The Miser of Cherry Hill

by Scott Mackay

  ‘Mrs Swinford, tell me what happened?’

  Her face creased, and her lips came together, then pulled back. Her eyes closed, squeezing tears away, the muscles in her throat constricting as she fought to hold back a sob. She took several seconds to get herself under control, and after she had forced herself into a state of relative calm, she said, ‘Clarence was out hunting grouse. He came in and I guess he forgot to put the safety on, and he rested the gun in the gun rack, and it went off while I was sitting in the rocking chair knitting.’

  I stared. Though the outline of her story was similar to Clarence’s, the details were strangely different. In Clarence’s story it had been the rifle on the table and ma sewing britches. In ma’s story, it was rifle in the gun rack and ma in the rocking chair knitting. Was she confused, or was there something else going on?

  As Henny began irrigating the wound, Mrs Swinford winced in pain. I went round and had a look.

  The bullet had entered through the anterior deltoid muscle just below the left scapula and had exited through the posterior trapezius muscle, fortunately missing the left pulmonary apparatus, wrecking some muscle, busting some bone, but otherwise leaving the victim with a survivable gunshot wound.

  I tried to cheer my patient up. ‘You won’t be churning butter any time soon, Mrs Swinford, so you can forget about those Christmas butter cookies, but you should pull through all right.’

  Then I noticed an odd thing. Her right shoe was on and her left one was off. Had she been wearing slippers, it wouldn’t have been so unusual, for the missing slipper could have been easily dislodged in the rush to get her to medical attention. But she was wearing a full shoe, and women’s styles being what they were in this modern age of ours, that meant considerable lacing, sixteen sets of eye-holes altogether. In short, it was the kind of shoe a woman would need a shoehorn, possibly dynamite, to get off her foot. Yet here she was, one shoe on, one shoe off.

  ‘Henny, prepare thirty drops of laudanum for Mrs Swinford.’

  ‘Yes, doctor.’

  As Henny went to the dispensary to prepare the painkiller, I took another look at the wound. Some coagulation had occurred, though with the irrigation of the injury, the bleeding had partially started again. The story given and the nature of the injury – in through the anterior deltoid and up through the posterior trapezius, a pronounced upward trajectory of forty-five degrees – didn’t make sense to me. In both versions of the story, either from the table or the gun rack, I would have expected a level trajectory, if not a downward one. But the trajectory I was seeing suggested the rifle butt had been resting upon the floor, the barrel lifted upward, and the trigger activated with the great toe of Mrs Swinford’s bare right foot. Furthermore, I suspected the target had been her head, and because of the awkward mechanism of commission, the barrel had shifted at the last second to spare her life. Put simply, I believed I had before me the victim of a failed suicide attempt.

  I lifted Adson forceps from my tray as well as a magnifying glass, and searched for any removable piece of debris, bullet, or powder, but it looked as though the wound was a clean through-and-through.

  ‘Tell me, Mrs Swinford. How did Mrs Wiley come to be with you tonight?’

  She struggled a bit with glottis, larynx, and lips. ‘She’s my very good friend, Dr Deacon.’ She spoke in a clutching breathless way, fighting her pain. ‘When my husband, son, and I found out Dr Thorensen wasn’t home, we went to the drugstore to see if Mr Wiley could do anything. He’s a fine chemist but he’s also fairly practiced at first-aid. That’s when we met up with Cora.’

  ‘So instead of coming to me, the town’s only other doctor, you went to a chemist first?’

  This definitely sounded like they were trying to hide the suicide attempt.

  She looked away. The element of shame on her face was now even more pronounced.

  ‘Yes.’

  Henny returned with the laudanum and soon our patient was more comfortable.

  I had to use a number of internal stitches to repair the deepest part of the injury, both back and front, then closed the surface area with a strong mattress stitch. As the wound was at the shoulder, the risk of dehiscence was great – the shoulder was, so to speak, a moving part. I told her to keep her limb immobile for the next six weeks, but because the laudanum was now making her mind misty, I judged it best to give this instruction to Mr Swinford as well.

