Richard Deming - Gallows in My Garden

Kate approached diffidently, and I could not help marking the change in her manner since our first contact. Her subdued air of resentment had been replaced by one almost of shyness, as though she were prepared to run at the drop of a hat.

I turned to Mrs. Lawson. “Did you phone the police?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. She was pale, but composed.

“If nobody objects, I’d like to ask a few questions before the police arrive,” I said.

I looked around, but nobody seemed to have any objections.

“Understand, I have no official authority, and the only reason I’m interested is that Grace Lawson is paying me as a bodyguard and I don’t like people feeding my clients knockout drops.”

There still were no objections.

“For the benefit of those who don’t know what’s going on,” I said, “someone slipped a drug in Grace’s Coke, then tossed her in the swimming-pool unconscious. Assuming it was the same person who made the previous murder attempts, the field is now considerably narrowed. We can eliminate Arnold Tate because I was with him at the time Grace was attacked, and we can eliminate Doctor Lawson because he was the one who saved her life. Jonathan Mannering and Gerald Cushing are out because they weren’t here—”

“Pardon me,” Ann interrupted softly. “Jonathan stopped in before lunch to have me sign a paper. He stayed for lunch and left only about ten minutes before Douglas’s yell brought us all out of the house.”

After I thought this over, I said, “So we can eliminate Gerald Cushing, anyway. That leaves Mrs. Lawson, Miss Stoltz, and Mr. Mannering among the relative-and-friend group. Of the five servants, Maggie has an alibi for the time, which leaves four. If any of you can verify where you were just before Doctor Lawson yelled, please speak up.”

No one said anything. “Mrs. Lawson?” I asked.

“I was in my room, but I’m afraid no one saw me after Jonathan left.”

“Miss Stoltz?”

“Lying down,” she said apologetically. “Edmund?”

“Part time in here, sir. Part time in th’ kitchen. But I wouldn’t throw Miss Grace in no pool.”

“Kate?”

For some reason her face had turned pale. “In the dining-room,” she said almost inaudibly. “Doing what?”

“I was supposed to be setting the table,” she said, her eyes on my shoes.

“But it still isn’t set,” I told her gently. “What were you doing?”

She looked at me beseechingly, turned her eyes to Ann, and her face flamed red. “Crying,” she said simply.

I studied her face for a moment, started to ask, “About what?” then changed my mind because I thought I knew.

“Get Jason and Karl,” I told Edmund.

He disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Hardly had he gone through the door when footsteps sounded on the veranda and the door chime rang. Kate started toward the door, but I waved her back and answered it myself.

“Well?” Inspector Warren Day growled, jutting his unlighted cigar in my face.

I stepped aside and he entered, trailed by two others. Behind him came granite-faced Jonathan Mannering, looking more like Mussolini than ever, and behind him, the inspector’s satellite, Hannegan.

Day swept his eyes around the room, glowered at Abigail Stoltz, simpered at Ann Lawson, then jerked off his hat and barked, “Afternoon!”

“Good afternoon, Inspector,” they all chorused back like a classroom greeting its teacher.

I said to Hannegan, “Know Marmaduke Greene at El Patio? The guy they call Mouldy?”

Hannegan nodded, never being one to employ one word where none would do.

“You’ll find him third door to the right upstairs. He’s guarding two unconscious women, two empty glasses, and four bottles of Coke. The glasses and Cokes are for analysis, with chloral hydrate suspected.”

The lieutenant nodded again and raised an inquiring eyebrow at Day.

“All right,” the inspector said irritably.

As Hannegan started toward the stairs, Day said to me, “What’s going on here? Something new happen?”

I told him about the attempted drowning.

“Phone in about it yet?”

“Mrs. Lawson did,” I said, surprised. “Aren’t you here in response to the phone call?”

“No. Was on my way out anyway, because of what happened yesterday. Suppose half the division will show up now.”

He glowered around the room and suddenly boomed, “All right! I want everyone together here who was present when this last incident took place.” He turned to Kate. “Round up the servants.”

“Just get Maggie,” I told her, then explained to the inspector, “I sent Edmund after the other two just before you and Hannegan arrived.”

Day grunted. “Were you here then?” he shot at Mannering.

“Why — no — I mean, I don’t know,” the lawyer said. “Not when Doctor Lawson called out, certainly. But I must have been gone only a few minutes.” To Ann he explained, “I met the inspector on the road about a mile from here, and he waved me down.”

“Took you a long time to drive a mile, didn’t it?” I asked.

Mannering turned toward me stiffly. “It’s a hot day,” he said frigidly. “I stopped for an ice-cream soda.”

Maggie and Kate came in, followed by Jason Henry, Karl Thomas, and Edmund.

“This everyone in the house?” Day asked Ann Lawson.

She nodded. “Except that man with Mr. Moon and Miss Moreni.”

“If you don’t mind, Inspector,” Arnold Tate put in, “I’d like to make an announcement before you begin asking questions.”

The inspector examined him sourly. “Go ahead,” he said finally.

“I don’t know who is trying to kill Grace,” Arnold began slowly, “nor why, but I can visualize a number of possible reasons. Ann, as Grace’s heir, may be doing these things—”

“See here!” Dr. Lawson interrupted angrily.

“Or Miss Stoltz, as Ann’s heir,” the young man went on imperturbably, “may plan to kill both Grace and Ann. Mr. Mannering, as executor of the estate, may have some motive less obvious than these. Or Mr. Cushing may have mismanaged the corporation’s funds in some manner.” He glanced at the inspector. “We don’t have to stick only to those here now, you know. The Coke could have been doped yesterday, and perhaps Cushing was hiding near the pool awaiting an opportunity.” Arnold turned from the inspector to Dr. Lawson. “Even you, Uncle Doug, might appear to have the motive of making Ann rich and then marrying her, except we both know you could accomplish that without murder if you really wanted to — make Ann rich, I mean; not marry her. And besides, you saved Grace’s life.”

“Is this supposed to be an announcement?” the inspector asked impatiently.

“No, Inspector. Just give me a minute, please.” Speculatively Arnold ran his eyes over the five servants. “What motive any of you could have, I don’t know. But it is at least conceivable one of you believes you can somehow gain by Grace’s death. My own opinion is that somehow or other the will is tied up in all this, so I want to straighten out a misapprehension in the murderer’s mind.”

Deliberately Arnold rested his eyes on the face of each person present, one after another. His face was pale, but his expression was half mocking. “Whoever you are, murderer, Grace’s life means more to me than twenty million dollars. You may stop trying to kill her now, because she isn’t heir to the Lawson estate.” He paused, then said distinctly, “Grace and I have been secretly married for nearly six months.”

“Arnold!” Ann Lawson cried.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Arnold,” Dr. Lawson said quietly. “Ann knew it, because I told her, and I don’t see how it could possibly mean anything to anyone else.”