Gallows in My Garden

by Deming, Richard

  I managed to locate a picture and was handing it to Day when a car roared up the drive at a rate of speed too fast for safety. When the inspector saw white lettering on its hood, he bellowed, “Hey!” in such an enormous voice, the driver slammed on his brakes and skidded to a halt at a point just before the drive passed alongside the building. Two uniformed officers jumped from the car and approached the veranda abreast, becoming noticeably paler the nearer they got to Warren Day.

  “Glad to see you boys in such a hurry,” the inspector said in a silky voice. “It can’t be more than an hour since the call went in.”

  I glanced at him, noting his rage-gauge was dead white. Not having the stomach to witness two strong men reduced to groveling wrecks, I turned away and went back into the house just as the inspector’s voice began to ascend to a subdued shriek.

  When I re-entered the drawing-room, I found Doctor Lawson and Arnold Tate had gone upstairs to check on Grace and Fausta. Abigail Stoltz and Ann Lawson were alone.

  “May I speak to you privately?” I asked Ann.

  “Why, yes,” she said, rising from her chair, then glancing sidewise at her aunt. “We can go in the den.”

  Abigail rose, also, for some reason turning a dark red. “No, don’t go to that trouble,” she said in a flustered voice. “I was going to my room anyway.”

  Before either of us could reply, she hurried toward the stairway. Ann resumed her seat, and I situated myself on the sofa across from her chair.

  “We’re more or less at a blank wall, Mrs. Lawson,” I told her. “This thing makes so little sense, all I can see to do is start over from the beginning. Only this time I’d like to start farther back, because I’m not sure we started at the beginning before.” “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “Probably because I’m trying to approach the subject delicately,” I said. “I’d like to go back to your husband’s accident.”

  Ann’s beautiful eyes widened, and for a moment she was still. “I don’t understand what you mean,” she said finally, “but you needn’t be delicate about it. My husband died nearly a year ago, and I’m quite recovered from the shock.”

  “Just a few minutes ago a thought occurred to me,” I explained. “When your husband died, his will left everything to Don and Grace. When Don died, all the money was then due Grace, providing she lived to collect. If any one of the five attempts on Grace had been successful, you’d have inherited everything.

  “Now your husband’s death appeared to be an accident, and Don’s appeared to be suicide. If the first attempt on Grace had succeeded, probably her death would have passed as an accident, which leads me to wonder if either your husband’s or Don’s death was what it seemed. The thought that occurred to me is perhaps this is a chain of murder, with you next on the list.”

  Ann’s expression had gradually changed from one of surprise to utter astonishment. “But Donald couldn’t have been murdered. My husband, I mean, not young Don. It was an auto accident. The chauffeur skidded on wet pavement and went over a twenty-foot bank.”

  “Was the chauffeur killed, too?” I asked.

  “No.” She looked puzzled, then went on slowly. “But if you think he might have done it deliberately, you’ll have to think again. The chauffeur broke three ribs, an elbow, nearly lost an eye, and was hospitalized six weeks. Would a murderer go to all that trouble?”

  “Doesn’t seem likely,” I admitted. “Anyone else injured?”

  “Douglas—Doctor Lawson sprained an ankle and broke his nose. He and Donald were riding in the back seat, you see. Donald was thrown over the seat against the windshield, but Douglas only slammed forward against the front seat.” She paused, then stated quietly, “My husband’s neck was broken, and he died instantly.”

  I muttered something about the whole thing being one of my stupider ideas and I was sorry I brought it up. As an afterthought I asked what had become of the chauffeur.

  “I really don’t know,” Ann said. “Since both the children and I preferred to drive ourselves, we had no use for a chauffeur after Donald was gone. Of course I kept track of him for a month or two after he got out of the hospital, but he didn’t seem to need any help. He got well over a thousand dollars in addition to medical expenses from the insurance people, you see, so he wasn’t in financial difficulties.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Vance. Vance Logan. He lived somewhere on Sixth with a married sister for a time after leaving the hospital. But I seem to remember hearing he’d moved into an apartment of his own. Possibly you’d find it in the phone book if you want to look him up.”

