The House without the Door (4 page)

"Perhaps you didn't explain to him that Mrs. Stoner saw the holes in the icing before you did."

Colby said: "Oh—she may have lost her nerve for some reason."

"I'm sure I shouldn't have noticed anything wrong about the cake," declared Mrs. Gregson.

"Have you Goff's report?" asked Gamadge.

"I have it," said Colby. "About six grains of arsenic, approximately two to a slice."

"Much more care was used than in preparing Mrs. Gregson's mackerel; this time there was a lethal dose in every slice." Gamadge again peered at the Boone cake. "Even though I see no holes in the rest of the icing, I don't recommend your eating the rest of your cake, Mrs. Gregson. Nor do I advise putting it into the garbage; some hungry creature might find it. Just smash it up and shove it down the drain."

"You aren't keeping it?" Colby was surprised.

"Well, no; we have the report on what was undoubtedly the dangerous part of it, and this part can't be traced." He placed the box on the table, and lighted another cigarette. "Well, let's face up to it. You're willing to face up to it, Mrs. Gregson?"

"I must." She leaned back against her yellow cushion, and her eyes wandered about the room. "It isn't just because I'm afraid. I can't explain—not yet; and I won't let you or Mr. Colby tell anybody anything. But I must find out who's been doing these things if I can."

"You needn't explain." Gamadge also leaned back, and he smiled at her "I think I know. But first let us dispose of the evidence, what there is of it. Very clever of somebody that there isn't more."

C
OLBY HAD BEEN LOOKING
puzzled. He said: "I don't know what better reason there can be for getting to the bottom of these attempts than saving Mrs. Gregson's life from a would-be murderer."

"She will tell you that there is a better reason." Gamadge's eyes were very green as they met Colby's blue ones. "So good a reason that she won't mind plain speaking on my part for the sake of the cause."

"I don't mind anything." She folded her hands and waited.

"Good. I'll begin by saying that this anonymous letter"— Gamadge took it out of his pocket—"was not of course written by an illiterate person. The paper is cheap, and could have been bought at a five-and-ten-cent store; but the style is correct, literary, even grandiose. No ordinary crank wrote it. We are expected to infer from it that the writer is a self-appointed avenger, who thinks that there was a miscarriage of justice in Connecticut two years ago."

Colby shifted in his chair. Mrs. Gregson said: "Of course the letters meant that."

"They were followed by four extraordinary episodes," continued Gamadge, "and we should be fools not to see a connection, of course. But we must not assume that the episodes were attempts actually to kill you."

Colby protested: "What on earth do you mean? What else were they?"

"None of them did kill Mrs. Gregson."

"But any of them might have killed her!"

"What were the chances, Colby?"

"If that splinter hadn't caught her dress she might very well have broken her neck!"

"People do fall downstairs without breaking their necks."

"Those symptoms she had after eating that fish—I'm no doctor, but didn't they show arsenic poisoning?"

"I don't doubt it, not for a moment; but the dose wasn't fatal."

"She had treatment within an hour."

"If she'd had a proper dose she probably wouldn't have responded to treatment."

"How about that gas oven?"

"There the chances were even greater that she'd escape with her life."

"I'd not care to take those chances, I can tell you!"

"But her death wasn't even reasonably certain unless she had gone into the kitchen itself at the very instant that the gas reached the pilot. As for the cake, Mrs. Stoner saw the holes in the icing as soon as she had cut the slices."

"Very clever of her!" Colby was heavily sardonic. "Mrs. Gregson might not have seen the holes in the icing."

"The fact remains that none of these four attempts succeeded. This is a very ugly affair, you know, and we must expect to find depths within depths; let us begin by arguing, for the sake of eliminating possibilities, that the attempts were all fakes. The perpetrator evidently didn't mind killing Mrs. Gregson, and may indeed have meant to kill her and been unable to bring it off; but let's argue that the motive was to frighten her, to punish or to persecute. Can you think of anyone in your immediate circle who might want to do that, Mrs. Gregson?"

She said calmly: "You mean, does any of them think I killed my husband."

