Hush Now, Don’t You Cry

by Rhys Bowen

  With that he and the constable went out through the front door. We waited until the sound of their footsteps on the gravel had receded before we emerged from our hiding place.

  “The damned cheek,” Daniel exclaimed. “That trumped-up little popinjay, full of his own self-importance. Let him go ahead and solve his own case without help. The most challenging case he’s probably had until now is to locate a missing cat!” The words turned into a bout of coughing again and he stood there, holding on to me and gasping for breath.

  “Daniel, you sound terrible,” I said. “You shouldn’t have come. Now back to bed with you and you’re not moving again today, whatever those rude people say.”

  “Am I in for a lifetime of being dictated to?” he asked, attempting to make light of it.

  “Only when it’s good for you. Now come along. I’m taking you back to the cottage.”

  As we made our way down the long hall we heard the sound of voices coming from behind a half-open door, along with the chink of plates and scraping of chairs. The family was sitting down to breakfast.

  And Joseph Hannan’s voice came clearly to us. “What were you thinking, opening your big mouth and making that suggestion that it could have been one of the family who pushed your uncle. Are you out of your mind?”

  “It was meant to be a joke. To lighten the occasion,” Terrence’s voice answered.

  “Some joke. After what we went through. Have you no thought for Irene?”

  “Oh, come on, Father. That was long ago. Anyway, it was quite different, wasn’t it? Besides, we were all in the house together after dark, weren’t we?”

  Were they? I thought. Someone had come out of the French doors and stalked off into the night and that somebody looked remarkably like Terrence himself. But then why would he take the trouble to put the idea into their heads if he was responsible? Why not insist that it was an accident?

  I moved closer to Daniel. “You heard that, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “Interesting. Do you think they were referring to the death of the child or was there perhaps another occasion we don’t know about? When we get back I’ll look into—”

  “Ah, Captain and Mrs. Sullivan.” Chief Prescott appeared around the side of the house just as we stepped out of the front door. “I know the family members have indicated that they would like you out of their hair as soon as possible, but please don’t plan to leave just yet.”

  “So you think you might need my help after all?” Daniel said. “Or are we the prime suspects?”

  I tried not to smile.

  “Of course not. Nothing of the kind. It’s just that—I’d rather everyone stayed in place until we’ve conducted a thorough investigation—as a matter of principle, you understand.”

  “Oh, yes. We understand very well, don’t we, Molly?” Daniel said. “We’ll be at the guest cottage if you need us, Prescott. If not, we may be lurking at the top of the cliff, or snooping around. Come, my dear.”

  We did not wait for his reply.

  * * *

  I tried to put Daniel back to bed when we reached the cottage but he was having none of it. I suppose a possible murder for a detective is like the scent of a fox to a hound.

  “I’d dearly like to get a look at that body for myself before they go and spoil things,” he said, pacing to the window and back. “They have probably moved everything and destroyed every clue by now.”

  “I don’t think that police chief would welcome you with open arms.” I put my hand fondly on his shoulder. “We are under suspicion, remember.”

  “Damned fools,” Daniel muttered.

  “I could go and look,” I said. “An inquisitive woman is not seen as a threat.”

  “You’re a threat to that housekeeper,” he said with a grin. “It was you she was glaring at when she launched into her tirade about suspicious people arriving out of the blue.”

  “That’s because she caught me snooping around the passage behind the kitchen when I went to see if I could find a chicken for you. I opened a door and found her on the other side of it. I can’t tell you which of us was more startled.”

  “Why was that, I wonder?” Daniel said. “I suppose she was used to having the servants’ quarters to herself.”

  “No, it was more than that. She looked—well, shocked, scared.”

  “Guilty, maybe?” Daniel suggested.

  “Possibly.”

  “Then she was up to something she shouldn’t have been doing. I wonder if that door led to the butler’s pantry or the wine cellar and she’d been helping herself to a tipple?”

  I smiled almost in relief. It could have been something as petty and simple as this that had turned her against me. She was afraid of being reported to the master and losing her position. Daniel started coughing again.

  “Come on,” I said to him. “Back to bed, young man. I’ll bring you up tea and a boiled egg.”

  “I may grow used to this,” Daniel said as he headed for the stairs. “Breakfast in bed every day, a wife who attends to my every need. Yes, marriage may prove most satisfactory.” But the sentence finished in a barked cough. I looked at him with concern.

  “For the love of Mike go to bed and stop talking. It’s doing you no good to keep coughing like this. You take it easy and I’ll be up with the food.”

  “I wish I could take it easy,” Daniel said. “But I’m itching to be out there taking a look at that body before they cart it away. I know that little oaf is going to make a mess of the investigation.”

  “No you don’t,” I said. “For all we know he might be a first-class detective. Looks can be deceiving, you know.”

  “Not in his case,” Daniel growled. “Any first-class detective would welcome outside expertise, especially in the form of a man from New York. He jumped a mile when he thought I might be stepping on his toes.”