  Accordingly, I let Henny sterilize the wound and dress it, and as usual she proved a most able young nurse. I scrubbed down, deposited my bloody apron in the hamper, put on my jacket, and proceeded to the waiting area, where I found father and son – stepson, really – waiting on chairs, craned forward, anxious about their wife and mother.

  ‘Mr Swinford, would you mind coming into my office for a moment? Clarence, if you could wait here.’

  Mr Swinford followed me into my office.

  Once we were settled, I said to him, ‘Has Mrs Swinford been out of sorts lately?’

  He lifted his chin. I saw suspicion in his eyes. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Has she been tired? Or withdrawn? Or not showing her usual interest in things?’

  He frowned. ‘She’s been fine, doc.’

  I wasn’t going to put up with any nonsense. ‘And has she tried to harm herself in the past?’

  His face turned red, and his expression evened out like a pitcher of spilled molasses.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Everything I see points to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Mr Swinford. This was no accident. This was intentional.’

  He fumed.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about Melissa, doc. I’ve got her well in hand.’ And that was all, as if we were talking about a bee sting and not a failed suicide attempt. ‘Anything I ought to know about this here wound of hers?’

  I saw there was no getting past his defences.

  ‘She was extremely lucky, Mr Swinford. A few inches up, and it would have been a head wound. An inch down and it would have been the heart or the lung.’ I let the implication sit. ‘There’s some bone and muscle damage, nothing so serious that it won’t eventually heal. But she shouldn’t be using that arm for at least six weeks. Come back in ten days and Henny will remove her sutures. You must have her rest, Mr Swinford. And then you should have her return to see Dr Thorensen some time early in the new year just to make sure the wound is healing the way it should. As to the other matter—’

  ‘What other matter?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Watch her, Mr Swinford. Watch her carefully. Her melancholia is more profound than you think. Keep the rifles locked away. Clear the house of poisonous substances.’ I remembered Martin Booth. ‘And make sure she doesn’t go for any walks along the river by herself. I don’t know what happened today, but I know it wasn’t an accident. This is a serious matter, sir. I know you’re worried about public shame. I know you’re concerned about this town’s infernal rumour mill. But if you don’t take care, she might try it again. And then you’ll be taking her to Edmund Wilson, not me.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ambrose Johnstone, Mr Purcell’s lawyer, came to see me on Monday morning to follow up on his ingrown toenail.

  He informed me that he had inserted cotton batting underneath it, as I had advised, with unremitting discipline. ‘I seem to have trained the little fellow away from my skin.’

  I examined the nail. ‘It looks a lot better, Ambrose. But might I again recommend you stay away from an opera toe. Please try a London toe. They have a wider breadth.’

  ‘I might do that, doctor. Especially because I’m run off my feet with the Purcell estate.’

  ‘I trust everything’s going smoothly with that? I see it’s business as usual at the New York Emporium.’

  He nodded. ‘Herschel’s been a big help. He’s been going through his brother’s papers. He might be a history professor, but he seems to have a good business sense as well. And he’s been a great support to Marigold. Not that she’
s particularly shaken about her stepfather’s death. They were like a rattler and a rooster in the same barnyard. But she’s taken to her step-uncle in a way I wouldn’t have expected. They’re the only family each other has now. By the way, Herschel is at me again to prosecute Billy Fray.’

  With a pinch of frustration, I said, ‘As I told him at Dr Pritchard’s Christmas party, I still have several suspects to rule out.’

  ‘And Jerome Highcloud hasn’t yet returned from the Adirondacks?’

  ‘No. He’s to come to the surgery when he does.’

  Johnstone grew thoughtful. ‘I suppose it’s the only way we can prove things one way or the other with Billy Fray. I should point out that another name has come to light.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Clarence Swinford. Albert Swinford’s son.’

  Here were the Swinfords once more, insisting on nosing their way into the investigation yet again, despite all the cayenne pepper they had sprinkled around. ‘You have some information?’

  ‘From an old friend, Eugene Lapinance.’

  ‘The manager at the Grand Hotel?’

  He nodded. ‘Eugene was one of Ephraim’s closest friends. I take it by this time you know Ephraim had a weakness for the ladies?’

