The Rasp

by Philip MacDonald

  ‘I know.’ Anthony’s tone was less sure than a moment before. ‘All the same it’s a damn silly mistake. Doesn’t seem to fit in somehow. I’d expected better things from him.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, sir. He’d probably got the wind up, as they say, by the time he’d got so near finishing.’

  Anthony shrugged. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. By the way, Boyd, tell me this. How did Miss Hoode come to be downstairs at ten past eleven? I thought she was supposed to have gone to bye-bye after that game of cards.’

  ‘As far as I know—I haven’t been able to see her yet, sir—she came down to use the telephone—not this one but the one in the hall—about some minor affair she’d forgotten during the day. After she’d finished phoning she must’ve wanted to speak to her brother. Probably about the same matter. That’s all, sir.’

  ‘It’s so weak,’ said Anthony, ‘that it might possibly be true.’ Then, after a pause: ‘I think I’ve had about enough of this tomb. What you going to do next, Boyd? I’m for the garden.’ He walked to the door. ‘You took the weaker end of my reasoning if you still believe in the mysterious outsider.’

  Boyd followed across the hall, through the verandah and down the steps which led from the flagged walk behind the house to the lawns below.

  Anthony sat himself down upon a wooden seat set in the shade of a great tree. He showed little inclination for argument.

  But Boyd was stubborn. ‘You know, sir,’ he said, ‘you’re wrong in what you say about the “insider”. You’d agree with me if you’d been here long enough to sift what evidence there is and been able the way I have to see and talk to all the people instead of hearing about them sketchy and second-hand, as it were.’

  Anthony looked at him. ‘There’s certainly something in that, Boyd. But it’ll take a lot to shift me. Mind you, my predilection for the “insider” isn’t a conviction. But it’s my fancy—and strong.’

  Boyd fumbled in his breast-pocket. ‘Then you just take a good look at this, sir.’ He held out some folded sheets of foolscap. ‘I made that out before you got here this morning. It’ll tell you better what I mean than I can talking. And I only sketched the thing to you before.’

  Anthony unfolded the sheet, and read:

  SUMMARY OF INFORMATION ELICITED

  1. Miss LAURA HOODE. Played cards until 10 o’clock with deceased, Sir A.D.-C., and Mrs Mainwaring. Then went to bed. Was seen in bed at approximately 10.30 by Annie Holt, parlour-maid, who was called into room to take some order as she passed on her way to the servants’ quarters. Miss Hoode remembered, at about 11.5, urgent telephone call to be made. Got up, went downstairs to phone, then thought she would consult deceased first. Entered study, at 11.10, and discovered body. [Note—By no means a complete alibi; but it seems quite out of question that this lady is in any way concerned. She is distraught at brother’s death and was known to be a devoted sister. They were, as always, the best of friends during day.]

  N.B. It appears impossible for a woman to have committed this crime, since the necessary power to inflict blows such as caused death of deceased would be that of an unusually strong man.

  2. Mrs R. MAINWARING. Retired at same time as Miss Hoode Was seen in bed by her maid, Elise Duboise, at 10.35. Was waked out of heavy sleep by parlour-maid, Annie Holt, after discovery of body of deceased.

  3. ELISE DUBOISE. This girl sleeps in room communicating with Mrs Mainwaring’s. The night was hot and the door between the two rooms was left open. Mrs Mainwaring heard girl get into bed at about 10.40. The parlour-maid had to shake her repeatedly before she woke.

  4. Sir A. DIGBY-COATES. Went upstairs, after cards, to own sitting-room (first-floor, adjoining bedroom) to work at official papers. Pinned note on door asking not to be disturbed, but had to leave door open owing to heat. Was seen, from passage, between time he entered room until time murder was discovered, at intervals averaging a very few minutes by Martha Forrest (cook), Annie Holt (parlour-maid), R, Belford (man-servant), Elise Duboise, Mabel Smith (housemaid), and Elsie Syme (housemaid). The time during which the murder must have been committed is covered.

  5. Mr A. B. T. DEACON (Private Secretary to deceased). Went to room (adjoining that of Sir A. D.-C.) to read at approximately 10.10. Was seen entering by Mabel Smith, who was working in linen-room immediately opposite. She had had afternoon off and was consequently very busy. Stayed there till immediately (say two minutes) before murder was discovered. She can swear Mr Deacon never left room the whole time, having had to leave door of linen-room open owing to heat.

