Richard Deming - Gallows in My Garden

I put my gun away and said gravely, “Good evening, Arnold.”

Flinging back the sheet, Arnold sprang from bed and stood glaring at me in all the splendor of orange pajamas with purple stripes.

“What do you want here?” he asked indignantly.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I said.

Behind me Grace giggled. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw she was staring fixedly at her fiancé’s garish pajamas. Amusement struggled with the strain and grief in her face, and a second giggle broke forth. It was high and edged with hysteria, but there was no doubt from her expression that Arnold’s presence somehow struck her as terribly funny.

No man enjoys being laughed at by his ladylove. Arnold’s indignation became an enormous dignity. Scooping a maroon robe from the foot of the bed, he shrugged it on and padded barefooted toward the door. There he turned to me, pointedly ignoring Grace.

“For your information,” he said distantly, “this is not what it seems. With a murderer abroad, I merely felt Grace would be safer if not left alone all night.”

Grace’s shoulders began to shake, and giggling unrestrainedly, she collapsed against her defender’s chest. Arnold held himself rigid, his face scarlet with embarrassment above her downbent head.

I said, “Mighty chivalrous of you, Arnold. Gives me an idea.”

I crossed to the large window, glanced out, and saw it led onto a balcony. A hand grasped my shoulder and swung me around.

“What did that crack mean, Mr. Moon?” Arnold demanded.

I glanced from his jutting jaw to his clenched fists. “What crack?” I asked cautiously. “What idea does it give you?”

I studied him a minute before I got it. “Relax,” I said. “I’m not intending to steal your plan. Does your bedroom window let out on a balcony?”

His belligerent air died gradually, to be replaced by a mixture of suspicion and puzzlement. “No.”

“Good,” I said. “Climb back in bed. You can spend the night here.”

Arnold looked flustered, and Grace’s giggling shut off suddenly. She studied me warily, apparently not so much perturbed as surprised by my statement.

“And you’ll sleep in Arnold’s room,” I told her. “Get your stuff and let’s go.”

Arnold’s expression was a mixture of disappointment and bewilderment. The girl’s was merely one of waiting.

“A murderer could get in this room via the balcony,” I explained, then added cheerfully, “If he does, the joke’s on him, because he’ll kill the wrong person.”

Neither Grace nor Arnold split their sides laughing.

“Get your stuff,” I repeated to Grace.

Ten minutes later I had checked every inch of Arnold’s room, which was directly across from mine.

“Lock yourself in and don’t open the door till morning for anyone except me,” I told her. “If anything at all out of the way happens, yell your head off.”

“Don’t you think this is all rather unnecessary?” she asked. “Nothing has ever happened while I was asleep.”

“I hope it’s unnecessary. But it hurts my reputation when clients get killed, so be a good girl and do what I tell you. Okay?”

“All right,” she said. “Good night.”

I waited outside the door until I heard the key turn in its lock.

Downstairs I found Warren Day and Lieutenant Hannegan munching cheese sandwiches and drinking black coffee.

“Where’s Mrs. Lawson?” I asked Day.

“Went for a breath of air.” The inspector gestured vaguely at the front door with his sandwich.

“Think I’ll try some, too,” I said, starting for the door.

“Let her alone,” he growled. “Can’t a woman go for a walk in the dark without you horning in? Always you got to chase every woman in sight.”

I looked at him, surprised. “Are you jealous?” I asked.

“Jealous!” he repeated, outraged at the thought.

Savagely he bit a piece from the unlighted cigar still in his left hand, looked startled, spat it out, and snapped fiercely at his cheese sandwich.

I gave him a sympathetic smile and went out into the dark.

There was no moon, but brilliant stars made for bare visibility, and once my eyes adjusted to the darkness I made my way around the house without difficulty. As I expected, Ann Lawson was at the bluff’s handrail, staring out over the river. But, as I had not expected, she already had a companion.

Until I neared to within fifteen feet I had thought the hazy silhouette against the slightly lighter degree of blackness beyond the bluff’s edge was Ann’s, so closely merged were the two of them. Only when I heard her voice say, “Please, dear, let’s go in,” did I realize a man had his arms around her.

I stopped, not with the intention of eavesdropping, but merely because I was too startled for the moment either to withdraw silently or make my presence known. The silhouette grew thinner and there came the unmistakable sigh of a woman being kissed. Then a man’s low chuckle was followed by Dr. Douglas Lawson’s equally low voice. “Still want to go in, darling?”

By now I had recovered from my startlement and could easily have either returned to the house or coughed loudly. My sole purpose in coming out had been the prospect of conversing with a beautiful woman by starlight, and the course the Marquis of Queensberry would have approved after finding the beautiful woman in another man’s arms would have been dignified retreat. But since everyone in the house was a suspect as the murder attempter, the opportunity to listen in on a private conversation between two of the suspects was more than my snoop-conditioned mind could resist. I remained silent and listened.

Ann’s voice said, “Please don’t call me that yet, Douglas. Even if I were sure, I don’t want to think about it till this is over. And it isn’t fair to Don.”

“Don, hell,” Douglas said roughly. “He’s been dead over a year.”

For a moment this left me entirely at sea, then I realized he was not referring to the corpse of that evening, but to Ann’s deceased husband, who apparently bore the same name as his son.

“Not that I’d want to hurt Don if he were still alive,” the doctor went on more gently. “You know how close we were, and if wishing would do any good, I’d wish him alive again even though it meant losing you. But nothing on earth can bring him back, and I can’t stand his ghost pushing between us.” His tone grew demanding. “Are you still in love with a dead man?”

“It’s not that, dear,” she said soothingly. “I don’t know that I ever loved him as — I mean—”

“As you love me,” he said flatly.

“No,” Ann protested. “I meant to say, as you want me to love you. I had respect for Don, and admiration, and had he lived that would have sufficed me the rest of my life. It was a calm, sure relationship, not all fire and ice like ours. And even though he’s been dead a year, I can’t bear to do something of which I think he’d disapprove.”

“Dammit!” the doctor said. “He was fifteen years older than you, and caught you at twenty-three, before you’d ever had a chance to be brought alive by a man. He had you eight years of life and one after death. What the hell does he want? Eternity?”

The silhouette broadened as Ann drew back from him.

“Don was a wonderful man,” she said coldly. “Let’s go in, please.”

I turned to start back toward the house, but before I had gone two careful steps, Douglas Lawson’s voice came to me once more. “I know how wonderful he was,” he said exasperatedly. “After all, he was my big brother and I knew him long before you did. He was virtually my father after Dad died. He put me through medical school, set me up in practice — You don’t have to tell me how wonderful he was.” His voice took on a high note. “But wonderful as he was, he’s deader than hell now.”