“Miss,” she said. “I never married.”
Day scowled at her bitterly. One after another he hammered questions at her concerning her occupation, her private life, her reason for visiting her niece every week-end and a dozen other inconsequential matters. The net return in usable information was zero, and finally he ran down.
Having reduced the woman to the verge of tears, eventually he asked the only question for which he had called her in in the first place.
“This note young Lawson left for his stepmother. She says you had it last. What’d you do with it?”
“Gave it to Douglas,” she said. “Doctor Lawson, that is.”
Day swung his gaze from her face to mine. I shrugged.
“Round and round the mulberry bush,” I said.
“Send in Doctor Lawson,” Day ordered Abigail Stoltz.
When Douglas Lawson came in, he seated himself easily without awaiting the inspector’s invitation, crossed his legs, and lit a cigarette.
Day regarded him over the top of his glasses, switched his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, and said, “We’re trying to track down the note your nephew left behind, Doctor. Miss Stoltz says she gave it to you.”
“That’s right,” he admitted.
“Who’d you give it to?”
“No one,” the doctor said. “Have it right here in my wallet.”
He fished a leather case from his inside breast pocket, searched it for a moment, and produced a folded half sheet of stationery. Warren Day shot a look of gloating triumph in my direction.
“Another of the famous Moon deductions,” he said.
After giving the paper a cursory examination, the inspector tossed it to me. The note was written in ink on what seemed to be half a sheet of legal-sized typing-paper. It read:
Dear Ann:
I hate to leave this way, because undoubtedly the publicity will be unpleasant for you, but I think it the wisest course. Explain things to Grace, Uncle Doug.
There was no signature.
“Not quite what Mrs. Lawson said, but close,” I remarked, and handed it back to the inspector.
“You sure your nephew wrote this?” Day asked.
The doctor looked surprised. “Why, of course. It’s in his handwriting.” He regarded Day curiously, then dropped his eyes to the note in the inspector’s hand. “I suppose a handwriting expert could establish it definitely.”
The inspector grunted, referred to the note, and asked, “Any idea what the boy meant about explaining things to you and his sister?”
Dr. Lawson shook his head. “We all discussed that at the time, but it didn’t make sense to anyone. However, since we found Don’s body, I’ve been thinking it over, and it occurs to me possibly this was a suicide note. Suicide would explain the note’s apparent lack of sense, for suicides are seldom very coherent. Possibly Don’s use of the word ‘explain’ was merely a poor word choice. As we originally interpreted the note, we all thought he was asking Ann to explain to Grace and me why he was running away, which of course she didn’t know, but if you regard it as a suicide note, perhaps all he meant was he wanted her to break the news gently.”
The inspector’s expression was dubious. “Know of any possible motive for suicide?”
“Well—” Dr. Lawson paused to punch out his cigarette and immediately lit another. He seemed slightly embarrassed. “A suicide doesn’t necessarily have to have what you or I would consider a motive, Inspector. The condition of his mind is motive enough.”
“But Mrs. Lawson stated very definitely that in her opinion young Don was not pathological.”
“Pathological?” The doctor looked puzzled. Then he grinned. “Ann’s—Mrs. Lawson’s knowledge of psychiatry is at best sketchy. Apparently she meant psychotic. And I’m afraid I have to disagree with my sister-in-law. Don definitely had a psychotic personality, and I was even planning to refer him to a psychiatrist for treatment.”
Warren Day’s eyes lighted with interest. “What was his trouble?”
The doctor shrugged. “I’m not a psychiatrist. I do know enough, however, to recognize a psychotic when I see one. Among other things, Don was a hypochondriac. For the past year he has called at my office on the average of once a week with everything from tuberculosis to a brain tumor, but I’ve never been able to find the slightest thing wrong with him physically. He had always been a moody boy, but recently his fits of depression began to alarm me. I have to admit that the possibility of suicide never occurred to me, for if it had I would have referred him to a psychiatrist immediately. I did fear a possible mental breakdown, however, and while I would not have diagnosed Don as a potential suicide, it is not particularly surprising he became one.”
