The Rasp

by Philip MacDonald

  The elder man glanced down at the papers in his hand. ‘It’s a queer thing, Gethryn,’ he said, ‘but I somehow can’t keep away from the sordid side of this awful, terrible tragedy. Up at the house I keep feeling that I must get into that study—that room of all places! And I came this way really to buy newspapers, though I cheated myself into thinking it was tobacco I wanted. And I can’t help nosing about while the detectives are working. I expect I shall bother you.’ His voice was lowered. ‘Gethryn, do you think you’ll succeed? He was my best friend—I—my nerves are on edge, I’m afraid. I—’

  ‘Great strain.’ Anthony was laconic. Conversation did not appeal to him.

  He tried to map out a course of action, and decided on one thing only. He must see and talk with the Lady of the Sandal again. For the rest, he did not know. He must wait.

  They walked on to the house in silence. At the front door was a car. Boyd was climbing into it. He paused at the sight of Anthony. Sir Arthur passed into the house.

  Boyd was excited, respectably excited. ‘Where’ve you been, sir? You’ve missed all the fun.’

  ‘Really?’ Anthony was sceptical.

  ‘Yes. I don’t mind telling you, sir, that the case is over, so to speak.’

  ‘Is it now?’

  ‘It is. You were quite right, sir. It was some one belonging to the house. I can’t tell you more now. I’m off back to town. I’ll see you later, sir.’

  Anthony raised his eyebrows. Things were going too fast. Had Boyd found out anything about Her?

  ‘Shalt not leave me, Boyd.’ He raised a protesting hand. ‘“The time has come, the Walrus said—” You’re too mysterious. Be lucid, Boyd, be doosid lucid.’

  The detective glanced at his watch with anxiety. He seemed torn between the call of duty and desire to be frank with the man who had helped him.

  ‘I’ll have to be very short, then, sir,’ he said, pushing the watch back into his pocket. ‘Ought to have started ten minutes ago. This is very unofficial on my part. I’m afraid I must ask you—’

  ‘Don’t be superfluous, Boyd.’

  ‘Very well, sir. After I left you in the garden this morning, I asked them all—the household—some more questions, and elicited the fact that one of what you called the “cast-iron” alibis was a dud, so to speak. It was like this, sir: one of the maids had told me she’d seen Mr Deacon—that’s the deceased’s secretary—go to his room just after ten. That coincided with what he told me himself, and also with what Sir Arthur Digby-Coates said. Now, this girl spent the time from ten until about a minute before the murder was discovered working—arranging things and whatnot, I take it—in the linen-room. Apparently it took her so long because she’d been behindhand, so to speak, and was doing two evenings’ jobs in one. This linen-room’s just opposite Mr Deacon’s room, and the girl said last night that she knew he hadn’t come out because, having the door of this linen-room open all the time, she couldn’t have helped but see him if he had.

  ‘But she told a different tale this morning, sir, when I talked to her after you’d left me. I wasn’t thinking about Deacon at all, to tell you the truth, when out she comes with something about having made a mistake. “What’s that?” I said, and told her not to be nervous. Then she tells me that she hadn’t been in the linen-room all that time after all. She’d left it for about ten minutes to go downstairs. She was very upset—seemed to think we’d think she was a criminal for having made a slip in her memory.’ Boyd laughed.

  Anthony did not. ‘What time was this excursion from the linen-closet?’ he asked.

  ‘As near as the girl can remember, it was ten minutes or so after she saw Deacon go to his room, sir.’

  ‘And I suppose, according to you, that this Deacon left his room while the girl was away, slipped out of the house, waited, climbed into the study window, killed his employer, climbed out again, hid somewhere till the fuss was over, got back unseen to his room, and then pretended he hadn’t ever left it.’

  Boyd looked reproach. ‘You’re being sarcastic, sir, I know; but as a matter of fact that’s very nearly exactly what he did do.’

  ‘Is it? You know, Boyd, it doesn’t sound at all right to me.’

  ‘You won’t think that way, sir, when I tell you that we know Deacon’s our man.’ Boyd lowered his voice. ‘Colonel Gethryn, those fingerprints on the weapon—the wood-rasp—are Deacon’s!’

  ‘Are they now?’ said Anthony irritably. ‘How d’you know. What did you compare ’em with?’

