The Rasp

by Philip MacDonald

  Then Hastings’s flat was reached. Introductions over, they were left alone in Hastings’s study while Hastings went to prepare the invalid.

  Anthony picked up his hat. ‘I must go,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Back to Marling.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Gethryn!’ Lucia cried. ‘Did you only come up to bring me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, after a pause.

  ‘How awfully nice of you! But ought you to have wasted all that time?’

  ‘All pleasure,’ Anthony said oracularly, ‘is gain. Did you warn your sister that Deacon would probably be arrested after the inquest?’

  ‘I did. And I tried to persuade her not to worry. So I obeyed orders, you see.’

  ‘Did you believe there was no cause for worry?’

  The great eyes met his. In their dark depths he saw little golden fires dancing.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Anthony bowed. ‘Good-night,’ he said, and was gone.

  CHAPTER X

  BIRDS OF THE AIR

  I

  IT was a few minutes after half-past four when Anthony descended to the street and re-entered his car. Through London he drove fast; clear of it, terrifically. Always, when he found himself disturbed, he sought consolation in speed. It was preferable to be on a horse; but the car was better than nothing. Besides, was there not work to be done?

  On the journey he thought much. One half of his mind was occupied with a problem of x and y; the other with a quantity more obscure even than x. It was that second half of his mind which conceived doubts of the worthiness of Anthony Ruthven Gethryn. The sensation was new.

  As he drove through the great gates of Abbotshall and up the drive, the clock over the stables struck. A quarter to six! If the distance from Kensington to Marling is what they say it is, the word ‘terrifically’ was not misused.

  He stopped the car. Round the corner of the house, running, came Sir Arthur Digby-Coates. Though the thick, grey-flecked hair was unruffled by the wind of his speed, there was yet an agitation, a wildness about him, his fluttering tie, his clothes, most unusual.

  He panted up to the car. ‘Gethryn, Gethryn! Just the man I was wanting! Where’ve you been?’

  ‘London.’ Anthony was almost surly. He had been dreaming a dream.

  ‘My God!’ Sir Arthur pulled at his collar as if he were choking. ‘Look here! Look here! I must talk to you. But not here. Not here! Come in! Come in! My room’ll be best. Come on!’

  Anthony was dragged into the house and up the stairs and into Sir Arthur’s room. They sat, in chairs drawn up to the window. In his, Anthony lay back, but the elder man hunched himself like a nervous schoolboy, sitting on the edge of his chair with his feet thrust backwards then outwards until they protruded behind and beside each of the front legs. It was an old trick of his when preoccupied, and never ceased to amuse Anthony.

  It was some time before Sir Arthur spoke. He seemed in his agitation to have difficulty in finding words. His hands twisted about each other.

  ‘God!’ he burst out at last. ‘What are we to do?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About this awful, this horrible mistake.’ Suddenly he jumped to his feet and stood over Anthony. ‘Why—is it possible—haven’t you heard? About Deacon?’

  Anthony shook his head.

  ‘Why, man, they’ve arrested him! The coroner’s jury passed a verdict against him. And the police have arrested him. Arrested him!’

  ‘Quite natural, when you think of it,’ said Anthony.

  Sir Arthur stared at him. ‘D’you mean you think he did it?’ he roared. ‘That boy!’

  ‘No. I’m sure he didn’t.’

  Sir Arthur sighed loud relief. ‘Thank the Lord for that! But, Gethryn, how was it you hadn’t heard about this? And if you hadn’t, how was it you weren’t surprised? Weren’t you at the inquest?’

  ‘Only roughly speaking,’ said Anthony. ‘And I wasn’t surprised because I knew on what evidence the police were working. Pardon me if I seem flippant—I’m not really—but what we’ve got to do is to find out who really did kill Cock Robin. That’s the only way of getting Deacon off. The police take Deacon to be the Sparrow. You and I believe that he isn’t; but we’ve got to admit that the case against him is good, extraordinarily good. His size and strength fit the part of the murderer. And above all his finger-marks were found on the Bow and Arrow. That last will want a deal of explaining, especially to an English jury, who don’t, as a rule, know that real life’s more like a fairy story than Hans Andersen.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Sir Arthur groaned. ‘Those fingerprints. He must have touched the—the—what do they call the thing?’

