will despatch to us (so far as is consistent with the wishes of the police, whom we wish to assist rather than compete with) at frequent intervals, from the actual locus of the crime a résumé of the latest developments.”’ Hastings sighed relief and leant back in his chair. ‘That’s all, Miss Warren. And I hope—since the thing is done—that the murderer’ll remain a mystery for a bit. We’ll look rather prize idiots if the gardener’s boy or someone confesses tomorrow. Get that stuff typed and down to the printers as quick as you can, please.’

  The girl rose and moved to the door, but paused on the threshold.

  ‘Mr Hastings,’ she said, turning quickly, ‘what does that last bit mean? Are you sending one of the ordinary people down there—Mr Sellars or Mr Briggs?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose so. What I said was all rot, but it’ll sound well. We just want reports that are a bit different from the others.’

  She came nearer, her eyes wide. ‘Mr Hastings, please excuse me, but you must listen. Why not let The Owl be really useful? Oh, don’t you see what it would mean if we really helped to catch the murderer? Our reputation—our sales. Why—’

  ‘But I say, Miss Warren, look here, you know! We’ve not got an office full of Holmeses. They’re all perfectly ordinary fellers—’

  ‘Colonel Gethryn,’ said the girl quietly.

  ‘Eh, what?’ Hastings was startled. ‘He’d never—Miss Warren, you’re a wonder. But he wouldn’t take it on. He’s—’

  ‘Ask him.’ She pointed to the telephone at his side.

  ‘What? Now?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘But—but it’s two o’clock,’ stammered Hastings. He met the level gaze of his secretary’s blue eyes, lifted the receiver from its hook, and asked for a number.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said two minutes later, ‘is that Colonel Gethryn’s flat?’

  ‘It is,’ said the telephone. Its voice was sleepy.

  ‘Is—is Colonel Gethryn in—out—up, I mean?’

  ‘Colonel Gethryn,’ said the voice, ‘who would infinitely prefer to be called Mr Gethryn, is in his flat, out of bed, and upon his feet. Also he is beginning to become annoyed at—’

  ‘Good Lord—Anthony!’ said Hastings. ‘I didn’t recognise your voice.’

  ‘Now that you have, O Hastings, perhaps you’ll explain why the hell you’re ringing me up at this hour. I may mention that I am in execrable temper. Proceed.’

  Spencer Hastings proceeded. ‘Er I—ah—that is—er—’

  ‘If those are scales,’ said the telephone, ‘permit me to congratulate you.’

  Hastings tried again. ‘Something has happened,’ he began.

  ‘No!’ said the telephone.

  ‘D’you think you could—I know it’s an extraordinary thing to ask—er, but will you, er—’

  Miss Margaret Warren rose to her feet, removed the instrument from her employer’s hands, put the receiver to her ear and spoke into the transmitter.

  ‘Mr Gethryn,’ she said, ‘this is Margaret Warren speaking. What Mr Hastings wished to do was to ask whether you could come down here—to the office—at once. Oh, I know it sounds mad, but we’ve received some amazing news, and Mr Hastings wishes to consult you. I can’t tell you any more over the phone, but Mr Hastings is sure that you’ll be willing to help. Please come; it might mean everything to the paper.’

  ‘Miss Warren,’ said the telephone sadly, ‘against my will you persuade me.’

  CHAPTER II

  ANTHONY GETHRYN

  ANTHONY RUTHVEN GETHRYN was something of an oddity. A man of action who dreamed while he acted; a dreamer who acted while he dreamed. The son of a hunting country gentleman of the old type, who was yet one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his day, and of a Spanish lady of impoverished and exiled family who had, before her marriage with Sir William Gethryn, been in turn governess, dancer, mannequin, actress, and portrait painter, it was perhaps to be expected that he should be no ordinary child. And he was not.

  For even after taking into consideration the mixture of blood and talents that were rightly his, Anthony’s parents soon found their only child to be possessed of far more than they had thought to give him. From his birth he proved a refutation of the adage that a Jack-of-all-Trades can be master of none.

  At school and at Oxford, though appearing almost to neglect work, he covered himself with academic glory which outshone even that of his excellence at racquets and Rugby football. Not only did he follow in the mathematical tracks of his father, but also became known as an historian and man of classics.

  He left Oxford in his twenty-third year; read for the bar; was called, but did not answer. He went instead round and about the world, and did not, during the three and a half years he was away, use a penny other than earnings of one sort and another.

  He returned home to settle down, painted two pictures which he gave to his father, wrote a novel which was lauded by the critics and brought him not a penny, and followed up with a book of verse which, though damned by the same critics, was yet remunerative to the extent of one hundred and fifty pounds.

  Politics came next, and for some six months he filled adequately the post of private secretary to a Member of Parliament suspected of early promotion to office.

  Then, in Anthony’s twenty-eighth year, on top of his decision to contest a seat, came the war. On the 15th of August, 1914, he was a private in an infantry regiment; by the 1st of the following November he had taken a commission in the artillery; on the 4th of May, 1915, he was recovered from the damage caused by a rifle-bullet, an attack of trench-fever, and three pieces of shrapnel. On the 18th of July in that year he was in Germany.