  Boyd looked at him almost with pity. ‘Got everyone’s marks this morning, sir.’ He smiled happily. ‘Handed each of ’em—when I was alone with ’em, of course—a bit of white paper. Very mysterious I was about it too, asking ’em if they recognised it. They didn’t: very natural when you come to think each sheet was out of my notebook.’ He looked again at his watch.

  ‘One moment,’ said Anthony. ‘Found anything like a motive?’

  The watch went back into its pocket. ‘We have, sir. Yes, you may well look surprised—but we have. And the motive’s a nice little piece of evidence in itself. A chance remark Sir Arthur made when I was talking to him before luncheon-time put me on to it. Yesterday morning he happened to walk with the deceased into the village. The deceased went into the bank and, luckily, Sir Arthur went with him. Mr Hoode drew out a hundred of the best, so to speak—all in ten-pound notes. We didn’t know of this before, because Sir Arthur had mentioned it to the Chief Constable—Sir Richard Morley—last night, and Sir Richard had somehow not thought it important enough information to pass on.’ Boyd’s tone conveyed his opinion of the Chief Constable of the county. ‘Well, sir, I had a search made. That hundred was missing. But we found it!’

  Anthony ground his heel savagely into the gravel. ‘I suppose it was secreted behind the sliding panel in Deacon’s room, all according to Cocker?’

  ‘Don’t know anything about any sliding panel, sir; nor any Mr Cocker. But Deacon’s room is just where we did find it. I verified the numbers of the notes from the bank.’

  ‘What’s Deacon say about it?’

  The detective barked scornfully. ‘Said Mr Hoode gave it to him for a birthday present. Lord, a birthday present! So probable, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Why the withering irony, Boyd? It’s so improbable that it’s probably true.’

  Boyd snorted. ‘Now, sir, just think about it! Turn it over in your mind, so to speak. Deacon’s alibi turns out all wrong. His movements last night fit the time of the murder. A hundred pounds drawn from the bank by the deceased are found stuffed into a collar-box in Deacon’s room—a good hiding-place, but not one to put a “birthday-present” in. And, sir, Deacon’s fingerprints are found on the weapon which the murder was done with! Why! it’s a case in a million, so to speak. Wish they were all as easy.’

  ‘All right, Boyd; all right. I’ll admit you’ve some justification. Yes—I suppose—queer about those fingerprints! Very queer!’

  Boyd smiled. ‘In fact, they settle the business by themselves, as you might say.’ His kindly face grew grave. ‘It’s quite clear, sir, I think. That murder—one of the worst in my experience—was done for the sake of a paltry hundred pounds!’

  Anthony was not moved. ‘And your culprit, I presume,’ he said, ‘languishes in Marling’s jail.’

  ‘If you mean have we arrested Deacon, sir, we have not. He doesn’t know anything about us having found the prints of his fingers. And I’m afraid I must ask you, sir, officially, to say nothing to him about what I’ve told you. You see, this is one of those cases where contrary to the general rule we should like the coroner’s jury to pass a verdict against our man and then arrest him. I’m having him watched until the inquest tomorrow, and well nab him after.’ Out came the watch again; a look of horror crossed its owner’s face. ‘I must really get off now, sir. I’m terrible late as it is. Got to report at the Yard. Good-day, sir, I’ll see you tomorrow if you’re still here. And thank you for your help. It was you and what you said in the
study about it being an “insider”, so to speak, that put me on the right track, though I did take your other view at first. Now I see—as I’ve done in the past, sir—that you generally know.’

  Anthony concealed a smile at this attempt to gild the pill. ‘So I put you on the right track, did I?’ he said softly. ‘Or the wrong, my friend; or the wrong! I don’t like it. I don’t like it a little bit. It’s too rule-of-thumb. The Profligate Secretary, the Missing Bank-Notes, the Fingerprinted Blunt Instrument! It’s not even a good shilling shocker. It’s too damnation ordinary, that’s what it is!’

  If Boyd heard him he gave no sign, but hurried back to the waiting car.

  Anthony watched it out of sight. He communed with himself. No, he didn’t like it. And where did She come in? And why, in the name of a name, had she said ‘Who shot him?’ when the poor devil had had his head battered in?