"And cherish a longing to serve the ends of justice, as he or she imagines it."

"I don't think so. If I thought so, would I have them come to stay with me?"

"Let me put it another way: which of them had a great devotion to your husband?"

Mrs. Gregson looked down at her clasped hands. "Minnie Stoner was very grateful to him."

"But you think that she is fond of
you
."

"I know she is."

"How about the adopted boy—Benton Locke?"

"I never thought Benny Locke cared for anybody but himself."

"Miss Cecilia Warren?"

"My husband took very little interest in Celia. She was there because she was my cousin, and had nowhere else to go."

"Let's drop the persecution motive, then, which is getting us nowhere, and try another. What if four faked attempts at murder were arranged in order to throw suspicion on some one person?"

Mrs. Gregson looked up at him. Colby said: "Good Lord, the ideas you get!"

"I never thought such a thing," said Mrs. Gregson.

"Suspicion," continued Gamadge, "could only fall on somebody who had access to Mrs. Gregson or her house at the proper times. We'll tackle that later. Who profits by your death, Mrs. Gregson?"

"Minnie has her annuity, and I haven't left her anything in my will. I give Celia and Benny a small allowance, all I can afford. I've left them everything I have in my will, in equal shares."

"Have you, really?"

"Celia is my only relation, and I thought my husband would want me to look out for Benny Locke."

"Well, we must assume that Miss Warren's and Mr. Locke's next friends would also be interested in their financial prospects. If you were convinced that Miss Warren or Mr. Locke was trying to put an end to you, would that affect your last will and testament?"

"Of course it would. I'm not sentimental enough to leave money to somebody who wanted to kill me, Mr. Gamadge."

"Let us hope not. What would you do about the legacy of such a person?"

"I never thought. I suppose I'd leave all my money to the other one."

"Perhaps somebody supposes so too. Now for opportunity: and we must begin with the grease on the stair. Was the house open that afternoon, Mrs. Gregson?"

"It's always open if we're there." 

"What's the approach to it?"

"The road from the highway is very lonely; there's only the Hotchkiss farm, as I said. You pass a stump lot on a hill, and a belt of pines, and then there's a narrow side yard."

"Trees in the yard?"

"Evergreens, and some bushes."

"Where were you and Mrs. Stoner that afternoon?"

"Minnie was in and out of the kitchen, and upstairs. I was upstairs too, getting the spare rooms ready."

"Is there another back entrance besides the kitchen door?"

"There's a side door as you approach the house; it leads to a passage."

"And where's the entrance to the cellar?"

"Off that passage, before you get to the kitchen."

"Very convenient. Suppose Mr. Locke had come a little earlier than he seemed to come, Mrs. Gregson; or suppose Miss Warren had arrived by an earlier train? I suppose there are plenty of afternoon trains to Burford?"

"Yes, there's one that gets there a little after six. But—" She was gazing fixedly at him, her eyebrows drawn together.

"Miss Warren could have come up on that train, walked to Pine Lots, put the grease on the stair, and walked back to the station. There she could have waited, and taken the cab that met the seven twenty-two. Couldn't she?"

"She could walk the distance."

"As for the mackerel; you came down last to breakfast. How do you know what happened to that fish between the time it was put on your plate—in the kitchen, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"In the kitchen, by Mrs. Stoner, and the time it was eaten by yourself? It's a long time ago, and none of these people can be expected to remember where they and others were that morning, and who went into the kitchen, and who was alone in the dining-room. Where was the fish when you came down?"

"I called down that I was coming, and I found it at my place at the table. The others weren't there."

"As to the affair of the gas oven; all these people have had access to your keys at one time or another, I suppose?"

"I suppose so."

"Men's pockets are as it were a part of themselves, but women's handbags are always lying around. Mrs. Stoner's bag, and your bag, for instance. As Colby explained, it wouldn't take long for somebody to get hold of a duplicate key to this flat, and to the front door of this building. The cake—anybody on earth could have got that cake to you; anybody, of course, who happened to know that you liked fruit cake. One thing emerges from this void: no outsider engineered these four episodes, Mrs. Gregson. You know that as well as I do, and I won't insult your intelligence by discussing the point. It
is
a void, you know; perhaps we'll never find out what lies at the bottom of it."

