Richard Deming - Gallows in My Garden

The tennis set finished in a blaze of action which brought all those seated at the table to their feet, and finally over to the court. With everyone’s attention on the game, any one of them might have dropped poison in the milk unobserved. And since Jason and Karl had been trimming the grass around the edge of the pool, both of them had opportunity, also.

When the set ended, Arnold ran over to the table and brought back the milk and the Tom Collins he had ordered for himself. In the meantime Grace had joined the group at the edge of the court.

As Arnold handed the milk to Grace, Dr. Lawson had sniffed and asked, “What’s that funny smell?”

Everyone tested the air, and Ann said, “I smell something, too.”

Grace had also become conscious of a peculiar odor. Suddenly she raised the milk glass and sniffed at it, thereby foiling the poisoning attempt. The quick-thinking Dr. Lawson, realizing this might be another attempt on Grace’s life, had said, “That milk’s sour. I’ll get you some more,” and carried the glass off to the house. Later he had had it analyzed.

“Sounds like an awfully dumb killer,” Day remarked. “Cuts the saddle girth too far to do any good, misses with a weapon big enough to flatten an ox, and picks a poison that stinks. Seems to be a kind of expert at inefficiency. Got any suspicions?”

“No, except it couldn’t be Arnold, Ann, Uncle Doug, or Maggie.”

Day regarded her sourly. “Because they’re all incapable of sin, I suppose?”

Grace flushed, but nodded determinedly.

“For the moment we won’t rule anyone out,” the inspector said. “Now tell me about your brother’s disappearance.”

“He just left a note saying he was leaving and disappeared. Sunday night we all went to bed, and Monday he was gone. We all thought he’d just run away, though no one knew why he should have. Of course we reported it to the police, though no one was really very upset because we had no idea—” The little creases appeared in the flesh between her eyes, and she went on more hesitantly. “Don is — was a rather odd boy. We were never as close as some brothers and sisters, not that we weren’t fond of each other, but he always seemed so withdrawn somehow, I don’t think I ever really understood Don. Arnold, Uncle Doug, and I talked it over and decided possibly someone had been trying to kill him, too, and he ran away because he was scared. We supposed he’d be back in a day or two, for he hadn’t taken any clothes with him except what he had on, as nearly as we could decide from examining his closet.”

“Where’s the note he left?” Day asked.

“I don’t know. It was addressed to Ann, so I suppose she has it.”

“Was the same group of guests here overnight?”

“All but Arnold,” she said. “He has an eight-o’clock on Monday, and my first class isn’t till ten. So he always takes the bus back to school Sunday night. I drove him to the depot in time to catch the seven-fifteen.”

Grace paused for a moment, thinking. “Uncle Doug was gone part of the night. He was called out to deliver a baby.”

“How long was he gone?” Day asked.

“I don’t know. He has a private phone in his room for emergency calls, so the rest of the house won’t be disturbed when he is called late at night. We all retired about ten-thirty, so it must have been after that.”

The inspector seemed to have obtained everything he wanted from Grace. “Send Mrs. Lawson in,” he told her in dismissal.

At Ann Lawson’s entrance Inspector Day tried what he seemed to think was an ingratiating smile, with the same horrible result that had occurred in the drawing-room. I felt sorry for him. Every line of her body rippled when she walked, and at every ripple Day blinked. Nor did she have to employ the deliberately sensual sway some women use to emphasize voluptuousness. Even without artificial mannerisms she was overpoweringly feminine.

“Please have a chair, Mrs. Lawson,” the inspector said. It was the first time in our acquaintance I ever heard him use the word please.

Seating herself in the same chair Grace had occupied, she turned her calm, luminous eyes on the inspector and waited for him to proceed.

Day cleared his throat. “Were you aware someone was trying to kill your stepdaughter, Mrs. Lawson?”

“Not until this evening, when Arnold Tate made the disclosure.”

Carefully, but with visible discomfort, Day went over Grace’s testimony concerning the poisoned milk, and Ann’s version of the incident was substantially the same as her stepdaughter’s.

“Of course, at the time I had no idea it was poisoned,” she explained. “I simply accepted Douglas’s statement that it was sour, and never thought about it again. I was unaware that Douglas had it analyzed, or that he had questioned the servants to learn who had handled the glass.”

“But you agree with your stepdaughter that anyone at all had opportunity to drop poison in the milk?”

“I suppose I have to. Even myself.”

Ignoring the pointed lead, the inspector switched the subject. “Do you have the note your stepson, Don, left for you?”

“No. We all read it. I believe Aunt Abigail had it last. She’s the gray-haired woman with the boyish bob.”

Day frowned. “What did the note say?”

“Just that he was leaving.”

“I mean the exact words.”

Ann’s smooth brow furrowed in concentration. “It was very short,” she said slowly. “It read, ‘Dear Ann, I hate going off this way, because no doubt it will make unpleasant publicity for you, but I think it the wisest course. Explain things to Grace arid Uncle Doug.’ I may not have the exact wording, but that’s the sense of it.”

For the first time Day took his eyes from her face and looked over at me. “What’s that sound like to you, Moon?”

“A red herring,” I said promptly. He corrugated his forehead. “What you mean?”

“You expected me to say it sounds like a suicide note, didn’t you?”

“Why, it does!” Ann exclaimed incredulously. “That never occurred to any of us, but it could very well be, couldn’t it?” She paused, then said softly, “I should have known all along.”

“Why?” Day asked.

Ann’s expression indicated she wished she had not made the remark. “I didn’t really mean that,” she said reluctantly. “There is no reason Don should have committed suicide. It’s just that he was such a moody boy—” Her voice trailed off, then renewed its strength. “It isn’t fair of me to say such things, for it would never have occurred to me Don might commit suicide. He was a strange boy, and somewhat withdrawn, but certainly not pathological.”

“How about that red-herring crack?” Day said to me.

I said, “When two kids are heirs to as much green stuff as Don and Grace, and you know someone is trying to knock off one, you can almost bet when the other dies violently, it was murder. Any suicide notes left lying around were probably planted by the murderer. Bet you never find that note, now that it’s fulfilled its purpose.”

The inspector regarded me glumly. “Never in my life have I known a guy who can be as wrong as you are sometimes, when you jump way ahead of the evidence and make a wild guess. But this time I think you got something.” He turned back to Ann. “You say the note ended, ‘Explain things to Grace and Uncle Doug.’ What did that mean?”

“I have no idea,” Ann said. “We all puzzled over it, but the best answer we could arrive at was that he meant for me to break the news gently to them that he had run away from home.”

“Humph,” Day remarked. Then he said abruptly, “Send in your Aunt Abigail when you go out, will you please?”