Richard Deming - Gallows in My Garden

“We had a few beers apiece in a back booth and just sat there talking until the tavern closed again at one-thirty. They only stay open for an hour and a half after midnight Sunday, you know.”

I nodded again, though he was not improving my education, for probably no one in town was more familiar with the opening- and closing-hours of taverns than I.

“Then he walked with me to the bus depot, and we talked until I got on the bus about ten of two. That’s the last I saw of him.”

“Where was this tavern?”

“Fourth and Market. I don’t remember the name, but it has a neon sign saying, ‘Bar and Grill.’ ”

“All right,” I said. “What was the trouble Don was in?”

“It was all mixed up. He seemed to think everything was wrong. Partly he was bitter about his father having his marriage annulled, and said he hated the memory of his father and was still in love with the girl he married, and always would be. Then he began to talk rather wildly about marrying another girl, a domestic of some sort, I gathered, but it seemed she didn’t love him, or did love him and wouldn’t admit it — I couldn’t quite make out which. He got awfully excited about it, but when I asked how he could be in love with both his former wife and another girl, he called me a stupid ass, then immediately apologized and dropped the subject. His whole discourse was so close to incoherent, I’m making it sound much more lucid than it was, because most of the time I hadn’t the faintest notion of what he was talking about.

“Then he switched to castigating himself. He let me know that if he’d had an ounce of spunk, he would never have let his father break up his marriage, and if he weren’t a useless heel who couldn’t make his own way and had to depend on inherited money, he wouldn’t have let the old man’s will prevent him from marrying six months ago, instead of waiting till he was twenty-one, whatever he meant by that. He said he wasn’t even a man physically, and then he asked a peculiar question. He asked me what I’d do if I discovered I had leukemia.”

Arnold paused for a moment, as though organizing his thoughts. “I asked him what leukemia was, and he said an incurable blood disease. Then he said he didn’t necessarily mean leukemia, but any incurable disease. What would I do if I knew I had only six months to live? I said I’d wait six months and die, which apparently was the wrong answer, for he became angry and called me a stupid ass again.

“But immediately he apologized the second time and began to give me what I assume he thought was an explanation for the whole performance. He had to talk to someone, he said, and he wasn’t close enough to Grace to make her understand, and the only two persons he loved he didn’t want to hurt. I gathered these were either his former wife and the domestic he wanted to marry, or the domestic and Ann. I never quite decided which, except that the domestic was one.

“It was at this point he began to hint at suicide. Not that he actually threatened it, but he went off on a tirade about what little he had to live for and how much better off all concerned would be if he were dead. Somewhere I’ve read that people who talk about suicide are not likely to commit it, so instead of trying to dissuade him, as I suspected he wanted, I got flippant and quoted poetry at him.”

Arnold flushed slightly, as though ashamed to confess he could quote poetry. “It was a particularly inappropriate thing to do, now that I look back. Rather like daring him to carry out his threat. I did it without thinking, for I was growing bored with him. The poem I quoted just popped into my head, but I couldn’t have picked one better calculated to infuriate him had I sat up all night thinking about it.”

Arnold’s face grew even redder, and when I made no comment, he went on reluctantly. “It was from G. K. Chesterton’s A Ballade of Suicide. Maybe you know it.”

He looked at me inquiringly, and when I shook my head he recited in a low voice:

After a moment of silence I said, “And that made him mad?”

“Absolutely furious. And this time when he finished calling me names, he didn’t apologize. When he ran down, he assumed a politely frigid air and maintained it clear up to the time my bus pulled out. Ever since we discovered the body I’ve been blaming myself for not talking him out of it, or at least refraining from quoting Chesterton. I keep telling myself I could have prevented his death by doing so.”

Arnold drew a deep breath and rubbed the towel across his sweating forehead. “That’s the whole story, Mr. Moon. And in deference to the feelings of Grace and Ann, I think you can see why I failed to mention it after the coroner decided it was suicide. Of course if the verdict had been homicide, I would have had to tell what I knew. Obviously Don came back home, wrote his farewell note, and jumped off the bluff sometime between two and daybreak.”

I asked slowly, “Is this what you were about to tell yesterday when Grace sidetracked you and you slammed into the house?”

As soon as I asked the question, I knew it couldn’t be. A moment later I knew I should not have asked it, for his expression changed from surprise to thoughtfulness and then to a kind of eager wariness.

“That’s right,” he said.

I tried to undo the harm. “But you said you hadn’t mentioned any of this to Grace,” I shot at him.

“Did I say that?” he asked in a surprised voice. “You must have misunderstood me. I meant to say I didn’t mention it to the police in order to prevent Grace and Ann from becoming upset over the publicity. But of course I tell Grace everything.” He grinned at me blandly.

At that moment there carried through the open window from the direction of the swimming-pool the excited voice of Dr. Douglas Lawson.

“Ahoy, the house!” he shouted. “Help! Help!”

Then faintly we heard a splash, as though someone had dived into the pool.

Handicapped by a false leg and nearly ten years on Arnold, I was trailing him fifteen yards when we rounded the weeping willows which hid the pool from the house. Coming behind us Ann Lawson and Edmund ran show position and out-of-the-money respectively.

Pantingly we all gathered around the tableau at the edge of the pool. Grace Lawson, dripping water, lay on her stomach unconscious, while Dr. Lawson, in swim trunks and also dripping, kneeled astride her back administering artificial respiration. Fausta Moreni stretched on her back with her small feet dangling in the water and her empty glass, overturned, lying by her side. Near her head lay the glass used by Grace.

My first impression was that both women had started to drown and had been pulled out by Dr. Lawson. I rushed to Fausta with the intention of rolling her over and administering artificial respiration, but when I touched her body, I discovered her suit was dry. She was breathing heavily but evenly.

Without touching Fausta’s glass, I sniffed at it. Then, with a thumb, I pushed up one eyelid, let it close again, and stood up from my kneeling position. I returned to the group around Grace just as the doctor stopped his rhythmic movements and rose with a puzzled frown.

“There doesn’t seem to have been enough water in her to worry about,” he said. “But she’s out like a light.”

“Knockout drops,” I explained. “In both their drinks.”