The Strawstack Murders

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  The inspector stopped to light his pipe.

  “Luck,” he began again slowly, “is a factor in everyone’s life. The two boys drove east uneventfully enough, and then, at Massillon, Ohio, fate, blind chance—call it what you will—took a hand. Robert Fithian, relieving his friend at the wheel, ran the car into a telegraph pole.”

  The inspector did not look at Chal Enlow on the sofa. He did not look at any of us. His voice went on.

  “I’ve been in communication with the Ohio authorities and everything Robert Fithian told me is true. Ames Enlow was flung through the windshield and killed instantly. Hours later Robert Fithian woke up in a hospital to hear himself addressed as Ames Enlow, and to be asked what disposition should be made of his friend’s hideously I disfigured body.”

  “But how—” Harold attempted to break in.

  The inspector raised his hand.

  “Bear with me, Mr. Hargreaves. The accident occurred on May 2nd, a warm and sultry day. Both young men had taken off the coats in which they carried their papers of identification, and the authorities erroneously, but quite naturally, assumed that the owner of the car had been at the wheel. Fithian was not badly injured.

  “As he lay there in his hospital bed, as he heard himself addressed as Ames Enlow, this opportunist saw and seized his opportunity. Robert Fithian knew that Ames Enlow’s eastern relatives had never seen him. He knew that Ames’ father was in Mexico and had sworn never to leave there. And somehow, in his twisted brain, he had already identified himself with the family at Broad Acres; if they didn’t belong to him, they should.

  “Great generals and gifted criminals play their hunches. They refuse to recognize the possibility of failure. Robert Fithian told me that he never doubted that he could carry through his masquerade. In that moment he discarded a wife he hated and became another man. Calmly, he told the authorities to notify Dorothy Fithian of the death of her husband, and to ship the body east in a sealed coffin.”

  I had listened, fascinated, as the inspector talked. But now I spoke.

  “But Dorothy did find out,” I said.

  “She found out,” said the inspector, “through a contingency that Fithian could not anticipate. He couldn’t linger on in Ohio to recover fully from his shock and injuries; he couldn’t risk your learning of the accident. He pushed on to Broad Acres, arrived here and at once collapsed. You called in Dr. Smedley. He X-rayed the boy’s lungs and the plates were developed at Grosvenor Hospital. And it was there that Dorothy Fithian saw them. She was an expert in X-ray work, and she was familiar with every phase of her husband’s illness. She identified her husband, she discovered he was living when she saw that X-ray picture of his lungs. It sounds extraordinary I know. Actually,” said Inspector Chant, “it’s no more remarkable than the fact that I could identify every person in this room as well by his fingerprint as by his photograph.”

  There was a silence. The inspector’s words called up an eerie picture. A picture of a woman in a darkened room, bending over ghostly looking X-ray plates, comparing them, arriving at a fantastic truth.

  “Then what?” someone asked.

  I knew the answer before the inspector spoke, and I knew it because it had been settled days ago that Dorothy Fithian had conspired to murder me with typhoid germs. Obviously, it had been with her husband that Dorothy conspired. I had accepted Robert Fithian as my nephew, and in my will I had named him as an heir. If I died he would come into money. Oh, I saw it all now. Dorothy wanted the money that he would inherit. She had communicated with her husband, threatened him with exposure, struck a bargain. That part of the scheme was hers. Robert Fithian must infect me with typhoid germs. She wanted money.

  I spoke.

  “She wanted money,” said the inspector, when I had finished, “but as Robert Fithian discovered, she wanted I him, too. She had every intention of shading his new identity, sharing it later—when the prize had been won—as his legal wife. And that, in the end, changed the whole character of the conspiracy. Fithian, Miss Tilbury, had no desire to murder you. Actually, in his curious egocentric way, he was fond of you. But from his point of view it was your death or his own ruin. He played his part under compulsion.

  “Now,” continued Inspector Chant, “let me go back to the point where Dorothy removed a tube of typhoid germs from Kirkland Anderson’s laboratory, and handed them over to Robert Fithian. Anderson missed the germs almost at once. Within ten days, Miss Tilbury, came a report of your illness. It never occurred to Anderson to suspect Dorothy. Instead he suspected—”

  Inspector Chant hesitated.

