The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope

by C. W. Grafton

  “The price was twenty-three the first of the week. Five points is a lot of drop overnight isn’t it?”

  “Not so much considering. Old William Jasper Harper was supposed to be quite a whiz and he never delegated anything he could do himself. The rest of the management isn’t too highly regarded. And besides that, the stock has been a puzzle for a couple of years. Dividend cut in half, earnings not so good. Then, of course, the news from the last directors’ meeting put the skids under her for six or eight points inside of a week.”

  “What news was that?”

  “Harper himself. Said he had received a lot of inquiries from stockholders about how things were going. He said the stockholders were loyal and had held on through a tough period and the market quotations did not reflect the true value. He said the stock was really worth as much today as it had ever been worth and the future looked bright. He announced that before he would let the price go down much farther, he would peg the price himself by buying in the open market. Damnedest popping off I ever heard of. He may have meant well but what would you do if you heard an announcement like that?”

  I studied the proposition a minute. “I don’t know that I’d like it so much. I didn’t care for that reference to the stock going down some more. I think I would quietly unload and take my loss before it got worse.”

  “You and a lot of others. Sounds like whistling into the wind. Then in a couple of weeks Harper gets snuffed out and since he’s the one who was going to put the floor under the thing, a kind of panic sets in. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t go down another five points tomorrow.”

  I said: “Everybody knows that you were his brokers. Did he ever place a general buying order?”

  “I’m not supposed to discuss a client’s affairs.”

  “I know, but this is important. Believe it or not, I’m working on the great Harper murder case and I’m not doing so good. I won’t breathe a word of it to a soul.”

  “Well, on that basis, it’s still not all right but I’ll trust you. He placed a general order to buy at twenty if it got down that far. No limit on the amount. It didn’t go to twenty until after his death and naturally we aren’t filling any orders for dead people.”

  There were some other things that I wanted to know and I thought George Black could find a way to get the answers for me but I wanted to be sure I didn’t approach him in the wrong way so I sat still for a while and thought about it. Finally I said: “George, there’s a big good-looking fellow in the hoosegow in Harpersville who’s going to be indicted for the murder of William Jasper Harper in the next twenty-four hours unless I turn up something before they get around to it. They’ll convene a special session of the Circuit Court and they’ll rush him to trial and crucify him in less time than it takes you to eat your breakfast. I don’t think he did it. I know he didn’t do it. But the police and the sheriff think he did and the facts look pretty bad. That’s the situation. You’ve already told me one thing you didn’t want to tell and I appreciate it. I wouldn’t ask you to go any farther if things were less serious. But the chips are all down and the bets are all in, and it’s up to me to call or turn my hand over. The time is short and I don’t know anyone else to turn to. I want you to peep at a couple of hole cards and tip me off.”

  He didn’t like it. He didn’t like any part of it. He got up and walked to the window and stuck his hands in his hip pockets and stood there looking out. I went over and stood beside him. I said: “That’s my car out there. That girl’s his sister.”

  He didn’t move for a long time. “How do you know I can get the information for you?”

  “Maybe you can’t. It’s possible you have some of the answers right here. Maybe not. Maybe there won’t be any way you can get the answers. You can’t help that. All I want you to do is to try.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know who’s been placing orders for big blocks of Harper stock. Not everybody, of course. I’ll give you the names.”

  “How would I find out something like that?”

  “That’s your problem. You’ll have to trade on some friendships. You’ve been in deals with most of the brokerage firms in town. Probably all of them. You may cut each other’s throats but you know who you can trust and who you can’t. Tell ’em I’ll use the information if I have to but I won’t reveal the source and I’ll cover up so that nobody will know.”

  “It’s a great deal to ask. What if I have to refuse?”

  “We’ll deal with that when we come to it. If we do.”

  There was another long silence. Time was not standing still but I knew I couldn’t rush things. He turned around slowly and gave me a big wink and said: “When do you want to know?”

  “Right now. It would have been better if I had known yesterday.”

  “Give me the names. I can’t find out right away because most of the offices are closed but I know who does the trading in each outfit and I’ll get on the phone and see what I can do. It may be tomorrow noon for all I know. By golly, I hope you appreciate this because every time you do a favor, you’ve got to look for one right back at you and it’s no telling what this will cost me in the long run.”

  “Swell. Feed it to me as fast as you get it. Don’t bother too much about details. Just give me the yes or no in each case. I’ll remember it and I’ve got a memory like an elephant.” I went over to the desk, found a scratch pad and wrote down the names of Janet, Mrs. Harper, Mead, Jolley, Miss Knight and Miles. Then I thought a minute and added the names of Tim and Ruth McClure just to make certain. I told him to try me at the Harpers’ and the McClures’ and if he didn’t reach me at either of those places, then to try the sheriff and the chief of police on the theory that I might be tagging along with them wherever they went.