This masterful bit of post-mortem diagnosis seemed to satisfy the inspector, but left me with the mental resolve that if I ever started clawing the wallpaper, the first doctor I would stay away from was Dr. Douglas Lawson.
Day folded the suicide note and stuck it in his inside coat pocket. “Now about the attempted poisoning, Doctor. Understand you had the milk analyzed.”
“Yes. It contained enough paraldehyde to kill several people.”
“Paraldehyde?” I asked, surprised. “Isn’t that a peculiar drug to use as a poison?”
Dr. Lawson looked at me quizzically. “You familiar with it?”
“Only vaguely. Had an alcoholic client once who took it to make pink elephants disappear. The guy had a suicide complex, and it was my job to see he didn’t knock himself off on one of his periodic binges. I asked the doc who prescribed paraldehyde if an overdose could be fatal, and he said it might be, but he doubted that anyone could hold enough on his stomach to kill himself, because too much makes people throw up.”
The doctor’s expression was the tolerant one of a professional explaining the technicalities of his profession to a layman. “Probably your client took it in water. Undisguised it has a rather nauseating taste, but in milk a person could easily hold down a fatal dose. I think you’d find it listed as a poison in the Pharmacopoeia.”
“What difference does it make whether it would have killed her or not?” Warren Day interjected irritably. “It was obviously intended to, which makes it attempted murder. Where could a person get this stuff, Doctor?”
Douglas Lawson shrugged. “Any drugstore. You’d have to have a prescription, but anyone can obtain a prescription for a hypnotic by visiting a doctor and claiming insomnia. My own theory is that whoever is trying to kill Grace did just that, and was unlucky enough to have the doctor prescribe a hypnotic with a strong odor. The potential killer could hardly ask the doctor to prescribe a specific drug, and probably figured an overdose of any sleeping-potion would do the trick.”
The inspector said, “As I understand it, everyone in the house now was also present on each of the occasions attempts were made on your niece’s life.”
The doctor nodded.
“And Sunday night, when Don disappeared, everyone but Arnold Tate was here.”
“Depends on what time he disappeared,” Dr. Lawson said. “He told all of us good night and went to his room when the rest of us retired. If he disappeared before one a.m., we were all in the house. I received an emergency call about ten of one, and left in my car ten minutes later. I didn’t get back until seven-thirty, after the servants were up.”
“What was the call?” Day asked.
“A delivery. I had been expecting it, but hoped the mother would pick a more agreeable time.” He grinned. “That’s a forlorn hope, for they all seem to prefer the middle of the night.”
“Give me the details,” Day said, producing a dog-eared notebook and an automatic pencil.
“The patient was Mrs. Anna Wright,” the doctor said, spelling the last name and waiting while Day wrote it down. “When her husband phoned, I told him to get her to the hospital, phoned the hospital to make arrangements, then dressed and drove there myself. I arrived at one-twenty, about a minute before the expectant mother.”
> “What hospital?” the inspector asked. “Millard.”
“And you were there until seven-thirty?”
“Until about seven. Ordinarily deliveries don’t take so long, but this was a breach presentation, and the mother went into shock from loss of blood. I stayed to check on the intravenous until I was sure she was out of danger. The baby lived. A six-pound girl.”
“One last question,” Warren Day said. “Why didn’t you report these murder attempts to the police?”
“I suppose I should have,” the doctor admitted. “But it seemed so certainly the work of someone in the house, I hoped I could discover who it was and turn him or her over to the police quietly, instead of getting everyone upset knowing a potential killer was loose among us.”
“Humph!” Day snorted. “All right, Doctor. Send in young Arnold Tate.”
Neither Arnold Tate nor Gerald Cushing, who followed him, was able to offer any information we did not already have. Day made short work of them and then called Jonathan Mannering.