  “He probably couldn’t add anything important,” I said noncommittally. “Let’s try another angle. I know practically nothing about the background of anyone in this case. Maybe if you filled in the outlines, we might uncover a possible motive.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’m willing to help any way I can. With whom shall I start?”

  I grinned at her. “Let’s start with you.”

  She smiled without exhibiting any surprise. “I really haven’t much background, I’m afraid. My parents were poor but honest. Dad was a bank teller twenty years, and died the year they made him assistant cashier. I was thirteen at the time and had four younger brothers. I passed up high school in favor of a two-year secretarial course, got a stenography job with Lawson Drugs at fifteen, and helped out the family until the last boy was through high school. By that time I was twenty-two and had worked up to Mr. Lawson’s private secretary. A year later we were married.”

  “A modern Cinderella,” I suggested without irony.

  She flushed and said with the faintest trace of anger, “I did not marry Donald for his money, if that’s your implication. I never pretended even to him that I was fired with a deep and burning love, but I was fond of him and I respected him, and would have married him had he been a grocery clerk.” She eyed me with a kind of inward perplexity, then went on patiently, “You have to understand I’d never really known any other men. This may strike you as strange, for I’m aware I’m not an entirely unattractive woman now, but until I was twenty-two I doubt that most men ever gave me a second glance. Not that I blossomed overnight from a weed into a beautiful flower, but from fifteen on I turned in so much of my money at home, I never could afford beauty parlors and decent clothes.”

  She laughed ruefully. “I wore my hair straight back with a knot at the nape of my neck, used no make-up, and dressed in ‘sensibly tailored’ suits. I’m afraid I was regarded by older people as a good example and by my fellow office workers as a stick-in-the-mud. When my youngest brother finally finished school and got a job just three months after Mom died, I suddenly discovered all the money I made was mine. But being so used to living on practically nothing, before I knew it I had saved two hundred dollars.”

  A light of amused reminiscence appeared in her eyes, and she smiled self-consciously. “On my twenty-second birthday I went downtown and spent every cent of the two hundred on clothes and a beauty course. A week later I Was private secretary to Donald.”

  “An interesting history,” I told her, “but I’m afraid I can’t detect any murder motives in it. Let’s go on to—say, Jonathan Mannering.”

  A slight flush had appeared on Ann’s face when I paused after “Let’s go on to—” but it disappeared to be replaced by mild relief when I mentioned Mannering. It didn’t take a psychoanalyst to deduce the flush was caused by anticipation that I was going to bring up Doctor Lawson.

  XVI

  “JONATHAN’S LIFE HAS BEEN as easy as mine was hard,” Ann said. “Everything was planned for him even before he was born. Jonathan is the sole surviving member of the firm of Mannering, Mannering, and Mannering, the first two having been his grandfather and his father. All three attended Harvard Law School—at different times, of course—and I suppose there isn’t a more trustworthy law firm in the country. Or a stuffier one. They handle no criminal cases or divorces, restricting their clientele to large corporat
ions, though they do give legal service to families connected with the corporations retaining them. Jonathan’s grandfather, who founded the firm, was probably well off, his father was considered moderately wealthy, and I suppose Jonathan himself is rich.” A half-smile lit her face at some inner thought. “He must be, for he’s been accumulating money all his life, and I’ve never seen him spend any.”

  I said, “He’s executor for the estate, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but you won’t find a motive there, in case you think he may have been dipping into it. I’m sure Jonathan has all the money he could spend for the rest of his life, and he has no heirs. Then, too, though he’s a bit dull, he’s scrupulously honest.”

  Any way I looked at it, Jonathan Mannering failed to make a very promising suspect. “Let’s try Gerald Cushing,” I suggested.