  That calls for explanation. Anthony Ruthven Gethryn was in Germany because his uncle, Sir Charles Haultevieux de Courcy Gethryn, was a personage at the War Office. Uncle Charles liked and had an admiration for his nephew Anthony. Also, Uncle Charles was aware that nephew Anthony spoke German like a German, and was, when occasion demanded, a person of tact, courage, and reliability. ‘A boy with guts, sir. A boy with guts! And common sense, sir; in spite of all this poetry-piffle and paintin’ cows in fields and girls with nothin’ on. A damnation clever lad, sir!’

  So Uncle Charles, having heard the wailings of a friend in the Secret Service division concerning the terrible dearth of the right men, let fall a few words about his nephew.

  And that is how, in the year 1915, Anthony Ruthven Gethryn came to be, not as a prisoner, in the heart of Germany. He was there for eighteen long months, and when Uncle Charles next
saw his nephew there were streaks of grey in the dark hair of the thirty-year-old head.

  The results of Anthony’s visit were of much value. A grateful Government patted him on the back, decorated him, gave him two months’ leave, promoted him, and then worked him as few men were worked even during the war. It was queer work, funny work, work in the dark, work in strange places.

  Anthony Ruthven Gethryn left the army at the end of 1919, at the age of thirty-three. To show for his service he had a limp (slight), the C.M.G., the D.S.O., a baker’s dozen of other orders (foreign: various) and those thick streaks of gray in his black hair. Few save his intimate friends knew either of that batch of medals or of his right to the title of Colonel.

  Anthony stayed with his mother until she died, peacefully, and then, since his father—who had preceded his wife by some two years—had left no more than a few hundreds a year, looked round for work.

  He wrote another novel; the public were unmoved. He painted three pictures; they would not sell. He published another book of poems; they would not sell either. Then he turned back to his secretaryship, his M.P. being now a minor minister. The work was of a sort he did not care for, and save for meeting every now and then a man who interested him, he was bored to extinction.

  Then, in July of 1921, Uncle Charles fell a victim to malignant influenza, became convalescent, developed pneumonia, and died. To Anthony he left a dreadful house in Knightsbridge and nine or ten thousand a year. Anthony sold the house, set up in a flat, and, removed from carking care, did as the fancy took him. When he wanted to write, he wrote. When he wished to paint, he painted. When pleasure called, he answered. He was very happy for a year.

  But then came trouble. When he wrote, he found that immediately a picture would form in his head and cry aloud to be put on canvas. If he painted, verse unprecedented, wonderful, clamoured to be written. If he left England, his soul yearned for London.

  It was when this phase was at its worst that he renewed a friendship, begun at Trinity, with that eccentric but able young journalist, Spencer Hastings. To Anthony, Hastings unbosomed his great idea—the idea which could be made fact if there were exactly twice as much money as Hastings possessed. Anthony provided the capital, and The Owl was born.

  Anthony designed the cover, wrote a verse for the paper now and then; sometimes a bravura essay. Often he blessed Hastings for having given him one interest at least which, since the control of it was not in his own hands, could not be thrown aside altogether.

  To conclude: Anthony was suffering from three disorders, lack of a definite task to perform, severe war-strain, and not having met the right woman. The first and the second, though he never spoke of them, he knew about; the third he did not even suspect.

  CHAPTER III

  COCK ROBIN’S HOUSE

  I

  THE sudden telephone message from Hastings at two o’clock on that August morning and his own subsequent acceptance of the suggestion that he should be The Owl’s ‘Special Commissioner’ had at least, thought Anthony, as he drove his car through Kingston four hours later, remedied that lack of something definite to do.

  He had driven at once to The Owl’s headquarters, had arranged matters with Hastings within ten minutes, and had then telephoned to a friend—an important official friend. To him Anthony had outlined, sketchily, the scheme, and had been given in reply a semi-official ‘Mind you, I know nothing about it if anything happens, but get ahead’ blessing. He had then driven back to his flat, packed a bag, left a note for his man, and set out for Marling in Surrey.

  From his official friend he had gathered that once on the right side of Miss Hoode his way was clear. As he drove he pondered. How to approach the woman? At any mention of the Press she would be bound to shy. Finally, he put the problem to one side.

  The news of John Hoode’s death had not moved him, save in the way of a passing amazement. Anthony had seen too much of death to shed tears over a man he had never known. And the Minister of Imperial Finance, brilliant though he had been, had never seized the affections of the people in the manner of a Joe Chamberlain.

  Passing through Haslemere, Anthony, muttering happily to himself ‘Now, who did kill Cock Robin?’ was struck by a horrid thought. Suppose there should be no mystery! Suppose, as Hastings had suggested, that the murderer had already delivered himself.

  Then he dismissed the idea. A Cabinet Minister murdered without a mystery? Impossible! All the canons were against it.

  He took his car along at some speed. By ten minutes to eight he had reached the Bear and Key in Marling High Street, demanded a room and breakfast, and had been led upstairs by a garrulous landlord.

  II

  Bathed, shaved, freshly clothed and full of breakfast, Anthony uncurled his thin length from the best chair in the inn’s parlour, lit his pipe, and sought the garden.

