The Noose

by Philip MacDonald

  ‘Thanks.’ Anthony nodded to her very evident desire for exit. The word was barely out of his mouth when the door closed and Annie was no longer with them.

  ‘That,’ said Lucia, ‘is a very pretty child.’

  ‘It is.’ Anthony remained looking at the closed door, as if his eyes were still watching the small figure in its charming uniform. After a moment he shrugged, frowned and turned away. ‘What about this breakfast? Going to wash?’

  They washed. They went downstairs and into the door marked Coffee Room. The clock upon the mantel showed the time to be nine-forty-five. In the far corner of the long, low room there sat, behind the Morning Post, a man. Otherwise the room was empty of humans. At the foot of their table, which was close to the fire of apple-logs which flamed and crackled in the arched brick fireplace, lay a sleepy Dalmatian who cocked his head at their approach, surveyed them, passed them, and put his head down again and once more slept.

  ‘He’s rather a dear,’ Lucia said. She sat at the table and turned her chair and bent down and scratched the broad, black-spotted head.

  ‘He’s a gent,’ said Anthony. ‘And he’s asleep.’ He spoke very low. ‘So he won’t listen. But what about the “quiet gentleman”? Damn him, he’s late over his breakfast. I want to talk. I must talk. I’ve got to that stage when I can’t think straight unless I think aloud.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Lucia, ‘whisper like that and talk.’ She touched the bell by the fireplace and presently came an aged but brisk waiter.

  It was a good breakfast. They dealt with it fairly. And over it, when they did talk, they talked of matters which a thousand quiet gentlemen might without damage have heard. At intervals, Anthony glared into the far corner, but always and only to see the Morning Post. Lucia, affected, turned to glare too. She saw the Morning Post. Tacitly, they put a wish on this quiet gentleman. But he remained rooted. No sound came from his quiet and gentlemanly corner save—and this very occasionally (strangely seldom, Anthony thought)—quiet and gentlemanly rustles of the Morning Post behind which he remained, semi-visible and apparently wholly content.

  They gave him up as a bad and a very bad job. They relapsed themselves into silence. Anthony behind creased brows went round and round that circle of his thinking. Lucia, behind eyes grown suddenly sad and afraid, thought of the woman whose house they now were in.

  They reached the end of their meal. Anthony took out his case. They lit cigarettes. They still were silent with their thoughts. There came a loud rustle from the Morning Post, a real rustle; but they paid no heed. Then, following the rustle, came the sound of a chair being pushed back and following that sound, footsteps.

  Anthony heard, but did not look up. He waited for the quiet gentleman’s complete going. But the footsteps, instead of passing by, upon the room’s far side, came across towards the fireplace and Anthony’s table. And they stopped. And there came the sound of a cough, deliberate and apologetic.

  Anthony, his brow furrowed by a scowl, calculated to scare the quietest gentleman who might wish to pass the time of day, did now raise head and eyes.

  His frown went and his eyes widened. He said, softly: ‘Great Scotland Yard! Pike!’

  II

  They sat about the fire in the Smoking Room—Anthony and Anthony’s wife and Chief Detective-Inspector Arnold Pike of the CID.

  ‘But why,’ said Anthony, ‘oh why, and oh why, my Pike, did you hide so long? Why entrench yourself behind that paper? You’ve wasted time, you know? Why not declare yourself?’

  The smooth-shaven, rectangular face of Pike changed in hue from its normal healthy tan to a dull, glowing red. But Pike is no coward. He said:

  ‘Thought you’d think it was cheek, sir. My pushing in. Had to screw up my courage.’

  ‘Cheek!’ said Anthony. ‘Good Gad!’

  ‘Mr Pike,’ Lucia said, ‘there’s one thing I want to say to you. It won’t take long. It’s just—thank you!’

  Anthony nodded. ‘Many hears! Pike, you’re the original good scout. To give up a two-year late holiday and come down here to help in the wildest and saddest of wild-goose chases …’

  Pike cut him short. He said, his face flaming once more:

  ‘Haven’t given up anything, sir. Pleasure to be allowed to work with you. I am on holiday. I don’t look like a policeman now, do I, sir?’ He looked down, not without complacence, at the worn tweeds and brown shoes which had replaced the dark suit and black boots of his official life.

