Warren Day opened his eyes again and moved his head negatively.
The interviews with Karl and Edmund proved to be wasted effort, for neither seemed to know anything at all about anything. Jason Henry, the gardener, was close to a washout, too, except for the interesting discovery that he was a staunch admirer of Kate Malone. He was a big man of about forty, thick through the body and equally thick through the head.
After he departed, the inspector and I toyed with the possibility that his admiration for Kate denoted secret love, and perhaps he pushed Don Lawson over the bluff in a jealous rage. But beside being a trifle farfetched, a forged suicide note seemed out of character for a simple, earthy individual such as Jason.
“With what little we have to go on,” I said finally, “my first guess is Doctor Douglas Lawson.”
“Why?” the inspector asked.
“Because next to Mrs. Lawson he has the best motive. Mrs. Lawson, of course, has the most obvious motive. But that’s just why I don’t like it. It’s so obvious, she’d be a sucker to try to get away with murder.”
“All right,” the inspector said. “What’s the doctor’s motive?”
I said, “Out of twenty million dollars, his brother left him only fifty thousand. Maybe he’s peeved enough to commit a couple of murders and get the rest.”
Warren Day snorted. “He couldn’t get the rest if he killed everyone in the house. Grace’s heir is Mrs. Lawson, and hers is Abigail Stoltz. Of course we don’t know who Abigail’s is, but I’ll bet my next vacation it’s not Doctor Lawson.”
“That’s why I like his motive,” I said. “It isn’t right out in the open for every policeman to pounce on. He could stop after two murders.” I paused, then announced, “He’s going to marry Ann Lawson.”
The inspector blinked. “How do you know?”
I told him about the bluff-edge conversation I had overheard between Ann and Doctor Lawson. Day regarded me disapprovingly as I unfolded the tale, but I got the impression his disapproval was not so much for my eavesdropping as it was for the news that Ann Lawson had been in the amiable doctor’s arms.
“Sounds like they aren’t definitely engaged,” he said with unconvincing assurance. “He’d hardly go to the trouble of killing two people just on the off-chance Mrs. Lawson might say yes.”
“It’s not an off-chance,” I insisted. “I know the conversation I heard doesn’t sound very passionate, but he has her hooked, all right. You can tell by a woman’s tone when she’s in love with a man.”
“How would you know?” he asked irritably. “Besides, according to the testimony, Doctor Lawson was the one who first noticed the odor of the milk. If he poisoned it, he’d have kept his mouth shut.”
“Maybe he saw one of the others sniffing the air, realized the poisoning wasn’t going to work, and beat the other person to the jump. And who but a doctor would have a better opportunity to obtain poison?”
“That,” he said triumphantly, “is where your whole case falls down. Would a doctor use a poison that smells?”
“Maybe not,” I admitted. “But let’s check up on his alibi, anyway.”
“What alibi? For all we know, Don may have gone over the bluff between ten-thirty, when he was last seen, and one a.m., when the doctor claims he left.”
I said patiently, “Maybe eventually we’ll turn something up fixing the time of death. Maybe the morgue will find he wore a watch that smashed when he fell, for example. If you phone the hospital now, you’ll catch the same night supervisor who was on when the doctor delivered his baby.”
After grumbling some more, Day used the study phone to call Millard Hospital and talk to the night supervisor. He talked about five minutes, then hung up the phone.
“Alibi checks,” he said sourly.
I looked at my watch and saw it was one-thirty. “The only guy left to interview is Hannegan,” I told the inspector. “You can do that if you want, but I’m going to bed.”
I set my mental alarm clock for eight. Sometimes my mental alarm clock works and sometimes it doesn’t, mostly the latter when I have been in the habit of sleeping till noon for some time, a habit I automatically develop between jobs. This Sunday morning it was off by an hour and a half, popping me awake at six-thirty. I spent fifteen minutes trying to shut it off and go back to sleep, then gave up in disgust and climbed out of bed. I took my time shaving, showering, and dressing, so it was nearly seven-thirty before I finally left the room.
