Arsenic and Old Puzzles

by Parnell Hall

  Cora paused, looked around the room. “Confused? How do you think I felt? I thought I’d lost it. I thought my brain was going soft.

  “As if that weren’t bad enough, there was a sudoku on the body. Why? What for? What did it mean? Clearly someone was trying to involve me in the crime, but for what reason? I solved the sudoku, but it didn’t shed any light on anything. Nor did the crossword puzzle left under the doormat.”

  Cora smiled, held up one finger in the air. “The next murder did. The murder of Ned Crumley, the town drunk. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but that’s how people knew him. The town drunk climbs in the window, drinks poisoned wine, passes out in the window seat, and dies. What the hell is that all about? It’s like the first murder, but it’s not. There’s no attempt to hide the victim’s identity, and if there had been it wouldn’t have done any good. The drunk is local, he’s known. So, is he just a poor man who broke in to steal wine and picked the bottle that killed him? He could be. Except he isn’t. And how do we know he isn’t? He has a sudoku on him. Just like the first one. Proof positive the two killings are connected.

  “But that’s not all.

  “Alan Guilford is found prowling in the bushes.”

  Becky and Arlene both jumped up to speak.

  Cora waved them down. “Your objection to the word prowling is sustained. The point is, he hears noises, sees the lights, comes over to investigate, and Sam Brogan apprehends him.

  “Something else happens at that time. Something important. Sam Brogan, making that arrest, finds a newspaper lying in the bushes. A Hartford newspaper from 2005. It is folded open to the crossword puzzle page. Staring up from the paper is my smiling face. It is a Puzzle Lady column, just in case I don’t get the hint from the two sudoku puzzles. The paper was left by the killer, and is meant to involve me.

  “One interesting thing about the puzzle. It has been solved and then erased. That’s unusual, it should mean something. The puzzle, when solved, is made up of Cary Grant movies, the answer in the middle is Arsenic and Old Lace.

  “This is where the crime goes off the rails. Everyone knows Arsenic and Old Lace. Well, except the chief. And the parallels are striking. Two sisters run a boardinghouse, a lodger is poisoned, with elderberry wine, no less. The sisters have a nephew, the nephew is engaged to the girl next door. Not to mention the body in the window seat.

  “How is this possible? It can’t be, but it is. And just in case there’s any question about it, a grave is dug in the cellar.

  “What happens next? Two people are strangled in the back of a school bus. Whoa. Time out. Flag on the play. This is not in the script. This is as far from Arsenic and Old Lace as you can get.

  “Clearly, this is not in the killer’s plans. The couple were an annoyance, an intrusion; two characters who wandered in from another movie. They are simply removed from the game.

  “Is there any chance that they are the main focus all along, that their murder is what this is all about?

  “No, there is not. In that case their killing would be staged to look like the other murders. So as to disguise the motive. That is if they were killed by the betrayed husband and/or wife. But the killer didn’t do that. The only attempt to link the crimes is a sudoku. But it seems like an afterthought.

  “Now we come to the real crime, the main crime, the central crime. The murder of Charlotte Guilford. The killing is made as much as possible to look like the others. The body is put in the window seat. A crossword puzzle is found on the body. The crossword puzzle indicates that she was a snoop, that she was killed because she couldn’t keep her nose out of the killer’s business. This concept is not out of the movie. There are no snoops in Arsenic and Old Lace. So one wonders why the crossword is there.

  “It is obvious the killer is trying to throw us off the trail. To make us think Charlotte Guilford was killed for something she found out. In support of the theory that the murder of Charlotte Guilford is the central murder is the fact that the killer is trying to make it look as if it isn’t.

  “What happens next is particularly revealing. Sebastian Guilford shows up in town. This is straight out of the movie. The older brother with the criminal past showing up to plague our young hero.” Cora gestured to Alan.

  “Only he doesn’t just show up. He is summoned. He receives a message, presumably from the police, informing him of his aunt’s murder and asking him to come. However, the police have no record of any such message.

  “Why does this happen? What is the purpose of Sebastian being here?

  “Is he the killer?