  ‘Wood-rasp. A file for wood.’

  ‘Ah, yes. He—I suppose he must have touched it. Must have. But I’ll swear the boy had nothing to do with—with John’s death. And he said he’d never seen the thing. And I believe him!’

  ‘So he’d never seen the thing,’ Anthony said. ‘Now that’s interesting. Most interesting!’

  But Sir Arthur was not listening. ‘What I’m feeling so—so damnably,’ he burst out, ‘is that my evidence helped to make things look worse for the boy,’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because they took mine first; and in describing that awful night I mentioned, like the idiot I am, that Deacon had come into my room at a quarter to eleven. You see, he’d asked me the time, and I told him: that’s what made me remember. Then later it all came out about the clock in the study, and now everyone says the boy put the hands back because he knew he had an alibi. Oh! It’s all a ghastly, horrible mistake!’

  ‘It is; and we shan’t mend it by sitting here and talking.’ Anthony got to his feet. ‘By the way, before I go, tell me: what is Mrs Mainwaring? who is she, that this poor swine don’t see her? If it comes to that, why is she here at all?’

  Sir Arthur made a wry face. ‘Why you haven’t seen her I can’t tell. Why she’s staying here is, I’m sorry to say, for the notoriety. Any decent person would have left the house at once. I’m disgusted; I used almost to like the woman. I would have left, but Laura wished me to stay. And she’s so apathetic that she won’t get rid of the Mainwaring.’

  ‘I must see the lady,’ said Anthony.

  Sir Arthur looked at him with curiosity, but found no enlightenment.

  ‘In fact,’ said Anthony, ‘I must see both ladies.’

  Sir Arthur looked at him again, with no result.

  ‘A last question,’ Anthony said: ‘what—without prejudice—do you think of the manservant, Robert Belford of the ferret face?’

  ‘I wondered whether you’d ask about him,’ Sir Arthur said eagerly. ‘I didn’t like to say anything because I really know nothing against him at all. Never had anything to do with him, in fact. He used to valet John, and would have me, only I don’t use valets. It’s simply that I can’t bear the fellow; his looks are enough to make anyone suspicious. And he’s been more furtive than ever—since the—the murder.’

  ‘H’m,’ grunted Anthony.

  ‘It’s really very ungrateful of me,’ said Sir Arthur, ‘to say anything against the man. He was one—or really two—of the witnesses to the fact that I was sitting here in his chair from ten until after—until poor old John was found. But still, joking aside, I have a very real feeling that Mr Belford at least knows more than he has told.’

  ‘H’m. Yes,’ Anthony said. ‘And now for Miss Hoode. Where can I find her?’

  ‘I think she’s downstairs somewhere, but I’m not sure. I say, Gethryn, you’re not going to—to cross-examine her, are you? I mean I don’t think she’ll want a lot of talk about—’

  ‘No,’ Anthony said, crossing the room, ‘probably she won’t.’

  Sir Arthur opened his mouth to speak; but was left staring at the closed door.

  As he shut it behind him, Anthony caught sight of a black-clad figure disappearing round the corner by the stair-head. It was a back he had seen before. It wore an air o
f stealthy discomfort; and the speed with which it had vanished was in itself suspicious.

  Anthony laughed. ‘Belford, my friend,’ he thought, ‘if you have done anything naughty, you’re simply asking to be found out.’ He went on and down the stairs.

  II

  This evening, thought Anthony, as he stood facing her by the open windows of the drawing-room, Laura Hoode was even less prepossessing than she had seemed on the day before. She had risen at his entry, and though the thin, sharp-featured face was calm, he somehow felt her perturbation.

  She waved him to a chair. He sank into it, draping one long leg over its fellow.

  ‘What do you want of me, Mr Gethryn?’ The voice was lifeless as the woman, and Anthony shivered. The sexless always alarmed him.

