# The Rasp — Character guide

> Key figures in The Rasp by Philip MacDonald.

- [Anthony Gethryn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/anthony_gethryn.md): Gethryn moves through Marling as an old friend of the Yard and a gentleman of the village, which lets him press Boyd for the wood-rasp and the fingerprint enlargements while everyone else considers the murder solved. He 
- [Sir Arthur Digby-Coates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/sir_arthur_digby_coates.md): Sir Arthur is the deceased's closest friend and a guest at Abbotshall, and he throws himself into the investigation with a rage that startles even Gethryn — he speaks of torture, of sleepless nights, of getting his hands
- [Mr. Deacon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/mr_deacon.md): Deacon is the man Scotland Yard has all but convicted: his alibi is broken, a hundred pounds from the dead man's bank sits in his collar-box, and his prints are on the wood-rasp. Yet he faces it with a composure that mov
- [Lucia Lemesurier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/lucia_lemesurier.md): Lucia is Dora's older sister, the composed one, the one who consoles — except that half her mind is elsewhere, tangled in a note that went unanswered and a man she barely knows. She is mortified by her own distraction, a
- [Colonel Gethryn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/colonel_gethryn.md): Boyd is the official investigator, methodical and a little proud of a case he considers 'easy,' and he walks Gethryn through the locked-room problem, the open window, and the wood-rasp with the air of a man who has alrea
- [Miss Margaret Warren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/miss_margaret_warren.md): Miss Warren works for Hastings at The Owl, and she is the one who brings the first word of Hoode's murder — calm, unemotional, already thinking about the next edition. She is so sufficient, so calmly adequate, that Hasti
- [Mr. Hastings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/mr_hastings.md): A Fleet Street editor whose sharp instincts and grudging admiration for Gethryn make him the reader's sceptical, indispensable ally in the hunt for Hoode's killer.
- [Spencer Hastings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/spencer_hastings.md): A decorated ex-aviator and onetime ace of the flying corps, undone less by any enemy than by his paralysing fear of the cool, efficient woman he loves.
- [John Hoode](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/john_hoode.md): The murdered Cabinet Minister whose hidden family history — a bastard half-brother, blackmail, and a face like a mirror — proves far stranger than his respectable death suggests.
- [Miss Dora Masterson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/miss_dora_masterson.md): A young woman whose telephone voice and borrowed book of essays pull Gethryn down a trail of newspaper clippings, private detectives, and a stage-door rendezvous.
- [Miss Laura Hoode](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/miss_laura_hoode.md): The murdered minister's only sister, whose grief the newspapers package for public consumption while the real woman behind the headline remains, for now, unseen.
- [Jimmy Masterson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/jimmy_masterson.md): Dora Masterson's brother, a young man whose temper and entanglements make him one of the loose threads Gethryn cannot afford to leave unplucked.
- [Old Mr. Poole](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/old_mr_poole.md): The elderly and somewhat senile father of the Hoode family butler.
- [Mr. Belford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/mr_belford.md): A solicitor involved in the affairs of the Hoode family.
- [Mr. Lucas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/mr_lucas.md): A friend of the Hoode family who is present at the house party.
- [Mrs. Roland Mainwaring](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/mrs_roland_mainwaring.md): A flirtatious society woman who knew the victim.
- [Father Gethryn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/father_gethryn.md): Anthony Gethryn's brother, a Catholic priest.
- [Madam Vander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/madam_vander.md): A mysterious woman who appears at the inquest.
- [Uncle Charles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/uncle_charles.md): A relative of the Hoode family mentioned in conversation.
- [Bob Belford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters/bob_belford.md): A relative of Mr. Belford the solicitor.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_rasp_se/characters