  Anthony laughed. ‘You don’t!’ Laughter faded suddenly from his voice and manner. He said: ‘I’m going to take you at your word. You’re in on this. So now we’ll get on. We’ve got to realise one thing—and keep on realising it, holding it in front of our noses. Time! That’s what’s against us.’ He got to his feet in a sudden movement. ‘We’ve got to start—and when we’ve started we mustn’t stop … Pike! What d’you know about the business?’

  ‘All the paper stuff.’ Pike’s voice was crisp and quick. ‘That’s all.’

  Anthony nodded. ‘Me, too. And my wife. And what would you say, Pike, in ordinary circumstances, after reading those papers?’

  ‘Guilty,’ said Pike.

  Again Anthony nodded. ‘Exactly. A very nice, straightforward case, with all the flats neatly joined …’

  ‘Flats, sir?’ Pike’s eyebrows went up in query.

  ‘Theatrical term, Pike. No loose ends about … Yes, a very tidy job … So tidy, in fact, that it is in me to wonder whether it isn’t too tidy. Very rare to get a murder case utterly straightforward—if you except killings in quarrels.’

  ‘Which this, sir,’ Pike put in, ‘might have been. I mean, there were these two in that wood. No love lost between ’em, and that Blackatter, from what we can make out, one of the nasty, sneering sort.’

  Anthony ceased his pacing. He turned sharply. He said:

  ‘Yes. But we must start at the other end. We’re prejudiced, because we’ve got to be or we shan’t get anywhere. We’re assuming that Bronson, though he might kill a man, would not kill that man by blowing the back of his head off at a range of twelve inches. We’re more than assuming that, we’re telling ourselves that we know it. Because if we didn’t know it, we should neither have a real jumping-off place nor, if we did get a starting-point, could we have the necessary ardour even to attempt to do the miracle we’re straining after. Understand?’

  Pike nodded; but his nod was slow, and there was a pause before he spoke. He said then:

  ‘I see the … theory, as you might call it, sir. Whether I can … can get into the skin of it …’ He broke off with a little shrug.

  Lucia spoke now. ‘If Mr Pike,’ she said softly, ‘were to talk to Mrs Bronson …’

  Anthony swung round to face her. ‘Top of the form!’ he said. ‘He shall. Pike, you’ve got to get the point of view! If you don’t, fifty per cent of your usefulness ’ll be missing. And I want a hundred and ninety-nine per cent of it.’

  Pike smiled. ‘I’ll do my best, sir. And I will, if she’ll see me, talk to Mrs Bronson … And I’ll stay and help anyway … But whether I’ll …’ Again he broke off his sentence; again shrugged.

  Anthony dropped into the armchair facing his wife’s. He stared a moment at the fire. ‘You shall see Mrs Bronson,’ he said. ‘In a few minutes. Just now we’ll go on talking. And if you can’t believe yet, Pike, please assume. Now to get back: and don’t forget we’re working upside-down. As Bronson did not kill Blackatter at all, therefore Bronson did not kill Blackatter in a quarrel, and, therefore also, Blackatter was not killed in any sudden quarrel by anybody but was killed at the climax of a highly polished plan whose partly achieved object was two deaths, Blackatter’s and Bronson’s.’

  There was silence then while Pike, his long smooth-shaven jaw cupped in his palms, considered this. He looked up at last. He said:

  ‘I don’t like it, sir. It’s clever; but it doesn’t seem to me to fit. This new murderer of yours; as I see it, if he wanted to get rid of both Blackat
ter and Bronson, all he’s got to do is to get ’em both up there in that wood the way he must’ve done in your version and then just shoot ’em both and clear off. Much easier than running the risk of just leaving Bronson there stunned when Bronson might ’ve seen him and been able to split.’

  Pike came to an end a little breathless; he had spoken very fast. His colour was heightened. He was arguing with Colonel Gethryn, for whom, ever since the Lines-Bower case, he had borne a respect amounting as near to reverence as a man of his sort might manage to attain.

  Colonel Gethryn smiled at him a friendly smile. But Colonel Gethryn shook his head.

  ‘That won’t do, Pike,’ he said. ‘You’ve not seen all round it. Your argument holds water up to a point; but only up to the point that X could have killed both men; for obviously it was either due to X that Blackatter and Bronson came together in that wood that night; or else X knew that together there they would be; or else he took one, or both, there himself. That’s right, then, that he could have killed both. But to go on from there and say because he could and didn’t proves that he doesn’t exist, is all wrong …’

  ‘May be all wrong, sir,’ Pike muttered rather than spoke.

