The Strawstack Murders

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

My cousin had more endurance than any of us; she always had plenty of reserve to do anything she desired to do. I said coldly, “I won’t keep you long. But you have evidently been talking to Inspector Chant and I want to hear what you told him.”

  She looked at me from hooded eyes. “Nothing that would reflect on the family. You can be sure of that, Margaret.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked her sharply. “Dorothy’s murder doesn’t reflect on the family, as Inspector Chant will soon find out. If he hasn’t found it out already.”

  “We can put our trust in God,” was Verity’s gloomy reply. She added, “Rest easy, Margaret. So long as breath is in me I can protect my own.”

  Familiar as I was with my cousin’s taste for melodrama and high-flung language, I felt that she might prove a dangerous ally. What had the inspector made of her? I attempted an uneasy protest, which she waved aside.

  “I’ve wrestled with my soul, Margaret, and my mind’s made up. When Dorothy died the devil simply took his own. The human agent doesn’t matter. As I informed that policeman!”

  “The human agent,” I said with increasing sharpness in my tone, “was an unfortunate young man named An¬derson. Not connected with us in any way. He killed Dorothy and ran off in Jane’s car. Didn’t the inspector tell you?”

  Verity was silent. She leaned slightly forward to fix me with her glittering eyes. “Fiddle-faddle, Margaret. Do you believe any stranger killed that woman?”

  “Don’t you?” I seized her arm.

  She released her fingers from my grip. “My opinions, Margaret, are my own. I shall keep them to myself. As that policeman learned to his sorrow.” She cackled, rocked on her heelless shoes. “The oldest dog is entitled to his day. I could tell the inspector certain things that he’d enjoy to hear. I don’t choose to…”

  “What could you tell?” I demanded, thoroughly alarmed by now. “Stop quoting, please, and speak up. If you know anything I want to hear it.”

  “I daresay you do,” snapped Verity. “Divide a secret and it scatters with every wind. You’re a good girl, Margaret, but your own father always said you had a wagging tongue.”

  She left the room.

  Shortly afterwards I went downstairs. It was half past seven. The drawing room was empty and silent of activity, dark to the light outside. No one had raised the curtains. The ash trays overflowed, the end tables were dotted with dirty glasses. The police cars were gone from the drive.

  I was drawn to the kitchen by the smell of coffee. Thomas, fresh and neat and brisk, was busy at the stove. Simon was seated at the kitchen table. As I came in, his hand went to a noticeably unshaven jaw.

  He smiled. “I didn’t think you’d catch me out. I came down because I couldn’t sleep.”

  “So did I,” I said, falsely cheerful. “How’s the coffee?”

  “Good enough to recommend. I prescribe two cups at least.” He measured out the cream and sugar and pushed the cup across the table. “Drink it fast.”

  I obeyed him.

  Thomas served toast and eggs, and informed me sadly that we were out of bacon and short on butter. “Them deputies near picked us clean before they left, Miss Tilbury. Mr. Chant ain’t no backward eater, hisself.”

  The domestic crisis interested me less than the possible progress of the investigation. I questioned Thomas, and learned very little except that the butler had been thoroughly outraged by the “uppishness” of “white trash” deputies. Aside from that I managed to gather that Dr. Kirkland Anderson was still missing, and that an exhaustive manhunt was under way. A manhunt that covered all the Atlantic seaboard states.

  On this point Thomas was very vocal. He had been scandalized to overhear Chant use my telephone to contact points as distant as Athens, Georgia, and Boston, Massachusetts. Evidently the inspector had communicated with every major police station within several hundred miles, described Jane’s car and requested that a watch be kept for the missing interne. My dark-skinned butler advised me not to pay the telephone and telegraph bills.

  Surprised and cheered when informed of the county’s solvency, Thomas went on to say, “I reckon we’ll be shed of them policemen soon, Miss Tilbury. Looks like this Dr. Anderson is one gone goose. They’re even hunting him on the radio this morning. I’se suttinly glad,” said Thomas cheerfully, “I ain’t in that man’s shoes.”

  For no particular reason there came into my mind a picture of a hunted man, driving, driving through the night, somewhere watching the break of day with awful terror in his heart.

  “They haven’t tried him yet, my dear,” said Simon.

