Rope's End, Rogue's End

by E. C. R. Lorac

  Macdonald pointed to the carved names on the old oak table, and was silent for a moment as he remembered Richard Mallowood pointing out the names to him. Then he continued:

  “Basil drove off, dressed in Paul’s clothes, in Paul’s car, and Richard was left to carry out the plot. He was as cool as a cucumber over it. He chatted to Veronica, and asked for Basil’s letters to be taken up to him at 10.0 o’clock. Doubtless Basil’s bedroom door was safely locked in the interim when Richard was not in there. It was Richard who answered Veronica when she called good-morning to Basil. It was Richard who dressed the unconscious Paul in Basil’s clothes and carried him upstairs to the playroom, using the staircase at the west end of the house. Paul was kept unconscious by the hypodermic injection of one of the rarer barbituric drugs. If the drug had been administered in the breakfast coffee – my first guess – the drug would have been discovered when the contents of deceased’s stomach were examined, but there was only a negative result from that examination­”

  Long broke in, “How much of this is fact ascertained later, and how much earlier assumption?”

  “Well, to make my hypothesis workable I had to assume that Paul was kept alive but helpless from 7.0 o’clock till 12.30,” responded Macdonald. “At first I argued that he was just knocked out, and trussed and gagged later. Then, as I developed the theory, some sort of drugging seemed indicated – and such was the fact, as I have learnt subsequently. However, to keep to the chain of events. Richard got Paul up to the playroom, left him unconscious there, and returned to Basil’s room, donned Basil’s pyjamas, and played his part to the maid, establishing that Basil was still in the house at 10.0 o’clock. Veronica and Martin had both gone out by this time, and Richard felt quite safe. If the maid saw him about she would take him for Basil. Now as to the actual mechanics of the shooting. Richard knew that it is possible to fix the time of death within fairly short limits if the body be examined shortly after death. He also knew that post mortem injuries can be detected from those inflicted previous to death. That is to say, he had to kill Paul at the time the shot was heard. Of course, he didn’t know that you would turn up when you did, but he probably welcomed you as a valuable witness. I reconstructed the events this way. All that Richard has to do to get ingress and egress from the playroom while the door was locked on the inside was to get a rope over the parapet of the balustrade. This applied to Martin also, of course, but Richard had the advantage of physique, a climber’s training, and familiarity with ropes. Now it isn’t easy to get a rope over that balustrade between the pillars, and make the rope hang down again so that the ends can be gathered in at the window below. As you know, the roof was barred to him. Richard wouldn’t open the trapdoor leading to the roof because he wanted to leave the indisputable evidence of the cobwebs that the trap had not been opened. Now you have been over this house. Given the problem of insinuating a rope between the pillars of the balustrade and getting that rope over the top moulding and down again, how would you have done it?”

  “A grapnel?”

  “No good. The stone moulding wasn’t strong enough to hold a man’s weight on a grapnel. It would probably have broken, and it would certainly have left marks.”

  Long spread out his hands. “I just don’t know,” he replied. “That part of it beat me. I didn’t even think of the balustrade.”

  “Well, I argued that it could be done with the salmon rod I found in Martin’s bedroom,” went on Macdonald. “A double line could be fastened to the tip of the rod, leaving one long end of the line free, and the other fastened to the reel. The tip of the rod is flexible, and fully extended it would reach up to the balustrade from the playroom window. Richard poked the tip of the rod between the pillars and shoved it up till it was clear of the parapet moulding. The free end of his line, if flagged and slightly weighted, would have blown out clear of the parapet, because the wind was blowing from the west. He then ran out the line on his reel – the weight would have brought it down – until he could catch in the slack at his bedroom window. He then lowered the rod, having got a line over the balustrade. It was easy after that to hitch a rope to the line and get the rope drawn over the parapet and knotted below. Once that rope was in position Richard was independent of doors and staircases. He could climb – and I assure you it takes very few seconds to slide down that rope from one storey to the next.”

  Long nodded. “Yes. I see. Neat. Oh, damned neat!”

  “Yes. Damned neat. I found the rod and I saw its possibilities – but the rod was Martin’s. It was in Martin’s room. It might so easily have been Martin – or Veronica. However, to get on. Richard re-entered the house about 12.25 on the Wednesday morning just in time to see Higgins go off for his lunch. That was important, because Higgins was the one person likely to be in the garden at the east end of the house, and to see the climbing episode. Richard went up to his room, swarmed up the rope he had previously fixed in position, and got into the playroom by the window; he removed any odds and ends of evidence which it was necessary to remove, and pulled the string attached to the trigger. Paul was in that chair, unconscious, dressed in Basil’s clothes. The muzzle of the gun was beneath his chin: the string attached to the trigger over his toe – only Richard jerked the string. He then got out of the window, slid down the rope – a matter of seconds – got back in his own window, cut his rope and hauled it in, and was outside on the first floor landing before the maid had picked herself up after her tumble. Neat, as you said.”

  Long went to the casement window and craned his neck out of it, looking up at the line of the balustrade above.

