Richard Deming - Gallows in My Garden

The entire group stared at me stupidly. Dr. Lawson was the first to recover. Dropping to one knee, he rolled Grace over and thumbed up an eyelid. Then he listened to her heart, felt her pulse, and rose again.

“Let’s get them up to the house,” he suggested.

Returning to Fausta, I got one arm under her knees and the other behind her shoulders and began carrying her to the house. It was not the first time I had ever carried her, but now she was 115 pounds of dead weight, which makes a surprising difference. Behind me staggered Arnold, similarly carrying Grace. Dr. Lawson brought along the two empty glasses which had caused all the trouble.

Abigail Stoltz came in from the dining-room as we entered the front door; her eyes grew large, and she asked, “What’s the matter?”

I grunted in reply and moved on to the stairs. We deposited Grace and Fausta side by side on the bed in Grace’s room. Dr. Lawson had followed us into the room and stood holding the two drinking-glasses as though wondering what to do with them. His trunks were still wet enough to drip an occasional drop of water on the rug.

“Set them on the dresser,” I told the doctor.

Carefully he set the two glasses side by side, then frowned at them. “I doubt that we’ll be able to get an analysis unless they hit it on the first test,” he said. “There’s barely a drop left between the two of them.”

“Think it could be anything more poisonous than knockout drops?” I asked.

He shook his head, but his expression was worried. “Not likely from the symptoms.” He turned toward the doorway, where Ann, Abigail Stoltz, and Edmund hovered. “Get my bag from my room, will you, Edmund?”

A few minutes later, after employing his stethoscope on both sleeping women, checking their pulses, and again thumbing open their eyes for a moment, Dr. Lawson said, “My guess is chloral hydrate, or what is commonly known as a Mickey Finn. The heart action is strong enough to indicate only a moderate dose, but they’ll be out for a matter of hours.”

“Then nothing can be done for them now?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Let them sleep it off. A stomach pump might bring them out of it a little sooner, but would probably leave them sicker than if we do nothing at all. I really don’t think there is any danger of their having obtained a lethal dose.”

I turned to the three people standing near the doorway and said, “I want you all down in the drawing-room. And stay there until I tell you differently.”

All three looked startled, but Edmund and Abigail submissively started for the stairs at once. A flash of anger heightened Ann Lawson’s beauty, and she remained where she was.

“It’s another murder attempt, Mrs. Lawson,” I said more gently. “I’m assuming charge until we can get the police here, so I’m afraid you’ll have to obey my orders even though it is your house. Will you phone the police before you go in the drawing-room, please?”

Her anger died to uncertainty. Finally, in a small voice, she said, “All right,” and followed the others.

“Now just what happened?” I asked Dr. Lawson.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “I went out to the pool for a swim” — He glanced at Arnold’s swim trunks — “I suppose none of us should be swimming so soon after Don’s funeral, but it’s too hot for propriety — and I found Miss Moreni lying in the sun asleep, as I thought. Just as I prepared to dive in, I saw Grace down in the deep end, drifting toward the bottom. I yelled to the house for help, then jumped in and pulled her out. Judging from the small amount of water in her lungs, she must have just fallen in, and I got her out again in practically no time. I used to be a lifeguard as a kid, you see.”

I looked over his wiry, leanly muscled body and nodded. In swim shorts he was not nearly as slight-appearing as he seemed when fully clothed.

“You think she fell in, then?” I asked.

His eyebrows went up. “You mean possibly someone threw her in after she was unconscious?”

“What else?” I said. “Whoever is trying to kill her could hardly depend on her falling in the pool when she passed out. As a matter of fact, I was present when those drinks were delivered by Edmund, and Grace sat three feet from the edge then. The position of her glass indicates she stayed right there while she drank her Coke, so she must have been thrown in.”

Dr. Lawson ground his right fist into his left palm. “A minute earlier, and I’d have caught the killer in the act!”

“A minute later,” I said dryly, “and you might as well not have arrived at all.”

“But what a stupid way to attempt murder!” Arnold Tate protested. “It would have been much simpler just to poison her drink.”

I shook my head. “I thought about that all the time we were carrying them up here, trying to figure out how the killer managed to dope the drinks. Both bottles were open when I first saw them, and I’ll have to check Edmund before we can know definitely, but I imagine we’ll find those bottles weren’t out of his sight from the time he opened them until he delivered the drinks.”

“You mean Edmund doped them?” Arnold asked puzzledly.

“Not necessarily. In fact it’s most unlikely. But since any carbonated drink goes flat if it stands too long, it isn’t probable Edmund uncapped the bottles, then left them standing while he went off and did something else. I imagine we’ll find uncapping the bottles was the last thing he did before picking up his tray and starting for the pool.”

Both of them continued to look at me puzzledly.

“How many people in this house drink Coke?” I asked.

Arnold looked blank, but Dr. Lawson corrugated his brow and finally said slowly, “Just Grace, I believe. She always has a Coke when the rest of us have cocktails.”

“And wouldn’t everyone in the house know that?”

“I suppose so. Yes, of course they would.”

“So presumably,” I said, “a few bottles of Coke are always in the refrigerator for Grace.”

“I suppose so,” the doctor said again. “Seems likely.”

“Anyone, even as inefficient a murderer as this one seems to be, could reason that out,” I went on. “Coke in the refrigerator. No one but Grace normally drinks it. Dope all the Coke in the refrigerator, and who is most likely to pass out eventually?”

“Grace, of course,” Dr. Lawson said pettishly. “Is this an exercise in juvenile logic?”

I ignored the question. “But the killer couldn’t be sure someone else might not decide to have a Coke. One of the servants perhaps, or a strange guest — and as a matter of fact, a strange guest did order one. If he was just after Grace, he probably wouldn’t want to chance accidentally killing half a dozen other people along with her.” I glanced at Arnold. “That answer your question about why the drink wasn’t poisoned instead of merely doped?”

“Yes,” he said doubtfully. “But how could he know she’d be near the pool when she drank one?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “For that matter, Edmund may knock my whole theory into a cocked hat by telling us he left the open bottles unattended for a while.”

Arnold was frowning at the two women on the bed. “I have an idea,” he said slowly. “I never thought of it before, but for a teetotaler, Grace has pretty definite drinking habits. After a horseback ride, or a tennis or badminton match, she always has iced milk. Out by the pool, and during the cocktail hour, she always orders a Coke. She was almost bound to get the dope either at the pool or at cocktails.”

I thought this over. “That fits in neatly,” I said. “If she gets it at cocktails, everyone is puzzled, but no real harm is done the killer. If he is lucky, she passes out alone by the pool and, screened from the house by the willows, he dumps her in the water. Except for the pure accident of a combination lifeguard and doctor arriving just after it happened, this time it would have worked. And except for Fausta being present and obviously doped, it might possibly have passed for an accidental drowning. Maybe this guy — or woman, whichever it is — isn’t as inefficient as he’s seemed in the past.”