  “He suspected me,” Fred Brierly broke in harshly. “He had seen me often enough at the hospital.” Marian caught Fred’s hand and held it tightly.

  “I’m afraid Anderson did suspect you, Mr. Brierly,” Inspector Chant said gently. “But he was in a difficult position. Smedley was in charge of Miss Tilbury’s case; Smedley was satisfied and Smedley was Anderson’s superior. The young interne didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t much in the way of proof. By this time, however, Dorothy was installed at Broad Acres, and eventually Anderson decided to ask the nurse if she had observed anything suspicious about the case. Dorothy was badly frightened, I’m sure; but she managed to worm from Anderson the cause of all his worries. She was much too clever to laugh at his suspicions. Instead, she played the sympathetic and worldly wise friend. She pointed out that to bring an accusation of poisoning by means of typhoid bacteria without definite proof was a serious matter indeed. It might mean the end of his career. Anderson decided to keep quiet.”

  I remembered Dorothy moving noiselessly about my bedroom. Reading my temperature chart, obeying Dr. Smedley’s orders, acting out the part of the devoted nurse. Acting her role so skillfully that neither Dr. Smedley nor Kirkland Anderson had ever suspected her.

  “It would have been wiser,” Inspector Chant went on, “for Dorothy to have stayed away from Broad Acres. She came anyhow. She was determined that you should die, Miss Tilbury, and she was also determined to be under the same roof with her husband, to be close to him, to watch him.” There was a long pause. “After Robert Fithian became Ames Enlow,” the inspector said, “he changed. Dorothy was a jealous, possessive woman—she sensed the change.” Inspector Chant surveyed the quiet room. “This young man who had never loved a human being except himself, who had certainly never loved his wife, fell desperately in love. A queer, twisted kind of love—”

  “Go ahead,” Jane said, quietly. “Say it. Robert Fithian loved me—as—as much as he could love anyone.”

  With that she began to cry. Ted put his arms around her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder and slowly, gradually, a look of peace came on her face. My own heart seemed to lighten as I watched. Jane was nineteen years old, and I knew that she would forget.

  “But what about the cyanide?” demanded Harold, briskly in control of himself and desiring only that every question be disposed of neatly. “What about what happened on September 27th?”

  “Let me take everything in order,” replied the inspector patiently. “Dorothy first. Dorothy who never lost sight of her determination to obtain a fortune. To Dorothy’s horror, Miss Tilbury, you started on the road to recovery. She dared not try bacteria again, not with Anderson already suspicious. She thought of poison. She thought of potassium cyanide—potassium cyanide to be found in every hospital laboratory, but difficult of access elsewhere. This time Dorothy would not risk the theft herself. Robert Fithian went to Kirkland Anderson’s laboratory on September 7th and left it with the cyanide in his possession. In the hall outside the laboratory he encountered Anderson. Anderson hadn’t the slightest notion who Fithian was, but he could recognize a confused and frightened man when he saw one. Fithian went quickly down the stairs and got into a taxi, but Anderson followed and heard him tell the driver to go to Broad Acres. All of his previous suspicions poured back into Anderson’s mind. He went straight to his laboratory, and within fifteen minutes discovered that a large qu
antity of cyanide potassium had disappeared.”

  “Well,” said Harold briskly, “what then?”

  “Anderson telephoned Dorothy Fithian. He told her that he was now sure someone was trying to murder Miss Tilbury. He asked Dorothy to make a private appointment for him with Miss Tilbury—he still had no proof of a crime, but he intended, whatever the consequences, to confide his suspicions.

  “Dorothy, of course, was terrified. She begged Anderson to delay any action until she could talk to him. She rushed into town, discovered that Anderson was not to be deflected, that he was determined to see Miss Tilbury. Finally she told him to write a letter to Miss Tilbury. When it was received, she said, she would arrange the appointment. He wrote the letter—”

  “The letter she suppressed!” I said.

  “Exactly. Dorothy was sparring for time. She watched for the letter, destroyed it. Then she wrote Anderson a curt letter in reply, and signed your name to it. She hoped that might bring an end to those attempts of his to see you, Miss Tilbury. What she needed was time. Time in which to think and plan.”