  “You did rather try to take over his investigation,” I pointed out.

  “What if I did? It hadn’t even occurred to him that we might be dealing with foul play here, or at the very least that someone assisted him in falling over that cliff.”

  “We don’t know it is any more than an accident,” I said. “We only have their word that he wasn’t likely to be near the cliffs in the dark. What if he made a point of checking out his estate each time he arrived here? And besides, how would you or anyone prove it if he were a victim of a crime?”

  “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 m
ore 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.”

  He glanced up at me and shook his head, smiling. “I can see you’re not going to adapt easily to tea parties.” Then he looked down again and started tapping the top of his boiled egg, took a bite and gave a sigh of contentment. “This is just what I needed. To tell you the truth I was feeling completely washed out as we walked across that lawn. I felt as if I might keel over at any moment. This wretched cold. I am so angry with myself.”

  “Don’t be silly. You can’t help catching a chill. We were both frozen to the marrow that night and you gave me your dry clothes. It is I who should feel guilty.”

  “But I feel that I’ve spoiled our honeymoon. I wanted it to be a special time for both of us and now you’re having to look after an invalid.”

  “Get on with that egg and hush up now.” I patted his shoulder. “I’ll be up again with the linctus for that cough and the mustard plaster for your chest. And then you should take a little nap.”

  “It sounds delightful,” he said dryly. I grinned as I left the room.

  Outside the front door I heard the sound of horses’ hooves and raised men’s voices. I went to the sitting-room window and saw a bevy of policemen loading what was obviously the body, now on a stretcher under a tarpaulin, into the back of a police wagon. Chief Prescott was nowhere to be seen and the job was not going smoothly. At last the back door was closed and the wagon took off at a lively gallop. I was thankful the corpse was already dead—otherwise he certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed that ride. I sat down to eat my own breakfast and then did the washing up.

  When I went to clear away Daniel’s breakfast things, he had fallen asleep, half sitting propped on the pillows. I pulled the coverlets over him and tiptoed downstairs again. Now that he was asleep, I was going to go for a morning stroll and take the sea air. And if I happened to have a look around the crime scene at the same time, then I was just being a typical woman, indulging her curiosity. I put on my hat and cape, securing the former well with any number of hatpins, because the wind was sharp and blustery, and went out.

  Clouds were racing across the sky and the air was full of twirling leaves. The moan of the wind through the pines and around that house competed with the thump of the waves onto the sea shore. Seagulls hung in the air, being tossed around like scraps of paper. I wondered if this heralded the arrival of another storm and whether we would still be here when it hit. It wouldn’t take long for Chief Prescott to receive a reply to his telegram, confirming that Daniel was who he said he was. And then for sure the chief would want us out of the cottage and out of his hair as quickly as possible. So it was likely that we’d be back in our own house by nightfall, Daniel probably chafing because he wasn’t able to help at the scene of the crime—if it was a crime. I really didn’t want to go, being as curious as Daniel was and enjoying this delightful setting, but I reasoned that he’d make a better recovery in his own bed at home.

  I crossed the lawn without seeing anyone. A smart new automobile was standing outside the house, presumably belonging to Chief Prescott as I had seen no auto the evening before. But of the chief himself there was still no evidence. As I came toward the clifftop, the wind picked up in force, almost snatching the hat from my head, and I could taste the salt of sea spray on my lips. The ocean was angry today, slapping in over rocks and sending up sheets of spray. If there had been any clues to what happened to Brian Hannan, then they would have been surely destroyed or washed away by now. I looked down at the shore below. The body was gone and the police with it. There was no indication as to where it had been lying. Rocks, seaweed, tide pools glinted in the morning sunlight.

  I continued along the edge, taking care that I was not close enough that a sudden swirling gust of wind could send me over too. As I walked I checked the ground at my feet. It was all manicured lawn, right up to where it dropped away and I wondered how the gardeners managed to maneuver their lawn mowers in a spot like this. Perhaps they clipped the very edge by hand. Disappointingly there were no muddy patches revealing a clear, condemning footprint. Nor was there any sign of the turf being disturbed in a struggle, nor of the cliff edge having recently collapsed, thus sending Brian Hannan hurtling to his death. In fact the whole scene was peaceful and serene—a gentleman’s manicured country estate as one might see in a picture postcard.

  I thought about the man I had seen leaving through the French doors the evening before and striding out into the darkness. If that person had been Terrence, and it certainly was someone of his build and height, then where could he have been going in this direction, away from the main gate and the bright lights of the bars in town. I looked around the grounds. On this side of the house were the formal gardens—the fountain and the tennis court. Among the trees I caught a glimpse of a gazebo and then the estate became a wilderness of shrubs and bushes. Nothing to entice a young buck like Terrence Hannan. I wondered if I’d be reckless enough to ask him about it, if I got the chance.

  “There’s nothin
g 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.