  “Once Sebastian is here—or I should say, once we are aware Sebastian is here … yes, yes, your outrage is duly noted, Sebastian—the crimes stop.” Cora smiled. “See how you can twist everything around? Once Charlotte is dead, the crimes stop. Once Sebastian is here, the crimes stop. Once I switch to decaf lattes, the crimes stop. While the obvious explanation is often true, things do not necessarily mean what they seem.

  “From this point on, theories abound. For some inexplicable reason Sebastian and Alan go on TV and accuse each other of the crimes for the most outlandishly contrived reasons. To inherit his aunts’ estate. To get his hands on Arlene’s money. Really!

  “How do you sort it out? Well, you start looking though the clues, trying to find something that sticks out, something that doesn’t dovetail. The odd event. Do we have one in this case?

  “Actually, we do.

  “Charlotte Guilford asked Alan Guilford how he liked his pancakes. And he did not, in fact, eat pancakes. Why did she do that? Was that merely senility, or something more sinister? It is, in any case, the odd event.

  “Or is it?

  “Think about it. We have only Alan Guilford’s word it ever happened at all.”

  This time Becky Baldwin beat Arlene to her feet.

  Cora put up her hand. “You can object all you want, but that happens to be the case. There is nothing to substantiate Alan Guilford’s claim. Nothing to prove that is what Charlotte said when Alan met her that morning. Indeed, there is nothing to prove that Alan ever met Charlotte that morning at all.

  “In a case like this, where no such proof exists, what would one necessarily expect to happen? That someone will attempt to manufacture some. To plant some evidence to bolster their story. This is where so many murderers slip up. In gilding the lily. In trying to cover up their crime.”

  Cora paused, surveyed the room.

  “I have found just such a clue.”

  Cora let that sink in. “The only question is, is it real or is it planted?

  “You be the judge.”

  Cora reached in her drawstring purse. “I will show it to you now.”

  She pulled out the crossword puzzle. “This is the crossword puzzle found on Charlotte’s body.” She held it up, paused for a moment. “The clue is not in here.”

  She reached into her purse again, pulled out the puzzle in the newspaper. “And here is the crossword puzzle with the answer Arsenic and Old Lace.” She looked around the room. “The clue is not in here, either.

  “This is the clue.”

  Cora pulled out a bottle of maple syrup, set it on the table, walked away.

  She turned back, pointed a finger. “Edith Guilford looks positively baffled. So do Alan and Sebastian.

  “But Arlene looks like she’s seen a ghost. I wonder why. Let’s check the fingerprints on the bottle, Chief, and maybe we’ll find out.”

  With a howl of rage, Arlene sprang from her seat, and hurled herself at Cora Felton in a blind fury.

  Chief Harper leapt to his feet, but he wasn’t close enough to intervene.

  Barney Nathan was. The little doctor jumped up, took a flying leap, and tackled Arlene before she could strike his woman down.

  Chapter

  59

  Becky came back from the holding cells, joined the party in Chief Harper’s office.

  “She doesn’t want me as her lawyer.”

  “What a surprise,” Cora said
.

  “She’s not talking, either. She’s hiring some attorney from New York.”

  “That’s a shame,” Henry Firth said.

  “You were hoping for a confession?” Cora said.

  “Without it we have very little evidence. Aside from your opinion that the woman turned white when confronted with maple syrup. She also found you irritating enough to take a swing at. Under that criteria…” The prosecutor shrugged.

  “Thanks a lot,” Cora said. “You’ll get your evidence. The chief’s tracing her fingerprints now. It doesn’t matter who she turns out to be, if she isn’t Arlene, she’s dead meat.”

  “I still have to present a case to the jury.”

  “No problem. Now that we know what happened, we’ll be able to identify the first victim. After we know who he is, everything else will fall into place.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, I know who he must be. He’s either a lawyer or accountant or trustee of Arlene’s parents’ estate.”

  “Traveling incognito with no identification?” Henry said sarcastically.

  “Exactly.”

  “You want to tell me how that works?”

