The Rasp

by Philip MacDonald

  Suddenly there came a knocking on the great front door. This knocking was not loud, yet it seemed to the old man the more terrible for that. For there is always something terrible about a knock upon a door.

  For a full minute he strove to leave the shelter of the little, cheerful, glowing room. At last he succeeded, struggling through the beastly mysteries of the dimly lighted hall to open with trembling hands the great oak door.

  Anthony stepped over the threshold; stripped off dripping cap and mackintosh.

  ‘A dirty night, Poole,’ he said.

  ‘It is indeed, sir! Indeed it is, sir!’ The old man’s voice was hysterical with relief.

  Across the hall to them came Sir Arthur, sturdy, benign, hair as smoothly brushed as ever.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it, Gethryn?’ he said. ‘I wondered who was knocking. You must have very pressing business to bring you up here on a night like this. Aren’t you wet?’

  ‘Nothing to speak of. I wanted a talk with you. It’s important—and urgent.’

  Sir Arthur grew eager. ‘My dear boy, of course. Where shall we go? Billiard-room?’

  ‘All right.’

  They turned, but before they had crossed the hall:

  ‘Tell you what,’ Anthony said, ‘the study’d be better. Not so near the servants, you know.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Sir Arthur agreed.

  The study had that queer stillness which comes to a room at one time in constant use and then suddenly deserted save for the morning activities of a servant with duster and broom. It had an air of almost supernatural lifelessness increased, perhaps, by the fact that now everything was in its accustomed place; the same pictures on the walls; the table; the chairs; the very curtains cutting off the alcove at the far end of the room hanging in the old slightly disordered folds.

  A silence fell upon both men while they found chairs and drew them up to the table, under the light.

  Sir Arthur spoke first. ‘Out with it, now, Gethryn. You’ve excited me, you know.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘I’ve always thought you’d do something; go one better than those damn fools of policemen!’

  Anthony leant back in his chair. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a most unusual business. I said so at the beginning, and, by God, I say so now! You might say that I have solved the mystery. After I’ve told you, that is. And in another way, as you’ll see, it’s more of a puzzle than ever.’

  Sir Arthur leant forward. ‘Go on, man, go on! Do you mean to say you actually know who killed John?’

  ‘I do not.’ Anthony laid his head against the back of his chair and closed his leaden, burning eyes.

  Sir Arthur started to his feet. A crash of thunder drowned his words. Followed a zig-zag of lightning so vivid as to seem more of a stage-effect than an outburst of nature. Outside, the rain fell heavily, solidly—a veil of water. The furious blast of wind which had come hard on the heels of the great peal died away in a plaintive moan.

  Anthony opened his eyes. ‘What did you say? Before that barrage, I mean.’

  Sir Arthur paced the room. ‘What did I say?’ he exploded. ‘I said that if you hadn’t found out who did it, I couldn’t see the use of coming here and gabbling about mystery. Damn it, man, we’re not in a two-shilling novel! We’ve got to get Deacon off, that’s what we’ve got to do! And find the murderer! Not sit here and play at Holmes and Watson. It’s silly, what we’re doing! And I expected great things of you, Gethryn!’

  ‘That,’ Anthony said placidly, ‘was surely foolish.’

  Sir Arthur made impatient sounds in his throat; but lessened the pace of his prowling. Under the greying hair his broad forehead was creased in a tremendous frown.

  Anthony lit a cigarette. ‘But I may yet interest you,’ he went on. ‘You said, I think, that you wished to lay your hands on the murderer.’

  ‘I did. And by God I meant it!’

  Anthony looked up at him. ‘Suppose you sit down and then I’ll tell you all about it.’

  ‘Sit down!’ Sir Arthur shouted. ‘Sit down! God above, you’ll be telling me to keep calm next!’ He flung himself into his chair. ‘Here I am then. Now get on!’ He buried his face in his hands; then looked up to say: ‘You must forgive me, Gethryn; I’m not myself. I’ve been more on edge the last few days—a lot more—than I’ve let anyone see. And tonight, somehow, my nerves have gone. And when you came with news I thought it meant that you’d caught the real murderer and that the boy would get off—and—and everything!’

  ‘I was going to tell you,’ Anthony said, ‘that the murderer of John Hoode will never be caught. To get him is impossible. Please understand that when I say impossible I mean it.’

