The Whistling Hangman by Baynard Kendrick

Author:Baynard Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: OCR-Finished, Crime
Published: 1936-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen: Two soft notes

THE ROUTINE OF DONCASTER HOUSE had been badly shaken. Mrs. Colling-Sands scarcely felt a twinge of curiosity when Bleucher telephoned her shortly before supper.

“Please come to the roof and bring a spool of thread,” he told her.

“Thread?” she repeated vaguely. “What color?”

“Any color, please.” Bleucher became impatient, which always annoyed Mrs. Sands. “Just a spool of thread to tie a rope.”

He hung up and to keep herself in the clear Mrs. Sands rifled her sewing box and tucked six spools of various shades into her handbag. She had dealt with Bleucher for a long time. The chances were better than even that if she showed up with black the manager would heatedly insist he had specified white.

She found the manager, Captain Maclain and the two members of the Homicide Squad stretched out in deck chairs enjoying a cool evening breeze which had sprung up from the East River. Lights were beginning to pattern the city. Resolutely Mrs. Sands put from her mind the thought of the black moment when she had watched those same lights from the terrace of 608 the night before.

Doncaster House was her home; or more, it was her world. The invasion of murder had filled her with a numbness. She had carried on bravely enough, but normality would never return until the police were gone and the Winslow party along with them.

The men rose when she came up the short flight of steps from the 17th floor. The awning partition of the roof was softly lighted with bulbs along the stanchions. She glanced curiously at the coil of rope which lay on the floor beside Sergeant Archer. Bleucher accepted the spool of white thread without comment and passed it on to the inspector.

“Thank you, Mrs. Sands,” said Davis. “This will do nicely.”

She stepped to one side and waited. Davis’s words might have been dismissal, but Mrs. Sands felt her errand entitled her to see what was going on. None of the four men openly objected, so she quietly attached herself to the party.

Under Davis’s direction the sergeant uncoiled the rope and laid it out along the floor so that it was doubled once, forming a long U. Davis picked up the rope at the bottom of the U and twisted it over into a loop about a foot in diameter.

“This is my idea,” he said. “Now I’ll tie it in with the thread.”

Maclain bent over, ran a finger along the floor until it touched the rope and traced the coil. “All right, Inspector, go ahead; I see what you mean.”

Davis knelt down and tied the rope in with two pieces of thread which he broke off short. When he attempted to pick it up the whole thing sagged.

“I’ll have to tie it much more than I did,” he told Maclain. “It caves in.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wind it all the way around,” said the captain, grinning. “The rope’s got to stay in a complete circle, you know, to be dropped over a head.

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