The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope

by C. W. Grafton

  “I don’t know as I can say,” said the sheriff, “but if it was good you wouldn’t be doing it.”

  “Everybody’s got me wrong in this town—” I started to say but he interrupted me with an impatient gesture and said: “Yeah, I know. The penitentiary is full of innocent people but all they can do is write letters to the parole board. I tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to follow you downtown in my car and watch you buy a ticket to a good double feature and I don’t care if you have to see it twice. You can come out in time to buy a ticket and get on the train. Until then I don’t want to see you obstructing traffic and if you even ask the usher what time it is I’m going to get a report at home and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  “I came down here without any baggage,” I protested. “Can’t I even buy some things so I can make my trip?”

  “OK. I’ll go with you. Then you can check the stuff at the station and I’ll take you to the picture show and Harpersville can do its best to get along without you.”

  17 Men’s shirts originally were made with detachable collars, usually made of celluloid. Collars could be purchased in a variety of styles.

  20

  We found a parking place on the main street in front of something that looked like a department store and I bought an overnight bag, some pajamas, toothbrush, toothpaste, a cheap razor, underwear, a shirt, a tie, socks and a half-dozen handkerchiefs. I still had $18.75 left and since I was not going back to the office I could see I would either have to get a check cashed in Louisville or call off my trip in a very short time. The Sheriff let me put the car in a parking lot near the station. I ran up the windows, locked the doors and went in and bought my ticket. A glance at the time table showed that I would get to Louisville the next morning. I got to thinking and went back to the ticket window and changed my reservation and paid for a drawing room, which left me very little leeway after allowing for tips and what I hoped would be a big meal on the train.

  The sheriff gave me a choice between lousy programs at the Bijou and the Rex. Both had double features and they looked equally bad, but I had seen both of the pictures showing at the Rex and only one picture at the Bijou, so I chose the latter. The sheriff followed me with grim persistence, watched me buy my ticket, escorted me inside and wouldn’t leave until I had found a seat. After ten minutes of the picture I had not seen before, I regretted my choice and would have gone over and given my valuable patronage to the Rex Theater except that a very formidable usher in a red sweater with a white H on the front of it waggled his finger at me. He looked like a one-man gang. I told him to call me at ten o’clock, found a comfortable seat by myself in a remote corner and tried to sleep, with a notable lack of success.

  Afterwards I had time enough to go by the McClure house but in view of what had happened, I thought it would be a mistake.

  I walked down to the station and left the car key with instructions to deliver it to Ruth after the train had pulled out.

  There were still twenty minutes to wait so I went out and found a liquor store and bought a pint of whiskey which meant the rest of my figuring would have to be pretty close.

  When I got back to the waiting room at the station, Tim and Ruth McClure were standing by the magazine counter. Tim nodded his head toward the door that led out to the platform and I followed him out. It was 10:35 and it would have suited me if it had been 10:42 and if the train had been on time.

  Ruth said: “Here.” Pretty short. She stuck out an envelope at me and I took it and looked inside. I found fifteen new ten dollar bills.

  I looked up and said: “What’s this?”

  “That’s to pay you for services rendered. Is it enough?” Before that I had only felt pretty bad. Now I felt awful. Stinking. I did not look at her but nodded and stuffed the envelope in my pocket.

  The train whistled and I wanted it to hurry up.

  Tim said: “Are we all quits?” I nodded and wondered if the train would ever get there.

  “Well,” said Tim with a note of satisfaction in his voice, “then if we’re all quits I came down here to hit you and I guess I can go ahead and do it.”

  I drew in a deep breath and looked up at him. Next time I would rather have Joe Louis hit me. It came right in my mouth and my head bounced on the platform pretty hard. I just lay there for a second and then rolled slowly over on my hands and knees and climbed to my feet with my knees feeling very uncertain and things revolving a little around me. The train came in with a rush and a roar and when it stopped I picked up my bag and walked over and climbed on.

  I went into my drawing room and locked the door and then rang for the porter and when he came in as the train got under way I told him to call me an hour before the train was due in Louisville. I told the porter to pound good and hard on the door and keep pounding until I opened it. When he was gone I went into the can and looked at my face in the mirror. My lower lip had a swelling on it about the size of a ripe lime and my best tooth right in front in the lower jaw was gone. I looked like hell and felt worse. I got out the pint of whiskey and drank all of it in about thirty minutes and then I was as sick as a bitch and then I went to bed.

  21

  When I bought that bottle of whiskey, I thought I was buying a pint of sodden dreamless sleep but I guess I pitched most of it when I got sick because the night was a boiling, surging turmoil and my head was full of tumbling messed-up fantasies that brought me up with a jerk every few minutes. The wheels of the train were square and the track had the hiccups. The drawing room was hot and my mouth was dry and my lip was swollen and throbbing and my head hurt. Thoughts bounced around inside my skull and snapped and snarled at each other.