  ‘But why, man? Why?’ cried Sir Arthur.

  ‘Because,’ said Anthony slowly, ‘he doesn’t exist.’

  ‘What?’ Sir Arthur was on his feet again at a bound astonishing in its agility.

  Anthony lay back in his chair. ‘I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!’ he said plaintively. ‘You know, you’re very violent tonight, I can’t talk if you will jump about so.’

  The elder man groaned apology and sat again in his chair. His eyes, bewildered, sought Anthony’s.

  Raising his voice to carry above the increasing roar of the storm, Anthony said: ‘Sorry if I seem too mysterious. But you must let me elucidate in my own way. Here goes: I have said that the murderer of John Hoode doesn’t exist. I don’t mean that the murderer’s dead or that Hoode committed suicide. I mean that John Hoode was never killed; is not, in fact, dead.’

  Sir Arthur’s lips moved, but no sound came from them. His chair was outside the circle of light and it was by the vivid violet illumination of a quivering glare of lightning that Anthony saw the pallor the shock of his revelation had caused. Following that lightning came peal after peal of thunder.

  As it died away, Anthony saw that the other was speaking. He had not moved in his chair, but his strong, square hands were twisting about each other to testify to the intensity of his emotion.

  ‘What are you telling me?’ he whispered. ‘Are you mad? John not dead! John not dead! Why, it’s idiocy—stark idiocy to say what you have said!’

  Anthony shook his head. ‘It isn’t. Whatever it is, it isn’t that. Wait till I have told you more. It’s a long tale and strange.’

  Sir Arthur moistened his lips with his tongue but did not speak. Anthony’s words had carried conviction; his words and a way he had of commanding attention.

  The thunder, after the outburst of a moment before, seemed to have ceased entirely. No sudden furies of wind shook the house. The only sounds in the oppressive room were the tick-tick of the grandfather clock and the soft hish-hish of the rain against the closed windows.

  Anthony drew a deep breath, and began:

  ‘My first impression of this affair was, as you know, that it was a straightforward murder, committed by some member of this household. Later, I had good reason to search this table here, and it was from the time of that search that I began to revise my theories. In this table I found—as I had expected—a drawer hidden from the casual eye. From that drawer I took some letters, a collection of newspaper-cuttings, a memorandum book, and other papers. You shall see them all in due course.

  ‘The letters gave me my first inkling that there was something more obscure about the case than I had thought. So I went to the lady who had written those letters. From her I got the first pieces of the story, not without difficulty. I also went to see a man who had once been Hoode’s secretary. He was obliging and clever. He had seen things, heard things, while he served Hoode that had set him thinking. He thought so much that he employed, on his own initiative, a private detective. I have seen the detective. The detective, even after he was told to drop the business, went on detecting. You see, he had become interested. He is not a nice man. He smelt scandal and money. He, without knowing it, has helped me to piece together the whole amazing story—the story which shows how it was that John Hoode was not killed.’

  Sir Arthur, grey
of face, hammered with his fists on the leather-padded arms of his chair.

  ‘But the body!’ he gasped. ‘The body! It was there!’ He glanced wildly over his shoulder at the fireplace. ‘I saw it! I tell you I saw it!’ His voice gathered strength. ‘And the inquest, the arrests, the identifications! And the funeral! Why, you fool!’ he cried in a great voice, ‘the funeral is tomorrow. All England will be there! And you tell me this absurd story. What in God’s name has come to you that you can play pranks of this sort? Haven’t we all suffered enough without this?’ The man was shaking.

  Anthony sat up. ‘Wait!’ he said. ‘And let me finish. I said that John Hoode had not been murdered. I did not say that no murder had been done. Murder was done. I know it. You know it. The world knows it. But what you and the world do not know is that the body upon which the inquest was held, the body which is to be buried tomorrow, is not the body of John Hoode!’

  Sir Arthur glared at him. ‘What does this mean?’ he said, and his lips trembled. ‘What is all this? I don’t understand! I—I—’

  Sleep was creeping insidiously upon Anthony. He wished that the storm had not ceased. Its violence had at least helped to keep one awake, helped to conquer this deadly fatigue which made talking so great an effort.