  “I don’t know Gerald as well as Jonathan,” Ann said. “I’ve known Jonathan ever since I became Mrs. Lawson, for he and Donald were personal friends. Donald and Douglas lived in the Mannering home for six years after their parents died, you see, and came to regard Jonathan as a sort of foster uncle. But I’ve really only known Gerald well since Donald died. I knew him as an acquaintance, of course, for he was first vice-president of Lawson Drugs until my husband’s death, after which he became president of the board of directors and at the same time assumed the position of general manager of the whole chain. I really can’t tell you much about Gerald except he came from a wealthy family, is a widower without children, and owns about ten percent of the stock in Lawson Drugs. My husband thought very highly of him.”

  “Maybe he would like to own more of the stock,” I suggested.

  Ann frowned. “How could he accomplish that by murder? He isn’t mentioned in the will.”

  I shrugged. “To date we haven’t discovered how anyone accomplished anything by killing Don, or could by killing Grace. Tell me about your aunt, Miss Stoltz.”

  “She’s a sister of my father’s,” Ann said. “I never met her until after my marriage, because she went to Paris before I was born and lived there twenty-five years. When she returned to the States about five years ago, she looked me up, decided to settle in town, and has kept an apartment at the Plaza ever since.”

  “Did she ever bother to look you up when you were poor?” I asked.

  Ann spread her eyes in surprise. “No, but she isn’t like that at all. She wasn’t even in this country then, you see, and my marriage to Donald had nothing to do with her return. She had become quite well known as a painter and was having an exhibition in New York. The German occupation had soured her on France, so when she got back to this country, she decided to stay. She certainly didn’t look me up because she thought I had money. She visited all four of my brothers, too, and while all of them have done fairly well, none is even faintly wealthy.”

  “How’s it happen none of your brothers visit you on week-ends?” I asked. “Everyone else seems to use the place like a hotel.”

  “They don’t live here. Two are in Detroit, one in New York, and the married one lives in Chicago.”

  “That explains that,” I said. “It’s been bothering me ever since you mentioned your brothers. Isn’t Miss Stoltz your sole heir?”

  Ann shook her head. “Not since this morning. Because of the way Donald drew up his will, I really hadn’t much of my own—too little to divide among four brothers really—so I had Aunt Abigail made my beneficiary. But after you and Grace left Sunday, Jonathan pointed out that if both Grace and I died suddenly, the whole Lawson estate would fall to Aunt Abigail. He suggested I change my will with that eventuality in mind, and after some discussion I asked him to draw up a new one leaving Abigail two thousand dollars—about what she would have gotten under the original will—and the residue divided equally between my four brothers and Douglas. That’s the paper Jonathan brought me to sign this morning.”

  After digesting this, I asked, “Does your aunt know of this change?”

  “She was present when it was signed. I used your friend, Miss Moreni, as a witness.”

  “Which doesn’t leave much motive for Aunt Abigail,” I decided. “Let’s go on to Doctor Lawson.”

  A faint flush suffused Ann’s cheeks, just as it had when I paused before asking about Mannering.

  “After Douglas’s public announcement, discussing him as a murder suspect is going to be somewhat embarrassing,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m prejudiced enough in his favor to refuse even to entertain the idea he might be guilty, so I’ll probably make a poor witness.” She paused to look at me frankly. “As a matter of fact, since he told everyone we plan to be married, there’s no point in hiding that I think I’m in love with him.” “You think?”

  She bit her lip. “I mean I am in love with him.”

  “Why did you say ‘think'?” I asked curiously.

  For a long time she did not answer. Then she said, “Shyness, I suppose. It’s rather difficult to tell a man you don’t know very well you’re in love with another man. For me, anyway. I’m really quite certain, I think—” An expression of chagrin formed on her face. “I didn’t mean that second ‘I think.’ See, you have me flustered. Can’t we talk about Arnold Tate first?”

  “No,” I said. “Let’s dispose of the doctor.”

