Борден Дил - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

“Suicide, like as not,” he said.

“How do you figure it?”

He transferred his hands from his hips to his back pockets and swaggered like a banty rooster around the dead woman. He regarded her from all angles in a queerly proud, almost possessive way, as if she were a tethered lioness and he had roped her.

“She made a loop in the rope,” he said. “Then she threaded the other end of the rope over the top hinge in the door and tied it to the inside door knob and closed the door.” He pointed to the fallen chair. “She pulled that over to the door and climbed up on it and stuck her head through the noose. Then she kicked the chair out from under her.”

He grinned nastily. “Before it was over,” he said, affectionately, “she did a lot of kicking. That’s how she lost her shoes.”

Sim moved close to the gently undulating form and studied tiny scratches on the hardwood door and on the wall beside the door. “She must’ve changed her mind after she kicked the chair away.”

The Chief nodded. “It was too late to change her mind. Door’s too wide.” To prove his point he took the woman’s limp right arm and pointed it toward the knob. Her fingers fell pathetically short. “See?” he asked. “From where she hung she couldn’t reach the knob. And the rope’s tied on the other side, so even if she could’ve reached the knob and opened the door, that’s still not saying she’d of been able to reach around and untie the rope.” He shook his head pleasantly. “No, boys, after she kicked that chair out, it was too late to change her mind, even if she’d a’ wanted to.”

“And Lordy,” Sim breathed, bending over and inspecting the tears in the toes of the woman’s stockings, “how she must’ve wanted to.”

I looked at Bartel. “Did you notify the coroner?”

“Sure. First thing.”

“Anyone else?”

“What for?”

I turned to Sim. “Get hold of Milo. He’ll be at his shop by now, most likely. Tell him to bring his camera paraphernalia. Police business, regular rates.”

When Sim was gone I turned back to Charley. “I wonder when the coroner will be along. I’d like to have a look at the rope inside the door.”

Charley strode to the door, grasped the knob, and swung the door open. “Hell, Marking, take a look. Hardy won’t mind.”

Even with the gruesome weight pulling against its hinge the door didn’t groan as it opened. The rope — apparently a portion of ordinary clothesline — stretched tautly from the hinge to the door knob. It was wrapped around the knob several times and tied clumsily. Up near the top of the door, I noticed a slight fraying in the rope, extending downward for perhaps twelve inches. I pointed it out to Bartel.

“Sure,” he said. “That hinge is sharp. Rope must’ve scraped against it.”

“With the door closed,” I said, “there wouldn’t be any slippage because the rope would be pinched in place. It couldn’t slip.”

“Yeah, but every time we open the door we release the pinch.” He shrugged. “Simple enough.”

“What motive would she have for suicide, Charley?”

“There’s something you maybe don’t know, Marking. Liz was pregnant. About three months, I understand.”

I hadn’t known. I lit a cigarette, and studied the dead woman. “I wonder what she was doing out here?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Bartel answered. “Mr. Carver would probably know.”

“Who?”

He smiled a yellow smile. “I forget, you ain’t met the guests yet. Mr. Carver is one of the dudes.”

“Where are the guests now?”

He shrugged. “Around someplace,” he said vaguely.

“Why don’t you round them up, Charley? Get them together in the living room downstairs. I’ll have a look at them after I talk to Ed.”

I found Ed Williamson behind the desk in his book-lined den. Ed is in his middle thirties, a year or two older than me. We’ve been friendly since our college days at A and M. He’s a wiry man with a high forehead and prominent cheekbones. His normally clear eyes were clouded, partly from the lack of sleep and partly, I supposed, from the after-effects of the tall drink he held in his hands, and those which had preceded it. Cattle-buying trips to Rapid City chronically develop into drinking bouts once the sale is over.

Williamson runs an authentic ranch. After his father’s death many years ago, he’d interested himself in breeding. From the beginning he favored a stout-hearted, white-face strain capable of shifting and foraging for themselves in a stern country, and now the Big W is by far the most famous brand in our locality.

Because he is single, because his ranch house is a local show place, and because it happens to be good business, he takes in dudes. His weekly rates — $75 and up — are fantastic for this part of the country. The dudes, mostly easterners, get privacy, atmosphere and relaxation in return. Most of them seem to think it’s worth it.

Ed is rich enough to be stuffy, if anything like that exists in my country. It doesn’t and he isn’t. After he fixed my drink and handed it across to me he flopped down heavily in his chair and propped his mud-crusted boots up on the highly polished, solid mahogany desk in front of him. When I had settled myself in the chair he indicated my own boots went right up there across from his, partly because he expected it and mostly because it was comfortable.

He waited until we got our cigarettes going. “Tough about the girl,” he said then.

“It is,” I agreed. “Know her?”

“Sure. Liz Peterson.”

“Any idea what she was doing out here?”

“None, Tom. She’s never had any business out here, if that’s what you mean. To my knowledge, she’s never been here before.”

I nodded. “Sim tells me you have three guests staying with you right now.”

“That’s right.”

“Who are they?”

“Miss Everly, Mr. Burns and Mr. Carver.”

“They’re here together?”

“Yep. Miss Everly is the novelist, Marsha Everly. Maybe you’ve heard of her.”

I shook my head.

Ed smiled. “I hadn’t either. Mr. Burns — Elton — is her agent.”

“And the other man? Mr. Carver?”

Ed shrugged. “A hanger-on. A nobody from nowhere.”

“He’s good-looking?”

Ed considered. “He’s pretty,” he decided at last.

“She keeps him?”

“Who?” he asked blankly.

“Miss Everly.”

Ed looked pained. “I didn’t say that, Tom. I don’t know.”

“Have any of the guests been here before?”

“Burns has. The agent. Three, four years ago, I think it was. The others are new to me.”

“Sim tells me you flew in this morning from Rapid,” I remarked, changing the subject.

“Yeah,” he said. “Been up there four, five days.”

“Buy any cattle?”

“Some. Not as many as last year. I don’t know, the way the market is right now...” He let it hang.

“Who looks after things when you’re gone?”

“You mean the ranch or the house?”

“The house.”

“Mrs. Donald comes in every day from seven to seven. She cleans up, fixes the meals, stuff like that. Then, when I know I’m going to be gone for more than a day or two, I’ve been having Charley come out from town and look in on things once or twice a day. Check the furnace and so on.”

“You mean Bartel?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice of him.”

“You know Charley. He thinks I have something to do with keeping him on as chief of that one-horse Devensville police force.”

“Do you?”

Ed smiled.

I drained my glass and set it on the desk.

“Another?” he asked.

I stood up. “No thanks, Ed. I suppose I should be getting back on the job. The coroner’s due any minute now.”