The Iron Gates

by Margaret Millar

  After the inquest Dr. Goodrich had come over and spoken to her and told her about a woman called Mrs. Morrow who thought Cora had been poisoned.

  “What nonsense!” Janet said, dabbing at her eyes with a damp handkerchief. “Poor Cora, everyone loved her.”

  “It is, of course, pure imagination on Mrs. Morrow’s part, but that doesn’t make it any easier for her. I want you to come to Penwood and talk to her.”

  “I? There’s nothing I can do.”

  “It’s possible that you can convince her you’re perfectly satisfied with the inquest. Cora told her a great deal about you. I think she’ll look upon you as being on her side. That is, you are Cora’s sister and would be most interested in the fact of Cora’s death.”

  “As indeed I am,” Janet said dryly. “I’m not quite satisfied. Are you?”

  “Perhaps not. The only person who knows the facts is Mrs. Morrow.”

  “I see. So I’m to see her for two reasons, to talk, and to listen?”

  “I have no right to ask you to do this, of course.”

  “That’s all right,” Janet said brusquely. “I’ll do what I can.”

  She was a good-hearted woman. She liked to help people, and since Cora was dead and in no need of anything, she would help Mrs. Morrow.

  She went at it firmly, telling Lucille in a calm kind voice that she was Cora’s sister, that Cora had died of heart failure, she herself had attended the inquest. She was used to the hospital and not at all nervous, but there was something in Lucille’s expression that made her uncomfortable. Lucille’s mouth was twisted as if she was tasting Janet’s words and finding them bitter.

  And those eyes, Janet thought. Really quite hopeless.

  She went on, however, and out of pity even invented a lie, though inventions of the sort were foreign to her nature and very difficult for her.

  “Cora was always afraid of choking, even when she was a child.”

  “She was ten years older than you,” Lucille said. Her tongue felt thick but the words were audible.

  Janet flushed. “I can remember hearing her tell about it.”

  “You mustn’t treat me as if I’m stupid. Cora wasn’t stupid. She knew right away that she’d been poisoned.”

  “I’m certain you’re wrong. No one would want to harm Cora.”

  “Not Cora. Me. They were meant for me. She ate some when I was out of the room. When I came back she was sitting on her bed eating them.”

  “Slower, please, Mrs. Morrow. I can’t understand you.”

  “I ran to her and told her the grapes were poisoned and tried to get them away from her, but it was too late. She was dead, instead of me.”

  The picture became suddenly clear to Janet. Cora had been sitting on the bed, eating the grapes, when Mrs. Morrow came in. Cora had looked up, smiling impishly, apologetically, because they weren’t her grapes, after all. . . . The smile fading as Mrs. Morrow lunged across the room to grab the grapes away from her . . . “They’re poisoned!”

  Cora had been frightened to death.

  It was all clear. It even accounted for so many of the grapes being spilled around the room. It was one of the things that had worried her—why Cora should have plucked so many of the grapes off the stem, if she had just been sitting there eating them in the ordinary way. But it was perfectly clear now. Everything was settled.

  She explained it all to Dr. Goodrich, who seemed relieved, and then set out for home.

  Off and on throughout the following week she thought of Lucille Morrow. She was sorry that she had not been able to do more for her, but also a little resentful because if it hadn’t been for Lucille, Cora might still be living.

  On Friday morning, the day after Cora’s funeral, Janet returned to the office. She was head buyer for the French Salon at Hampton’s, a department store, and she had a good deal of work to do before she went to New York for the spring clothes preview. But she didn’t get as much work done as she’d hoped to, for about eleven o’clock a policeman came to see her.

  Her secretary brought her his card, and Janet turned it over in her hand, frowning. Detective Inspector Sands. Never heard of him. Probably something about parking or driving through a red light. Still, an inspector. Perhaps my car’s been stolen.

  “Send him in.” She leaned back in the big chair, filling it comfortably. She looked quite” calm. It wasn’t the first time she’d been visited by a policeman. Cora’s misdemeanors had made her acquainted with a number of them.

  But surely, she thought, even Cora couldn’t be raising hell in hell. One corner of her mouth turned up in a regretful little smile.

