The Rasp. Philip MacDonald
wager it wasn’t, though. I’m sure you’re right, sir. I hadn’t noticed the sofa had been shifted. This is a very queer case, sir, very queer!’
‘It is, or anyhow it feels like that. What about the body, Boyd? Aren’t you going to have it moved?’
‘Yes, sir, any time now. It was going to be moved before you came; then Jardine wanted to take some more photos. After that, you being here, sir—well, I thought if you were going to have anything to do with the case you might like to see everything in status quo, so to speak.’
Anthony smiled. ‘Thanks, Boyd,’ he said. ‘You’re a good chap, you know. This isn’t the first job we’ve done together by any means; but all the same, it’s most refreshing to find you devoid of the pro’s righteous distrust of the amateur.’
Boyd smiled grimly. ‘Oh, I’ve got that all right, sir. But I don’t regard you in that light, if I may say so, though we may disagree before this case is over. And—well, sir, I’ve not forgotten what you did for me that night down at Sohlke’s place in Limehouse—’
‘Drop it, man, drop it,’ Anthony groaned.
Boyd laughed. ‘Very well, sir. Now I’ll go and see about having the body moved upstairs.’
‘And I,’ said Anthony, ‘shall think—here or in the garden. By the way, when’s the inquest?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon, here,’ said Boyd, and left the room.
Anthony ruminated. This study of Hoode’s, he reflected, was curious, being in itself the end of the longer wing of the house and having, therefore, window or windows in all three sides. As Boyd had said, only one of these windows was open, the farthest from the door of the three which looked out upon the terraced gardens and the river at their foot. All the others—two in the same wall, one in the end wall, and two overlooking the drive—were shut and latched on the inside. The open one was open top and bottom.
Anthony looked at it, then back at the writing-table. He seemed dissatisfied, for he next walked to the window, surveyed the room from there, and then crossed to the swivel-chair at the writing-table and sat down. From here he again peered at the open window, which was then in front of him and slightly to his left.
He was still in the chair when Boyd came back, bringing with him a policeman in plain clothes and a man in the leather uniform of a chauffeur. Anthony did not move; did not answer when Boyd spoke to him.
The body covered and lifted, the grim little party, Boyd leading, made for the door. As they steered carefully through it, the grandfather clock began to strike the hour. Its deep ring had, it seemed to Anthony, a note ominous and mournful.
The door clicked to behind the men and the shrouded thing they carried. The clock struck again.
‘Good for you, grandfather,’ muttered Anthony, without turning in his chair to look. ‘I wish to High Heaven you could talk for a moment or two.’
‘Bong!’ went the clock again.
Anthony pulled out his watch. The hands stood at eleven o’clock. ‘All right, grand-dad,’ he said. ‘You needn’t say any more. I know the time. I wish you could tell me what happened last night instead of being so damned musical.’
The clock went on striking. Anthony wandered to the door, paused; and went back to the writing-table. As he sat down again the clock chimed its final stroke.
He felt a vague discomfort, shook it off and continued his scrutiny of the table. It was of some age, and beautiful in spite of its solidity. The red leather covering of its top had upon it many a stain of wear and inks. Yet one of these stains seemed to differ from the general air of the others. He rubbed it with his fingers. It was raised and faintly sticky. It was at the back of the flat part of the table-top. Immediately behind it rose two tiers of drawers and pigeon-holes. Also, its length was bisected by a crack in the wood.
He rubbed at the stain again; then cursed aloud. That vague sense of something wrong in the room, something which did not fit, the essential sanity of life, had returned to his head and spoilt these new thoughts.
The door opened and shut. ‘What’s the matter, sir? Puzzled?’ Boyd came and stood behind him.
‘Yes, dammit!’ Anthony swung round impatiently. ‘This room’s getting on my nerves. Either there’s something wrong in it or I’ve got complex fan-tods. Never mind that, though. Boyd, I think I’m going to give you still more proof that there was no struggle. Come here.’
Boyd came eagerly. Anthony twisted round to face the table again.
‘Attend! The body was found over there by the fireplace. If one accepts as true the indications that a struggle took place, the natural inference is that Hoode was overpowered and struck down where he was found. But we have found certain signs that lead us to believe that the struggle was, in fact, no struggle at all, and here, I think, is another which will also show that Hoode’s body was dragged over to the hearth after he had been killed.’
Boyd grew excited. ‘How d’you mean, sir?’
‘This is what I mean.’ Anthony pointed to the stain he had been examining. ‘Look at this mark here, where my finger is. Doesn’t it look different to the others?’
‘Can’t say that it does to me, sir. I had a look over that table myself and saw nothing out of the ordinary run.’
‘Well, I beg to differ. It not only looks different, it feels different. I notice these things. I’m so psychic, you know!’
Boyd grinned at the chaff, watching with keen interest as Anthony opened a penknife and inserted the blade in the lock of the table’s middle drawer.
‘I think,’ said Anthony, ‘that this is one of those old jump locks. Aha! it is.’ He pulled open the drawer. ‘Now, was that stain different? Voilà! It was.’
Boyd peered over Anthony’s shoulder. The drawer was a long one, reaching the whole width of the table. In it were notebooks, pencils, half-used scribbling pads, and, at the back, a pile of notepaper and envelopes.
On the white surface of the topmost envelope of the pile was a dark, brownish-red patch of the size, perhaps, of a half-crown. Boyd examined it eagerly.
‘You’re right, sir!’ he cried. ‘It’s blood right enough. I see what you were going to say. This is hardly dry. It must have dripped through that crack where the stain you pointed out was. And the position of that stain is just where the deceased’s head would have fallen if he had been sitting in this chair here and had been hit from behind.’
‘Exactly,’ said Anthony. ‘And after the first of those pats on the head Hoode must’ve been unconscious—if not dead. Ergo, if he received the first blow sitting here, as this proves he did, there was no struggle. One doesn’t sit down at one’s desk to resist a man one thinks is going to kill one, does one? What probably happened is that the murderer—who was never suspected to be such by Hoode—got behind him as he sat here, struck one or all of the blows, and then dragged the body over to the hearth to lend a touch of naturalness to the scene of strife he was going to prepare. He must be a clever devil, Boyd. There’s never a stain on the carpet between here and the fireplace. There wouldn’t have been on the table either, only he didn’t happen to spot it.’
The detective nodded. ‘I agree with you entirely, sir.’
But Anthony did not hear him. That wrong something was troubling him again. He clutched his head, trying vainly to fix the cause of this feeling.
Boyd tried again. ‘Well, we know a little more now, sir, anyhow. Quite a case for premeditation, so to speak—thanks to you.’
Anthony brought himself back to earth. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘But hearken again, Boyd. I have yet more to say. Don’t wince, I have really. Here it is. Assuming the reliability as a witness of Poole, the old retainer, we know the murderer didn’t come into this room through the door. Nor could