The Rasp

The Rasp

By Philip MacDonald.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Dedication
4. Epigraph
5. The Rasp
   1. I: Tolling the Bell
      1. I
      2. II
   2. II: Anthony Gethryn
   3. III: Cock Robin’s House
      1. I
      2. II
      3. III
   4. IV: Study
   5. V: The Lady of the Sandal
      1. I
      2. II
      3. III
   6. VI: Secretary and the Sister
      1. I
      2. II
   7. VII: The Prejudiced Detective
   8. VIII: The Inefficiency of Margaret
      1. I
      2. II
      3. III
      4. IV
   9. IX: The Inquest
      1. I
      2. II
      3. III
      4. IV
   10. X: Birds of the Air
       1. I
       2. II
   11. XI: The Bow and Arrow
   12. XII: Exhibits
   13. XIII: Irons in the Fire
       1. I
       2. II
   14. XIV: Hay-Fever
       1. I
       2. II
       3. III
   15. XV: Anthony’s Busy Day
       1. I
       2. II
       3. III
       4. IV
       5. V
   16. XVI: Revelation and the Sparrow
       1. I
       2. II
   17. XVII: By The Owl’s Commissioner
   18. XVIII: Enter Fairy Godmother
       1. I
       2. II
       3. III
6. Endnotes
7. Colophon
8. Uncopyright

Imprint

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To
The Guv’nor

All the Birds of the Air
Fell a-sighin’ and a-sobbin’
When they heard of the death
Of poor Cock Robin.

⋮

“Who’ll dig his Grave?”
“I,” said the Owl,
“With my little Trowel;
I’ll dig his Grave.”

⋮

“Who killed Cock Robin?”
“I,” said the Sparrow,
“With my Bow and Arrow,
I killed Cock Robin!”

The Rasp

I

Tolling the Bell

I

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. The public bought the first two out of curiosity, and the subsequent issues because they had discovered that when the red and black jacket was seen Something had really Happened.

The public bought the real Owl as well. It was always original, written by men and women as yet little known and therefore unspoilt. It was witty, exciting, soothing, biting, laudatory, ironic, and sincere⁠—all in one breath and irreproachable taste.

And Hastings loved it. But Thursday nights, press nights, were undoubtedly Hell. And this Thursday night, hotter almost than its stifling day, was the very hell of Hells.

He ruffled his straw-coloured hair, looking, as a woman once said of him, rather like a stalwart and handsome chicken. Midnight struck. He worked on, cursing at the heat, the paper, his material, and the fact that his confidential secretary, his right-hand woman, was making holiday.

He finished correcting the proofs of his leader, then reached for two over-long articles by new contributors. As he picked up a blue pencil, his door burst open.

“What in hell⁠—” he began; then looked up. “Good God! Marga⁠—Miss Warren!”

It was sufficiently surprising that his right-hand woman should erupt into his room at this hour in the night when he had supposed her many miles away in a holiday bed; but that she should be thus, gasping, white-faced, dust-covered, hair escaping in a shining cascade from beneath a wrecked hat, was incredible. Never before had he seen her other than calm, scrupulously dressed, exquisitely tidy and faintly severe in her beauty.

He rose to his feet slowly. The girl, her breath coming in great sobs, sank limply into a chair. Hastings rushed for the editorial bottle,