  I knew that Simon invariably visited Grosvenor Private Hospital on his frequent trips to Washington. I asked, “Did you ever meet Dr. Anderson?”

  “Never, though I’ve often heard Smedley speak of him. Young Anderson was well thought of, I believe. A Hopkins product. Had a brilliant record there.”

  The gray dawn outside was growing lighter. I could hear some member of my household stirring overhead. Except that Simon and I were seated in the kitchen instead of in the breakfast room, it might have been any ordinary morning. My raw, tired nerves were there to remind me that it wasn’t.

  Uncertainty ate at me. The opaqueness, the very paucity of what I knew increased my restlessness.

  I said, “I’ve got to see the morning papers.”

  Simon looked at me. “You’d better go back to bed, my dear. Remember you’re still convalescing from a serious illness.”

  “I can’t rest or sleep,” I told him fiercely. “Can you?”

  Simon was silent.

  Thomas, whose thirst for news undoubtedly equaled mine, seized his chance to offer to drive to the village. “There’s plenty of gas in Mr. Harold Hargreaves’ car. We filled the tank last night.” Thomas hesitated. “I expect you’ll want me to tote back gas for the other cars.”

  I said we would, and Thomas hurried off to collect his lard cans. These lard cans were kept in the garage. They were Thomas’ idea of proper containers for any emergency need and he prized them far beyond their intrinsic worth. A few minutes after he left the kitchen, he returned in an evil frame of mind.

  “I’ll have to use my water pails. Them police done stole my lard cans.”

  “Nonsense,” I said. “You’ve mislaid them.”

  “I don’t mislay things. Them cans was in the garage yesterday noon. Three of them, two-gallon size. I’d be obliged, Miss Tilbury, if you’d kindly pass the word I want ’em back.”

  He picked up the water pail, and, muttering, departed. I was amused by his righteous indignation. Simon, however, was not amused. A silent moment went by. Then Simon said restively, “Disappearing lard cans! Queer, isn’t it? I wonder if the police did take them?”

  “Of course not!” I said, surprised. “Thomas is always changing things around. He’s simply forgotten where he put them.”

  “I don’t believe so, Margaret.” Rather slowly Simon stood up. “In fact, I think I know where to find those missing cans. Unless the police have anticipated us. Here, put on my coat, I’ll show you.”

  He wrapped his jacket about my shoulders. Bewildered, I followed him into the breaking day. The sun was a flaming semicircle on the far horizon. A light, fresh wind stirred the trees. Simon went straight toward the stables, across the burned and blackened fields. Three great patches, charred, showing here and there a tiny curl of smoke, indicated where three strawstacks had been. Of the strawstack where Dorothy’s body had been found nothing remained except rubble and cooling ashes. The fire extinguishers, the lengths of hose with which we had fought the fire, still lay in desolate heaps on the ground. Spread as though for a bed, a bright blue blanket lay beneath the elm tree exactly where it had been placed the night before. I turned my eyes away.

  From daylight we stepped into the sudden gloom of the stables. The horses, patient after past terrors, regarded us with great incurious eyes. Simon peered about. He pointed. In the corner nearest the door, in neat array, stood the missing lard cans. />
  It took me a moment to recover from my astonishment. Then I said accusingly, “You saw them last night.”

  “No,” he said, “I simply felt they had to be here. Here, or in the field. The murderer, daring as he was, could hardly risk returning them to the garage.”

  “The murderer, Simon!”

  “The murderer, or a confederate, set those fires, Margaret,” said Simon in the tone of one announcing any platitude. “Someone soaked that inflammable straw outside with gasoline taken from the cars, then touched a match to the result. That explains the need of the lard cans; they were used to carry the gasoline. It explains also the fierceness of the fire, the stubbornness with which it burned.” He tipped a lard can. “See, there’s a little gasoline remaining in the bottom.”

  “It makes no sense to me,” I said and looked at him. “I know that murderers sometimes burn the bodies of their victims but those strawstacks are in full view of the house. We were bound to see them burning, and come out here.”

  “That very fact,” said Simon, “might be the answer to the fires, might explain the reason they were set.”

  I continued to stare. “I don’t understand, Simon.”