  Inspector Chant had been pacing up and down the room. Now he stood quite still.

  “Kirkland Anderson’s fate was settled by that telephone call. He was marked for death. From that time on the wheels of conspiracy turned faster, faster. Neither Dorothy nor Fithian could risk exposure. To Dorothy it meant defeat, the loss of any chance to obtain a fortune. To Fithian it meant that his masquerade would be discovered, that he would lose the girl he now loved, the family security he prized.

  “Dorothy planned the murder of Kirkland Anderson carefully, and she made Fithian her conspirator. Once she was started upon the path, however, her plan steadily grew more grandiose and complex. She would not stop at the death of Anderson. She was still determined to obtain a share of Margaret Tilbury’s money, and to accomplish Margaret Tilbury’s death. In other words she conceived a plan that was to make September 27th—” the inspector smiled a wry smile, “memorable.”

  “Fithian told me all about it at the hospital. Here is what she planned to do: First, kill Anderson with Fred Brierly’s gun so that Fred should take the blame. Second, poison Miss Tilbury with cyanide which she would place in her milk.”

  Harold sat forward in his chair.

  “Hold on a minute. I see how Dorothy and Robert might have hoped to pin Anderson’s murder on Fred Brierly. But how about Margaret’s murder? Who was to take the blame for that?”

  “No one,” said the inspector. “No one at all.”

  Chant turned to face me.

  “Obviously, Miss Tilbury, your death would have to fit very neatly into a complicated evening. And Dorothy meant that it should. When she placed the poisoned milk on your night table, she also wrote out a note that was to be found on the roller of your typewriter. That note, signed with your name, was to explain to your grieving family your reasons for committing suicide!”

  “Suicide?” I had suffered too many previous shocks to experience another. I knew that Dorothy had been a forger—a master at making things appear what they weren’t. I looked at the inspector. “But what possible reasons could I have for committing suicide?”

  “Suppose you had seen Fred Brierly kill Kirkland Anderson; suppose you could not face the scandal of the trial—” The inspector said somberly, “Dorothy Fithian, when she laid her plans for September 27th, did everything within her power to pick up every possible loose end and to tie those ends into a perfect whole. Lies, lies, a maze of lies—twisted to resemble truth! I didn’t see the ‘suicide’ note, Miss Tilbury. It was destroyed long ago. But Robert Fithian saw it. The note announced to the world that you had seen Brierly kill Anderson, and had poisoned yourself because of grief and shock.”

  “But why was the ‘suicide’ note left under Dorothy’s bed?”

  “Dorothy could not risk your seeing it, Miss Tilbury. You had to drink the milk and die before the note appeared in your room. That was Robert’s part in the conspiracy. He was to come to Broad Acres, creep into the house and shift the note into your room so that it could be discovered and read by the members of your family on the morning of the 28th.”

  Harold was patently dissatisfied. “You’ve been telling us, inspector, what did not happen on September 27th. You’ve been telling us this complicated plan which Dorothy had figured out, but you haven’t said a word about what went wrong with it.”

  “That’s quite simple,” said Inspector Chant. “Thorough as Dorothy was, she made one slight mistake. She didn’t take into account the character of her dupe. She paid no mind to Robert Fithian, to his desires and hopes. I’ve said that she wanted money, and that she wanted to regain her husband. She wanted to force him back into the prison of her love. But I’ve said also that Robert Fithian wanted something else. He wanted to keep on being Ames Enlow; he had given such affection as he was capable of feeling to another woman.”

  “Robert Fithian,” Inspector Chant continued slowly, “was willing to lend himself to a double murder—the murder of Kirkland Anderson, and the cowardly murder of a woman who had given everything to him. He was willing to conspire that Fred Brierly, an innocent man, should suffer. But he was not willing, under any circumstances, to return to Dorothy Fithian. He told her that on September 27th, when he met her in the strawstacks.”