  52

  I did a lot of thinking on the way back to Harpersville and the more I think the slower I drive. It was 5:45 when we got there. I called the Harper house and got hold of Miss Knight. Mrs. Harper had been in a state all afternoon because I had failed to show up but her own impatience had finally worn her out and she was then asleep. I couldn’t see any reason to wake her up to sign a will that could be signed any time so I said I would get something to eat and maybe see Tim and be out there around seven o’clock. The late afternoon paper from the city was being hawked around on the streets and we bought one. Sure enough a special grand jury was being convened Monday and the coroner’s inquest on Harper’s death was set for ten o’clock the next morning. The Circuit Judge was reported as saying that if an indictment was returned by the grand jury, he would convene a special session of Circuit Court so that a speedy trial could be had. The commonwealth’s attorney had spent the day going over the evidence and interviewing some of the witnesses and he was pretty smug about his predictions. It was clear enough that they were getting ready to put the bee on Tim McClure and that they would waste no time doing it.

  There was a separate item about the gun. Ballistics experts from the city had taken their pictures of test bullets and it was definitely established that Tim’s gun had done the job. The sheriff and chief of police had done a fair job muzzling the newspapers as far as concrete facts were concerned but someone had dug up an old picture of the Harper house and the paper had gone to town with what it had on the case. Ruth set her jaw and read everything there was and she seemed to shrivel up right in front of my eyes.

  “Look,” I said, “they put a fellow named Holbert on the job of running down the possibility of a later will. Do you know him?”

  “Yes, like I know nearly everyone else in town. He’s young and pretty decent. I had a couple of dates with him in summers between years at college.”

  “Think he would talk to you?”

  “Probably as much as he could.”

  I drove down to the police station and we found Holbert without any trouble. The reporters had just been there and gone and the ch
ief had given them a statement on the subject so there was no reason why we should not be told. Holbert had gotten in touch with a young lawyer in the city who had started out as a cub in Frank Gregory’s office and with his help, it had been a simple job to trace his files and records. All the files relating to Harper and Harper Products Company had been delivered to Harper himself and they had been found in the basement of the company office building. There was no trace of any will at all and no correspondence about a will. The young lawyer had been with Gregory from 1933 until the time of Gregory’s death and he was positive no will had been drawn during that time. As a matter of fact, he thought he recalled a conversation in 1937 in which Gregory had asked Harper about his will and Harper had said it had been taken care of long ago and wouldn’t talk about it.

  I was conscious of a let-down feeling. For no reason at all, I had been sure that the 1915 will was not the last will and testament of William Jasper Harper and I had been speculating about what would be in the later will when we found it. This new information seemed definite enough and instead of helping, it left me more confused than ever.

  Frankly, I was discouraged. I had been running around for two or three days sticking my nose into other people’s business and chasing every shadow I could find and if there was a pattern, I was apparently no nearer to it than I had been when I started. As a matter of fact, I was farther away than ever. If it was blackmail, why would anyone kill the source of the whole thing? If it was not blackmail, what was it?

  Twenty-six years ago a kid had been adopted and within twenty-four hours a will had been made but the will didn’t provide for the child nor did it provide for anyone else except Mrs. Harper and why would she want a lot of dough? She was only one jump out of the grave herself and she had everything she wanted and could scarcely move a muscle. Obviously William Jasper Harper had something to do with the adoption of Tim by the McClures but if he was covering up the fact that Tim was his own son, what kind of deal could have been made that didn’t ultimately involve a handsome provision for Tim out of the estate? And where was Phoebe Murdoch? What did Miss Katie see that got her throat cut for her? Why did Jolley want to marry Janet after he found out she would get nothing of her father’s estate for the time being, and before he or anyone else could have known of Mrs. Harper’s intentions? And how could Jolley figure in it anyway? He was in Overton the day it happened and the train he came in on didn’t even leave Overton until after midnight. Who put a slug in the tire of the car I was driving and why?

  I don’t know how long I had been standing there but I realized that Holbert and Ruth were staring at me and I also realized that I had a heavy frown on my face and my eyes had been focused on nothing in particular.

  Suddenly a thought occurred to me and it scared me right down to my shoetops and made my mouth dry. The whole Harper estate, generally estimated at between ten and fifteen million dollars now belonged to Mrs. Harper. It was generally said that she had a couple of hundred thousand of her own and certainly she must already have a will. I had been thinking so hard about the two wills I was preparing for her that I had altogether forgotten this perfectly obvious fact. If someone was in position to gain under Mrs. Harper’s existing will, then it would not be a bad scheme at all to kill Harper first, providing the contents of his will was known. That would mean that Mrs. Harper had been in danger since nine o’clock the night before and she would be the next on the list. I cursed myself for a doddering fool. I could hardly make my mouth ask the next question but I managed to do it and with a certain degree of unconcern at that. “What about Mrs. Harper? Find any sign of her will while you were scratching around?”

  “Sure,” said Holbert. “Found that the first thing, right where his will had been. We had quite a confab as to whether we had any right to open it but we asked Mrs. Harper and she told us to go ahead.”

  I said: “Well?” and held my breath.