I was reaching for the knob of the door across from mine in order to give it a routine check, when it turned by itself from inside. I stepped back, the door opened, and out walked Arnold Tate, still resplendent in his purple-striped orange pajamas and his maroon robe. His hair was twisted in the kind of cowlick you only get by sleeping on it.
Quickly he pulled the door shut behind him and eyed me with a mixture of belligerence and embarrassment.
“It’s not what you’re thinking at all, Mr. Moon.”
“Was I thinking something?” I asked.
“You’re thinking I’m carrying on some kind of illicit love affair with Grace,” he said heatedly. “I can see it in your face.”
“That’s just the reflection of your guilty conscience,” I assured him. “I know you were just guarding her against murderers.”
His face reddened, and his long jaw thrust out. He took a step toward me with both fists clenched. “If you weren’t a cripple—“
I nodded agreeably. “It wouldn’t be fair to hit me, but I guess I take advantage of it.”
He said, “You could stand to have your mind dry-cleaned,” padded his bare feet across the hall, and slammed the door of the room he was supposed to have slept in.
I knocked on the door he had just left, and when Grace called, “Yes?” opened it and went in. She was still in bed, a sheet pulled up to her neck, more for decorum than insulation, for already it was beginning to get hot. Her tumbled hair formed a golden halo about her head, and she looked like a fairy princess.
I sat on the foot of her bed.
“Look, angelpuss,” I said. “I’ve got a sister who was your age the last time I saw her. It’s none of my business, except you bring out the paternal in me. Can’t you kids wait till you’re married?”
She grinned at me unabashed. “You caught Arnold leaving, huh? I told him he’d get caught.”
When I scowled at her, the grin faded. She said, “Don’t have such an evil mind, Mr. Moon. It’s not what you think at all.”
I sighed and rose. “All right. It’s not what I think. As I said, it’s none of my business, anyway, except I told you not to open your door. If you want me to continue guarding your body, you’ll obey orders. And Arnold Tate isn’t any exception to the orders.”
“Yes, sir,” she said meekly.
“Long as you’re awake, you might as well get up and keep me company. I’ll wait in the hall.” “Yes, sir,” she said again.
“And stop calling me ‘sir,’ “ I said irritably.
“All right, Mr. Moon. I’ll be ten minutes.”
Her female ten minutes proved nearly thirty by my watch, and it was eight by the time we got downstairs. The rest of the household began drifting down shortly thereafter, and we breakfasted rather glumly in the dining-room, the only conversation being Gerald Cushing’s assurance to Ann that he would take care of funeral arrangements and try to have the funeral scheduled for Monday, which was the next day.
After breakfast we all gathered on the front veranda in an effort to find a cool breeze, for the day was rapidly developing into a scorcher. Here conversation remained as dead as it had at breakfast, the sole effort being a question to me by Jonathan Mannering as to whether I thought the police would allow anyone to go to church.
“You’ll have to ask the inspector,” I told him. “He’ll be here at nine.”
Promptly on the hour a lone squad car deposited Warren Day in front of the house. He came up the veranda steps alone, apparently having given Hannegan a Sunday off. To m
e this indicated the inspector had it all figured out—or thought he had.
“Good morning,” he said, scowling at everyone but Ann Lawson, and simpering at her.
“I see you have it solved, Inspector,” I said.
He looked at me nonplused. “How’d you know, Moon?”
“The intelligent light in your eyes.”
He gave a suspicious half-snort, half-sniff, examining my face for a trace of amusement. Finding none, he thrust his hands in his pockets, teetered back and forth on his soles, and prepared to give a speech. Apparently his address was directed to all of us, but as he spoke the corners of his eyes watched Ann Lawson.