  Finally I gave it up as a bad business and sat on the edge of the berth holding my head in my hands. I was thirsty and went into the can and drank three or four glasses of ice water that did better. About that time the train jerked to a stop and I was thrown against the wall right on the spot where my head had bounced off of the concrete platform in Harpersville. For a moment I thought it had split open like a watermelon when you drop it. I went back into the drawing room, crawled into bed again and then raised the shade and tried to see where we were, but I might as well have been looking into the inside of a cow. Somewhere the conductor said “Board,” obviously not caring whether anyone heard him or not and then I heard feet pounding down the station platform and a breathless voice said: “Telegram for Mr. Jolley.” There was some muttering that I couldn’t catch but it didn’t last long because the train was already under way, with the square wheels and the hiccups gradually beginning to give each other hell at my expense.

  I pulled down the shade and lay back wearily and then suddenly I was standing near the door and something went click in my head loud enough for the porter to have heard it. I could hear the feet of the conductor shuffling down the passage outside of my room and I very gently pulled back the catch on my door without making a sound. When the conductor went by, passing down the aisle between the green curtains, I cautiously opened the door a crack and watched him.

  About halfway down the length of the car he consulted something in his hand, reached modestly through the crack of the curtains of a lower berth and shook something. There was a sleepy kind of groan and then a pair of pajama legs stuck out into the aisle and a sleepy face yawned out big enough for a doctor to have looked clear down at his liver.

  The conductor said: “Telegram for you, Mr. Jolley. When they try to catch you in the middle of a trip, I thought you would want to be waked up.”

  Mr. Jolley was quite young and blond—probably about my age. Even with his hair tumbled around his face he was good-looking and I could imagine him a heart throb all dressed up. He was sleepier than a country village at midnight and when he said something to the conductor the words were garbled in the middle of a yawn. He took the telegram and fumbled with it stupidly for awhile and then got it open and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand
and looked at it long enough to have read Ezekiel from beginning to end. Then he gave the conductor something that was green and folded and went back into his hole and the conductor went away.

  I closed and latched the door and instead of turning on the light I got in the berth, struck a match and looked at my watch. It was four o’clock. It would be getting light soon. I went in and shaved, dealing with my bruised cheekbone and my painful lip as gently as possible. The stump where the tooth was broken off was hurting very badly. I dressed in the dark, put everything into my handbag and then listened at the door. There was no sign of life. I went out quietly and tiptoed around into the men’s washroom where the porter was asleep on the divan. I did not want him to be pounding on my door in an hour or two so I woke him up, explained that I couldn’t sleep and asked him if there was a club car on the train. He said yes, there was a combination diner and club car put on a couple of stops back so I told him not to bother about me and I would sit up the rest of the way. I gave him something that was green and folded and he seemed to like it.

  When the train pulled into the Tenth Street Station at Louisville, I was the first one off at the very rear. I walked around the end of the club car, crossed the adjoining track and walked rapidly up to the waiting room, where I checked my bag and stood back out of sight to see what I could see. Mr. Jolley was in no hurry and I guess he was two-thirds of the way back in the crowd. I thought he was looking up and down the platform in a rather interested way but he did not loiter. Instead he came into the waiting room and walked straight to the telephone booths. He took the far one and when he got inside I went to the one next to it, closed the door behind me, turned my back to the door and fiddled with the telephone book while I listened. It was a dial phone and I couldn’t tell what number he was calling. I heard him say: “Miss Judson?…Hillman Jolley…Just got in…Yes, I’ll get a bite here in the station and come straight up. Be there in maybe forty-five minutes. OK.”

  He went out and walked straight into the restaurant adjoining the waiting room and I looked up the address of his office in the phone book. I went out and got a cab and gave him the address of the building.

  Miss Judson was something to look at but I made a mental note to do the looking later. I asked if Mr. Yoland was in and she wanted to know who wanted to know. I gave her my card and she brightened up and said: “Oh, yes, you’re from Mr. Mead’s office, aren’t you. Mr. Yoland ought to be in any minute. Won’t you sit down?” I did not want to wait and I did not want to sit down and I did not like the way the hands on the clock kept moving but she gave me the morning paper and I had to sit down and look calm whether I wanted to or not. It was not warm but I sweat through my underwear in no time at all. The minutes went by awfully fast and I sat there with the same feeling I used to have when I was a kid and watched my father serve out big helpings of mashed potatoes to the guests while I wondered if there would be any left for me. Mr. Yoland came in at last, looked at my card, pumped my hand and took me right into his private office. He looked at the card again. “You’re from Mr. Harper?”

  “I was in his office yesterday.” Well, it was true and could I help it if he wanted to think his own thoughts?

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Henry?”

  “It must be a tax question or something. I want to get copies of the audit reports as far back as they go or for maybe ten years might do.”

  He thought a minute and then said: “Well, that ought to be easy. Let’s see a minute.” He pressed a buzzer under his desk and somebody who was not Miss Judson came in. He said something about some files and she went out and more mashed potatoes got put on more plates and I began to get plenty nervous. Presently she came back and put a stack of things on the table and said: “We took over the account in 1938, Mr. Yoland. Here are all our audits and the last one made by McConnell and McConnell just before we took over.”