  “Nothing to it,” said Holbert. “Exactly like his. The works to her beloved husband, William Jasper Harper. Even the wording was the same.”

  “And the date?”

  “Exactly the same. Some day in 1915. Put up in the same kind of envelope and sealed with the same kind of wax.”

  I said: “This is the damnedest case in the world. Come on. I need about a pint of whiskey and the biggest steak that ever walked on four legs.”

  53

  Ruth would not think about eating until she had seen Tim, so I told her to go on in and see him, and I would get some whiskey and come back for her. I found a liquor store, bought a pint of Bourbon, and took two big pulls out of the bottle.

  Before going back after Ruth I thought of something so obvious that I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t thought of it before. I drove around to the office of the telephone company, went in, laid a couple of bills on the counter, and asked the cashier to give me some change. I had done the same thing that morning, and the old battle-ax remembered it. She stopped chewing gum, looked at me sourly, and said, “Is it for a phone call?”

  “No,” I said, giving her a cold stare. “I’m doing my homework. The teacher wants to know how much change I can get for two one-dollar bills and I want to make a hundred so my daddy will take me to the circus. If you don’t like that, you can say I came in to grow a beard.”

  The look she gave me would have operated a blast furnace. She snatched open the change drawer, slapped a collection of small coins on the counter, and muttered something under her breath that sounded a good deal like a reference to “dirty little snips.” I looked at the change on the counter and said: “I’ll never get to the circus that way.” Without even looking she practically threw another quarter at me which made up the two dollars, and I went on in and placed a call for the head man at the airport at Louisville. I don’t know why I wanted to give the needle to the cashier, but I was worn out and exasperated, and if there is anything I hate it is people who want to make wisecracks because they are asked to do what they are paid to do.

  I could hear two or three operators feeling their way over the State of Kentucky. They finally got things straightened out to their mutual satisfaction, and after awhile I could hear a phone ringing and a voice came on the other end of the wire.

  “Hello,” I said. “This is the chief of police at Harpersville, Kentucky. Do you get it?”

  “You said it in English, didn’t you?”

  “I thought so.”

  “OK, you can argue about it if you want to. You’re paying for this call, not me.”

  “All right, skip it,” I said, in my best conciliatory manner. “No offense, this is business and it is important. You keep a record on all planes that leave the field, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I am working on the Harper murder case down here—you know—William Jasper Harper. I need some information. Look at your records, if you will, and see if any planes were chartered out of Louisville yesterday.”

  “That’s easy. Chartered planes all you want?”

  “Yes, just the chartered planes. Never mind the commercial flights.”

  “Hold the line. I don’t even have to look to tell you there was one, but I guess you want the details.”

  I hung on all right, and I was practically trembling with excitement. Jolley had been in Overton, and he had come in on the train that morning, but there was nothing about the story that would be inconsistent with a trip by plane. He could have chartered a ship, stopped at Overton long enough to put in his appearance at the college, check in at the hotel, and gone out on something that was supposed to be business. A plane could have taken him to the city or even Harpersville, and he would have had plenty of time to get in his dirty work, fly back to Overton, and get on the train. Or he could have driven up to the city and gotten on the train there. My hand was sweating so I could hardly hold the receiver. Pretty soon I could hear the man in the airport humming “The Music Goes Round and Round,” and then
he said, “Hello.”

  “OK, shoot.”

  “Plane chartered out of here yesterday afternoon down your way. Fella by the name of Henry. Can’t read the scrawl, but looks like it might be Wilbur or Gilbert or something. The porter says he was a funny little mutt who looked like he had been fighting Two-Ton Tony Galento.36 Took off here about—.”

  “That’s swell,” I answered hastily. “You’ve been a big help.” I hung up abruptly and stood there feeling like an old man. My spirits reached a new low. When I went out the cashier gave me a mean look. There was a mirror on the wall and when my back was turned, I could see her going through the motions of giving me a Bronx cheer. I felt so bad I didn’t even care. I took another drink out of the bottle and hoped that I wouldn’t pass out. In the last three days I had swallowed more whiskey than in the preceding three months, and it occurred to me that if I went on investigating murder cases I would probably tum out like these private dicks in detective stories who inhale the stuff oftener than they breathe. The liquor did not have much effect, but it did relax me a little, and I remembered what a small meal I had had that morning and how long ago that had been. I also felt drowsy, and I believe I could have sat right behind the wheel and slept for three solid days in front of police headquarters if Ruth had not come out and jumped in the car at that time.

  She had taken longer than I thought she would, and it was a quarter to seven already. I had promised Miss Knight I would be out with Mrs. Harper’s will at seven, and since this was my first employment on my own I reluctantly came to the conclusion that there would be no time to eat until later. Ruth did not seem to care one way or another, and she was about as communicative as a deaf-mute who has not learned sign language. All the way out to the Harper place she stared straight ahead and I did not bother her with conversation because among other things my eyelids were so heavy that I could hardly keep from running off the road.