“Our handwriting expert says the deceased’s note is definitely his own writing, and written under emotional strain,” Day announced in opening. “A psychologist we got out of bed at six this morning expresses the opinion it was a suicide note. We ordered a special autopsy last night, and there is no evidence of death being caused by anything but the fall. Experts who studied the top of the bluff found no evidence of a struggle there, and there has been no rain to obliterate traces of such a struggle had one occurred. After studying the evidence, the coroner therefore declared it a suicide, and we are closing the case.”
He looked around smugly, the living symbol of an efficient police system which neatly ties things up overnight, sparing no public official the inconvenience of being jerked out of bed or from a night club on Saturday night so that all these nice, influential people could go to church on Sunday. For some reason the remembrance of a week-end I once spent in jail because the coroner could not be bothered looking at a body before Monday popped into my mind.
“How do you fit the attempts on Miss Lawson’s life into that theory?” I asked.
He gave me an insufferably indulgent grin. “Easy, Moon. Who had the best motive to kill her off?” He answered himself. “Her brother, Don. There won’t be any more attempts.”
I said slowly, “So the would-be murderer killed himself, and now we live safely forever after, eh?”
The inspector’s grin changed to a scowl. “That’s right. Anything wrong with it?”
“Just one minor point. Where do the mugs who tried to take me for a ride fit in?”
The scowl became deeper, and he bent his head to peer at me over his glasses. “A guy like you has got lots of enemies, Moon. It’s your personality makes them. They never had any connection with this case.”
“They knew Grace Lawson by sight,” I said patiently. “They had tailed her to my apartment, and jumped me because they didn’t want my nose in this business.”
“You mean that’s what you deduced, master mind. Probably they were brothers of some girl you wronged and cast aside.”
I lit a cigar and kept out of the rest of the conversation, which mainly concerned the inspector’s brilliance. The worst of it was that he was a smart cop, but he had a blind spot which made him simply shrug off any conflicting little bit of evidence that marred an otherwise perfect case. I had seen him do it before, and nine times out of ten he was right and the conflicting part proved to be a red herring, but this time I knew he was wrong, for I had too vivid a memory of that squat gunman saying to his English-lord pal, “Geez, it’s the kid! What do we do now?”
IX
AFTER THE INSPECTOR LEFT I might as well have saved my breath insofar as trying to convince anyone the whole situation was not yet over. With the exception of Arnold Tate, who, in spite of his suspicion that I had a dirty mind, made a half-hearted suggestion that I be retained as a watchdog a few days just to be sure, everybody was so relieved Don had not been murdered by one of them, and the attempts on Grace’s life could be pinned on a dead man, there was just no way to get past the mental block.
In spite of her shock at her brother’s death, Grace herself was so heartened at no longer having to doubt any of these people, whose possible guilt she had never really been able to suspect anyway, she became almost gay. The same attitude of release seemed to pervade all of them, even Ann and Douglas Lawson, who next to Arnold had shown most concern over the girl’s safety, closing their minds to the possible danger Grace might still be in. Though properly horrified by the exposé of Don’s guilt, their horror was more than overbalanced by relief that none of the clique still alive was a criminal.
I beat my head against the solid wall of their determination until it began to look as though I were simply arguing to keep from losing my job. Then I gave up and rather curtly inquired if someone who was not intending to go to church could take me back to my flat.
Grace said, “I will. Come on, Arnold. We’ll run Mr. Moon uptown.”
Ten minutes later I followed Grace and Arnold into the garage containing the Cadillac convertible, pitched my overnight bag into the rear seat, and slid in next to Arnold. As Grace started the engine, a yell came from the side of the house. We all waited inquiringly, looking back over our shoulders.
Douglas Lawson entered the garage, said, “Decided to go along for the ride,” and vaulted into the small rear seat.
To keep him company I joined him, but I got back there less athletically, by using the car door.
I noticed Arnold’s back stiffen and Dr. Lawson brace his feet against the floor. Before I could figure out why, I suddenly learned. Grace backed the car with a surge of power that nearly threw me in the front seat, swung it sharply right parallel to the garage, which hurled me against the doctor, and slammed on the brakes.