  “Sure thing. Arlene’s parents die and she inherits umpty million dollars. Huge lifestyle change for a girl who’s been sharing an apartment with a Columbia student in New York City. It’s also a huge lifestyle change for her roommate. Arlene, as a result of her windfall, will be moving out and leaving her with a rent she cannot afford. If Arlene had made provisions for her roommate, things would have been okay. Or, not to be uncharitable, perhaps Arlene did make provisions for her roommate, but it wasn’t enough. The roommate is insanely jealous of Arlene. The roommate doesn’t move out, she murders Arlene and takes her place.”

  “Oh, come on,” Henry Firth said.

  “You asked the question. This will all come out when the IDs are made. I’m telling you what I think. Unless you don’t want to hear it.”

  “We want to hear it,” Chief Harper said. “You say she took her place as if there was nothing to it. How could she pull it off? Surely Arlene’s friends would know the difference.”

  “Yeah, but she immediately cuts ties. Moves out of New York to a house in Connecticut. As for the rest of it, all it takes is a little old-fashioned forgery. The estate is on the West Coast. Most communication is conducted by e-mail. Anyway, it works. The girl inherits the money, moves to the house in Bakerhaven.

  “Initially it’s kind of boring, because she’s keeping her head down. She watches a lot of TV. Does crossword puzzles. Which she doesn’t even have to go out to buy. Arlene’s relatives were hoarders. There’s a mother lode of old newspapers stored in the basement.”

  “How do you know that?” Henry Firth said.

  “Lucky guess. Anyway, life is pretty boring until she meets a handsome young man who happens to live right next door. Now things are popping very nicely indeed. All things considered, it couldn’t be better.

  “Then disaster strikes. A letter or e-mail or phone call arrives. From the attorney, accountant, trustee, or whatever. He’s coming east and wants to pay his respects.

  “She’s trapped. There’s no place to hide. The man, whoever he is, will take one look and know she’s not Arlene. So she comes up with her plan. She contacts the man, tells him about Alan. Says he’s someone she met since her inheritance, and she’s afraid he might be after her money. She asks the attorney if he would mind coming incognito, and checking into his aunts’ bed-and-breakfast under an assumed name, so he can meet Alan casually without Alan knowing who he is, and get a sense of the young man’s intentions.”

  “He didn’t just come incognito. He had no identification. And no rental car.”

  “She must have talked him out of it somehow. If Alan really is a con man, he’ll be suspicious of everyone and might break into the car to look at the name on the rental agreement. Or something equally ridiculous. And the guy doesn’t question it because he’s having fun playing secret agent.

  “So, she ascertains he likes wine, suggests he have some with the aunts—she knows they don’t drink it themselves—and see what they say about their nephew. All she has to do is poison the wine bottle and wait for nature to take its course.”

  Henry Firth was still skeptical. “And what’s the whole Arsenic and Old Lace bit?”

  “That’s a smokescreen dreamed up by Arlene—I’m going to call her Arlene, until we know who she turns out to be. She can’t just kill the solicitor. Eventually someone will figure out who he is and realize why he was killed. Arlene’s just seen Arsenic and Old Lace on Turner Classic Movies. At the time it registered with her she’d just done a crossword puzzle with Arsenic and Old Lace in the theme. And it occurs to her how many parallels there are between the Guilford sisters and the aunts in the movie. Both have old creaky houses, both have basements and window seats, both take in lodgers. And in both cases the young man of the house is engaged to the girl next door.

  “Is that enough to suggest the connection? Not really. The solicitor is killed and no one notices.

  “Arlene was prepared for this contingency. With the crossword puzzle that said Arsenic and Old Lace. Ideally, she’d have liked to have had it in the solicitor’s pocket. But there was no way to swing it. It was hard enough just getting him to carry the sudoku. She probably sent it to him in the mail, told him to carry it in his pocket to test Alan.”

  “Test Alan?” Henry Firth said. “Oh, come on.”