  “Miss Green? I’m Inspector Sands.”

  “Oh, yes. Sit down, will you?”

  “I’ve come about your sister’s death.”

  “Well.” Janet raised her thick black eyebrows. “I thought that was settled at the inquest.”

  “The physical end of it, yes. . . . There is no doubt at all that your sister’s death was accidental. It’s Mrs. Morrow’s connection with your sister that I’d like to know more about.”

  He sat down, holding his hat in his hands. Janet looked at him maternally/He seemed very frail for a policeman. Probably they had to take just anybody on the force nowadays, with so many able-bodied men drafted. Probably he doesn’t get proper meals and rest, and certainly somebody should do something about his clothes.

  Sands recognized her expression. He had, seen it before, and it always caused him trouble.

  Tomorrow I enroll with Charles Atlas, he thought.

  “Dr. Goodrich and I talked it over,” Janet said. “It wasn’t the poor woman’s fault that she killed Cora. Dr. Goodrich said she was actually very fond of Cora, and in telling her the grapes were poisoned she was trying to save Cora’s life.”

  “That’s why I’m here. On Saturday Miss Green died. On Friday you’d been to visit her. Did she say anything about Mrs. Morrow to you then?”

  “Oh, she said a few things, I guess. Cora was such a chatterbox sometimes I didn’t pay much attention. She did say that she liked her new roommate and felt sorry for her.”

  “Tell me, how many years was your sister at Penwood?”

  “Off and on, for nearly ten years. She really liked it there. She was quite sane, you know, and very interested in the psychology of the patients.”

  “And not at all nervous about being with them?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Isn’t it odd, then, that she should have actually believed Mrs. Morrow when Mrs. Morrow told her the grapes were poisoned? She was accustomed to the fancies and vagaries of the other patients. Why did she take Mrs. Morrow seriously?”

  “I never thought of that,” Janet said with a frown. “Of course you’re right. Cora would have said, ‘Oh, nonsense,’ or something like that. Unless—well, unless the grapes were really poisoned?”

  “They weren’t.”

  “I’m very confused. I thought everything was settled, and now—well, now, I don’t know what happened.”

  “What happened is clear enough. Your sister died of shock. And why? Because I think she believed Mrs. Morrow, she was convinced that Mrs. Morrow was not insane, that someone was really trying to kill 'her.”

  “You sound,” Janet said, “you sound as if you believe that too.”

  “Oh, yes. I do, indeed.”

  Janet looked skeptical. “Some of the patients at Penwood can be very convincing, you know.”

  “Yes. But your sister isn’t the first of Mrs. Morrow’s associates to die. She’s the third.”

  “The—third?”

  “Miss Green’s death is the third. I believe it was accidental. The other two were deliberate murders. They remain unsolved.”

  He waited while Janet registered first shock at the murders, and then indignation that they were still unsolved. In his mind’s eye he could see the three who had died: Mildred Morrow, young and plump and pretty; ” Eddy Greeley, a diseased and useless derelict; Cora Green, a. harmless little old
woman.

  Each so dissimilar from the others, all having only one thing in common—Lucille Morrow.

  “Well, I don’t know what I can do to help,” Janet said. “I’m sorry I can’t remember more of what Cora said about Mrs. Morrow.”

  Sands rose. “That’s all right. It was a slim chance, anyway.”

  “Well, I really am sorry,” Janet said, and rose, too, and offered him her hand. “Good-bye. If there’s anything more I can do . . .”

  . “No, thanks. Good-bye.”

  They shook hands and he went out, into the subdued whispering atmosphere of the French Salon. As he passed through the store the air became warmer, the people noisier, the counters garish with Christmas. Perfume, gloves, specialty aisles, slightly soiled and marked-down underwear, clerks in felt Dutch bonnets, “The Newest Rage,” “Anything on this table 29¢,” “Give her—Hose!”

  Throngs of housewives and college girls, harassed males and bewildered children, prams and elbows and tired feet and suffocating air.

  He paused beside a tie counter to get his breath. That’s what you see with your eyes open, he thought. The tired feet and shoulder-sag, the faces lined by pain or by poverty, the endless hurry not to get to some place, but to get out of some place.