Mannering was able to shed no light on either Don’s death or Grace’s danger, but he did clear up a question which had been bothering me—whether the Lawson estate was worth eight or eighteen million. He let go of the information reluctantly, not that it would make a particle of difference to anyone, but purely because of the conservative legal tendency to impart no information concerning a client to anyone without a subpoena.
Only after Warren Day bluntly informed him he considered the will the most probable motive for the attempts on Grace’s life, and he meant to know its provisions even if he had to drag Mannering into court that night, and I had explained that we already knew the general provisions, and named them, did the lawyer relent.
“I suppose the actual amounts involved aren’t particularly important, since you seem to know everything else,” he said. “The bulk of the estate, which was scheduled to fall to Grace and Don equally after all other bequests, a few special trust funds, and taxes are taken out, amounts to controlling interest in Lawson Drugs, with a rough market value of eighteen million dollars and about two million in cash and other convertible assets.”
“Wow!” I said. “Twenty million bucks. Twenty million motives for murder!”
Jonathan Mannering eyed me coldly. “Since Ann-Mrs. Lawson is the heir in event of the children’s deaths, you are implying she is the guilty person.”
“Not necessarily,” I told him. “Maybe she’s on the killer’s list, too. Who’s her heir?”
The lawyer stared at me blankly for a moment, and a curious expression of fear touched his eyes. “Why—why, Abigail Stoltz. But Ann really has little to leave, since the trust fund furnishing her income reverts to the Lawson estate on her death.” He paused while a look almost of incredulity slowly formed on his face. “Of course if Grace died suddenly, and then Ann died before she changed her present will, Abigail would inherit everything.” He thought a moment and added, “No doubt in such circumstances Douglas Lawson, or other relatives of the bequestor, could break the will, or at least partially break it, since it is obvious Donald Lawson’s will never intended anything to go to Abigail Stoltz. I’ll have to speak to Ann about it.”
“Don’t speak to anyone but Ann,” I suggested. “Just possibly that would hurry along some murders.”
Day glanced at his watch. “Nearly midnight. Tell Mrs. Lawson I want the servants now, but the rest of you may go to bed if you wish. And send Lieutenant Hannegan in for a minute.”
When Hannegan opened the door, Day barked at him, “Find out where Don Lawson’s room was and get some samples of his handwriting. That’s all.”
“Yes, sir,” Hannegan said, and closed the door quietly.
I grinned at the inspector. “Bet the boys at Homicide all pitch in to buy you a Christmas present each year.”
He looked startled. “Eh? You mean maybe the men don’t like me?” Discarding his cigar, which now looked like a shredded rope, and biting a quarter inch off a new one, he muttered defensively, “Nobody can say I play favorites.”
“No,” I told him. “You ride the pants off everybody.”
About five minutes passed before there was a knock, and the door opened without awaiting invitation. With one hand still on the knob, Maggie, the housekeeper, stood stiffly in the doorway, surveying Warren Day’s bald head distastefully. The inspector examined her mustache with equal distaste.
“Well, come in and close the door!” he said testily.
Ignoring him, Maggie addressed herself to me. “Sir, Miss Ann wants to know if these police persons would like sandwiches and coffee before they talk to the rest of us.” Her tone made it obvious she still considered me a guest, whereas the police were in the same category as tradespeople and delivery boys.
“They’d like it very much, Maggie,” I said solemnly. “And so would I.”
Day cleared his throat, but before he could speak, the housekeeper said, “Most everyone has gone up to bed. Will the drawing-room be all right, sir?”
“Fine,” I said. “And would you have Edmund take something to the driver out back?”
“Yes, sir. It’ll be ready in about five minutes.”
“Humph!” Day snorted as Maggie departed, leaving the door open. He slanted his cigar at a belligerent angle and glared at me over his glasses.
“Maggie is blood-conscious,” I explained to him. “One of the old-family-retainer type, who can recognize aristocracy at a glance, and has no use for the proletariat. I’ve mentioned those ready-made suits you wear before, and—“
“Shut up!” Day bawled.