  ‘That rather lets her out as regards the actual bashing,’ he said, half-aloud. ‘That’s a comfort, anyhow. But it’s perplexing, very perplexing. “Do I sleep, do I dream, or is Visions about?” I think, yes, I think a little talk with the murderous secretary would do me good—always remembering the official injunction not to tell him he’s going to be hanged soon.’

  II

  Archibald Basil Travers Deacon—his parents have much to answer for—was in the drawing-room. He sprawled in an easy-chair beside the open windows. A book lay face-downwards upon his knees.

  Anthony, entering softly, had difficulty in persuading himself that this was the man he sought. He had expected the conventional private secretary; he found a man. In his late twenties with the face of a battered but pleasant prize-fighter, the eyes of a lawyer, and the body of Heracles.

  Anthony coughed. The secretary heaved himself to his feet. The process took a long time. The unfolding complete, he looked down upon Anthony’s six feet from a height superior by five inches. He stretched out a hand and engulfed Anthony’s. A tremendous smile split his face.

  He boomed softly: ‘You must be Gethryn. Heard a lot about you. So you’re here disguised as a bloodhound, what? Stout fellah!’

  They sat, and Anthony produced cigars. When these were well alight, ‘Queer show, this,’ said Deacon.

  ‘Very,’ Anthony agreed.

  Silence fell. Openly they studied each other. Deacon spoke first.

  ‘Boyd,’ he said, settling a cushion behind his great shoulders, ‘is quite wrong.’

  ‘Eh?’ Anthony was startled.

  ‘I remarked, brother, that your Wesleyan-lookin’ detective friend was shinning up the wrong shrub.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Anthony. ‘How?’

  ‘Your caution, brother, is commendable; but I think you know what I mean. Chief Detective-Inspector, or whatever he is, W. B. Boyd, of Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department—bless his fluffy little bed-socks—is labourin’ under the delusion that I, to wit Archibald Etcetera Deacon, am the man who killed John Hoode. You apprehend me, Stephen?’

  Anthony raised his eyebrows. ‘How much do you know, I wonder?’

  ‘All depends on your meanin’. If you’re asking whether I know anything about how the chief was done in, the answer’s “nothing”. But if you mean how much do I know of Scotland Yard’s suspicion of me, that’s a different story.’

  ‘Number two’s right,’ said Anthony. ‘Fire ahead.’

  ‘Comrade Boyd,’ said the secretary, ‘is a tenacious, an indefatigable old bird, and he’s found out some funny things. But what he doesn’t see is that they’re only funny and no more. First I didn’t contradict him—very foolish of me, that—when it was obvious that he thought I’d been in my room last night from ten until after they found the chief done in in his study. I didn’t contradict him because the mistake seemed as if it would get me out of a very compromising position. You see, at about a quarter-past ten I left my room, went downstairs, out of the front door, and enjoyed a cheery stroll on my lonesome. When I came back I found the whole damn place in an uproar, the murder having been already discovered. There was such a general shemozzle that nobody noticed me come in until I got there, what! My—what’s the officialese for it?—“suppression of the truth” gave Boyd clue number one.

  ‘Clue number two was the money. And the money was what had made me seize on an alibi, when it was handed to me on a plate—the alibi, I mean. You see, it was so hellish awkward, this money business, and I let old Bloodhound Boyd fog himself because I wanted time to think. It was like this: the chief and I really were very good friends indeed—he was a damn good fellah—though we did growl at each other occasional-like; and I believe the poor old lad was really attached to me; anyhow the money made it seem like that. He was a very canny old Haggis, you know, but he was subject to fits of extraordinary generosity. I mentioned some days ago—forget how it came up—that Wednesday was my birthday. Well, last night, or rather yesterday afternoon about five—when I took some papers to him in the study, he wished me many happy returns of the day before, apologised for having forgotten the ceremony, and shoved an envelope into my mit: in that envelope were ten crisp little tenners, all nice and new and crumply-lookin’. Of course, I did the hummin’ and hawain’ act, but he’d have none of it.

  ‘“No, my boy,” he says, “you keep it. Must let an old fellah like me do what I want.” So I scraped at the old forelock and salaamed. Thought it was damned decent of him, you know. As I was clearin’ out, though, he stopped me, coughin’ and hum-hummin’ and lookin’ all embarrassed. “Deacon,” he said, “er-um-er-um—don’t you mention that little memento to—to anyone, will you?” “Not if you’d rather I didn’t, sir,” says I. He gave a sickly sort of grin and muttered. But I understood him all right. He meant his sister. She’s one of those holy terrors that’s not a bad sort really. I always knew she kept a pretty Jewish fist on the purse-ropes, though. P’r’aps that’s why he didn’t give me a cheque.’