  ‘A great deal, Miss Hoode.’ In spite of his aversion his tone was blandly courteous.

  ‘I cannot imagine—’

  ‘Please—one moment,’ said Anthony. ‘As you know, I came down here to Marling to find out, if possible, who killed your brother. A—’

  ‘That task,’ said the woman, ‘has already been performed.’

  ‘Not quite, I think. In my opinion, young Deacon had no more to do with the murder than I. Each minute I spend in this house increases my certainty. This morning I found something I had been looking for, something that may throw a light where one is badly needed, something which you must tell me about.’

  She drew herself yet more upright on her straight-backed chair.

  ‘Mr Gethryn,’ she said, ‘I like neither your manner nor your manners.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Anthony grimly, ‘neither manner nor manners matter just now. Miss Hoode, I started on this business half out of boredom, half because a friend of mine asked me to; but now—well, I’m going to finish it.’

  ‘But—but I don’t understand at all what you are talking about.’ The woman was plainly bewildered, yet there seemed in her tone to be an uneasiness not born of bewilderment alone.

  Anthony took from his breast-pocket a thick packet of letters. The paper was a deep mauve, the envelopes covered with heavy, sprawling characters. The bundle was held together by a broad ribbon, this too of deep mauve. He balanced the little bundle in the palm of his hand; then looked up to see white rage on the bony, dull face of the woman. The rage, he thought, was not unmixed with fear; but not the kind of fear he had expected.

  ‘These,’ he said, ‘are what I want you to explain. To explain, that is, who they are from, and why you took them from your brother’s desk and hid them again in your own room.’

  She rose to her feet; moved a step forward. ‘You—you—’ she began, and choked on the words.

  Anthony stood up. ‘Oh, I know I’m a filthy spy. Don’t imagine that I think this private inquiry agent game is anything but noisome. It has been nasty, it will be nasty, and it is nasty, in spite of the cachet of Conan Doyle. I know, none better, than to rifle your room while you were at the inquest this morning was a filthy thing to do. I know that brow-beating you now is filthier—but I’m going to find out who killed your brother.’

  ‘It was that boy,’ said the woman, white-lipped. She had fallen back into her chair.

  ‘It was not that boy. And that’s why I shall go on thinking and spying and crawling and bullying until I find out who it really was. Now, tell me why you stole those letters.’ He moved forward and stood looking down at her.

  An ugly, dull flush spread over her face. She sat erect. Her colourless eyes inflamed.

  ‘You think—you dare to think that I killed him?’ she cried in a dreadful whisper.

  Anthony shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. I shall know better what I think when you’ve told me what I want to know.’

  ‘But what have those foul scratchings to do with—with John’s death?’ She pointed a shaking finger at the little package in his hands.

  ‘Nothing, everything, or just enough,’ said Anthony. ‘You’re asking me the very questions which I want you, indirectly, to answer.’

  She said: ‘I refuse,’ and closed tightly the thin-lipped mouth.

  ‘Must I force your hand?’ he asked. ‘Very well. You must tell me what I want to know, because, if you don’t, I shall go to Scotland Yard, where I have some small influence, and lay these letters and the story of how I found them before the authorities. You must tell me because, if you don’t, you will lead me to believe that you do, in fact, know something of how your brother met his death. You must tell me because, if you don’t’—he paused, and looked at her until she felt the gaze of the greenish eyes set in the swarthy face to be unbearable—‘because, if you don’t,’ he repeated, ‘the contents of these letters and their implication are bound to become known to others besides you and me. You will tell me because to keep that last from happening you would do anything.’

  Even as he finished speaking he knew that last shot had told, fired though it had been in the dark. The woman crumpled. And in her terror Anthony found her more human than before.

  ‘No, no, no!’ she whispered. ‘I’ll tell. I’ll tell.’

  Anthony stood, waiting.

  ‘Did you read those—those letters?’ The words came tumbling from her lips in almost unseemly haste.

  Anthony nodded assent.

  ‘Then you must know that this woman—the Thing that wrote them—was John’s—John’s mistress.’