He surged to his feet and flounced out of the room ahead of me.
The only people in the drawing-room were Grace and Ann, the others apparently having wasted no time in taking advantage of the inspector’s permission to retire. Grace’s youthful face was drawn with strain and fatigue.
“You going to bed soon?” I asked her.
She nodded tiredly.
“Then I’ll start earning my fee,” I said. “I want to check your bedroom for safety.”
She nodded again, almost mechanically, bade her stepmother a tepid good night, and moved toward the stairs. I followed her up them and along the upper hallway, which was dimly lighted by a single wall lamp, to the door just this side of my own.
As she reached for the knob, I touched her shoulder and said, “Huh uh.”
She looked back at me inquiringly.
“I don’t mean to be. melodramatic,” I said, “but as long as you’re paying for a bodyguard, let’s give you your money’s worth. According to Emily Post, the bodyguard always goes first.”
Gently I pushed her aside, opened the door, and felt for the wall switch with my left hand.
“Grace?” inquired a low voice from the darkness.
My left hand found the wall switch at the same moment my right found the P-38 under my arm. I aimed the latter in the general direction of the voice before flipping the former. A soft, pink glow flooded the room, disclosing Arnold Tate resting comfortably beneath a thin sheet on one of the two pillows of the double bed in the room.
I put my gun away and said gravely, “Good evening, Arnold.”
VII
FLINGING BACK THE SHEET, Arnold sprang from bed and stood glaring at me in all the splendor of orange pajamas with purple stripes.
“What do you want here?” he asked indignantly.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I said.
Behind me Grace giggled. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw she was staring fixedly at her fiancé's garish pajamas. Amusement struggled with the strain and grief in her face, and a second giggle broke forth. It was high and edged with hysteria, but there was no doubt from her expression that Arnold’s presence somehow struck her as terribly funny.
No man enjoys being laughed at by his ladylove. Arnold’s indignation became an enormous dignity. Scooping a maroon robe from the foot of the bed, he shrugged it on and padded barefooted toward the door. There he turned to me, p
ointedly ignoring Grace.
“For your information,” he said distantly, “this is not what it seems. With a murderer abroad, I merely felt Grace would be safer if not left alone all night.”
Grace’s shoulders began to shake, and giggling unrestrainedly, she collapsed against her defender’s chest. Arnold held himself rigid, his face scarlet with embarrassment above her downbent head.
I said, “Mighty chivalrous of you, Arnold. Gives me an idea.”
I crossed to the large window, glanced out, and saw it led onto a balcony. A hand grasped my shoulder and swung me around.
“What did that crack mean, Mr. Moon?” Arnold demanded.
I glanced from his jutting jaw to his clenched fists. “What crack?” I asked cautiously. “What idea does it give you?”
I studied him a minute before I got it. “Relax,” I said. “I’m not intending to steal your plan. Does your bedroom window let out on a balcony?”
His belligerent air died gradually, to be replaced by a mixture of suspicion and puzzlement. “No.” “Good,” I said. “Climb back in bed. You can spend the night here.”
Arnold looked flustered, and Grace’s giggling shut off suddenly. She studied me warily, apparently not so much perturbed as surprised by my statement.
“And you’ll sleep in Arnold’s room,” I told her. “Get your stuff and let’s go.”
Arnold’s expression was a mixture of disappointment and bewilderment. The girl’s was merely one of waiting.
“A murderer could get in this room via the balcony,” I explained, then added cheerfully, “If he does, the joke’s on him, because he’ll kill the wrong person.”
Neither Grace nor Arnold split their sides laughing.
“Get your stuff,” I repeated to Grace.
Ten minutes later I had checked every inch of Arnold’s room, which was directly across from mine.
“Lock yourself in and don’t open the door till morning for anyone except me,” I told her. “If anything at all out of the way happens, yell your head off.”
“Don’t you think this is all rather unnecessary?” she asked. “Nothing has ever happened while I was asleep.”
Gallows in My Garden Page 5