  “Hey, I’m making this up in lieu of a confession. Anyway, she finds a way to get him to carry a sudoku. But she needs a crossword puzzle. Remember how we got it? She brought it in the door. Said she found it under the doormat. Well, that works with a computer printout, but a newspaper dated 2005? Besides, she doesn’t want to be the one to introduce the concept of Arsenic and Old Lace. But to suggest the killer is leaving crossword puzzle clues? That’s just great. Because we’ll be sure to pay attention to the next one. Particularly when it comes in an old paper. Which, luckily, she didn’t throw away. The only problem is it’s been solved. You can’t give the Puzzle Lady a solved puzzle. She has to erase it. And she needs a delivery system. She gets the town drunk, probably plies him with liquor, and persuades him to break into the Guilford house, hide in the window seat for a while, then come out and do goodness knows what—it doesn’t matter, he’s never going to do it. She gives him a bottle of wine to keep him happy while he’s waiting. The wine is poisoned. Which is perfect. A body in the window seat with a crossword puzzle on him that says Arsenic and Old Lace.

  “Only two things go wrong. The guy makes so much noise breaking in, he wakes up the sisters and they call the police. If he was still alive when they found him, the jig would have been up. He also drops the newspaper in the bushes, so we found the body but not the clue.

  “But all is not lost. When Arlene sends Alan to make sure everything is going smoothly she lucks out. In arresting him in the bushes, Sam Brogan finds the newspaper where the drunk dropped it.” Cora frowned. “Actually, I think Sam found the puzzle before he arrested Alan. Which is why we didn’t associate the newspaper with him. When solved, it says Arsenic and Old Lace, and we’re off to the races. I make the connection, want to know if the poison was in elderberry wine. When the poison turns out to be actually three poisons mixed in the same proportions as in the movie, it’s clear the killer is copying Arsenic and Old Lace. Perfect plan.

  “Only the chief clamps the lid on and keeps it out of the media. Bad luck for Arlene. She doesn’t know if her plan is working.

  “So she has to keep going. She doesn’t want to kill anybody else, but she has to copy the movie. So she digs the grave. Which we immediately find. If we hadn’t, I’m sure something would have suggested we look there. Perhaps another puzzle clue. We can never have too many of those. Anyway, she digs the grave. And she might have gotten away with it, if not for the maple syrup.”

  “What’s the big deal about the maple syrup?”

  �
�That was the key to the whole thing. Alan Guilford was the last person to see Charlotte alive. He claims he went over there to shave, he ran into her, she asked him about breakfast. Specifically, she asked him how he liked his pancakes. Well, assuming she’s not just a dotty old lady, why would she do that? The cellar door’s off the pantry, and someone dug a hole in the basement. If Charlotte ran into Alan as he was coming up from the basement after digging the grave, he might say he just popped over to borrow some maple syrup for breakfast. In that case he would have to get a bottle—Charlotte might even hand it to him—and take it with him when he left. Then it would be perfectly natural for her to ask him later how he liked his pancakes. Is there anything wrong with that?”

  Henry Firth thought it over. “No, that works.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Cora said. “For one simple reason. Alan brought it up. We wouldn’t know Charlotte asked him about pancakes for breakfast if he hadn’t mentioned it. And if he’d dug the grave and covered it up by pretending he was borrowing maple syrup, he certainly wouldn’t have.

  “But if Arlene dug the grave and borrowed the maple syrup, it works just fine. Charlotte could ask Alan about it, he could be baffled, and he could tell us about it, which he did. Which means he’s either totally innocent, or the stupidest accomplice in the annals of crime.

  “If Alan’s the accomplice, Arlene has no problem. She just tells him to go along with the pancake story. Tell Charlotte they were delicious. She will then proceed to forget all about them, and there will be no need to kill her. It’s only the idea that Charlotte will be claiming a breakfast that Alan is denying that makes her dangerous.”

  “What makes her think Charlotte would do that?”

  “Alan tells her. He comes back from shaving and says Charlotte’s really losing it, she has some crazy idea he had pancakes for breakfast. When Arlene hears that, Charlotte’s gotta go. She doesn’t want to bump off the old biddy, but by now she’s in too deep. She’s already bumped off the cheating couple, who saw her do something suspicious—or maybe not—by now Arlene’s paranoia must be so high she might just think they saw something suspicious. She bangs them over the head, sticks ’em in her car, and drops ’em in the bus in the back of the high school.”