  Mr. Yoland had evidently got some ideas while we were waiting and maybe he had noticed that I was perspiring when I shouldn’t have been. He sat looking at me and tapping on the table with the eraser on the end of a pencil. Just then Miss Judson came in and said: “Excuse me, Mr. Yoland. Long distance from Harpersville. I think it is Mr. Harper. Do you want to take it now or shall I tell him you will call back?”

  My mouth went dry all of a sudden but I managed to put on what I thought was a nice smile and said: “He probably wants to talk to me too. I have only just got here but you know how impatient he is. Probably wants to know what I have found out already. Maybe you better be in conference or something and we can call back in a few minutes.”

  It didn’t go over so good. There was uncertainty in his face. “Mr. Harper does not like to be put off. I think I had better take the call now, Miss Judson. Wait a minute.” He glanced at me out of the corners of his eyes, “I’ll take it in Mr. Jolley’s office if Mr. Henry will excuse me.” I said certainly. What was I supposed to do in a case like that?

  He walked out across the hall and through the glass door just opposite and closed it behind him. I waited until I heard him start talking and then I picked up the bundle on the table and walked out past Miss Judson and said: “I’ll be studying these in my room at the Brown Hotel. My bag is over there with the notes I took. Mr. Yoland can get me if he likes. Room 719.”

  She obviously thought it was not right and opened her mouth to say something but I walked on out and down to the elevator. For once my luck was good. An up-car and a down-car flashed their lights at almost the same instant, the down-car stopping a couple of seconds sooner. As I stepped in I could see a blond man with a suitcase pushing to the front of the other car and then I heard running footsteps in the hall and the door closed behind me.

  People were all going up at that time of the morning and the down-car moved pretty fast. When we got to the lobby of the building, I made my feet walk although my mind was running. I went quickly around the corner and got into the first taxi I found. The driver said, “Where.” I pointed straight ahead and said, “That way,” and we got through just as the light was turning to amber and I breathed for the first time in hours.

  22

  I had no idea where I wanted to go except that it was not room 719 at the Brown Hotel and not even the Brown Hotel. I thought about it for a couple of blocks and the more I thought about it the more I didn’t want to go to any hotel at all. I had myself an idea and said: “Have you got a free public library in this town?”

  “You want information or you want to go there?”

  I said I wanted to go there and we turned at the next corner and went this way and that way and presently stopped on a curving drive in front of a big stone building. I went to the big reading room and got a table by myself where I could watch the door and spread out in front of me the audit reports of Harper Products Company for 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1940. The first one was in a gray cover with the name of McConnell & McConnell on it and the others were black from the office of Yoland & Jolley.

  Well, here I was and I didn’t know what to do any more than if I was sitting down in front of a dish of poi. I picked up the 1937 book and saw there was a letter in front addressed to the company and then more figures than Earl Carroll’s Vanities.18 First of all there was a balance sheet that unfolded like a road map and then a profit and loss statement and then page after page of breakdowns on this and that.

  Except for the color of the cover, the 1938 report was laid out pretty much the same way only in 1937 the company made what looked to me like a fairly sizable chunk of money and in 1938 the earnings were shown as a little less than the dividends paid. In 1939 the profit was a little better than 1938 but the dividend was cut in half. In 1940 the profit didn’t look so bad and the rate of dividends was the same as for the previous year. The profit was still under 1937 and since business generally was supposed to be improving all the time, it didn’t look like you could say the company was doing so good.

  I went back to 1937 and 1938 again and
had myself a good look at the balance sheets. There was a pretty sizable drop in surplus and instead of lots of cash on hand and in bank in 1937, the cash business looked pretty tight the following year. Bank loans had been reduced pretty sharply and I began to get a new respect for bankers. It looked an awful lot like they smartened up a jump ahead of everybody else. Inventory at the end of 1938 was pretty low.

  I know a figure when I see one but I am no accountant and I was not sure I had the faintest idea what I was doing. I turned back to the letter of transmittal at the beginning of the 1938 report and read it. It was pretty stuffy going and I would have gotten as much out of an hour or two in the middle of Macaulay’s History of England.19 I read all the other letters and didn’t know any more than when I started. The company just wasn’t making a lot of dough and no wonder the stock was going down.

  I sat there and wondered whether I had got myself in Dutch20 with Mr. Mead on a brainstorm after all. Then I got back to Mr. Harper wanting to pay a helluva lot of money for something he could buy cheap and shook my head. I had stumbled on enough about the adoption of Tim McClure and the way the McClure family lived to understand why William Jasper Harper might want to do something handsome for them but I couldn’t escape the conviction that $110.00 a share must be a combination of that and something else. The more I thought about it the more I was convinced I had something if I only knew what it was.

  I picked up the 1938 report and went through it again and still didn’t learn anything so I read the letter of transmittal again and finally put a check mark by each of the two paragraphs which set forth the only changes recommended by Yoland & Jolley in their first year with the account.

  The first one said that the inventories of raw materials had always been handled on a “first-in first-out” basis and because of the nature of the business which required a certain minimum inventory to be maintained at all times, it was suggested that the system ought to be changed to the “base stock” basis. There were a flock of reasons given and I didn’t know any more than I did before. The terms meant nothing to me.