Richard Deming: Gallows in My Garden

“No. Well, in a way. He has an apartment in town, but he visits so much we gave him his own room. He’s always there week-ends. But just Ann, Don, and I really live there.”

I said slowly, “A minute ago you said whoever is trying to kill you must live in the house. You mean Ann?”

“Oh, no!” she said quickly. “It couldn’t possibly be Ann. Though she, Don, and I are the only real residents, we have lots of regular visitors. There’s Mr. Mannering, the family lawyer. He has his own room, too. And Arnold. And Abigail Stoltz, the painter. She’s an aunt of Ann’s and visits week-ends a lot. And Gerald Cushing, who runs the drugstore chain for the estate. Daddy started the Lawson Drug chain, you know. Then there are five servants. All those people were around when the attempts were made on me.”

“Who is this Arnold you’re in love with?”

She seemed surprised that everybody didn’t know Arnold. “My fiancé. Arnold Tate. He’s a graduate student in English Lit. at State U. He’s going to be a professor, and some day a university president.”

“Going to buy him a university?”

“Oh, no,” she said, wide-eyed. “Arnold wouldn’t permit that. We even have to live on his salary after we get married, though I can use my money to educate the children if I want.”

“White of Arnold,” I said. “Now tell me about the will. How is the money set up?”

A half-frown creased the skin between her eyebrows. “I don’t believe the will has anything to do with someone trying to kill me.”

“Maybe not,” I said, “but tell me anyway.”

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “it seems Daddy wanted to be sure we children got the big share, though I don’t think it was very nice of him not to trust Ann to do the right thing. She’s awfully nice, really. Of course he provided for her. She has income for life from a half-million-dollar trust fund, and the use of the house as long as she wants, though she can’t sell it. Even the house’s maintenance is provided for through another trust fund, so Ann doesn’t have to worry about taxes or upkeep or servants’ salaries or anything. Then there were some bequests to charities and fifty thousand dollars to Uncle Doug and ten thousand dollars, I think it was, to Maggie, the housekeeper. The rest is held in trust for Don and me, or the survivor if one dies, until we reach twenty-one, when we each get half, providing we don’t marry before that.”

“How was that last again?” I asked.

“That was because Don ran off and married a waitress when he was eighteen,” she said. “He was always a little wild. Daddy had it annulled, and according to the will, if either of us marries before twenty-one, we get only one hundred thousand dollars and the rest goes to the other. If we both marry, or both die, Ann gets the bulk of the estate and all the trust funds are sort of canceled out.”

“I see. How much is the bulk of the estate?”

“Quite a lot. I don’t remember exactly. Once I asked Mr. Mannering, but I forget whether he said eight or eighteen million.”

I got up and poured myself another drink. It didn’t help much.

“Just offhand,” I said, “it looks like Don has the best motive for knocking you off, and your stepmother has the best motive for quenching you both.”

“Oh, no,” she objected. “Ann doesn’t even know about the attempts on my life.” I noticed her objection did not extend to brother Don, which rather intrigued me.

“Who does know?” I asked.

“Only Arnold and Uncle Doug. I don’t think it has anything to do with the will. I think probably one of the servants is insane.”

“That’s a sound theory,” I agreed. “Let’s hire a psychiatrist to psychoanalyze everybody. What is it you want me to do now? Act as a bodyguard?”

“Well, I thought you could sort of investigate around to find out what’s going on. You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”

Generally I say yes when a potential client asks me that, but to my own amazement I found myself telling the truth. “Theoretically. But I specialize in bodyguarding. You might call me a professional bodyguard.”

“The card under your doorbell reads, ‘Manville Moon, Confidential Investigations.’ ”

“All right,” I said. “I’m a false advertiser. ‘Confidential Investigations’ sounds better than ‘Professional Bodyguard.’ I’d be glad to guard your body for a fee, but investigation of the attempts on your life ought to be made by the police.”

Her lower lip thrust out. “Fausta Moreni said you made investigations like this. She said you even solved some murders.”

“I have on occasion,” I said patiently. “But always when the police were on the case, too. If I start poking around for a potential murderer without the cops knowing anything about it, and he happens to get you before I get him, the district attorney is going to ask nasty questions. The state doesn’t issue private detective licenses because it thinks the regular police need competition. Private dicks are supposed to supplement police work, not substitute for it.”

She looked disappointed. “I thought maybe you could come up as a guest, say a friend of Arnold’s, and sort of look around without exciting anybody.”

“How could I investigate without exciting anybody? You can’t get to the bottom of a thing like this without asking questions. I’d have to check the people who handled the poisoned milk, whoever saddled your horse, who was awake when the flowerpot dropped. You think a casual house guest who starts prying like that isn’t going to excite anyone?”

“Well, gee,” she said uncertainly. “I wouldn’t want to call the police without checking with Uncle Doug first.” The two little lines appeared between her eyebrows again, then smoothed away, and she threw one of her stupefying smiles directly into my face. “Would you come up just over the week-end and look around? Then Monday we’ll either let the police know, or I’ll release you.”

Before I could recover from the smile, I heard myself saying, “I suppose I could do that.”

She rose in preparation to leave. “I’ll drive back to school and pick up Arnold. I’m supposed to be in class now, but I cut. We’ll come by for you about six. Supposedly you’ll be driving down from the university with us, in case anyone at home asks. I guess you’d better be a graduate student in English literature, too, so Arnold can cover for you if anyone asks you questions about Shakespeare or something.”

“All right,” I said. “I read Shakespeare in high school. Imagine I’ll be able to fool the servants, anyway.”

After she left I remembered I had never told her my rates, which indicates the effect she had on people, for even my worst enemies have never accused me of lacking a certain hardheaded commercial sense.

Fausta Moreni is the only woman I ever got excited enough about to want to marry, but that was a long time ago. We met when I was twenty-four and she was a nineteen-year-old refugee from Fascist Italy. From Rome on north, Italians are neither as dark-skinned nor black-haired as the southern variety which constitutes most of America’s Italo-American population. Fausta was from Rome and she had snapping brown eyes, light-tan skin, and vivid blond hair.

All during the war I carried her picture in my wallet and the memory of her comic accent, quick movements, and soft lips somewhere inside me. The trouble was my memory was of a naïve youngster bewildered by a strange country and needing a strong man’s protection. B ut when I finally returned home Fausta wasn’t in need of anything. She had become, peculiarly enough, a professional blackjack dealer, and one of the highest paid in the country at that. Possibly her success was due as much to her opponents’ concentrating only half their minds on the cards and the other half on trying to beat down her resistance to their personal designs as it was to pure skill, but nevertheless her employer thought enough of her to leave her El Patio when he suddenly departed with a bullet through his head.