  Outside the door he encountered the landlord, made inquiry as to the shortest way to Abbotshall, and placidly puffing at his pipe, watched with enjoyment the effect of his question.

  The eyes of Mr Josiah Syme flashed with the fire of curiosity.

  ‘’Scuse me, sir,’ he wheezed, ‘but ’ave you come down along o’ this—along o’ these ’appenings up at the ’ouse?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Anthony.

  Mr Syme tried again. ‘Be you a ’tective, sir?’ he asked in a conspiratorial wheeze. ‘If so, Joe Syme might be able to ’elp ye.’ He leant forward and added in a yet lower whisper: ‘My eldest gel, she’s a nouse-maid up along Abbotshall.’

  ‘Is she indeed,’ said Anthony. ‘Wait here till I get my hat; then we’ll walk along together. You can show me the way.’

  ‘Then—then—you are a ’tective, sir?’

  ‘What exactly I am,’ said Anthony, ‘God Himself may know. I do not. But you can make five pounds if you want it.’

  Mr Syme understood enough.

  As they walked, first along the white road, then through fields and finally along the bank of that rushing, fussy, barely twenty-yards wide little river, the Marle, Mr Syme told what he knew.

  Purged of repetitions, biographical meanderings, and excursions into rustic theorising, the story was this.

  Soon after eleven on the night before, Miss Laura Hoode had entered her brother’s study and found him lying, dead and mutilated, on the hearth. Exactly what the wounds were, Mr Syme could not say; but by common report they were sufficiently horrible.

  Before she fainted, Miss Hoode screamed. When other members of the household arrived they found her lying across her brother’s body. A search-party was at once instituted for possible murderers, and the police and a doctor notified. People were saying—Mr Syme became confidential—that Miss Hoode’s mind had been unhinged by the shock. Nothing was yet known as to the identity of the criminal, but—(here Mr Syme gave vent to many a dark suggestion, implicating in turn every member of the household save his daughter).

  Anthony dammed the flow with a question. ‘Can you tell me,’ he asked, ‘exactly who’s living in the house?’

  Mr Syme grew voluble at once. Oh, yes. He knew all right. At the present moment there were Miss Hoode, two friends of the late Mr Hoode’s, and the servants and the young gent—Mr Deacon—what had been the corpse’s secretary. The names? Oh, yes, he could give the names all right. Servants—his daughter Elsie, housemaid; Mabel Smith, another housemaid; Martha Forrest, the cook; Lily Ingram, kitchen-maid; Annie Holt, parlour-maid; old Mr Poole, the butler; Bob Belford, the other man-servant. Then there was Tom Diggle, the gardener, though he’d been in the cottage hospital for the last week and wasn’t out yet. And there was the chauffeur, Harry Wright. Of course, though, now he came to think of it, the gardener and the chauffeur didn’t rightly live in the house, they shared the lodge.

  ‘And the two guests?’ said Anthony. It is hard to believe, but he had assimilated that stream of names, had even correctly assigned to each the status and duties of its owner.

  ‘One gent, and one lady, sir. Oh, and there’s the lady’
s own maid, sir. Girl with some Frenchy name. Duboise, would it be?’ Mr Syme was patently proud of his infallibility. ‘Mrs Mainwaring the lady’s called—she’s a tall, ’andsome lady with goldy-like sort of ’air, sir. And the gent’s Sir Arthur Digby-Coates—and a very pleasant gent he is, so Elsie says.’

  Anthony gave a start of pleasure. Digby-Coates was an acquaintance of his private-secretarial days. Digby-Coates might be useful. Hastings hadn’t told him.

  ‘There be Habbotshall, sir,’ said Mr Syme.

  Anthony looked up. On his left—they had been walking with the little Marle on their right—was a well-groomed, smiling garden, whose flower-beds, paths, pergolas and lawns stretched up to the feet of one of the strangest houses within his memory.

  For it was low and rambling and shaped like a capital L pushed over on its side. Mainly, it was two storeys high, but on the extreme end of the right arm of the recumbent L there had been built an additional floor. This gave it a gay, elfin humpiness that attracted Anthony strangely. Many-hued clouds of creeper spread in beautiful disorder from ground to half-hidden chimney-stacks. Through the leaves peeped leaded windows, as a wood-fairy might spy through her hair at the woodcutter’s son who was really a prince. A flagged walk bordered by a low yew hedge ran before the house; up to this led a flight of stone steps, from the lower level of the lawns. Opposite the head of the steps was a verandah.

  ‘This here, sir,’ explained Mr Syme unnecessarily, ‘is rightly the back of the ’ouse.’

  Anthony gave him his congé and a five-pound note, hinting that his own presence at Marling should not be used as a fount for bar-room gossip. Mr Syme walked away with a gait quaintly combining the stealth of a conspirator and the alertness of a great detective.

  Anthony turned in at the little gate and made for the house. At the head of the steps before the verandah he paused. Voices came to his ear. The tone of the louder induced him to walk away from the verandah and along the house to his right. He halted by the first ground-floor window and listened, peering into the room.