  ‘Is all wrong,’ said Anthony. ‘You’ve forgotten the starting-point. You’ve forgotten it because you can’t—not yet, anyhow—force your mind to begin from it. Anything, Pike, that proved or was used as possible proof that X, the unknown killer, has no existence must be wrong. Because our starting-point is the knowledge—knowledge, Pike—that Bronson did not kill Blackatter. It’s established, therefore, that X killed Blackatter. My next step is to say that X has endeavoured to kill Bronson as well, the method chosen for Bronson being a rope instead of a gun. Because, if X had merely desired a scapegoat, then he could easily have found a more plausible one than Bronson. Read through that dossier again, or remember all you read in it—and into it—of Blackatter’s character. Not a nice man, you know. Not at all a nice man. A man with a very hazy occupation—he’s called, variously, farmer, horse-dealer, independent-means, pensioner and smallholder, with a final consolidation, probably for convenience, on smallholder. He was, no doubt, all of these things a little. But he was equally obviously a bad hat in one way and another—poacher on a large scale for one thing, I should say. Definitely a wife-stealer and daughter-spoiler; equally definitely a bully. That man must have had enemies in thick clusters over half the county. Real enemies, I mean. And yet, before the night of the murder, his only visible point of contact with Bronson is Bronson’s refusal to have him in this pub or anywhere near it. No, X could have found a hundred scapegoats easier to plant it on than Bronson. But he chose Bronson. Therefore it was a double-death he was after—a particular double-death, Blackatter’s and Bronson’s … That all right?’

  Pike smiled; a slow and rather worried smile. ‘You know it is, sir.’

  ‘Why the harrassed air, then?’

  Pike hesitated. ‘It’s just … it’s just … if I look that, sir, it’s because I’m almost getting to the point of view you want.’

  Anthony smiled. ‘It’s all a question of Coué, Pike. If we all say, and keep saying, and you say to yourself: “We know Bronson did not kill Blackatter,” you’ll find it comes to you. But it oughtn’t to make you care-worn …’

  Pike sat up. He said, with a vehemence so unusual, so unexpected and so fierce as to make Lucia Gethryn visibly start:

  ‘Oughtn’t it, by Willy! I say it ought, and I say it will! If it’s right that Bronson didn’t do it, there’s a man in prison, waiting for a rope which he hasn’t earned. Waiting! And p’r’aps going to get it. Oughtn’t to worry …’ He broke off. He was sitting forward, his hands gripping the arms of his chair with a grip which made white islands of his knuckles. He stopped speaking, in the middle of that sentence, and sat with his mouth open while there visibly swept over him realisation of his words and tone and attitude. For the third time that morning the colour streamed up to his long face. He shut his mouth and opened it again to begin, looking anxiously towards Lucia, a stammering apology.

  But she would have none of it. She smiled at him a smile which took away his breath with its beauty and its friendliness. She said:

  ‘Mr Pike. There seems to be only one thing this morning for me to say to you. So I’d better say it again, hadn’t I?… Thank you!’

  And Anthony said:

  ‘I thought your worry was academic. But thank God it isn’t. Now you kick me for a fool and everything in the garden will be beautiful.’

  Pike beamed. He let the beam fade and said:

  ‘You were saying, sir, that X was after a particular double-death. Have you gone on from there at all? In thinking it out, I mean to say.’

  ‘Thus far,’ said Anthony. ‘That though X must have known and been known to Blackatter, as at least a potential danger, he cannot have so been known to Bronson. Get me, Steve? I hope so, because that, in its implications, is very rummy indeed. So rummy that presently I’m going to be drawn to a conclusion which is very chancey, extremely improbable and yet the only answer I’d care to bet on.’

  ‘I get you, sir,’ Pike said. ‘At least, I think I see how you got there. You mean that, if X had been known as possibly dangerous to Bronson and not to Blackatter, then the murder would ’ve been planted t’other way round.’