  6. WOMEN SERVANTS. These are Elsie Syme, Mabel Smith, Martha Forrest, Annie Holt, Lily Ingram. All except the first two account for each other over the vital times, having been in the servants’ quarters (in which the rooms are inter-communicating) from 10.15 or so onwards. Elsie Syme, who was downstairs in the servants’ hall until the murder was discovered, and Mabel Smith, may be disregarded. They have no one to substantiate their statements, but there is no doubt at all that they are ordinary, foolish, honest working-girls. (See also note after details re Miss Hoode.)

  7. ALFRED POOLE (Butler). Has not a shred of alibi. Was seated, as usual, in his den opposite study all the evening. After 10 spoke to no one; was seen by nobody. May, however, be disregarded as in any way connected with murder. Will be very useful witness. May (in my opinion) be trusted implicitly. Not very intelligent. Very old, infirm, but sufficiently capable to answer questions truthfully and clearly. [Has, for one point, nothing like half strength murderer must have used.] Was devoted to deceased, whose family he has served for forty-one years.

  8. ROBERT BELFORD (manservant). Has certain support for his own account of his actions; but not enough probably for a fuller test. Nothing against him, and last man in world for crime of this type. Might possibly poison, but has neither courage or strength enough to have murdered deceased. Seems nervous. May know more than he admits, but unlikely.

  9. OTHER MEN-SERVANTS. Harry Wright, chauffeur, and Thomas Diggle, gardener. Both not concerned. Diggle is in hospital. Wright, who lives in the lodge by the big gates, was off last night and with reputable friends in Marling village. He did not return until some time after murder had been discovered. The three lads who work under Diggle live in their homes in the village. All were at home from eight o’clock onwards last night.

  Anthony, having reached the end, read through the document again, more slowly this time. Boyd watched him eagerly. At last the papers were handed back to their owner.

  ‘Well, sir,’ he said. ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘I do, Boyd, I do. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I agree, you know.’

  Boyd’s face fell. ‘Ah, sir, I know what it is. You’re wondering at an old hand like me trying to prove to you that nobody in the house could’ve done it, when all the time most of ’em haven’t got what you might call sound alibis at all. But look here, sir—’

  Anthony got to his feet. ‘Boyd, you wrong me! I like your guesses even better than your proofs. Guesses are nearly always as good as arithmetic—especially guesses by one of your experience. I didn’t say I didn’t agree with you, did I?’

  ‘You didn’t say so, sir, so to speak!’

  ‘Nor I didn’t mean it neither,’ Anthony laughed. ‘My mind’s open, Boyd, open. Anyhow, many thanks for letting me see that, I know a lot more detail than I did. I suppose that’s a basis for a preliminary report, what?’

  Boyd nodded, and fell into step as Anthony turned in the direction of the house.

  CHAPTER V

  THE LADY OF THE SANDAL

  I

  ANTHONY was still in the garden. Anthony had found something. Clouds of pipe-smoke hung round his head in the hot, still air. Anthony was thinking.

  He was alone. Boyd, indefatigable, had gone at once into the house, bent upon another orgy of shrewd questioning. This time his questions would have, in the light of what the study had told, a more definite bearing.

  What Anthony had found were two sets, some
eighteen inches apart, of four deep, round impressions of roughly the size of a sixpence. They were in the broad flower-bed which ran the whole length of the study wall and were directly beneath the sill of the most easterly of the three windows—the farther closed window, that is, from the open one through which it seemed that the murderer must have effected entrance to the study. The flower-bed, Anthony noticed, was unusually broad—so broad, in fact, that any person, unless he were a giant, wishing to climb into any of the three windows, would perforce tread, with one foot at least, among the flowers.

  He stooped to examine his find. Whoever, in the absence of Mr Diggle the gardener, had so lavishly watered the flower-bed on the previous day received his blessing. Had the soil not been so moist, those holes would not have been there.

  Anthony thought aloud: ‘Finger-holes. Just where my fingers would go if I was a good deal narrower across the shoulders and squatted here and tried to look into the room without bringing either of my feet on to the bed.’