  But you Could stand back and almost close your eyes and see only the happy bustling throng, joyous with Christmas spirit, happy, happy people in a happy, happy world.

  Happy. Silly word. Rhymes with sappy and pappy.

  The clerk came up. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No, thanks,” Sands said. “Everything’s been done for me.”

  He fought his way to the door, aware that he was being childish and neurotic, that his own failure condemned him to see at the moment only the failure of others.

  He passed through the revolving door on to Yonge Street and drew the cold air into his lungs. He felt better almost immediately, and thought, tomorrow I enroll with Charles Atlas and William Saroyan.

  The street crowd was more purposeful in its bustling than the store crowd. The stenographers, bank clerks, truss-builders, typesetters, lawyers arid elevator operators were all in search of food. The elevator operators picked up a hamburger and a cup of coffee at a White Spot. The stenographers ate chicken à la king jammed knee to knee in a Honey Dew, and the lawyers, with less drive and perhaps a more careful use of the privilege of pushing, headed for the Savarin on Bay Street.

  On the corner a newsboy about seventy was urging everyone to read all about it in the Globe and Mail. About two o’clock he would be equally vociferous about the Star and Tely and around midnight he would appear again, this time with the Globe and Mail for the following day.

  Heraclitus’ state of flux, Sands thought. Not a flowing river, but a merry-go-round, highly mechanized/ with the occasional brass ring for a free ride.

  He bought a paper, and with it folded under his arm he walked to the parking lot to get his car.

  While he was waiting for the attendant he opened the newspaper and read the want ads. Later he would read the whole thing, but the want ads were the most fascinating part to him. He could, offhand, tell anyone how much it cost to have facial hair permanently removed, how many cocker spaniels were lost and mechanics were needed, the telephone number of a practical nurse and what you did, supposing you owned a horse and the horse died.

  Bird’s-eye view of a city.

  The attendant returned. Folding the paper again, Sands tipped him and climbed into his car. He forgot about lunch and drove back to his office instead.

  The first person he saw when he opened the door was Sergeant D’arcy.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” D’arcy said.

  When he talked, his prim little mouth moved as little as possible.

  “Oh,” Sands said. “What do you want?”

  “Well, sir, as a matter of fact I’m not happy in Inspector Bascombe’s department.”

  “That’s too damn bad.”

  D’arcy flushed. “Well, I mean it, really. Mr. Bascombe is a truly intelligent man, but he is uncouth. He doesn’t understand me. He keeps picking on me.”

  “And?”

  “I told the Commissioner that my qualifications, educational and otherwise, were of more specific use in your department.” The Commissioner was D’arcy’s uncle by marriage. “I told him I’d be much happier working with you because you don’t pick on me.”

  “Then it’s about time I started,” Sands said.

  D’arcy took it as a joke and began to giggle. When he giggled the air whistled through his adenoids and the general effect was so unlovely that Sands’ contempt turned momentarily into pity.

  “Why you want to be a policeman, I don’t know,” he said.

  “I feel that my qualifications, educational and . . “Stop quoting yourself. Why doesn’t uncle set you up in an interior-decorating business or something? You’d look all right lugging around bolts of velvet.”

  “That’s the kind of remark that Mr. Bascombe makes,” D’arcy said stiffly. “My uncle wouldn’t like it if he heard you say that.”

  “Your uncle isn’t going to hear,” Sands said pleasantly. “Because if I ever catch you sniveling and tale-telling while you’re in this office . . .”

  “Then I’m really in?” D’arcy said. “This is very good of you, sir. I’m just terribly pleased.”

  “Get to work,” Sands said, and went into his private office and slammed the door.

  He picked up the inter-office phone and called Bascombe.

  “Bascombe? D’arcy’s changing hands again.”

  “What a shame,” Bascombe said with a spurt of laughter. “I’ll certainly miss him when I go to the can. Had your lunch?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll stand you to a blueplate special.”

  “What’s behind this?”

  “Nothing. I had a letter from Ellen yesterday.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s still in Hull but she’s sick of the electrician, she wants to come home.”

