Richard Deming - Gallows in My Garden

Warren Day scowled ferociously at Abigail Stoltz and asked, “You Mrs. Lawson?”

“Why, no,” she said in a startled voice.

“I am, Inspector,” Ann said quietly.

Day blinked at her, tried to maintain his scowl, but let it deteriorate into what was nearly a simper. Almost politely he said, “I want to interview everyone privately, including the servants. Got a place I can do it?”

“Certainly.” She rose and led us back to the study from which I had phoned.

As Ann walked ahead of us, every line of her soft body was outlined by what little there was to her gown. Just inside the door she stopped and turned to face us. The inspector, who was following immediately behind her, slammed on the brakes so hard I nearly walked up his back. Quickly he sidled around her until the big desk separated them, and seated himself in the chair. With a desk in front of him he seemed to feel more at home, but even in that secure position he was momentarily unable to conquer his psychotic fear of beautiful women.

“Long as you’re already here, Mrs. Lawson—” he started to mutter, then left the phrase dangling while he absent-mindedly produced a cigar which was beginning to peel, bit off the end, and stuck it in his mouth.

Around the cigar he suddenly boomed, “Send in your stepdaughter first.”

As Ann closed the door behind herself, Day barked at me, “Got a match?”

I tossed him a folder, he lit a match, scowled at the door Ann had just passed through, and shook out the flame without lighting his cigar.

When Grace Lawson entered, I was impressed again by her cool loveliness. But whereas at our first meeting it had been the bubbling beauty of champagne, the shock of her brother’s death had subdued it to the sparkle of still wine. She was too young to upset the inspector with her femininity, but even in his cynical eyes there was a flicker of admiration.

“Sit down, young lady,” he said with unusual gentleness.

Grace perched herself on a straight-backed chair in front of the desk and folded her hands in her lap.

“Moon, here, tells me somebody’s trying to kill you. When was the first attempt?”

“Four weeks ago,” she said quietly. “On a Sunday. Arnold and I were going riding—”

“Who’s Arnold?” the inspector interrupted.

Her eyes widened just as they had when I asked that question. I supposed eventually she would get used to the idea that everyone in the world was not intimately aware of Arnold’s existence.

“Arnold Tate,” she said. “My fiancé. That good-looking fellow you saw in the drawing-room. He’s wearing a brown sport coat.”

“Good-looking?” Day repeated puzzledly. “I must have missed him. Unless you mean that young guy whose hair wasn’t combed.”

Grace straightened herself indignantly.

“Get on with it,” the inspector said with mild impatience. “You were going riding.”

She sniffed disdainfully and said in a tight voice, “When I started to swing up into the saddle, the girth broke as my full weight rested on the stirrup. Arnold and I examined it and found it had been cut so far only a thread or two had been holding it.”

“Who saddled the horse?”

“Karl.”

“Who’s Karl?”

“Karl Thomas. The boy who — the boy who found Don. He’s sort of general handyman. Grooms the horses, services the cars, does minor repairs around the place, helps Jason, and so on.”

“Who’s Jason?”

“Jason Henry, the outside man. Takes care of the grounds.”

“Listen,” the inspector said. “All these people you mention are probably old stuff to you, but I never heard of them before. Would you mind explaining who everybody is as you go along?”

“All right,” she said contritely.

“Now where were we? Oh, yeah. Karl saddled the horse. How’d he explain the cut girth?”

“He didn’t. He left the horses alone in the stable to come tell us they were ready. I hadn’t changed to riding-clothes yet, so it was fifteen minutes before we got to the stable. Almost anyone could have slipped out there in the meantime. Uncle Doug — he’s Doctor Douglas Lawson — had been out in the skiff fishing, and he happened to come up the stairs from the beach just as Arnold and I went in the stable. He came over to say hello just as the cut in the girth had been discovered by Arnold, and we all three discussed what to do about it. At first we all thought it was just a rather stupid practical joke. Arnold was all for going up to the house and raising Cain with everyone, when Uncle Doug said in a sort of funny, shocked voice, ‘Grace, I think someone tried to kill you.’ It was after that we decided to keep it quiet and give Uncle Doug a chance to make a secret investigation.”

Warren Day asked, “Who was here that Sunday?”

“Everybody. Generally we have the same group on week-ends. There was Arnold. He’s my fiancé. And Uncle Doug. That’s Doctor Douglas Lawson—”

“Hold it!” the inspector said. He took the cigar from his mouth and examined it frustratedly before putting it back again. “Let’s go back to your first method. You just rattle off names, and I’ll stop you when I want identification.”

By dint of long and dogged questioning, during which the inspector gradually assumed a more martyred expression, he finally satisfied himself that as far as Grace knew, all of the servants, household members, or guests had opportunity, even Arnold, whom she had left alone in the drawing-room while she changed to riding-clothes.

The same situation obtained for the incident of the following Saturday night, or rather Sunday a.m. Arnold and Grace had been to a dance and returned about midnight. After both had retired to their rooms, Grace began to wonder if she had turned off the radio in the car. She went outside to the garage again to check, finding she had switched it off, after all. But as she reached the front door again, a heavy earthenware flowerpot which usually adorned a shelf immediately inside the upper hall window, had sailed past her head and burst on the ground a few feet away.

“How come you went clear around the house to get in, instead of using the back door?” Day asked.

“Oh, we never use the back door,” Grace explained. “That’s Maggie’s and Kate’s. And the side door Maggie locks at night and keeps the key.”

“Who are Maggie and Kate?” the inspector asked wearily.

“Our combination housekeeper-cook and the maid. The three male servants have rooms over the garage, you see, but Maggie and Kate each have a room off the kitchen. Kate’s only been here about six months, but Maggie was Daddy’s housekeeper even in the old house downtown, since right after I was born. She sort of regards the back of the house as hers, and gets mad if anyone uses the kitchen door without her permission.”

“I see. And the same guests were here as the week before?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right,” Day said. “How about the third incident?”

This, it developed, left the suspects as numerous as before, which seemed to indicate the would-be killer deliberately planned his attempts at times when everyone could share equal suspicion. The previous Sunday afternoon Grace and Arnold had been playing tennis while Ann, the now deceased Don, Dr. Lawson, Abigail Stoltz, Gerald Cushing, and Jonathan Mannering sat around a lawn table at the edge of the swimming-pool sipping drinks and watching the game. Edmund, the Negro houseboy, had been bringing drinks for the group from the house, and Grace had called to him to bring her some iced milk.

According to Edmund’s later explanation to Dr. Lawson, he had passed on the request to Kate while he mixed at the bar the other drinks ordered. The milk was poured by Maggie, delivered by Kate to Edmund, who carried it out to the lawn table and set it down.