  Again he nodded, watching curiously, the emotions that supplanted each other in the nondescript face of his victim. Fear he had seen and anxiety; but now there were both these with horror, indignation, tenderness for the dead, and a fervour of distaste for anything which savoured of ‘loose living’. He remembered what he had been told of the lady’s rigid dissentingness, and understood.

  She went on, more confidently now that she had once brought herself to speak of ‘unpleasantnesses’ to this strange man who watched her with his strange eyes.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘nearly a year ago I found out that John was—was associating with this—this woman. I will not tell you how I found out—it is too long a story—but my discovery was accidental. I taxed my brother with his wickedness; but he was so—strange and abrupt—his manner was violent—that I had to leave him with my protest barely voiced.

  ‘Afterwards I tried again and again to make him see the folly, the horror of the sin he was committing—but he would never listen. He would not listen to me, to me who had looked after him since he left school! And I was weak—sinfully weak—and I gave up trying to influence him and—and tried to forget what I had learnt. But those letters kept coming and then John would go away, and I—oh! what is the use—’ She broke off, covering her face with her hands.

  Anthony felt a growing pity; a pity irrationally the stronger for his own feeling of sympathy with the dead man in what must have been a sordid enough struggle against colourless Puritanism.

  She dabbed at the red-rimmed eyes with a handkerchief and straggled on.

  ‘There is not much more to tell you except—except that I—stole those letters for the very reason which you used to—to force me to tell you about them. It is wicked of me, but though John did sin, had been living a life of sin, I was determined to keep him clean in the eyes of the world; to keep the knowledge of the evil that he did from the sordid newspapers which would delight in making public the sins of the man they are lamenting as a loss to the nation. And he is a loss to the nation. My poor brother—my poor little brother—’ She leant her head against the back of her chair and wept, wept hopelessly, bitterly. The tears rolled slowly, unheeded, down the thin cheeks.

  Anthony felt himself despicable. A great surge of pity—almost of tenderness—swept over him. Yet the thought of the great-bodied, great-hearted, cleanly-sane man who was like to be hanged held him to his work.

  ‘Do you know,’ he asked, leaning forward, ‘the name of this woman?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her tone was drab, hopeless; she seemed broken. ‘At least, I know that which she goes by.’

  Anthony wa
ited in some bewilderment.

  ‘She is a dancer,’ said the woman, ‘and shameless. They call her Vanda.’

  ‘Good God!’ Anthony was startled into surprise. He was a fervent admirer, from this side of the footlights, of the beautiful Russian. He reflected that politicians were not always unlucky.

  He got to his feet. The woman started into life.

  ‘The letters!’ she cried. ‘Give me the letters!’

  He handed them to her. ‘My only stipulation,’ he said, ‘is that they’re not to be destroyed until I give the word.’ He looked at her searchingly. ‘I know that you won’t attempt to be rid of them until then. And please believe, Miss Hoode, that you have my sincere sympathy, and that there will be no idle talk of what we two know.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you,’ she said wearily. ‘And now, I suppose, you are happy. Though what good you have done Heaven alone knows!’

  Anthony looked down at her. ‘The good I have done is this: I have added to my knowledge. I know, now, that you had nothing to do with your brother’s death. And I know there is a woman in the business and who she is. She may not be concerned either directly or indirectly but the hackneyed French saying is often a useful principle to work on.’

  The pale eyes of Laura Hoode regarded him with curiosity. He felt with surprise that she seemed every minute to grow more human.

  ‘You are an unusual person, Mr Gethryn,’ she said. ‘You spy upon me and torture me—and yet I feel that I like you.’ She paused; then went on: ‘You tell me that you know that the young man Deacon did not kill my brother; you tell me that although I have behaved so suspiciously you know also that I had nothing to do with—with the crime. How do you know these things?’

  Anthony smiled. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘because you both told me. I know that neither of you did it as you would know, after talking to him, that the bishop hadn’t really stolen the little girl’s sixpence, even though all the newspapers had said he did. Now I must go. Good-night.’

  He left Laura Hoode smiling, smiling as she had not for many months.