Read Arsenic and Old Puzzles Online
Authors: Parnell Hall
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“So I’ll have something to talk about tonight.”
“What’s happening tonight?”
“I’m assembling the suspects at the Guilford house. You should probably be there.”
“Why are you assembling the suspects at the Guilford house?”
“To tell ’em who the killer is.”
“Who’s the killer?”
“I have no idea.”
“Cora.”
“But I’ll know more after you trace these prints.”
“But only if they’re Charlotte Guilford’s.”
“No, I’ll know more no matter whose they are. It would be
nice
if they were Charlotte Guilford’s. But I’ll take anything I can get. Just trace any fingerprints you find.”
“What if there aren’t any?”
“Then I’m going to look mighty foolish. I may even have to resort to Becky’s idea.”
“What’s Becky’s idea?”
“See who tries to kill me.”
Sherry was feeding
Jennifer in a highchair. Or rather Jennifer was feeding Jennifer in a highchair. Jennifer had taken control of the spoon lately, and the resultant chaos was dramatic. Every now and then some food actually got in her mouth.
“You should issue people raincoats to watch her eat,” Cora said.
“That would take some of the fun out of it,” Sherry said.
“You find this fun?”
“Buddy does. He’s getting half her dinner.”
“Mostly in his fur. I think she’s aiming for him. If so, she’s pretty good.”
“So what’s up tonight? Aaron called, said he wouldn’t be home. When I asked him why, he said to ask you.”
“I’m throwing a little shindig at the Guilford house. Jennifer’s a little young or I’d invite you.”
“Aaron said you had something in mind. But he didn’t know what it was.”
“That’s because I don’t know either.”
“Are you serious?”
“Only partly. I’ve got hunches. Not enough to prove anything. Just enough to hang myself.”
Jennifer hit Cora in the face with a spoonful of glop.
“Is that egg?” Cora said, wiping off her cheek with a well-stained dish towel. “It would be fitting. That’s what I’m going to have tonight. Egg on my face.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Why? The worst that can happen is I make a fool of myself, get sued for slander, and someone tries to kill me. I’ve had worse dates than that.”
The phone rang.
“Don’t get up,” Cora told Jennifer. “I’ve got it.”
Cora went in the kitchen, answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Cora. Chief Harper.”
“Well?”
“We got it.”
“And?”
“It’s Charlotte Guilford’s fingerprints, all right.”
“Jackpot! Anyone else’s?”
“Yeah, but it’s not what you wanted.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s none of your suspects.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not Edith Guilford. It’s not Sebastian Guilford. It’s not Alan Guilford. It’s not Arlene Winnington.”
“You have all their fingerprints?”
“Sure. We printed Edith when we were trying to see who touched the carafe. Alan gave us his prints. Sebastian didn’t, but he has a record. Arlene also refused, but she has a record, too.”
“Really?”
“Pot bust. Pled no contest, paid a fine. Some public defender trying out his training wheels.”
“You really have a cynical side, Chief.”
“Well, it would be nice if something in this damn case panned out. This print will probably turn out to be the grocery clerk in the Stop and Shop, who sold Charlotte the bottle of maple syrup.”
“You could be right. Anyway, when you show up at the Guilfords’ tonight, you might want to bring Henry Firth.”
“Why?”
“In case you’re wrong.”
Cora Felton, dressed
in her finest “Miss Marple” outfit—a white blouse, tweed skirt, and matching jacket—stood in front of the hearth and surveyed the gathering in the Guilfords’ spacious living room.
Edith Guilford sat in a straight-back armchair with a shawl around her shoulders, looking like a cross between the family matriarch and a frail old woman the slightest breeze might blow away.
Barney Nathan sat beside her, his medical bag open, ready, willing, and able to administer a sedative should the occasion arise.
Edith’s nephew Sebastian sat solicitously by, managing to simultaneously project a warm concern for her and an insolent disdain for everyone else.
Alan Guilford sat on the couch, flanked by Becky and Arlene. Cora figured if he managed to get a word in edgewise, it would be a minor miracle.
Chief Harper sat across the room with Henry Firth, who was obviously extremely unhappy to be there, and looked as if he might bolt at any moment.
Aaron Grant sat in the very back of the room and tried to fade into the woodwork.
Cora walked out and placed a small end table in the center of the room. Heads turned. Conversations stopped. By the time she was finished, everyone in the room was watching her.
Cora surveyed her work, found it to her approval. Without a word she turned, walked back to the fireplace, and resumed her position.
There was an uneasy silence.
“What’s that for?” Sebastian said.
Cora raised one finger. “Ahhh! I was wondering who would be the one to ask me that. It turned out to be you. Interesting.” She nodded knowingly. “I need it for my presentation. We’ll get to it in a while.” She shrugged. “I suppose I could put my purse on it, but when you’ve got a gun in your purse, you hate to leave it lying around.”
Cora smiled at the gathered assembly. “Before we begin, would anyone like a glass of elderberry wine?”
There was a stunned silence. She continued, “Probably not. But it’s as good a place to start as any. Someone poisoned the Guilford sisters’ wine. A lodger drank it and died. A prowler drank it and died. Two other lodgers also died. And finally Charlotte Guilford. Since then the killings have ceased. Did everyone notice that? Since the murder of Charlotte Guilford there have been no attempts on anyone else’s life. The question is, why?
“There is an obvious answer, which we must examine. In a case like this, the most obvious answer is often true. That answer, of course, is that Charlotte Guilford was the intended victim all along. That with her death, the crime is complete.
“Is there anything to support this theory? Well, Charlotte is not a lodger or an intruder, she is an owner of the house. As such, she is important. And with her death the killings apparently stop.
“Is there any reason to doubt that theory? Any contradictory facts? There is nothing readily apparent. And yet, there are tiny seeds of doubt.
“What are they?
“For that, we must go back to the beginning and examine these crimes. First up is the lodger who drinks the wine served at tea and expires on the floor. A perfectly ordinary man, who to all appearances wouldn’t harm a fly. Who is he and why was he killed? Amazingly, both questions are equally hard to answer. The man had no identification on him whatsoever. Attempts to trace him have been futile. His fingerprints are not on file, apparently he has never been arrested for a crime. He would appear to be exactly what he seems. An elderly man who just happened to get poisoned.
“Why has he no identification on him? The obvious answer is, the killer took it. Without going into why the killer might do that, not to mention how, the problem is, that answer’s just not good enough. He not only has no identification on him, but there is no other way he can be traced. He does not have a car. He appears to have taken a cab from the Danbury bus station, but even that is not certain. It is possible he came to Danbury on a bus from New York, in which case he could have flown into LaGuardia, JFK, or Newark on any airline from any city in the United States. Or abroad, for that matter. Wherever he came from he left no trail, and the name he checked in under is most likely not his own.
“Could a killer arrange all that? Certainly not after the crime. The killer might be able to lift the guy’s wallet, but to erase every trace of his life? It could only be done by the man himself.
“So, all evidence to the contrary, this simple, ordinary man is not who he seems.
“Which is too bad. Because a man like that is much more likely to be the killer than the victim.”
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.