  “I should never have thought of the salmon rod dodge,” he said, “though I was a fool not to have thought about a rope – only the fact that the trap door was locked, and that there was no ladder about the place long enough to reach that window put me off completely.”

  Macdonald went on: “Well, there was the method – a possible one. Next, as to the perpetrator. As you realised immediately, if Basil could only get out of England on Paul’s passport, leaving Paul dead in such a manner that the corpse would be identified as Basil’s, then Basil would be in clover, complete with his loot – but Basil needed help for that plan to succeed… Richard, who had spent a lifetime abroad, was the very man to help him – with the promise of a fifty-fifty share in Basil’s stolen funds. Also, on Paul’s death, it was probable that Richard would share in Paul’s estate. It was Richard who arranged where Basil was to go when he reached Tunis: it was Richard and his friends who arranged that a corpse should be found by the authorities, and that the corpse should be labelled Paul Mallowood. In fact it was Richard who organised the whole show. His was the brain which thought out all the details, including the careful fingerprint evidence, and the ingenious method of fabricating the suicide.”

  Macdonald paused here, and then went on:

  “The fingerprint evidence was very carefully thought out, on the assumption that though the police would accept the obvious suicide theory, yet careful routine investigations would be made. Richard tried to envisage every precaution which would be taken, and he was very thorough. With Paul unconscious and helpless, Richard got his fingerprints on to all the necessary places – the trigger and stock of the gun, from which other prints had been smudged away, the key of the door, the suicide letter, the notes (in Basil’s writing) left in the pockets of the corpse. The ebony brushes had already got the necessary fingerprints on them, because they were Paul’s own brushes – similar in appearance to Basil’s. In fact Richard envisaged all the investigations which would be made along that line. He banked on the suicide being accepted as a suicide, and provided evidence to reinforce that theory.”

  “Clever devil!” said Long. “I wonder if Basil knew that the warrant for his arrest had actually been taken out. They cut it pretty fine from the point of view of time.”

  “I’m quite sure that Basil did not know that the warrant would be in force so soon, nor Richard either,” replied Macdonald. “If they had
done so, Richard would not have dared to wait till the last moment, as he did. If you had turned up half an hour earlier, the whole plot would have been blown sky-high. As it was, Richard probably congratulated himself on an incredible bit of luck. He had luck all along the line – in everything, save in, the fact that Martin realised that it was not Paul who had left in the Rolls Royce. Martin’s behaviour was the snag, because it left Richard guessing. He couldn’t be sure – and to make sure, he would have had to eliminate Martin. But to get back to my own part in the matter: I could see the possibilities: the difficulty was to get any evidence which could be regarded as proof. I wanted two things. One was to find Martin Mallowood. You remember the statement that Martin had leaned out of the window and waved good-bye to Paul in the Rolls Royce? It seemed to me quite probable that Martin had realised that it was not Paul who left, but Basil. If he realised that, Martin must have known at once that something had happened to Paul. Now when Veronica battered on the playroom door after hearing the shot, she cried out Martin’s name. My guess about those two was that each was afraid for the other. When Martin saw Basil drive off pretending to be Paul, his mind got a violent shock, and his reaction was ‘Has Veronica killed Paul?’ because there must be some extraordinary explanation to account for Basil being in Paul’s place. Martin is a neurotic: any mental shock is liable to send him off his balance and cause fits of forgetfulness. Basil’s appearance in that car was a shock to Martin – but he got a much worse shock when, having found the keys to the bedroom upstairs, he unlocked the dividing doors and saw what he thought was Paul’s dead body inside. That sight almost unhinged him. He went out of the house like a sleep-walker, a victim to the amnesia which had often attacked him previously.”

  “But all the same, you couldn’t be certain that Martin and Veronica were not in the plot?” asked Long.

  “No. I’ve admitted that all through,” replied Macdonald, “though there seemed to me several arguments against it. Martin, with his unstable mind and liability to the form of neurosis known as amnesia, would have been a dangerous accomplice in any elaborate plot such as was organised to dispose of Paul and to get Basil out of the country. When Veronica told me about Martin’s queer wandering habits, I believed her. Something rang true. Similarly I believed in her devotion to Martin. When she called his name outside that locked door, she was genuinely terrified that he had shot himself, because she had seen him when she was out that morning, and had realised that his mental condition was abnormal. Of course she saw him when he crossed the lawn – when your man saw him – although she swore she hadn’t. She tried to make an alibi for him – not very successfully. That poor effort at fabricating evidence did not seem to be consistent with the general measure of ability shown in the rest of the business – but still, I could not be certain. I believed in my own mind that Martin was innocent, but that he knew something essential, if I could only find him and get his evidence without driving him to extremes. A man in his state is very easily driven over the borderland of sanity. That conversation of his with Veronica, when he was struggling to remember what had really happened, was a most moving performance – a genuine effort of a half-deranged mind to get back to normality. When I heard it, I was glad that neither I – nor Richard – had succeeded in penetrating to Martin’s hiding-place while his mind was still bemused.”

