Gallows in My Garden

''''The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbors . . . on the wail . . .
Are drawing a long breath to shout ''Hurray!''
The strangest whim has seized me . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself today.''''
--From G. K. Chesterton’s A Ballade of Suicide

Young Donald Lawson was familiar with that poem . . . yet now his body hung dead on a crag. Murder or suicide, Manville Moon was already on the case, as bodyguard to Don''s beautiful sister Grace. For Grace''s life was threatened, too, and to protect it Moon found himself crossing fists and guns with hired killers, and fencing desperately with Grace''s friends, family, and fiancé, anyone of whom might have wanted to kill her.