  “Sit down, Margaret,” he said somberly. “I want to talk to you.” He dusted off a bench and made me comfortable there in the dusty stables before he resumed. “Perhaps whoever started the fires hoped the body might be destroyed, or at least made unidentifiable, before we discovered it. It’s possible, though if so, it’s damn poor judgment on someone’s part. But the main object was certainly to draw us from the house.”

  The blood was drumming in my ears. I cleared my throat. “Suppose Dr. Anderson did murder Dorothy. I can’t see why he should do such an absurd, such a pointless thing as burning those strawstacks.”

  Simon sighed. “The fires weren’t pointless, dear. We did leave the house. As a consequence someone was enabled to get into it. Someone was on the upper floor of the house last night while we were all down here. There’s no doubt of it.”

  I whispered through dry lips, “And Jane…”

  He nodded. “Jane either saw that person or saw—something. Someone hit that kid over the head, and she’s lying like a trooper rather than say what happened. Why, I don't know. But I’ll take my oath she’s lying.”

  Simon studied the straw on the floor. A moment later to my surprise he said, “How fond is Jane of young Ted Breen?”

  “Not fond enough,” I said at once, “to shield him from the consequences of a dreadful crime. As it happens Ted just got back from Bermuda last night and is in New York with his family now. So if you’re imagining…”

  “I’m imagining nothing.”

  I continued to regard the lard tins. I couldn’t believe that Kirkland Anderson had drained the cars in my garage and started those fires. I couldn’t believe that it was he who had been on the upper floors of my house, or that Jane would make any effort to protect a stranger. I knew that it was not Kirkland Anderson who had removed the hedge shears from the tool box and cut the telephone wire.

  Simon followed the direction of my. eyes. “I don’t like those fires myself,” he said in a troubled way. “I can’t quite understand the long delay between the murder and the setting of the fires. Assuming some—some plan on the murderer’s part, some object in entering the house, one would think the murderer would put his plan into operation at once, instead of lingering in the neighborhood.”

  “We don’t know,” I said, “what time the fires were set. They could have burned indefinitely without our seeing them.”

  “Dorothy died before twelve o’clock,” said Simon. “The theater party didn’t return in the limousine until nearly one. That car was drained just as the others were. Harold’s car was standing in the drive and it, too, was drained. I’m wondering how Kirkland Anderson could have been so—so markedly efficient, and well-informed.” He looked unhappily at me. “I’m pointing out these things, my dear, so you can be prepared. The police are bound to suggest that any one of us could have started those fires.”

  I said sharply, “We were all together.”

  “Were we?” said Simon quietly. “Think back, my dear. I believe you will remember that we scattered during the period when we first missed Dorothy. I know that I went outside and walked down to the road in the hope of seeing Jane’s car turn in. Fred and Ames and Harold were outside too. Surely you remember.”

  I thought back and I remembered. I stood up suddenly.

  I said, “I’m going to return the lard cans to the garage.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” Simon looked at my guilty face. “What are you suggesting, Margaret? That we compound a felony just to spare ourselves some awkward questions?”

  “I thought of it,” I admitted weakly.

  “Then you must think again,” he said soberly. He delivered himself of an angry little speech. “I must say I’m surprised at you! Quite aside from any moral obligation, it isn’t ever practical to oppose the police. A conspiracy to suppress the truth, or any part of it, is always folly. There’s undoubtedly sufficient internal evidence in those smoking ashes to make any expert realize the fires were of incendiary origin. Chant may have seen the lard tins when he was prowling around last night; he probably did. Any meddling now, Margaret, would be fatal. I can’t express myself too plainly. The man is suspicious already! I must say,” Simon continued irritably, “I can’t blame the inspector. Marian is behaving very foolishly, and when he talks to Jane…”

  “He may not talk to Jane,” I said meekly. “I mean about her—her accident.”

  “Of course he will.”

  “I didn’t tell the ,inspector,” I said then, “about what happened to Jane, last night. I only told him she was overstrained and had gone to bed.”

  Simon was silent for a lengthy interval. Then, “Anything else on your conscience, Margaret?” he asked dryly.

  I decided to make a clean breast of everything. I told him about the hedge shears and what we had done with them.

  “Good God!” Simon was very quiet. “I blame Harold for this,” he said finally. “He may be my own brother, but sometimes his ethics seem damned peculiar. Even for a lawyer!”