  “And they got Basil in Tunis, after all?”

  “Yes. Walsh got him. He was using the name Brownleigh, having succeeded in getting a passport under that name. He was so certain that his double identity would never be discovered. It’s curious to think of: if Basil Mallowood had paid for his own repairs to his car when that little Harford man bumped into him, we might never have discovered Alvarley, and Mr. Brownleigh might still be at liberty.”

  “An expensive economy,” said Long. “What about Mrs. Brownleigh?”

  “She was in the south of France, having already acquired another admirer – fortunately for her. Her affair with Basil Mallowood had run its course before this business started. She doesn’t come into the case – though it was through the medium of his association with her and his use of the name Brownleigh that Basil was finally run to earth – and once Basil was caught, Richard was calmly and cynically willing to admit the whole story. He challenged me to tell him how he’d done it, and I did, step by step. He admitted that the one point he was afraid of was Martin. He realised that Martin might have recognised Basil. Richard spent hours trying to get into those cellars – but the doors were always bolted on the inside.”

  “He’s a fair-sized devil, but a clever devil,” said Long. “The amount he thought of in the way of forestalling evidence beats the band. One other point: that maid said she heard someone making a row up in the playroom when Richard was seen in the village.”

  “She probably did hear a row, and a carefully manufactured one, at that. You can arrange for weights to fall to the ground at given times by suspending them from a nail with string, and leading a slow match to burn away the string. Richard had had two days and nights to arrange things in the playroom – and he arranged them carefully. I said that when he swarmed up his rope to pull the trigger, he also removed any other awkward evidence – including any bits and pieces from his noise producer. A careful practitioner was Richard.

  “And now to boil the whole involved story into a straightforward statement,” said Macdonald. “Richard and Basil, who had been good friends in their youth, kept up a correspondence and occasionally met abroad unknown to the rest of the family. When Basil realised that his defalcations must be discovered, he took counsel with Richard. Paul’s retirement and foreign tour seemed to offer a good opportunity for the double coup – the killing of Paul and the safe escape of Basil with his final haul of looted funds. Basil learned from Mrs. Lorne both of Paul’s retirement and his intention of spending a night at Wulfstane, and communicated these facts to Richard, who promptly came to England and to Wulfstane, and made arrangements for the coup. The problem was to get Basil away as Paul, to prove that Basil had been alive in the manor house after Paul’s car had left, and to stage a suicide with the victim unidentifiable about the face. Richard thought out all the possibilities very carefully. He left no incongruities or loose ends, and the whole thing was most ingeniously thought out. Richard could not have foretold that Martin’s neurotic behaviour would give first grounds for suspicion. As a matter of fact, if Martin had not disappeared, it’s probable that you might have accepted the suicide at its face value – and once the suicide was accepted the plot would have been successful.”

  “Martin’s disappearance was certainly the first thing which made me definitely suspicious,” said Long, “and the rum part is that it was nothing to do with the case really.”

  “Oh, yes, it was,” replied Macdonald. “Martin tended to have these wandering fits if his nerves were upset by some untoward happening. I kept on asking myself what it was that Martin had seen, since it seemed improbable that he had witnessed the shooting. Richard seemed pre-eminently the one for the climbing and the shooting. Then, when I studied the evidence and saw that Martin had waved good-bye to the pseudo Paul, it occurred to me that Martin had realised that it was not Paul who had left Wulfstane.”

  “That being so, didn’t you think it probable Richard would try to kill Martin, too?”

  “I thought he might – but I also was certain, once I had talked to Veronica, that Martin was alive. Veronica’s very calmness indicated that. She knew Martin was safe. All she wanted was for you and me and Richard and everyone else to clear out, and leave her in peace, with Martin.”

  “Well, you read her aright, and I didn’t,” said Long. “Another point which I worried at was about Mrs. Lorne. Basil was said to have been sweet on her.”

  “Yes. I think he was in love with her, having tired of his Brownleigh lady,” said Macdonald. “If it hadn’t been for the King’s Proctor and his minions, I should have suspected that Mrs. Brownleigh and Mrs. Lorne were one and the same – but that point d
idn’t arise, thanks to the care of the divorce court section.”

  Long sat and pondered, thinking deeply, and then went again to the window, saying:

  “That notion of the line over the parapet – it was a hangman’s noose in the long run.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Yes. Richard Mallowood went fishing for a fortune when he borrowed Martin’s salmon rod to get a line over the parapet. Like other practitioners in the craft of murder he forgot that ingenuity can be reconstructed by another mind when faced with the same problem. Richard was just a shade too clever, right up to the end, when he tried to announce that he was Paul come back again. He’s a clever actor and a clever mimic, but he over-reached himself.”

  Long gave his own opinion on the matter.

  “He reckoned on most contingencies, but not on you, Macdonald. It was your imagination which out-did his.”

  “Imagination needs reinforcing by evidence,” said Macdonald, “and the evidence is always there, if one can only see it.”

  THE END