  “Well,” she said reluctantly. “Douglas was the second of three boys, and Donald was the oldest. Both their parents and the youngest son died in the influenza epidemic during World War I, when Donald was fifteen and Douglas seven. Their father carried a little insurance and owned a drugstore, so they weren’t left destitute.

  “Old Abel Mannering, Jonathan’s father, was executor of the estate—the firm didn’t restrict its clients to million-dollar corporations in those days—and had himself appointed guardian. The old Lawson house, the same one Donald and I lived in when we were first married, was rented, and the two boys moved into the Mannering home.

  “Two years later Donald graduated from high school and went to work in the drugstore. The store hired a registered pharmacist who was also supposed to be its manager, but apparently he wasn’t a very forceful man, for within a year Donald was actually running the store, though he was then only eighteen. Donald seemed to have an instinctive knack for what he always called ‘merchandising,’ and by the time he was twenty-one he had developed his father’s store from a musty old-fashioned pharmacy into a modern cut-rate drugstore which was slowly driving the other two pharmacies in the neighborhood out of business.

  “Donald never got on too well with old Mr. Mannering, though he always liked Jonathan, so when he came of age, he somehow managed to have himself declared Douglas’s guardian, evicted the tenants from his house, and moved himself and Douglas into it. That same year he bought out one of the stores whose business he had stolen, which started the Lawson chain. Ten years later the chain covered the state and twenty years later spread all over the nation.”

  Ann stopped, as though in puzzlement. “I don’t seem to be telling much about Douglas, do I?”

  “No,” I said. “But it’s all background. Keep it up.”

  “Well—” She hesitated, collecting her thoughts. “Donald married, and his wife bore the two children—I still seem to be on Donald, but he played such an important part in Douglas’s life, there isn’t much story without him. Donald rather spoiled Douglas, you see, or at least tried to. I never knew anyone as fond of a younger brother as Donald was of Douglas. He treated him like a pampered son rather than a brother. Never allowed him to work as he had, sent him through medical school and then on for graduate work in psychiatry—Douglas decided he didn’t like psychiatry after wasting a year, and went into general practice, after all—set him up in practice, and in general behaved like a doting father. It’s really amazing Douglas turned out as unspoiled as he did.”

  She stopped suddenly, as though run down.

  “So go on,” I said.

  “That’s all there is.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said. “You’ve just got Doug
las out of school and in practice. Bring him up to the present.”

  The half-puzzled frown reappeared on her face. It was a frown of wonderment as much as puzzlement, as though she suddenly realized she knew less than she had thought about the man she intended to marry.

  “There really isn’t much more to tell,” she said slowly. “I’ve known Douglas ten years, and he’s always been charming and witty and a trifle mocking, as though everyone else was put on earth for his personal amusement. No, that isn’t fair. He’s not in the least snobbish. He just seems to enjoy life in a rather carefree manner, and he’s inclined to be a bit of a tease. But he has a serious side, too. He’s quite a good physician, for example, and has an excellent practice which he neglects only on week-ends—and today, because of the funeral.

  “As far as sketching his history during the ten years I’ve known him, absolutely nothing of any importance has happened. He was practicing medicine when I married Donald, and he still is. He lived in the same apartment then and visited here every week-end—at least since we moved here five years ago—just as he does now. What else is there to tell?”

  “This is a little personal,” I said, “but how long have you been secretly engaged?”

  “About three months.” Unaccountably she flushed deeply. “Perhaps that seems premature with Donald dead not quite a year, but we originally planned to hold the announcement until the year was up.” For some reason she seemed to feel she had to justify herself. “Outwardly we have obeyed all the proprieties, even tacitly agreeing not to discuss marriage plans in private until the year was up. But you can’t set a timing device on your emotions as you can on your actions.”

  I asked, “How long before your actual understanding had Doctor Lawson been carrying this secret love in his heart?”

  She looked at me blankly.

  “I mean,” I suggested in a cautious tone, prepared to retreat if the question angered her, “did his love precede your husband’s death?”