“There’s nothing you can do, Molly Murphy,” said the small, warning voice in my head. “It is not your case. You just mind your own business, look after your husband, and stay away from the Hannans.” I had felt that the house hadn’t wanted us when we arrived. Now a great tragedy had occurred but it was nothing to do with us and the best thing we could do would be to leave these people to their grieving. Maybe Daniel and I had only stirred things up and given more grief by even suggesting that Brian Hannan’s death was more than an accident.
I stood examining the clifftop, where the trees came close to the cliff edge. Why would Mr. Hannan ever have wanted to come here in the dark? Unless—another disturbing thought crossed my mind—unless he had wanted to do away with himself. I had heard how he grieved for his beloved granddaughter. Maybe he held himself somehow responsible for her death and had decided he could no longer live with the guilt, so he flung himself from the cliffs in the same spot that she had plunged to her death. Only that didn’t concur with what I had heard about Brian Hannan. He was an egotist who thought highly of himself, who liked to play the benevolent dictator, the puppet master who pulled the strings. Described as kind and fair and yet with enough power over his family to know that they would make the uncomfortable journey from New York to Rhode Island at this strange, unfashionable time of year when he summoned them. Such men usually believe that they are always right and would not consider killing themselves. But then he had said to Daniel, “I might have got it wrong.”
What might he have got wrong? And did it have anything to do with his family?
I looked down at the crashing waves. No, I couldn’t see a man like Brian Hannan had been described flinging himself over that cliff. It would not have been guaranteed death and more likely would have resulted in messy maiming. From everything I’d heard about him, he would not have wanted to survive as a cripple. If he was going to kill himself he’d have done it efficiently and neatly—a shot through the head in his own New York house, along with a written note explaining his actions.
As I turned away from the cliff I spotted something glinting among the rocks below. I made my way back to the place where descent was possible, even if not too gracefully. Indeed it did involve sitting on my bottom for part of the way, but I did check first that nobody was watching and arrived without incident on the shore below. The tide was receding and the seaweed-covered rocks were wet and slippery. I made my way cautiously to the spot where I had seen the glinting object. I was half hoping to find a jewel or something incriminating like a cigarette case with telltale initials on it, but it turned out to be nothing more than several pieces of broken glass. They could have lain there for any length of time, of course. But they hadn’t come from a passing ship. Their edges were still wickedly sharp. Some pieces lay among the rocks, some in a tide pool. I used my handkerchief to retrieve as many as I could, knowing that the larger fragments might contain a valuable fingerprint. Then I wrapped them in the handkerchief before I attempted the scramble back up the cliff to the gardens.
The glass was quite thick and obviously curved. I wondered if the autopsy might reveal that Mr. Hannan had been hit over the head with a bottle as he stood on the cliff. I also wondered why Chief Prescott’s men had not picked up the pieces themselves. I made it successfully to the top of the cliff, brushed off sand and dirt before walking back through the grounds. As I passed the French windows I paused, again trying to decide where the man who had left the house that way in the dark could have been heading. Perhaps there was a gate in the wall on that side of the property, where a person who did not wish to be seen could slip out unnoticed. But then why walk all that extra distance if one was going into town? Unless one wanted to meet somebody and didn’t want the family to know. My thoughts turned to Mr. Joseph Hannan and the woman who had been with him. What had he done with her, I wondered, and was tempted to go into town to find out if she had gone back to New York or was staying on in one of the small hotels.
Then I told myself that she was none of my business either. If Joseph Hannan chose to leave his wife at home and brought another woman with him instead, then it wasn’t up to me to snoop into their affairs. And surely her presence here could have nothing to do with Brian Hannan’s death. I paused, considering this, and made up my mind that I would go into town to see if I could find out any more about this mysterious Miss X.
Thirteen
As I came close to the back of the house I heard voices. I moved closer, taking the path that ran along the side of the house. A kitchen window was open and inside I glimpsed a row of black-and-white uniforms. So the servants were assembled in the kitchen and from the way those backs stood unmoving I suspected that Chief Prescott was grilling them. I dearly wanted to listen in but there was no convenient bush or obstruction near the window behind which I could hide. I went around the corner where there was a blank wall and flattened myself against this, praying that nobody would come, as I couldn’t think of any logical reason I should be standing in this spot. Certainly not to be out of the wind as it was about the most exposed corner of the house and buffeted me as I stood there. It also snatched away the voices that floated out through the window so that I only caught snippets of conversation. Not enough to make sense of what anyone was saying.