  Anthony took the cigar from his mouth. ‘And Boyd,’ he said, ‘finds out that Hoode had this money in the house, institutes a search, and finds it in your collar-box, which looks like an ingenious hiding-place but was really just an accidental safe. He also finds out that you weren’t in your room last night during all the time you let him think you were, and that you entered the house—probably by the verandah door—just after the body was found. He looks at you and connects your obvious strength with the ruts in Hoode’s skull. He sees your titanic length of leg and argues that you’re the only person in the house likely to be able to step through that open study-window without marking the flower-bed by treading on the flowers. He does a sum, and the answer is: x equals the murderer and Archibald Deacon equals x. That’s what you know, isn’t it?

  ‘You have it all, old thing, all! Quel lucidité!’

  ‘But you haven’t,’ said Anthony, thinking of the fingerprints and his promise to Boyd. ‘There’s more in it than that, I’m afraid.’ He puffed at his cigar. ‘By the way, you didn’t do it, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Deacon, and laughed.

  Anthony smiled. ‘I shouldn’t have believed you if you’d said yes. You can’t give me a line, I suppose? Any private suspicions of your own? I’ve a bag of data, but nothing to hang it on.’

  ‘The answer, old thing, is a lemon. Nary suspicion. But what’s all this about data? Found anythin’ fresh?’

  ‘Oh, well, you know’—Anthony waved vague hands. ‘Possibly yes, possibly no, if you follow me. I mean, you never can tell.’

  Deacon smiled. ‘Kamerad!’ he said. ‘Served me right. But that’s me all over, I’m afraid. Damn nosey! But you must admit I’m an interested party.’

  ‘I do,’ Anthony said; then suddenly leaned forward. ‘Have you told me all you know?’ he asked. ‘And are you going to tell me anything you don’t know, but merely feel?’

  Deacon was silent for perhaps a minute. ‘I can’t tell you anything more that I know,’ he said at last and slowly. ‘And as to the other, what exactly are you driving at? D’you mean: do I definitel
y suspect anyone as being the murderer?’

  Anthony nodded. ‘Just that.’

  ‘Then the answer’s no. But I’ll tell you what I do feel very strongly, and that’s that it isn’t anyone belonging to the house.’

  ‘So you think that, do you?’ said Anthony. ‘You know, I’ve heard that before about this affair.’

  Deacon sat up. ‘Oh! And what do you think? The reverse?’

  Anthony shrugged non-committal shoulders.

  ‘But it’s absurd,’ said the secretary. ‘Quite utterly imposs, my dear feller!’

  ‘Is it?’ Anthony raised his eyebrows. ‘Ever read detective stories, Deacon? Good ones, I mean. Gaboriau, for instance. If you do, you’ll know that the “It” is very often found among a bunch of “unlikely and impossibles”. And one of my chief stays in life is my well-proved theory that Fiction is Truth. The trouble is that the stories are often more true than the real thing. And that’s just where one goes wrong, and sometimes gets left quite as badly off the mark as the others. I’m beginning to think I may be doing that here.’

  Deacon scratched his head. ‘I think you’re ahead of me,’ he said.

  ‘Never mind, I’m ahead of myself. A long way ahead.’

  ‘Well, says I, I hope you catches yourself up soon.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Anthony got to his feet. ‘Is it possible for me to see Miss Hoode this afternoon?’

  ‘’Fraid not. Our Mr Boyd saw her this morning, and she’s given orders that that was enough.’

  ‘Well, I prowl,’ said Anthony, and walked to the door. ‘By the way, on that walk of yours last night, that awkward walk, did you meet anyone? or even see anyone?’

  ‘No. And that’s awkward, too, isn’t it? Nary human being did I pass.’

  Anthony opened the door. ‘Any time you think I’d be useful, let me know,’ he said, and passed into the passage.

  Deacon’s voice followed him. ‘Thanks. When you’re wanted I’ll make a noise like a murderer. Stout fellah!’