  ‘And,’ said the soft, deep voice of Lucia, ‘that if Mr (or Miss or Mrs) X had been known as a potential murderer both to Blackatter and Bronson, then he’d ’ve had to kill both for fear that any alive one left about would say—’

  ‘“Twarn’t me,”’ said Anthony, ‘“it was ’im!” Exactly.… Marriage is a funny thing. Until this moment, dear, I’ve never suspected you of logic … But you’re right. And so was Pike. So what are we faced by? By the fact that X is a man who feared both Blackatter and Bronson but who knew that Bronson would not associate him, in his ordinary self, with the death of Blackatter and his (Bronson’s) apparent connection with it …’

  Lucia held up appealing hands. ‘Stop! Stop! And say that again, much more slowly.’

  Pike grinned at that. ‘Can’t say I’d mind a repeat myself, sir.’

  Anthony sighed. ‘We are faced with this,’ he said, with slow solemnity, picking each word: ‘That X feared Blackatter, so much that he had to kill him; that X feared Bronson, so much that he had to arrange, too, for Bronson’s death; that X, however, although he did fear Bronson, could yet afford to let the Law, in all its slowness and with all its chance-giving to an accused, kill Bronson for him.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Lucia. Her hands covered her eyes. ‘Go on, quick. Don’t stop—if there’s any more.’

  ‘With you, sir.’ Pike’s tone was cheerful. ‘Maybe a bit ahead, but I wouldn’t like to bet on it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Anthony. ‘This, if you look at it, is a rum situation. Let us all look at it. Let us, in turn, expound theories as to how such a situation might be.’ He looked at his wife. ‘You first, ma’am.’

  Lucia took away her hands which had been clutching her head. She was silent for a long moment. She said at last:

  ‘Bronson might have known something, but not have known that that something was about the X whom he knew … That’s very badly put …’

  ‘No, no,’ said Pike quickly.

  Lucia sent him another smile. ‘Again,’ she said, ‘thank you. But it was. I ought to ’ve said: Bronson might’ve known something about somebody, but not known that that somebody was X—while X knew all this but was frightened of Bronson finding out some time that he (that is X) was the person Bronson knew the something about.’

  ‘Ninety-five,’ said Anthony, ‘out of one hundred. Now, you, Pike.’

  Pike spoke at once. He said:

  ‘Bronson might have known something about X in the past and known the present X was the same man, but, not associating X in any way with Blackatter, would not see any bearing of this bit of knowledge on the death of Blackatter. That’s assuming, of course, that he didn’t know X was frig
htened of Blackatter.’

  ‘Ninety-eight,’ said Anthony, ‘out of one hundred. The extra three’s for neatness. Both are possibly right; but I’d plump for a bit out of each, plus something you’ve both left out. I’ll put it the other way round and make a story out of it. Thus: Blackatter in the past discovers something discreditable about X. The same thing (it’s straining coincidence too much to assume a different thing), the same thing is discovered by Bronson. Blackatter remembers everything. Bronson—another sort—forgets, perhaps everything, certainly all save the incident. That’s the past. Now present-day: Blackatter and X and Bronson are, certainly by accident upon the part of X and Bronson, probably by design upon the part of Blackatter, all in the same part of the world. To X Blackatter discovers his knowledge. X says, after the first shock, “Well, what about it? It’s only your word against mine.” But Blackatter says: “Ah! No, it isn’t then. What about D. Bronson?” because Blackatter knows that Bronson knows. “Oh,” says X, “he’s in this with you, is he?” Blackatter says, “No, he isn’t. But he’d be with me if it came to proving. He’d have to be. He’s an honest man.” X thinks about that and says, sooner or later in the tale, “Meet me in the wood.” He then does in Blackatter and plants the killing on Bronson. Back in our recent style, that leave us like this … I’ll write it so that we can keep the formula and not get rattled by having to think back over the steps.’

  He took a pencil from one pocket and a slim notebook from another. From the book he tore a sheet. He wrote:

  ‘X knew that Bronson knew the something; but X knew that Bronson—

  either

  (a) did not realise that he knew it,

  or

  (b) certainly did not connect X, in this or any other way, with Blackatter,

  or

  (c) a + b.’

  He handed this first to Pike and then, when he had got it back with a decisive nod, to his wife. She was longer over it than Pike. But she raised her head at last. She too nodded. Her dark eyes were wide; they shone with a mingling of effort, excitement and affection. She said, in a breathless, small voice which was almost a whisper: