by Rhys Bowen
“And I have a good idea why,” I said. “He arrived unexpectedly a couple of nights ago and brought a woman with him.”
“That’s what we’ve heard.” The boy lowered his voice even though there was nobody within sight. “He and his wife don’t get along. He only married her for her money, of course. That’s what we hear. And she’s very religious and into charity work and he—well, let’s just say that he likes a bit of fun, if you know what I mean. They say he has a regular mistress—all set up in a house of her own and everything. But the master didn’t approve so I suppose Mr. Joseph kept her away from prying eyes in the guest cottage.” He laughed in disbelief. “He’s got a nerve, hasn’t he? The way rich folk carry on.”
“So tell me,” I said, steering the conversation back. “What did the servants have to say to Chief Prescott? Anything interesting?”
“Nothing much at all. He asked us whether Mr. Hannan was definitely expected last night and what orders he’d given to his staff. They all said that he sent them ahead and told them he’d got a spot of important business to take care of and he’d be coming up on a later train. The footman had brought the bags and had unpacked his master’s clothes—laid out his suit for dinner, so he was definitely expected by then.”
“But nobody saw him arrive?”
“That’s the funny thing, isn’t it?” The boy put his head on one side, like a sparrow. “House full of people—you’d think someone would have seen him. You’d think he might have said hello to his family before he went off walking in the dark.”
“It’s all very strange,” I agreed.
“You know what else was a bit strange,” he continued. “Mr. Parsons, he’s the head gardener. He said someone had been in the shed. Moved things around.”
“Ah, well, I think I can explain that,” I said. “Two people in fact. Mr. Hannan’s grandson Sam went out fishing early this morning and I gather the fishing tackle is kept in the shed, and also I was told that the master kept a bottle of whiskey and a glass in the shed, in case he wanted a tipple without anyone seeing him.”
“So that’s why nobody saw him.” He looked relieved now. “He went off for a quick drink in private.” Then a frown crossed his boyish features. “All the same, that don’t explain how he wandered the wrong way and went over a cliff, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said.
He lifted his shears again. “Ah, well, it’s no business of mine. I’d better get back to work. Mr. Parsons is a stickler about slacking off and I’m lucky to be one of the ones they keep on all winter. In the summer they take on five gardeners. In winter it’s just down to three.” And he went back to digging up dying plants.
I continued out of the gate and followed the road into town. As I passed the solid red brick colonial I glanced up and thought I saw a figure half hidden behind the drapes again. Someone in that house had nothing better to do than to sit and watch the road. I wondered if this observation continued after dark. If so the person might prove very useful to the police chief—but then he’d already decided that this was an accident caused by drunkenness, hadn’t he?
I went over this as I walked on. I’d been trying to form a picture of Brian Hannan in my head and what I’d heard didn’t add up. A man who was the clear head of the family, who could summon them, knowing they would all come. I’d gotten the impression they were all a little afraid of him. I’d heard how they had to be well dressed for him, how the staff were not allowed to slack off. And yet this man, the owner of the estate, a powerful politician and businessman, had apparently not wanted to face his family without taking a drink first. He had slunk off to a gazebo with a bottle he’d kept hidden away in a shed. That didn’t make sense. Surely a powerful, confident man like Brian Hannan would have said, “To hell with the lot of you. I’m going to take a drink in my own house.” He would have announced his arrival and expected his family to gather around him to pay their respects. The only reasons I could think of for this secret drink in the garden was that he was ashamed of his own weakness, or … He was meeting someone he didn’t want the family to know about. And my thoughts went to the man who had stood outside the gate and said, “Don’t tell him. I want to surprise him.”
Had the surprise been to push him over a cliff?
I decided to keep an eye open for him when I was in town. I also thought that I might find out whether Mr. Joseph’s ladylove was staying somewhere close-by. I went first to the chemist shop. The young man behind the counter remembered me.
“And how is your husband today?” he asked. “Did the medicines make him feel better?”
“Not yet,” I said. “In fact he is now suffering from a headache and a fever. I know how well aspirin works so I thought I’d bring him some.”
“Good choice,” he said. “I’ve got some packets already made up. You just need to stir them in water. I always find a spoonful of jam helps take the bitter taste away. And I’ve a good tonic to help build him up—it’s made with Fowler’s solution of arsenic and Culver’s root. Powerful stuff. Do you want me to make you up a bottle of that?”
“Let’s just try the aspirin first,” I said, having reacted to the word arsenic. “I think it’s just a nasty cold and needs to take its course.”
I came out of the shop with my packets of aspirin powder and stood looking out at the blue waters of Narragansett Bay. A line of white sails stretched across the horizon, obviously the yacht race in which Archie was going to compete. I thought how pleasant it would be to take another stroll through the town, to sit in the sun on the harbor, and watch the boats. But I wanted to get the aspirin back to Daniel. Maybe if he slept after lunch I’d go for another walk.
I did keep a lookout for the man I encountered at the gate last night and I visited a couple of small hotels on the main street to ask if a single lady had been staying there. No such brazen ladies had darkened their doors, but one establishment did say that a lady and gentleman had come in very late a couple of nights ago, saying that they had missed the last train back to New York and would have to stay until morning. A Mr. and Mrs. Joseph. She had done most of the talking. He’d stayed in the background—big fellow with an impressive bushy mustache. They’d left early the next morning, without even waiting for breakfast for which they’d paid. The woman sounded amazed that anybody would do anything so foolish. “They must have been in a real hurry to get back to the city,” she’d added.
That sounded as if I’d hit on something. A Mr. and Mrs. Joseph? And he’d stayed in the background, and worn a big fake mustache. As a disguise it was always successful because the mustache was always the one thing that people remembered, not the face, the expression, or the voice. So it appeared that Joseph’s ladylove had taken the first train back to the city. That was probably correct, given the small size of Newport and the prejudice against a woman alone trying to stay at a hotel. Not that it could have any relevance to Brian Hannan’s death. I hardly thought that Brian Hannan’s brother would shove him over a cliff because his mistress was not welcome at Connemara. But something had made Joseph Hannan uneasy. It couldn’t just be suspicion of outsiders that had made him so anxious to get rid of us.
I gave one last regretful look at the bustling harbor scene and made my way back to the cottage. It was harder walking back with that wind full in my face and I was quite out of breath by the time I entered at the main gate. There was no sign of the gardener. No sign of anyone, in fact. I glanced up at the tower window and started as I thought I saw a movement. But then a second later a dove flew down and I realized that it must have been sitting on the windowsill.
Daniel was sound asleep and snoring noisily, so I need not have hurried back after all. But it was close to lunchtime so I heated up the soup I had made the night before and carried him up a tray with a hunk of bread. The bread was now getting stale and I didn’t like to repeat last night’s fiasco by visiting the kitchen for more. Crumbled into the soup it wasn’t so bad. I woke Daniel and he made a halfhearted attempt at eating. Th
en I gave him the aspirin mixture to drink and he made an awful fuss about the taste. Really men are such babies when it comes to sickness and medicine!
After lunch I decided against going back into town. There were clouds on the horizon that promised rain later. Instead I remembered that I had promised to write to Sid and Gus, so I took the little lap desk and went to sit in the gazebo. I noticed that the tray had been removed and big policemen’s boots had trampled the leaves on the floor. I wondered if they had searched for clues, then wondered what those clues might be. How did one detect whether one or two people sat on a bench, or stood together in a gazebo, when the place was littered with leaves? But then Chief Prescott was now treating this as an accident, wasn’t he? The case was closed as far as he was concerned.
I cleared a portion of the bench to sit down. It was dusty and damp, the leaves having been rained on recently. Not at all appealing as a place to write letters. I had just decided to give up and go back to write in the pleasant warmth of the little sitting room at our cottage when I heard footsteps tramping through the undergrowth. They were coming closer and closer—a heavy, measured tread.
Fifteen
I was on my feet instantly, my heart beating rather faster than normal. I hadn’t imagined it. I could definitely hear the sound of footsteps over the whistle of the wind in the trees and the crash of the waves. Then I told myself that it was broad daylight and I had nothing to alarm me. It was probably just one of Chief Prescott’s men been sent to patrol the area once more. The footsteps came ever closer, that same slow measured tread that was alarming in itself. It was the footfall of someone moving cautiously, but with purpose. I looked around me but could see no one. When the bushes parted just outside the gazebo, a few feet away from me, and a face poked through, I leaped back, stifling a scream, until I saw it was Terrence. He laughed and pushed his way through the undergrowth.
“It’s all right, it’s only me,” he said. “I heard rustling in the gazebo so I thought I’d creep up and take a look.”
“Some creeping. I heard you coming a mile off.” I replied with as much bravado as I could muster, ashamed now of my weak and female reaction to his sudden appearance.
“Then why did you look so startled when I poked my head through the foliage?” he demanded, coming up the steps to join me in the gazebo. “Who did you think I was? The Jersey Devil moved north for the winter?”
“No, but you have to admit that one doesn’t expect a face to appear suddenly through the foliage like that. Among civilized adults, that is.”
This made him laugh even more. “But then, my dear, this is the jungle and I’ve never been a civilized adult. Ask my parents. My mother has completely given up on me and spends long hours on her knees in front of statues, praying that I’ll see the light and start acting like a God-fearing and sensible human being. My father has tried everything and has now also pretty much given up on me in disgust.”
“You don’t seem so uncivilized to me,” I said. “What is it that has made them despair of you?”
“My riotous living, I suppose. Wine, women, and song. Especially the wine, of course. You’ve heard no doubt that mother is a big noise in the temperance movement. Beware the demon alcohol and all that.”
“Yes, I did hear something of the sort.” I found that I had to return his smile. There was something unmistakably likable about him, whatever his failings might be. “So what were you doing creeping through the undergrowth?”
“I couldn’t take it in the house another moment,” he said. “It was getting too much for me.”
“You have felt it too,” I said. “I sensed it right away.”
“Sensed what?” he asked.
“You said you couldn’t take it in the house another moment so I wondered if you also found it—oppressive?” I phrased it carefully, not wanting to use the word “haunted.”
“Oppressive? More like depressive. All that weeping and gloom and doom. I mean, I miss the old fellow as much as anyone, but weeping and wailing won’t bring him back, will it? And those steely-eyed policemen everywhere watching us. Enough to give one the shivers and make one confess to something one hasn’t done.”
And he gave a slightly forced gay laugh.
“But you still haven’t told me why you were creeping through the undergrowth,” I said. “If you wanted to come to the gazebo, there is a path directly from the house.”
“If you really want to know, I wanted to check that it was unoccupied before I emerged,” he said.
“Really? Why was that? You didn’t want to risk encountering one of those policemen?”
“Exactly.” He grinned then lowered his gaze like a schoolboy who is on the carpet before the headmaster. “All right. I have a confession to make. I won’t be giving it to the priest so I’ll make it to you. My reason for coming this way was not entirely honorable.”
“Really?” I tried not to sound too interested.
“I heard my father talking about a decanter and glass that Uncle Brian must have left in the gazebo last evening before he plunged to his death. Since my sister and father watch the booze in the house with hawk eyes, I thought I’d take a stroll on the off chance that the decanter might still be here. But alas I see it isn’t.”
“You’d have been taking an awful chance,” I said.
“Of being caught by Eliza?”
“No, of coming to a bad end,” I said. “Did it not occur to you that if your uncle had fallen to his death after drinking in this gazebo that maybe the drink had been tampered with?”
The smile faded. His mouth opened wide in surprise. “Good God. You’re suggesting that the old boy was poisoned?”
“I’m suggesting it is a possibility we should consider, given that you all think it unlikely he’d just have blundered over the cliff by mistake. Poisoned or drugged. What if there was something in the liquor to make him drowsy or to disorient him?”
He hit himself on the side of the head. “I never thought of that. Stupid of me. I might have been lying at the bottom of that cliff by now if you hadn’t been here.”
“Hardly, since the decanter and glass have been taken away.”
Terrence sat down and patted the bench beside him for me to join him. “So tell me, Mrs. Sullivan,” he said in an intimately low voice. “Do you really think that my uncle was murdered?”
I sat. “What do you think?”
“Me? I really don’t know what to think. I don’t think I’d go along with his being drunk enough to walk over a cliff. My observation was that he held his liquor pretty well. Unless he was well soused before he got here, which I suppose is possible. But if he had drunk that amount, wouldn’t he have been more likely to have passed out, rather than gone blundering around in the dark? And as you pointed out, there is a perfectly good path back to the house.”
“Do you have a more plausible explanation?”
Terrence shook his head. “I really don’t. If someone tried to kill him—well, he was a big burly fellow. Kept himself in good shape. He’d have fought back. The police would have come across signs of a struggle.”
“Can you think of anyone who might want to kill him?”
At this Terrence had to chuckle. “Want to kill him? Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of those around. Let’s just say that the Hannan company doesn’t always play fair and straight. In fact they play downright dirty to get contracts and to knock out competitors. And Uncle Brian’s involvement with Tammany Hall—he never wanted the control himself but he liked playing kingmaker, and puppeteer. Yes, I think that described him well. He liked jerking the strings and making the rest of us dance to his tune.”
He fell silent while the wind rustled dead leaves and made branches creak around us. I wanted to take this one step further, to ask him whether his uncle had pulled on his strings and made him dance recently. I also wanted to ask where he had gone when he left the house the prior evening, but until this was ruled an accident he was a suspect like everyone else in the house. So instead I
asked, “What does the rest of your family think?”
“As to that, I can’t tell you. We’re a reserved bunch. Keep our feelings and thoughts to ourselves. My father wants desperately to believe that it was an accident, brought on by Uncle Brian’s weakness for alcohol. Eliza is ready enough to go along with that. Irene is still in shock, I should say. She’s never had the strongest constitution and another body lying at the foot of the cliff is one too many for her to handle. Especially her adored papa who spoiled her horribly and kept her protected from the big bad world.”
“What about your other uncle, the priest? What does he think?”
Terrence shrugged. “Who knows? He’s a quiet, withdrawn sort of fellow. A little naïve as most priests tend to be, especially when they are sent off to the seminary at fourteen as he was. So it probably hasn’t entered his head that it could be anything but an accident. He was saying to my father this morning how Brian’s drinking was grieving him and how he had hoped to speak to him about it while they were here.”
“And your aunt?”
“Not the brightest of souls, you know. And had no education to speak of. Hasn’t exactly come up in the world like the rest of us. So she’d be prepared to believe anything, especially if it was on the headline of some penny rag. Of course she doesn’t believe in the basic goodness of mankind like Father Patrick. She’s seen her share of the other side—drunken husband who knocked her around and now her daughter’s married to a lout of the same sort—always out of work, always drunk, always getting into fights. If he’d been anywhere near she’d have been all too keen to believe that he threw Uncle Brian over a cliff.”
