Gallows in My Garden

by Deming, Richard

  “Can you tell me anything else at all about the note?” I asked.

  For so long he remained silent, I was beginning to suspect he had no intention of answering when he finally spoke. His voice was surprisingly deep and resonant, and his tone so ponderous, it sounded like a portion of a prepared and memorized lecture.

  “The paper was eight and a half inches wide and seven and one-eighth inches long, indicating it was part of a piece of standard typing-paper, either the ten-and-a-half-inch or thirteen-and-a-half-inch length. Probably the former, since two samples on ten-and-a-half-inch paper with the same watermark were included in the material furnished me for comparison. A shred of gummed fabric clung to the upper edge, indicating the sheet had been ripped from a pad of typing-paper, possibly the same pad from which the other two specimens came. The bottom had been cut off with a scissors.”

  He lifted sorrowful eyes from the note to my face. “I mention these details because I’ve been thinking about this note ever since I made my report. For some reason the police insisted on an examination in the middle of the night, and while I made a thorough comparison, the odd length of the paper did not strike me as peculiar until afterward. I’ve been meaning to contact the police, but you save me the trouble.”

  “How do you mean, odd length?” I asked.

  “Seven and one-eighth inches.” Then he asked in the same patient but hopeless tone he probably employed when prompting students during recitation, “What length would half a sheet be?”

  He lapsed into silence, sitting with eyes half closed, as though on the verge of going to sleep.

  I did some mental arithmetic and asked, “You mean twice seven and one-eighth inches would be fourteen and a quarter, and there is no such standard-length paper?”

  His eyes popped open with a flicker of what looked almost like surprise. His expression bespoke the frustrated educator, weighted down by the stupidity of humanity, who finally has succeeded in inciting an intelligent answer from one of his students. He almost smiled when he nodded.

  “And ordinarily,” I continued to guess, “if a person wanted less than a full sheet of paper, he would simply fold it and tear it in half, not measure off an odd length and cut it with a scissors?”

  This time his nod was accompanied by a definite smile.

  Retrieving the suicide note, I examined it myself, noting that though the writing wavered, the lines moved geometrically across the page and were spaced nearly a half inch apart. The last line was only about a quarter inch from the bottom. I tossed the paper back to the professor and imitated him by raising one eyebrow.

  “I don’t need to examine it again,” he said ponderously. “I had it under a microscope for twenty minutes.” He traced the bottom line with his finger. “This last line—'Explain things to Grace, Uncle Doug'—Originally there was a period between ‘Grace’ and ‘Uncle Doug,’ then a tail was added to make it a comma. At the time I assumed the writer had simply made a mistake, then gone back and corrected it, for the ink and pen used were the same, and there seemed to be no difference in its age. Of course, with only a single comma for a specimen, it’s impossible to say whether the same writer made the correction.”

  I said slowly, “Then this could be part of a longer note, with the bottom cut off and its meaning changed by the addition of a comma?”

  He treated me to another nod.

  “Originally the word ‘Grace’ may have ended a sentence,” I went on, “which would make ‘Uncle Doug’ the first two words of another sentence that continued on another line.”

  Now I had him nodding almost with enthusiasm.

  “But there’s no way to guess what the rest of the message may have been,” I ended lamely.

  Surprisingly his face broke into a full smile. A rather sorry smile, such as ministers employ at funerals, but nevertheless a smile. “If you can bring me the pad on which this was written, I might be able to restore the full text.”

  I looked at him blankly.

  “Indentations,” he said simply, apparently having finally exhausted his supply of words.

  In spite of his brevity, I got the idea. The pressure of the pen would imprint an invisible record on the second sheet of the pad, a record which could be made visible in the laboratory.

  Suddenly Grace spoke. “I know the pad you’re talking about. I’ve seen it on Don’s desk. He kept it in the upper right-hand drawer.”