  “I see. Yeah. You buy me a lunch to pay for my advice which you won’t take?”

  “What the hell, I don’t need advice,” Bascombe said. “I wired her the money to come home.”

  “That’s swell,” Sands said. “That’s dandy. Pardon me if I’m not hungry.”

  “She swears that this time she’s learned her lesson.”

  “She’s working her way nicely through grade school. They say the work is tough, but no doubt she likes it.”

  “What the hell, what else could I do, but send her the money? She’s my wife.”

  “That’s a technicality,” Sands said and quietly put down the phone.

  Things were normal again. D’arcy was back, Ellen was back. Ellen had caught the brass ring. Some day someone would put it through her nose, but in the meantime she was seeing the world and a hell of a lot of different kinds of bedroom wallpaper.

  The phone rang. It was Bascombe, sounding more uncertain now.

  “All right,” he said. “So what do you think I should do, smarty pants?”

  “Lock the apartment and disappear. See a lawyer, make some arrangements to give her an allowance if your conscience bothers you. The essential fact is not that Ellen is a tramp, but that she wouldn’t be one if she gave a damn about you or ever had. It’s not a physical thing, she’s not insatiable. She’s just one of these low-grade morons who wants love as it is in the movies. Romance, soft lights and sweet music. All of the trimmings and none of the repercussions. Can be done, but not by Ellen. She’s not bright enough.”

  There was a silence. Then Bascombe said, “The blueplate offer still holds.”

  “All right. I’ll pick you up on my way down.”

  During lunch they didn’t mention Ellen. They talked about the Morrow case. Bascombe’s department had had nothing to do with it since Lucille Morrow had been found. But he had a professional interest in the case, and he listened intently to the story of Cora Green’s death.

 
; “Three of them,” he said when Sands had finished. “Damn odd.”

  “Miss Green’s death was, of course, an accident. It wasn’t planned or even imagined by the person responsible for the other two. But the hellish part of it is, her death is serving a purpose. It’s driving Mrs. Morrow past the borderline of sanity. And that, I believe, is the ultimate motive—to get Mrs. Morrow. The driving power behind it is hate. Mrs. Morrow must be made to suffer, perhaps eventually she must be killed. But the present setup may stand. Someone is getting an exquisite pleasure in seeing Mrs. Morrow trying to cling to the wreck of her mind.”

  “Jes—us,” Bascombe said. “Damn funny the mere sight of an amputated finger would send her crazy, though.”

  “It didn’t. It wasn’t the finger itself, but her own state of mind at the time and the implications of the finger. A dead finger meant to her a dead woman—Mildred, the first wife; and a death warning to her, the second wife. Who can tell, if she doesn’t? Perhaps to her it was a sexual symbol, a token of her marriage.” He looked at Bascombe and added softly, “And perhaps it meant more, much more than that.

  “Of course it’s a member of her family. No one else could hate her so thoroughly, or know enough of her weaknesses to attempt such a refined sport as driving her insane. Greeley did his share in helping. To a woman who has lived a cultured, quiet, comfortable life the mere contact with a man like Greeley must have been a shock. And the sending of the finger was a piece of mental sadism that I’ve rarely seen equaled.”

  “Who in hell would even think of sending a finger? And where did it come from?”

  “The Morrow family can offer no suggestions. They are united on one thing—that the police have no right to bother them, that they are having enough trouble as it is. I questioned them at their house. When I was leaving, Dr. Morrow took me aside and asked me everything about the finger. He looked frightened, as if he knew quite a lot that he wasn’t telling.”

  “The Morrow women,” Bascombe said dryly, “have bad luck.”

  “But the method is getting more genteel. From axes to suggestion. I’ve gone through all the police files and press clippings on Mildred Morrow. The first person to check in a wife-murder is, of course, the husband. Dr. Morrow not only had a complete alibi but the news of his wife’s death put him in a hospital with brain fever. There’s nothing phony there. The hospital records and charts stand, and the woman whose baby he was delivering at the time Mildred was killed is still living and remembers the night very well. All this, and the fact that he had no possible motive, puts Dr. Morrow in the clear.”