  But I knew, that Simon blamed me, too. I had never felt so far from him. I said timidly, “I was frightened, Simon. I still am. I don’t see how Dr. Anderson, or any other stranger, could have known where to find our hedge shears. What am I to do now?” I asked him. “Tell the inspector what I have done?”

  “It’s too late for that,” said Simon. Again he gave me an odd and bitter look. “Let’s go and read our papers.

  We left the lard tins in the stables, and walked silently to the house.

  The newspapers, a great arm-load of them, told m lavish detail of Dorothy Fithian’s murder, her departure from the hospital in the company of Dr. Kirkland Anderson, the subsequent “flight of the brilliant young bacteriologist.” Columns were devoted to Dr. Kirkland Anderson, and from them I was able to gain a fair picture of the missing man. Dr. Anderson was an interne at the fashionable Grosvenor Private Hospital, he was assigned to special laboratory work and was doing research in the field of bacteriology, he was popular though he mixed very'; little with other members of the staff. Nevertheless, a tragic romance between him and Dorothy Fithian was. Plainly hinted at. Dr. Anderson was twenty-seven years of age, he had a younger sister in Washington, one Nancy Anderson, who declined to talk to the press although she had been questioned by the police. It was believed that Dr. Anderson was fleeing in a mustard-colored car, a sports roadster, with Maryland license plates. The numbers on Jane’s license plates were listed and the public was requested to watch out for them. “Police predict,” one account wound up cheerfully, “that Dr. Anderson will be apprehended by late afternoon. The official belief is that the young physician carried very little money.”

  Simon pushed aside the newspapers. “Well, Margaret, the pack seems to be in full cry.” He gave me a stiff, almost an unfriendly little bow. “Subject
to your approval I propose to join them. I’m going upstairs to shave, and then I’m going to the hospital to see what I can learn of Dr. Anderson.”

  “Why, Simon?” I asked him.

  “I could be ungallant and put it all on you,” he said abruptly. “I won’t. The truth is that I’m frightened, too.” He went upstairs. When he came down again I had on my hat and coat. I expected an argument but Simon made no protest as I followed him out to the garage. We took the big car, the car which the theater party had used the night before. Thomas had filled it up with gasoline. It was a clear and lovely day. Simon skirted the village and selected a back road toward Washington. We were silent for a long time, and then I said:

  “I know you’re not frightened on your own account, Simon. Are you doing this for me?”

  He didn’t remove his eyes from the road. “I’d do a lot for you, Margaret. More than you realize perhaps. I’ve just been realizing myself that you’re pretty impor-tant in my scheme of things.”

  I was so touched I overlooked the fact he hadn’t really answered my question. Indeed, my own thought went back a long, long way. Back to the days when Chal Enlow had been courting my sister Julia, and Simon Hargreaves, a young doctor then, had been courting her, too, with never a thought of a gawky twenty-year old who had watched his comings and goings with wistful eyes. Well, Julia had married the man of her choice, and gone to the West and borne her son and died, and Simon had long ago forgotten a six months’ heart-break, and I supposed that I had forgotten a heart-break of somewhat longer standing. But his words, his tone touched a secret spring in me, caused to flower a question I hadn’t entertained in years. Suddenly I desired intensely to ask Simon whether even for a moment he had ever wished to marry me. As I turned, however, I caught my knee against the gear shift and promptly a familiar, arthritic pain commenced to throb. To Simon’s amazement I began to laugh. I didn’t explain the laugh, nor did I ask my question. Afterwards, I was heartily glad I hadn’t.

  Grosvenor Hospital was a dignified structure on a quiet street not far from the Potomac River. We drove along the winding, beautiful river road to reach it. As it happens I had never entered Grosvenor Hospital, though I must say Dr. Smedley had made determined efforts to get me there. Dr. Smedley not only was head of the Grosvenor staff, but also was that type of doctor who is inclined to hospitalize his patients, regardless of their ailments. It saved him trouble, and also I daresay many of the people with whom he dealt were pleased to leave unsympathetic relatives for an atmosphere where the tiniest pain was regarded with anxious eyes, and was quickly entered on an elaborate chart. Simon sometimes wryly referred to Smedley’s “cut finger practice,” but he never questioned the other physician’s real ability, nor did he deny that, despite the “fluff and feathers,” Grosvenor was a capably managed institution.