  “Then that’s our next stop,” I said, rising. “Thanks a lot, Professor. If we’re lucky, we’ll bring the pad back this afternoon.”

  He gave us a final nod as we departed.

  We caught a cruising cab at the next corner and arrived at Willow Dale twenty minutes later. As I was telling the taxi driver to wait, Grace and Fausta hurried on to the side door. By the time I reached it, they had disappeared into the house.

  When I entered the side hall, Maggie was standing with her back to me, gazing in the direction of the stairway. As I brushed past her, she looked at me disapprovingly, her catfish mouth pressed into a straight line.

  The desk in Don’s room was a flattop with an upright back full of alcoves. Fausta was pulling everything out of the alcoves, while Grace went through the drawers. Being the executive type, I sat on the edge of the bed and watched.

  Both girls finished at once and stopped to look at each other.

  “It’s gone!” Grace announced.

  I rose from the bed. “Now if you amateurs will get out of the way, I’ll show you a professional search.”

  Obediently they sat side-by-side on the bed, their eyes following me expectantly as I went over every inch of the desk, including pulling out each drawer and looking behind it. Then I tackled the dresser, the closet, and every other place of possible concealment in the room.

  When I finally gave up, Grace said, “That’s what I said. It’s gone.”

  Ann Lawson stuck her head in the door.

  Before she could ask any questions, I said, “We’re looking for a pad of typing-paper which used to belong to Don. Any idea who could have taken it from his desk?”

  “No,” she said, staring at us all as though suspicious of our sanity. “Is it important?”

  “Yes, but apparently someone else realized its importance before we did.” I turned to Fausta and Grace. “We may as well get back to town. I have some more calls to make.”

  Grace said, “It’s getting on toward one. Let’s have some lunch first.”

  “Yes,” Ann invited. “If you don’t, stay, I’ll have to lunch alone.”

  There were only four of us at lunch, all of the week-end guests having finally returned to their respective homes. I was in a depressed mood at having missed the only tangible clue yet appearing, and this probably threw a pall over the others’ spirits, for it was a silent meal. We returned to town immediately afterward.

  At the city hall I dismissed the cab and led Fausta and Grace to the city clerk’s office. The girls’ hot-weather costumes attracted attention here, too, although this time it was disapproval rather than admiration. The clerk who waited on us was a woman.

  She was a plump girl in her mid-twenties, red-faced from the stifling heat. Perspiration had stuck a wisp of hair to her forehead, and her upper lip was beaded with drops which she periodically blew away. Her examination of my two companions’ cool outfits was a mixture of disdain and envy.

  I told her I would like a copy of the death record of Donald Lawson Sr., who had died the previous August 27th. We waited outside the cage while she thumbed through a huge book in one corner, then disappeared into another room. After a few moments we heard the clatter of a typewriter.

  Ten minutes later she thrust a notarized sheet of paper under the wicket and said, “Fifty cents, please.”

  I gave her a half dollar.

  The top half of the death certificate listed all of the vital statistics such as name, date and place of birth, sex, color, etc., and the bottom half contained the details of death. According to it Lawson had been dead on arriv
al at Millard Hospital, the cause of death being suffocation due to a crushed upper vertebra closing the larynx. I deduced this to mean he died of a broken neck. No other injuries were recorded, and no autopsy had been performed. A Dr. Milton Standish had signed the certificate.

  I had a sudden idea. “What was the date your brother ran off and got married?” I asked Grace.

  “Why—let’s see, it was three years ago in the fall. October, I think.”

  “Were they married in town?”

  “Across the river somewhere. By a farmer justice of the peace.”

  “Maybe they got the license here,” I said.

  I called the red-faced girl over again. “See if you can find a marriage-license application for Donald Lawson Junior. About October three years ago.”

  She returned to the corner and began turning the pages of a second large volume. Reaching the proper page, her finger traveled down it to the center and stopped.

  “Want a certified copy?” she asked.

  “Just the information.”