  He stepped deliberately on to the flower-bed and bent to examine the low sill of the window. There was a smudge on the rough stone. It might be a dried smear of earthy fingers. On the other hand, it might be almost anything else. But as he straightened his back a bluish-black gleam caught his eye.

  He investigated, and found, hanging from a crevice in the rough edge of the sill, a woman’s hair. It was a long hair, and jet black.

  ‘That explains the closeness of those finger-marks,’ he muttered. ‘A woman in the case, eh? Now, why was she here, in front of the closed window? And was she here last night? Or this morning, quite innocent like? The odds are it was last night. One doesn’t crouch outside a Cabinet Minister’s window in daylight. Nor at all, unless one’s up to no good. No, I think you were here last night, my black beauty. “I love little pussy, her hair is so black, and if I don’t catch her she’ll never come back.” Now where did you come from, Blackie dear? And have you left any other cards? O, Shades of Doyle! What a game!’

  He stepped back on to the path and knelt to examine the stone edging to the flower-bed. In the position she must have been in, the woman would most probably, he argued, have been on one knee and had the foot of the other leg pressed vertically against this edging.

  She had; but Anthony was doubly surprised at what he found. For why, in this dry weather, should the mark of her foot be there at all? And, as it was there, why should it look like a fingerprint a hundred times enlarged?

  He scratched his head. This was indeed a crazy business. Perhaps he was off the rails. Still, he’d better go on. This all might have something to do with the case.

  More closely he examined this footprint that was like a fingerprint. Now he understood. The mark had remained because the peculiar sole of this peculiar shoe had been wet and earthy. There had been no rain for a week. Why was the shoe wet? And why—he looked carefully about—were there no other such marks on the flagstones of the path? Ah, yes; that would be because in ordinary walking or running the peculiar shoes did not press hard enough to leave anything but a wet patch which would quickly dry. Whereas, in pressing the sole of the foot against that edging to the flower-bed, much more force would have to be used to retain balance—sufficient force to squeeze wet clayish earth out in a pattern from that peculiar sole.

  But what about the wetness? He hadn’t settled that. Suddenly his mind connected the peculiarity of that imprint with the idea of water. A rope-soled sandal. When used? Why, bathing. Here Anthony laughed aloud. ‘Sleuth, you surpass yourself!’ he murmured. ‘Minister murdered by Bathing Belle—only not at the seaside! Cock Robin’s murderer not Sparrow as at first believed, but one W. Wagtail! Gethryn, you’re fatuous. Take to crochet.’

  He started for the verandah door. Half-way he stopped suddenly. He’d forgotten the river. But the idea was ridiculous. But, after all—well, he’d spend ten minutes on it, anyhow. Now, to begin—assuming that the woman had come out of the river and had wanted (strange creature!) to get back there—he would work out her most probable route and follow it. If within five minutes he found no more signs of her, he’d stop.

  After a moment’s calculation he started off, going through the opening in the yew hedge, down the grass bank to his right and then crossing the rose garden at whose far side there began a pergola.

  At the entrance to the pergola he found, caught round a thorny stem of the rose-creeper that fell from the first cross-piece of the archway, four long black hairs.

  Anthony controlled his elation. These might not, he thought, be from the same head. But all the same it was encouraging. It fitted well. Running in the dark and a panic, she hadn’t ducked low enough. He could see her tearing to free her hair. Well, he’d get on. But really this mad idea about swimming women couldn’t be true.

  From the other end of the pergola he emerged on to a lawn, its centre marked by a small but active fountain. A gravelled path, along which he remembered having walked up to the house, ran down at the right of the grass to the gate on the river-bank through which he had entered. He paused to consider the position; then decided that one making in a hurry for the gate would cut across the grass.

  He found confirmation. Round the fountain’s inadequate basin was a circle of wet grass, its deep green in refreshing contrast to the faded colour of the rest. At the edge of the emerald oasis were two indistinct imprints of the sandal and its fellow, and two long smeared scars where the grass had been torn up to expose the soil beneath. Farther on, but still within the circle, were two deeper, round impressions; beyond them, just where the wet grass ended, was another long smear.