  The inspector’s words had been dry and matter of fact. But somehow I saw that scene. Somehow I saw Robert Fithian, whom I had known as Ames Enlow, meeting Dorothy Fithian in the strawstacks on the night of September 27th. It was a raw and drizzling night. It was shortly after eight o’clock. Dorothy had left potassium cyanide in my milk, she had typed a “suicide” note which was waiting underneath her bed. She was on her way to an appointment with a young and unsuspecting interne—an appointment which was to end in murder. She was meeting her accomplice, exchanging a few last words with him… I came back to reality and the sound of the inspector’s voice.

  “Dorothy Fithian heard her husband through. She listened, and then she laughed. She told Robert Fithian that he was much mistaken. She outlined a future for them both. Within two months—after Robert had collected his share of Margaret Tilbury’s estate—he would join her in New York and together they would sail for Europe. He could marry her again under the name of Ames Enlow, and they would sail as man and wife.”

  The inspector sighed, and shook his head.

  “Until this time Dorothy had led Robert to believe that she would share the money but go away, and let him live his life in peace. For money she had promised that he could buy his freedom. But on the night of September 27th, in that lonely field, she revealed herself. She snatched back the promised freedom. She told Robert that he belonged to her forever, that she would never give him to another woman. And then she laughed.”

  From far away I seemed to hear the sound of distant laughter. I shivered.

  “Robert Fithian,” said Inspector Chant, “realized in an instant that he was trapped. He saw a barren and an awful future—the collapse of all his egocentric hopes. Life, with Dorothy always at his side, was too hideous to contemplate. Robert Fithian went crazy. He forgot the careful and elaborate plan, he forgot everything. His fingers closed on the scarf at Dorothy Fithian’s throat and with the scarf he strangled her.”

  The drawing room was splashed with sunshine, but horror crept in with the ardent sun. For a moment no one spoke. Then Simon stirred beside me. “So Dorothy’s murder was unpremeditated.”

  “It was unpremeditated, indeed. The act almost of a lunatic. Robert Fithian hadn’t brought a car to Broad Acres, he had come by bus. He started running toward the road, he saw Jane Brierly’s car parked there. His blood began to cool, his emotions to subside. He remembered the plan to kill Anderson, remembered Dorothy Fithian’s appointment with the young interne. Could he save anything from the wreckage of the evening? Was it possible that he could save himself? Robert looked at his watch. It was only 8:15. He ran back to the spot where Dorothy Fithian was lying, tore off her cape and beret.
The girl was dying but he thought that she was dead—he couldn’t leave the body lying where Fred Brierly, arriving from the theater, might stumble upon it. He carried Dorothy’s body through the field and to the strawstacks. He worked in frantic haste; Fred Brierly was due at any moment. Actually Fred Brierly missed seeing Robert Fithian by a matter of seconds.”

  “Hardly that,” Fred said, and told us once again how he had heard Jane’s car race off toward Washington.

  “As Robert Fithian sped toward Washington,” continued Inspector Chant, “he reviewed his situation. Dorothy’s plan was complicated, exhaustively thought out; it suddenly occurred to him—once more the brilliant and daring opportunist—that with a little reorganization he might utilize her criminal stratagems, make them serve his purposes. He could disguise himself in Dorothy’s cape and beret, wait outside Grosvenor Hospital, pick up Anderson and murder him.

  “But then what? How was he to escape the consequences of his crimes? A solution came to him—he would run the car with Anderson’s body into the Potomac River, and permit the authorities to conclude that Anderson himself had strangled Dorothy, and fled. But there was still the possibility that the authorities might discover the car. Robert insured himself against that eventuality. He deliberately left in the car evidence pointing to Fred Brierly as the killer—the gun, the letters pinned in Dorothy’s cape.

  “After he committed his second murder, after he stood on the banks of the Potomac River and watched a car sink out of sight, there was one thing left for him to do. Robert Fithian had to return to Broad Acres…”

  I started to ask a question and then stopped short. I perceived quite clearly why Robert Fithian had to return to Broad Acres. It was vital that he prevent my drinking the poisoned milk, that he obtain and destroy the “suicide” note. My death—the death which he and Dorothy had plotted—no longer fitted the pattern of the evening. My “suicide,” with that note accusing Fred Brierly, would make it highly evident that Kirkland Anderson was not a murderer, and that he was not a fugitive.