  Her eyes returned to the book. “October second. Donald Martin Lawson Junior, age twenty-one, and Mary Katherine Malone, age eighteen.”

  “He lied about his age,” Grace said. “He was only eighteen.”

  “Mary Katherine Malone,” I said, frowning. “Ever hear of her, Grace?”

  She shook her head. “I do remember now that her name was Mary. But none of us except Don and Daddy ever saw her. And after Daddy had the marriage annulled, it was as much as your life was worth to even mention it around the house.”

  As we went down the city hall steps, I was still puzzling over a vague familiarity about the girl’s name.

  “Mary Katherine Malone,” I repeated aloud, and then it hit me. “Kate Malone!” I said to Grace. “For a moment the ‘Mary Katherine’ threw me.”

  Grace stared at me with her mouth open. “You can’t mean our maid!” she said stupidly. “You can’t possibly mean our maid is my sister-in-law!”

  XX

  FOR THE SECOND TIME THAT DAY I took a taxi to Willow Dale, but this time I went alone, for I wanted to speak to Kate privately, and I had no intention of letting Grace out of my sight anywhere in the vicinity of her home. First we returned to El Patio, where I remanded my charge to Mouldy Greene’s custody.

  “Don’t move two feet from her side until I get back,” I told him.

  He nodded his flat head. “Sure. Suppose she wants to go to the powder room?”

  “Then ask Fausta for instructions,” I said patiently.

  At the Lawson home I found Ann sitting on the veranda sipping an iced lemonade.

  “May I talk to Kate somewhere privately?” I asked her.

  “Certainly,” she said, rising and preceding me into the house. “Go back to the den and I’ll send her in.”

  She showed no surprise at the request, apparently having become adjusted to the idea that I was going to pop in and out at odd moments on strange missions while the investigation was going on.

  When Kate showed up in the den a few minutes later, I asked her to sit down, then took a seat behind the desk myself.

  Without preamble I asked, “Why did you conceal you were the girl who eloped with Don Lawson three years ago?”

  If I had known in advance what her reaction would be, I would not have been so abrupt. She turned dead white, leaned back in her chair, and passed out cold.

  Fortunately I had a little experience with fainting women, once having had a female client who fainted at regular intervals. Instead of rousing the household and getting everyone excited, I employed the same treatment my fainting client had me use. Grasping the girl’s shoulders, I bent her forward until her head hung down between her knees. In a few moments she snorted twice, wagged her head back and forth, then weakly sat up.

  “Want me to get you a glass of water?” I asked.

  She shook her head, closed her eyes, and leaned back. I waited until her color had returned.

  “Let’s start over,” I suggested. “Why did you conceal you were Don Lawson’s ex-wife?”

  “I’ll get out of town tonight,” she said in a weak, pleading voice. “Please, mister. Give me a break.”

  I blinked at her and turned her words over in my mind until they made less sense than they had when I heard them.

  “Let’s start over a third time,” I said finally. “Why should you leave town?”

  She straightened, and a cautious expression replaced the fright in her face. “You mean you aren’t going to—” She broke off and asked crisply, “What was it you wanted, Mr. Moon?”

  Her change of tone left me as confused as her fright. I studied her for a moment before replying, noting the determined jut of her jaw, which only a moment before had been slack with fear.

  I said gently, “Let’s get something straight, Kate. I’m interested only in whoever is trying to bump off the Lawson family. I’m not a cop, and if whatever you’re afraid of doesn’t concern Don’s death or the attempts on Grace, I wouldn’t repeat it to a soul.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said haughtily. She rose, as if to leave the room.

  “Yes you do. For some reason you thought you were in for lots of trouble if anyone discovered you were the girl who eloped with Don. That’s why you kept it a secret. Apparently you thought I had come to arrest you or something. Well, I didn’t. But I want to know what you’re afraid of.”

  She shook her head. “You’re mistaken. I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “The alternative,” I said, “is to explain to the police. Take your choice.”

