“I might be able to prove it,” Daniel said. “There was a storm recently, remember? A lot of rain means the ground is still soggy. There would be evidence of a second person—a footprint in a patch of mud, the fiber from clothing caught on a bush, and above all, signs of a scuffle on the clifftop.”
“Even Mr. Prescott would notice signs of a scuffle, I suspect,” I said dryly.
“That Prescott fellow wouldn’t know a clue if it jumped up and bit him.” Daniel started slowly up the stairs. Then he turned back to me. “I feel it in my bones that this is more than a simple accident, Molly. All the instincts of my training tell me so.”
“And why is that?”
“A man arrives at his property for the first time in months. His family and servants are inside and yet he doesn’t pop his head in the door and say, ‘Good evening one and all, I’m just about to inspect my grounds.’ He goes to the edge of the cliff and falls over? Not good enough, Molly. For one thing his family has pointed out that he was cautious about the cliffs and for another he wasn’t likely to lose his way in the dark. The house is fitted with electricity. There would be light streaming from all the windows. He’d have had enough light to see by, and what’s more there is a fountain, a tennis court, formal flower beds—plenty of landmarks by which he could orient himself. He could only have lost his way if he was on the fringes of his property where there is more of a wilderness, and surely even then the sound of the surf would have warned him he was getting close to the cliffs.”
I nodded in agreement. “It does seem rather odd,” I said.
“And there is one more thing that convinces me.” Daniel paused at the top of the stairs.
“What is that?”
“He asked me to be here at the same time as his family.”
With that final statement he went into the bedroom.
Twelve
When I came up with a breakfast tray, Daniel was standing at the window, leaning forward to get a better view, his face almost pressed against the pane like a young child watching a parade go by.
“The damned fools are attempting to bring up the body already.” He did not turn back to address me. “No sign of a police photographer and I doubt they made any proper observations of the crime scene. That Prescott fellow probably thinks that only Sherlock Holmes approaches a case in a scientific manner.”
I put the tray down on the bedside table.
“Daniel, I’ve been thinking,” I said. “You said that the fact that Mr. Hannan invited you here at the same time as his family was important. Do you have an idea why Mr. Hannan wanted you here with his family? You claimed ignorance before but I wondered if you hadn’t wanted to tell me all the facts at that time. So do you know what this might be about? Did he suspect he was in danger?”
He turned around now and shrugged. “I really don’t know, Molly,” he said. “He said he wanted to show me something and then he said something like, ‘I think I might have got it wrong.’”
“Got what wrong?”
“He didn’t tell me. I thought it might have to do with mismanagement of company funds, that sort of thing, and he was going to show me balance sheets. Of course I could be quite wrong. Now we’ll probably never know.” He went over to the bed and sat down, taking the tray onto his lap. “By the way, that was a most astute observation of yours about the fall from the cliff not being guaranteed to kill someone at high tide.” He chuckled. “I must say you caused quite a stir. They looked positively horrified that such a statement should come from a lady’s delicate lips.”
I nodded. “Yes, I thought Irene was about to swoon. It would have been high tide about six or seven. Of course if he didn’t arrive until much later then the rocks would have been exposed again. Can you tell exactly how long someone has been dead?”
“My colleagues at Mulberry Street could. I can’t answer for their expertise here.”
“Would it be harder if the body had lain in cold water overnight?”
“Harder but not impossible. Rigor mortis follows a certain pattern, you see. The progression would be slower if the body was chilled, but…” He looked up from his toast. “Now why am I telling you this? This is not the sort of fact you will be needing in your future life as my wife.”
“You may want to discuss cases with me. You never know.”
“Oh, no. That would never do. A police officer does not discuss his cases with his wife.”
“Most wives aren’t equipped to be able to help,” I said. “If I were a police detective, I would seek help wherever I could get it, especially from a smart and experienced female detective who has solved some most tricky cases single-handedly.”