“Do you always do that?” I gasped.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have warned you.”
She started to spin the wheel left, which would have headed the car toward the drive, but the steering-grip offered so little resistance her hand slipped off. Blankly she stared down at the wheel as it slowly revolved one complete cycle, stopped and began to revolve the other way.
“Ho hum,” I said, climbing out of the car. “Brother Don came back to life and sabotaged your steering-column.”
Silently the rest of them got out and stood staring at the car, as though if they looked hard enough they could diagnose its troubles.
“Anyone but you drive this car?” I asked Grace.
She shook her head.
I eyed her contemplatively. “Having ridden with you, I know you like speed. Presumably everyone else around here knows it, too. All you got now is a minor repair job, but if that had happened on a curve at seventy, you’d have a major funeral. Four, in fact.” I told Arnold, “Go get Karl.”
Arnold glanced at me curiously, raised his eyes to the windows of the apartment over the garage, and yelled, “Karl!”
After a moment the youngster’s head came out one of the windows above us, and he looked down inquiringly.
“Got some overalls up there?” I asked him. He nodded his head.
“Put them on and come down. I want you to crawl under this car to look for something.”
His head disappeared and a few minutes later he appeared from the end garage, which apparently contained the stairs to the garage apartments, clad in a pair of greasy coveralls and carrying a flashlight.
“The steering-wheel won’t work. See if you can tell why,” I told him.
Without comment he wriggled underneath, lay there for a moment with his toes sticking up, then wriggled out again.
“Somebody used a hack saw,” he said laconically. “Thought I heard someone down here last night, but I looked and didn’t see nothing.”
I got my grip out of the back seat. “Guess we’ll have to use a different car.”
“Wait a minute,” Arnold said. “You aren’t going anywhere. If no one else wants to hire you to protect Grace, I’ll pay the bill, myself.”
“You won’t have to, Arnold,” Grace said quietly. Her face was pale, and her eyes held the expression of someone who had been slapped by her mother. “Will you stay on, Mr. Moon?”
“I’ve been trying to all along,” I told her. “It wasn’t my idea you were out of danger.”
Our return to t
he house put an end to its occupants’ mood of suppressed gaiety. Church plans were canceled in favor of sitting around and staring at each other covertly, as though wondering which one of them was the culprit. Even yet they all seemed unwilling to face the fact that one of them was a murderer, or at least was trying to be a murderer. Delicately they skirted the subject by discussing plans for Grace’s protection as though her enemy were some person outside their own group. I had my own plans, but saw no advantage in airing them in front of the killer, who I was reasonably certain was a member of the conference.
Surprisingly enough Abigail Stoltz made the only intelligent suggestion during the whole conversation.
“It seems to me Grace should get away from here entirely,” she said hesitantly. “Say have Mr. Moon take her off some place none of us know about, and then come back here and apply all his energy to finding out what this is all about.”
“You’ve been reading my mind,” I told her. “If Grace and Mrs. Lawson agree, we’ll leave right after dinner.”
This brought on a discussion during which everyone tried to talk at once, but which finally ended in general agreement. However, most of the group felt they personally should know where Grace was hiding out, Ann because she was the girl’s stepmother, Arnold because he was her fiancé, Dr. Lawson because he seemed to fancy himself her natural protector, and Jonathan Mannering on the grounds that the family lawyer should be in on the details of any matter bearing on the welfare of one of the family. I got the impression he feared I might kidnap the girl and hold her for ransom.
Only Abigail Stoltz and Gerald Cushing seemed willing to be kept in the dark. Very bluntly I threw cold water on the first four’s plans.
“Possibly one of the servants is engineering whatever is going on,” I told them. “But if Don’s death was actually murder instead of suicide, the murderer is a lot smarter than any of the servants seem. Right now I’m plugging for one of you six people being the engineer. Aside from myself and Grace, no one is going to know where she is.”
This shut up everybody but Grace. “I think Arnold ought to know,” she put in timidly.
Gallows in My Garden Page 7