  ‘My investigation has revealed this fact, yes.’

  ‘He used some pretty rough tactics with Mrs Swinford back in the mid-eighties.’

  ‘I’m aware of this.’

  Mr Johnstone reached for his sock and put it back on. ‘Eugene has informed me that a week before Ephraim was killed he again began making advances toward Mrs Swinford, and that he was using the same kind of strong-arm tactics he used last time. Last time, he held their rent over their head. He couldn’t do that this time because the Swinfords now own the place. This time he used other leverage, and it directly impinged on young Clarence’s future. This is why I must raise the young man’s name.’

  ‘To what leverage do you refer?’

  ‘It seems Ephraim left a provision for Clarence in his will. They grew fond of each other when Clarence worked at the hotel.’

  I nodded. ‘You speak of Clarence’s college trust fund?’

  Johnstone raised his brow. ‘You know of it?’

  ‘Marigold mentioned it to me when I spoke to her.’

  He nodded. ‘As a document, it exists on its own. The provision in the will was in case of death, and that’s how I came to be aware of it. Clarence is an exceedingly bright boy. The young man did the books at the hotel for a while. Did them better than any grown-up ever did. Eugene had a little office for him in the back. The boy’s a whiz at math and arithmetic. Eugene tells me Clarence’s chief aim was to go to college.’

  ‘And your deceased client used the college fund to leverage Mrs Swinford?’

  Johnstone nodded and said, ‘Eugene told me she refused. So Ephraim threatened to terminate the trust, but was killed before it was officially cancelled.’

  I grew mildly exasperated. ‘Why didn’t Mr Lapinance tell me about this sooner?’

  Johnstone shrugged. ‘To spare Ephraim’s reputation, I suppose. Would you like to go to your grave known as the man who killed a young man’s dreams? When Clarence worked at the hotel, he spoke to Eugene of college. College means the world to Clarence. He was passionate about obtaining a higher education. To have his trust fund cancelled would have devastated him. So you can see that he has a strong motive, and that he might do anything to stop the abrogation of the fund.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Herschel Purcell is extremely anxious that I let you know about this. If we can’t proceed against Billy Fray, he wants a vigorous investigation of Clarence Swinford. In light of Mr Purcell’s recent advances against Melissa Swinford, not only did Clarence have to consider his mother’s continued virtue, but here was Ephraim, threatening to take away his entire future, everything he had ever dreamed of, with a single stroke of a pen. And, let’s not forget, Clarence was in the vicinity of the murder the evening it happened. It’s also common practice for farm-folk to carry rifles in their wagons in case they can bag a rabbit or duck to and from town.’

  I stared at Johnstone, then rose and went to the window, parting the curtains a fraction. I glimpsed my neighbours, Mr and Mrs Richard Caine, shovelling snow off their stable roof. I couldn’t help contemplating Mrs Swinford’s attempted suicide on Saturday night. I speculated that Mr Purcell’s renewed attentions may have had something to do with it. How ashamed she must have felt. Perhaps she even blamed herself for nearly ruining her son’s future.

  Be that as it may, I wasn’t yet ready to consider Clarence Purcell guilty of the crime. I turned to Mr Johnstone. ‘An eyewitness tells me Clarence was inside the Corn Mercantile Building when the fatal shot was fired.’

  ‘And who was your witness, Dr Deacon?’

  ‘Erwin Fletcher, the yard boss.’

  Johnstone showed some confusion, then shook his head. ‘I guess you don’t know, then.’

  ‘Know what?

  He reached for his fancy opera-toe shoes. ‘That Erwin Fletcher is Melissa Swinford’s older brother. Naturally he’s going to try and protect his sister and her family any way he can.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  On Monday afternoon, a few hours after I’d finished with Ambrose Johnstone’s toenail, Professor Purcell came to my office.