  Her jutting chin withdrew slightly, and her lips began to tremble. “I didn’t do anything. Why can’t you let me alone?”

  “Look, Kate,” I said reasonably. “If you aren’t tied up in this affair concerning Don and Grace, I don’t care what you did that makes you afraid. Tell me and it stops right there.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” A tear slid down one cheek. “It was a frame-up.” “What was?” “The shoplifting charge.” “What shoplifting charge?”

  Now the tears were falling freely, and along with them the story spilled out in a supplicating tone, her eyes begging for belief. “It was right after I married Don. When we phoned his father, he came right down to the hotel. We had registered at the Jefferson, you see. We’d both been kind of scared of what Don’s father would say, but figured he had to know it sometime, and once we were married there wouldn’t be anything he could do.”

  She stopped long enough to sop her tears with a handkerchief. “That’s where we were wrong. He jerked Don out of the room just like he was a kid, and left me there waiting with my mouth open. There wasn’t a thing I could think of to do, so I finally just went to bed and cried all night.”

  She stopped again, staring off into space while she relived the embarrassment and frustration.

  “And then?” I prodded.

  “Mr. Lawson came back in the morning with three men. One was a policeman in plain clothes—he showed me his badge. The other two were the manager and the store detective of Mercer’s Department Store. The store detective said, ‘That’s the woman,’ and pointed at me, and the manager nodded his head and said, ‘Yes. She’s the one, all right.’ Then the cop said, ‘Come along, sister. You’re under arrest.'

  “I said I didn’t know what they were talking about. Then Mr. Lawson explained that the store manager and the detective claimed they had caught me shoplifting at Mercer’s, and wanted to swear out a warrant. He said their testimony could get me ten years in jail, but he was interceding because he wanted to avoid the publicity of his son’s wife being in jail. He said he was having our marriage annulled on the grounds that Don was underage, and told me very frankly he intended to arrange things so there was no chance of us ever getting together again. I could take my choice of getting out of the state and staying out, or going to prison.”

  “Did you swallow that hogwash?” I asked in astonishment.

 
; “It wasn’t hogwash,” she said. “I don’t know about the store detective, but the man who said he managed Mercer’s really did, because I had turned back a dress there once, and he was called to okay the exchange slip. The plain-clothes man was really a policeman, too. They took me down to police headquarters and entered a formal complaint and took my fingerprints. Then Mr. Lawson gave me five hundred dollars and told me to get out of the state. He said I wouldn’t be hunted, but if I ever came back here, the charge would still be against me even if it was ten years later.”

  I shook my head in wonderment. “The things you can do with twenty million dollars! So when did you decide to take a chance and come back?”

  “When Don found me. After his father died, he hired a private detective to trace me. I was working for some people in Chicago at the time. He said when he reached twenty-one, we could be married and he’d have enough money to quash the shoplifting charge, and he talked me into coming back. Just in case, I decided to go by my middle name instead of Mary, which was the name the charge was filed under.”

  “I still don’t see why you concealed your identity,” I said thoughtfully. “Now that both the old man and Don are dead, it isn’t likely the store manager and detective would press charges—if the thing was trumped up originally.”

  “Don’t you think so?” she asked hopefully, either missing or ignoring the innuendo tacked on the end of my last statement.

  I smiled at her reassuringly. “Don’t worry about it another minute. I know the police chief personally, and I’ll explain the whole frame-up to him.”

  “Oh, don’t do that!” she said quickly. “I’d rather you just let it drop. I mean, after all this time—“

  “Look, Kate,” I said, tiring of the cat-and-mouse act. “Your story is even more moving than East Lynne, and if it weren’t for one thing you’d have had me weeping in my beer. The one thing is that I do know Police Chief Chester personally. He was executive officer of my battalion during the war. And there isn’t enough money in the world to make George Chester let the police department be used for a frame like that.”