The Rasp

The Owl shows its blue and gilt cover on the bookstalls every Saturday morning. Thursday nights are therefore nights of turmoil in the offices in Fleet Street. They are always wearing nights; more so, of course, in hot weather than in cold. They are nights of discomfort for the office-boy and of something worse for the editor.

Spencer Hastings edited The Owl, and owned a third of it; and the little paper’s success showed him to possess both brains and capacity for hard work. For a man of thirty-three he had achieved much; but that capacity for work was hard tested⁠—especially on Thursday nights. As to the brains, there was really no doubt of their quality. Take, for instance, The Owl “specials.” After he had thought of them and given birth to the first, The Owl, really a weekly review, was enabled to reap harvests in the way of “scoops” without in any way degenerating into a mere purveyor of news.

The thing was worked like this: If, by the grace of God or through a member of the “special” staff or by any other channel, there came to Hastings’s ears a piece of Real News which might as yet be unknown to any of the big daily or evening papers, then within a few hours, whatever the day or night of the week, there appeared a special edition of The Owl. It bore, in place of the blue and gold, a cover of red and black. The letterpress was sparse. The price was two pence.

Anthony turned in at the little gate and made for the house. At the head of the steps before the verandah he paused. Voices came to his ear. The tone of the louder induced him to walk away from the verandah and along the house to his right. He halted by the first ground-floor window and listened, peering into the room.

Inside stood two men, one a little, round-shouldered, black-coated fellow with a dead-white face and hands that twisted nervously; the other tall, burly, crimson-faced, fierce-moustached, clad in police blue with the three stripes of a sergeant on his arm.

It was the policeman’s voice that had attracted Anthony’s attention. Now it was raised again, more loudly than before.

“You know a blasted sight more o’ this crime than you says,” it roared.

The other quivered, lifted a shaking hand to his mouth, and cast a hunted look round the room. He seemed, thought Anthony, remarkably like a ferret.

“I don’t, sergeant. Re-really I d-don’t,” he stammered.

The sergeant thrust his great face down into that of his victim. “I don’t believe you this mornin’ any more’n I did last night,” he bellowed. “Now, Belford, me lad, you confess! If you ’olds out against Jack ’Iggins you’ll be sorry.”

Anthony leaned his arms on the windowsill and thrust head and shoulders into the room.

“Now, sergeant,” he said, “this sort of thing’ll never do, you know.”

The effect of his intrusion tickled pleasantly his sense of the dramatic. Law and Order recovered first, advanced, big with rage, to the window and demanded what was the meaning of the unprintable intrusion.

Anthony thought aloud: “Finger-holes. Just where my fingers would go if I was a good deal narrower across the shoulders and squatted here and tried to look into the room without bringing either of my feet on to the bed.”

He stepped deliberately on to the flowerbed and bent to examine the low sill of the window. There was a smudge on the rough stone. It might be a dried smear of earthy fingers. On the other hand, it might be almost anything else. But as he straightened his back a bluish-black gleam caught his eye.

He investigated, and found, hanging from a crevice in the rough edge of the sill, a woman’s hair. It was a long hair, and jet black.

“That explains the closeness of those fingermarks,” he muttered. “A woman in the case, eh? Now, why was she here, in front of the closed window? And was she here last night? Or this morning, quite innocent like? The odds are it was last night. One doesn’t crouch outside a Cabinet Minister’s window in daylight. Nor at all, unless one’s up to no good. No, I think you were here last night, my black beauty. I love little pussy, her hair is so black, and if I don’t catch her she’ll never come back. Now where did you come from, Blackie dear? And have you left any other cards? O, Shades of Doyle! What a game!”

He stepped back on to the path and knelt to examine the stone edging to the flowerbed.

She turned the handle, and entered a bedroom well furnished but in a state of appalling disorder. A dying fire⁠—the temperature that day had been over ninety in the shade⁠—belched out from the littered grate occasional puffs of black smoke. The bedclothes were tossed and rumpled; half of them on the floor. A small table sprawled on its side in the middle of the room. Crumpled newspapers were everywhere, everywhere. Huddled in an armchair by the fireplace was a man.

His hair was wild, his eyes bright, burning with fever. A stubble of black beard was over the thin face. Over his cheekbones was spread a brilliant flush. A man obviously ill, with temperature running high.

One must sympathise with Margaret. She had expected any scene but this. Again fear seized her. What a fool she had been to come! What a fool! This man Masterson was ill; yet she couldn’t feel sorry for him. Those over-bright eyes fixed on hers were so malevolent somehow.

She stammered something. Her mouth was so dry that coherent speech seemed impossible.

Then the man got out of his chair. Dully, she noticed how great was the tax on his strength. He clutched at the mantel for support. Dislodged by his elbow, a bottle crashed down and splintered on the tiles of the hearth. The smell of whisky, which always made her feel sick, combined with apprehension and the heat of the room, to set Margaret’s senses dancing a fantastic reel.

Clutching the mantelpiece, the man attempted a bow. “You must pardon my appearance,” he said, and his voice made the girl shrink back, “but I am⁠—am at your service. Oh, yes, believe me. What can I have the great pleasure of⁠—of doing for you? Eh?”

Drawing near the house he saw that the great oaken door stood open, letting a shaft of hot, clean, morning sunlight paint a golden track across the polished floor of the wide hall. He entered, flung his hat on to a chair, and turned in the direction of the stairs.

He had set foot upon the third step when from behind and below him came a noise⁠—a rasping roar of a noise. To his overtired brain and overheated imagination it seemed a noise evil and inhuman. He swung round. The hall was as he had left it, empty of all save furniture. He descended the three steps; stood looking about him; then walked towards the front door. Before he could reach it, the noise came again, louder this time. The same roaring, rasping sound. But this time it had for a tail a snuffling choke which came, obviously, from the throat of a man.

Anthony laughed at himself. Noiselessly, he retraced his steps, passed the foot of the stairs, and halted outside the door opposite that of the study. It stood ajar, giving him a glimpse of the little room which he remembered as being the lair of the butler.

Anthony waited. In a moment came the roar again, now recognisable as half-cough, half-sneeze. Anthony pushed the door wide. Facing it, huddled in a chair, was the butler.