"Don't say that, Gamadge!" begged Colby.

"I'm no magician, Colby. I can't pull the rabbit out of the hat unless the rabbit is there. But I can offer Mrs. Gregson two or three pieces of advice, which amount to solemn warnings. And I can talk to the parties."

Mrs. Gregson said: "That's what is worrying me so. I don't want to be unjust, and they'd never forgive me—"

"I'm very tactful; am I not, Colby? Here's the advice: First, you really must send Mrs. Stoner back to Pine Lots. I'll see her there, away from your supporting presence. You're best away from her just now, Mrs. Gregson."

"If you say so." She was still frowning at him.

"Second—and most important: Change your will."

"Change my…?"

"Your will. Change it now, this afternoon. Colby and I will witness it for you, and it will be as good as if it had been done by a firm of lawyers. Leave your money temporarily to anybody—shall we say to a cats' home? That has a contemptuous implication, but I hardly know why. I have a cat myself."

"It would be so frightfully unjust to—to the others; if I should die!"

"How do you know, Mrs. Gregson, that they're not all involved in this?" He added: "I'll break the news to the ex-beneficiaries. Leave it to me."

"I can't do it today! I must think." She looked at Gamadge desperately, and his heart sank. "I don't think I realized how awful it all was until now!"

"It's a nasty situation, and must be met with what weapons we hold."

"Excellent suggestion, I call it," said Colby.

"I might die suddenly. I
can't
cut them both out like that. I can't risk it. Can't I pretend I've changed it?"

"Much better to have it a fact; facts are more effective than fictions. But if you're determined against the idea I'll tell them you've changed it, or are about to change it. Have you told Miss Warren or Locke about those letters, and the four attempts?"

"No, not a word. Minnie Stoner knows."

"Let's hope she hasn't told them."

"She's had no chance to tell them."

"She may have seized a chance, but let us hope not. My third, and I hope a more acceptable piece of advice: I want you to go up to a nice little place I know of near Cold Brook—that's about a dozen miles up the line north of Burford, you know. It's more a rest cure than a sanatorium, and it's very comfortably run by two nice women of my acquaintance, trained nurses. It's expensive, but you get your money's worth."

Colby was delighted. "That's a brilliant idea of yours, Gamadge! You'll be right out of it all, Mrs. Gregson; best thing in the world for you in every possible way."

She said: "I'd love to go, but I told you—I don't go among strangers."

"Don't you worry about that. These two women that run the place will protect you fully and ask no questions. One of them is a nice, quiet, efficient girl, and the other's a jolly old war horse—a good sort. She took care of me once when I had a broken ankle, and she introduced me to her partner and told me their plans for this sanatorium. I helped them write the prospectus, and I sent them some patients, and—er—that kind of thing."

"Bought a little stock in it?" Colby laughed.

"Well, that's neither here nor there. The point is that I know the place from the ground up. It's called Five Acre Farm, or Five Acres; nice little property up the road two or three miles from Cold Brook. It's been done over with a sun parlour and a lounge and I don't know what all. It's been a success. They even have a visiting physician, and the guests can have all kinds of treatments and foolishness. Mrs. Tully and Miss Lukes only take desirables, and the patients live in clover. None of those people would know you, Mrs. Gregson, and I dare say none of them ever heard of you."

"It sounds very nice."

"You needn't appear downstairs at all unless you feel like it. You can take walks—lovely scenery, even at this time of the year. I could call up tonight—they probably have room for you so late in the season—and drive you up there tomorrow myself."

"You take my breath away." She gave him the faint, difficult smile.

"Send Mrs. Stoner up to Burford in your car. I wouldn't rush things, you know, if I didn't think there was a rush."

After a pause she said: "You're very kind; I'll go."

"Good. I'll make all arrangements. This is one place," and he grinned at Colby, "where
my
reference gets you in. Could you be ready at half-past nine, say?"

"I must go to the bank first."