  ‘By God, I found it among Ephraim’s most important papers!’ He was flushed, excited, barely in control. ‘I had to ask myself, why would Ephraim have a signed promissory note from Daniel Hepiner, his shipping man, in the amount of ten thousand dollars? Daniel Hepiner never buys goods and services from Ephraim. And Ephraim always pays Mr Hepiner for freight and shipping up front. He never borrows. Not from anybody. Not ever. I know my brother, and that’s just the way he is. Mr Hepiner also has a no-credit policy. It’s cash on the barrel-head. A promissory note like this doesn’t make sense so I began looking into it.’

  ‘Professor Purcell, calm yourself. I have a waiting room full of patients. Come to my parlor. Perhaps a dram of medicinal brandy might help you.’

  ‘I telephoned Mr Hepiner at the shipping office!’

  ‘Right this way, Professor Purcell. We can speak more confidentially in the parlor.’

  He allowed himself to be ushered to the front of the house. I got him seated in a chair by the fire.

  ‘And do you know what Mr Hepiner told me?’

  I went to the tray of spirits on the side table and poured some brandy for the professor. ‘Go ahead, Herschel. I’m listening.’

  ‘That he never signed such a note! Just to be sure, I had Leach drive me round to the shipping office in the motorcar. I showed the promissory note to Mr Hepiner. He studied the signature closely, and though he was impressed by its accuracy, he pointed out minor differences. We were soon convinced it was a forgery.’

  I finished pouring the drink and brought it over. He took a sip.

  ‘Professor Purcell,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid a forgery like this would have to be reported to the Sheriff’s Office. My current capacity as deputy extends only to your brother’s murder case.’

  ‘But that’s what I’m here about!’ His eyes positively bulged. ‘The two are connected. Mr Hepiner and I decided that whoever made the forgery had to have access to a copy of his signature. Ephraim has all kinds of old waybills from Mr Hepiner’s shipping business in his home office. They all have Mr Hepiner’s signature on them.’

  ‘And how does this connect to your brother’s murder?’

  ‘Because, as acquisitive as Ephraim might have been, I know he would never legally endanger himself with a forgery of this kind. Obviously someone else had done it, and obviously my brother had caught the fiend or else he never would have had the promissory note in his possession.’ The professor took another sip of brandy, and appeared to gain a measure of composure from it. ‘We were stumped as to who the fiend could be, Dr Deacon. So we called Johnstone. He came up with a theory. He said that the only other person who had access to
my brother’s home office was Marigold – she occasionally works for him as an assistant. He said that in light of my brother’s irregularities regarding Marigold’s dividends, my step-niece may have perhaps taken advantage of her access and exercised poor judgment. In a fit of malice she may have decided to engage in this risky venture. I daresay, I was at first affronted. Our dear Marigold, having something to do with the likes of this? Well, sir! Mr Johnstone and Mr Hepiner induced me to delicately question my step-niece.’ His eyes bulged again and his voice grew louder. ‘I did so in Mr Johnstone’s presence. And we were staggered by what Marigold told us. She said it wasn’t herself who forged the promissory note, but Billy Fray! I was as startled as a pigeon in a pie. He did it in a last-ditch effort to save the Fray smithy.’

  I grew still, taking a few seconds to digest this. Then I said, ‘So Billy Fray devised a promissory note made out to your brother, presumably because if he made it out to himself, the bank would never cash it because the Fray smithy credit is so bad.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘I don’t understand. If it was made out to your brother, how did he ever expect to cash it?’

  ‘He was going to have Marigold cash it for him because she has privileges at the bank for her stepfather. But of course she would have never agreed to the scheme and only found out about the whole affair from Billy after the fact. So she’s entirely innocent, except for not coming forward sooner and telling us about the whole thing. The poor misguided dear was trying to protect Billy.’

  ‘But Billy has access to your brother’s home office?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Marigold has given him a key to the house so he can sneak in and out the back door at night to see her.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Billy knew of the Hepiner waybills and came over the Thursday evening before my brother’s murder. Hepiner is wealthy and definitely has the ten thousand to cover it. Billy apparently knows that Thursdays and Saturdays are my brother’s club nights. He went into Ephraim’s study when he thought Ephraim was at the club and forged Mr Hepiner’s signature on a blank promissory note he had procured from the Exchange Bank. He didn’t want to risk taking a waybill from the office because he knows Ephraim keeps them in such precise order.’