  Anthony diagnosed a slip, a stagger, and a fall. Not looking for more signs—he had enough—he hurried on to the little gate. The other side of it, on the path which ran alongside the blustering pigmy of a river, he hesitated, looking about him. Again he felt doubt. Was it likely that anyone could swim the Marle at night? Most decidedly it was not. In the first place there was, only some three hundred and fifty yards or so downstream to his right, a perfectly good bridge which joined the two halves of the village of Marling. In the second place, the Marle, though here a bare twenty yards wide, seemed as uncomfortable a swim as could well be, even for a man. Always turbulent, it was at present actually dangerous, still swollen as it was by the months of heavy rain which had preceded this record-breaking August.

  ‘No!’ said Anthony aloud. ‘I’m mad, that’s what it is. But then those are bathing sandals. And didn’t I just now tell Boyd he was making a mistake in not treating this business like the goriest of ’tec tales?’

  He stood looking over the river. If only he could fit any sort of reason—

  One came to him. He laughed at it; but it intrigued him. It intrigued him vastly. There was a house, just one house, on the opposite bank. It was perhaps thirty yards higher up the stream than the gate by which he was standing.

  Suppose someone from that house wanted to get to Abbotshall quickly, so quickly that they could not afford to travel the quarter-mile on each side of the river which crossing by the bridge would involve. Taking that as an hypothesis, he had a reason for this Captain Webb business. The theory was insane, of course, but why not let fancy lead him a while?

  The very fact that the woman was so good a swimmer as she must be made it probable that she would be sufficiently water-wise to make use of, rather than battle helplessly against, the eight-mile-an-hour stream. Very well, then, before taking to the river, on her way back she would have run upstream along this bank to a point some way above the house she wished to return to on the opposite bank. Still laughing at himself, Anthony turned to his left and walked upstream, his eyes on the soft clay at the river’s edge. When he had passed by fifty yards the house on the other side, he found two sandal-marks. They were deep; the clay gave a perfect impression.

  He was surprised but still unbelieving. Then, as he stood for a moment looking down into the dark water only a few inches below the level of his feet, a gleam of white caught his eye. Curious, he squat
ted, pulled up his sleeve and thrust his arm into the water, groping about the ledge which jutted out from the bank some inches below the surface. His fingers found what they sought. He rose to his feet and examined his catch.

  A small canvas bathing-sandal. From its uppers dangled a broken piece of tape. The sole was of rope.

  ‘Benjamin,’ said Anthony to his pipe. ‘I’m right. And I’ve never been so surprised in my life. It looks to me, my lad, as if A. R. Gethryn may have been wrong and Brother Boyd right. Where’s my “insider” now?’

  II

  Anthony had crossed the river. Behind him lay Marling’s wooden bridge, before him the house which must shelter the swimming lady. In his hip-pocket rested the sandal, wrung free of some of its wetness and wrapped in a piece of newspaper found by the hedge.

  He walked slowly, framing pretexts for gaining admission to the house. His thoughts were interrupted by a hail. He swung round to see Sir Arthur Digby-Coates coming at a fast walk from the direction of the bridge.

  Sir Arthur arrived out of breath. ‘Hallo, my boy, hallo,’ he gasped. ‘What are you doing here? Calling on Lucia? Didn’t know you knew her. Mrs Lemesurier. That’s her house there. Just going there myself.’

  ‘I’ll walk along to the gate with you,’ said Anthony. He saw a possible invitation. He began to make talk. ‘I wasn’t going anywhere; just strolling. I wanted to get away from Abbotshall and think. After I left the study, I drifted through the garden and crossed the river without knowing I’d done it.’ Not even to Sir Arthur was he saying anything yet of his discoveries.

  The elder man picked his remarks up eagerly. ‘You’ve hit on something to think about, then? That’s more than I’ve done, though I’ve been racking my brains since midnight. That detective fellow don’t seem much better off either.’

  ‘Oh, Boyd’s a very good man,’ Anthony said. ‘He generally gets somewhere.’

  ‘Well, I hope so.’ Sir Arthur sighed. ‘This is a terrible business, Gethryn. Terrible! I can’t talk much about it yet—poor old John. Did you know him at all?’