  He began again: ‘The story is this. And though it’s as mad as Hatta and the King’s Messenger, it’s true. John Hoode’s mother, as you probably know, was, before marriage, a Miss Monteith. His father, as you must know also, was John Howard Beauleigh Hoode. Now, do you know that your John Hoode is very like—to look at, I mean—one of his parents and not the other?’

  ‘Yes, yes. He and his father were—well like twin brothers almost.’

  ‘Exactly. John Howard Beauleigh Hoode had a way of passing on his features. John Howard Beauleigh Hoode was married to Miss Adeline Rose Monteith in ’73. In ’72 John Howard Beauleigh Hoode’s mistress, the daughter of Ian Dougal—he was a smith in Ardenross—gave birth to a son. That son, named also John, was maintained and educated at his father’s expense; but he turned out as complete a waster as any man well could be. John Hoode—your John—didn’t know of his half-brother’s existence until John Howard Beauleigh Hoode’s death. When he did find out—from his father’s executors, I imagine—John—your John—was good to his bastard brother; and when first he saw him, he marvelled exceedingly at this bastard brother’s likeness to him, for to look at his face was almost like looking into a mirror.

  ‘The result of his kindness was the expected. Ingratitude, surliness, constant demands for money and yet more money; finally threats and blackmail—’

  ‘No, no, no!’ groaned Sir Arthur, his face in his hands. ‘It’s all lies, lies! I knew John. He told me everything, everything!’

  ‘Not he,’ Anthony said. ‘I’ve all the papers, some of them here.’ He tapped his breast-pocket. ‘Birth certificates. Copy of John Howard Beauleigh Hoode’s will, and so on. It’s all by the book. Well, things went from bad to worse and from worse to intolerable for John—your John. These threats—I’ll show you some letters later—wore his nerves, his health, to shreds. He tried every way of kindness—and failed.’ Anthony paused to moisten with his tongue his parched lips.

  ‘Finally,’ he went on, ‘John—your John—found his work for the State to be suffering. He is, as I see him, an upright, conscientious, kindly man, but determined. He made up his mind. He would help once more, but once more only. He sent for the other John. He told him when and how to come, how to approach the house, to get into this room by that window, all without being seen.

  ‘The other John came at the appointed time and knocked on the window. Your John helped him in. The other John, as always, was rotten with liquor. Your John told of the determination he had come to that this was to be the last time if the other John did not amend his ways. Then came trouble. Perhaps half-brother was more drunk than usual. Anyhow, he attacked your John. Sodden with drink though he was, he was the more powerful man. But John—your John—managed somehow to tear himself free. Not knowing what he did, he picked up the heavy poker and struck, not once, but many times—’

  ‘But what—Good God—!’

  Anthony overrode the interruption. ‘Wait. Don’t speak till I’ve finished. Appalled at what he had done, he stood looking down at his bastard half-brother’s body. It sprawled there on the hearth in its untidy, shabby, mud-stained clothes. It was not, I conceive, a pretty sight. Then John—your John—did what better men had done before him. He lost his head. Completely he lost his head. And he thought at the time that he was clever!

  ‘He locked the door, quietly, as the struggle had been quiet. Better for him had the struggle been noisy! He stripped to the skin. Then, naked as he was born, he stripped that sprawling thing which had been his brother. He donned the foul linen and musty clothes, the worn-out boots. More horrid still, he clad the body in his own good clothing. Carefully he did it, even to the tying of the black bow. And all the time, beneath his horror, was wonder for the amazing likeness of the thing’s face and body to his own. For half-brother John was not one of those who carry the stamp of their dissipations.

  ‘Then John—your John—hurried away. Through that window he went. As he crouched outside it, he heard the door of the room, which he had unlocked, open. He peered, and saw his sister. He saw her hand fly to her bosom. He saw her rush to the thing on the hearth. And he knew that his sister took that Thing for the brother she had known and loved and cherished all her life.

  ‘He heard her scream. He saw her sway and fall. For an instant sanity returned, and he thought of going back to help her. Then fear got him by the throat again; fear of arrest; fear of publicity; fear of the hangman. He saw it all. And he drifted silently away through the darkness. And next morning, while the world read about his death, John Hoode lay in a Whitechapel doss-house. Later, an officious policeman found a carpenter’s wood-rasp and on it some blood and some fingerprints. So Deacon was arrested for the murder of a man who was still alive. The blood on that wood-rasp was not the dead man’s, nor were the fingerprints Deacon’s. The explanation is long, but I will give it if you like.’ Anthony half closed his eyes and lay back in his chair.

  A silence fell upon the room.

  Sir Arthur shattered it. He leapt to his feet, his virility returned uncannily a thousandfold. The light-blue eyes held fire in them.

  ‘It’s a lie!’ he roared. ‘It’s a lie!’ He smashed his fist down upon the table. ‘A lie, I tell you! What’s that?’ He turned sharply to face the end of the room.

  ‘What?’ Anthony rose to his feet.

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ He came close to Anthony. ‘What you tell me is lies! All lies! Lies and more lies, you—!’ His voice rose with each word.

  Suddenly, amazingly, Anthony shouted too. ‘It’s true, and you must believe it! Your help is wanted.’ He thrust his thin, dark face at the other’s. ‘It’s the truth! Truth! D’you understand? I know! I know because—because Hoode told me himself—today! He’s coming here tonight! Now!’

  Sir Arthur flung his arms above his head. ‘Lies, lies, lies!’ His voice rose to a harsh, unnatural scream, ‘All lies! God rot him! Christ torture his soul in hell! He’s dead! He’s dead! You fool! I know, I, I! You know nothing!’ His hands seemed to be reaching higher, clawing, as if they would tear holes in heaven.

  ‘You fool!’ he screamed again. ‘He’s dead. I know! I killed him! I climbed down and killed him—’

  Anthony sat down on the edge of the table. ‘That’ll be all, I think,’ he said.

  The curtains over the alcove at the end of the room parted. From behind them came three men: the first tall and of middle-aged immaculateness, the second an obvious detective-inspector, the third negligible save for the pencil and notebook he carried.

  Sir Arthur turned, crouching like an animal, to see the invasion. In a flash he whipped round and leapt at Anthony’s throat, his arms outflung, his fingers crooked. Anthony, still sitting, had little time to avoid the rush. He raise
d a knee sharply. Sir Arthur fell to the floor, where for a time he rolled in agony.

  The obvious detective-inspector bent over him. There was a click of handcuffs.

  The immaculate man advanced to the table. ‘Very good indeed, Gethryn,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Anthony said. ‘I suppose you’re satisfied now, Lucas?’

  ‘Eminently, Gethryn, eminently!’ Mr Lucas beamed.

  ‘Then that’s all right.’ Anthony’s tone was heavy. ‘Now what about young Deacon? Can you unwind the red tape quickly?’

  Mr Lucas leant forward. ‘If you like,’ he whispered, ‘I can arrange for him to get away tonight. It’s all very wrong and most unofficial; but I can manage it. Speak to the chief on the ’phone and all that sort of thing, you know.’

  Anthony’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘Good for you. You might have Deacon told that if he likes I can arrange for the Bear and Key to fix him up for tonight.’

  ‘I’ll tell him myself,’ said the other. ‘You’re really rather a wonder, Gethryn! We ought to have you as a sort of super-superintendent. Or you might do well on the stage. At one time just now you almost took me in with that grisly tale and manner of yours. And what a yarn it was, too. Just enough to make that half-crazy devil think he’d killed the wrong man. Enough, I mean, to make him wonder whether you hadn’t got half the tale right and had only gone astray about who actually did the bashing.’ Lucas chuckled reminiscently. ‘I say,’ he added, ‘it was a good thing nobody heard us getting in here through the window. It would’ve spoilt the whole thing. The storm effect helped everything along nicely, though, didn’t it?’

  ‘It did,’ Anthony said. ‘I didn’t arrange that, you know.’

  Mr Lucas smiled. ‘No, I suppose not; though I’m so full at the moment of wonder and admiration for the great Colonel Gethryn that if anyone told me you had, I don’t know that I should disbelieve ’em.’ He turned to look at the prisoner. ‘God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look at that!’

  For Sir Arthur was sitting quietly at the feet of the plain-clothes man. And he was playing a little game with his manacled hands, tracing with both forefingers the intricate pattern of the carpet. Every now and again he would look up at his guard and laugh. It was not a pleasant sound, being childish and yet somehow evil.