“I can do that,” Sid said. “What sort of context are you looking for?”
“I really don’t know,” I said. “But Brian Hannan wrote that list for a reason just before he came here.”
Sid nodded. “So any mention of these five places during the past few years? I’ve a good day’s work ahead of me then. And if I find anything I’ll telephone the house here.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“I’ll go and tell Gus,” Sid said. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“And if she wants me to keep her company with Kathleen, I’d be happy to do so if the police will let me,” I said.
A flight of seagulls wheeled overhead crying. We looked up at the tower.
“You know what Gus and I thought before this happened,” Sid said speculatively. “We wondered if the child’s death all those years ago was an accident and somehow Brian Hannan blamed himself for it. How about this—the girls were in his care and he wasn’t paying attention and allowed the tragedy to happen. Perhaps it was a simple accident but in a moment of weakness he allowed the blame to fall on Kathleen. He’s lived with that guilt ever since and summoned everyone here to make a full confession and set things right.”
“That’s a lot to swallow,” I said.
“No, I think it’s quite logical,” Sid said. “And somebody killed him because they found out the truth and now knew he was really to blame. And then we thought what if they all decided to punish him for his negligence, so they lured him here. Do we actually know that he invited them and not the other way around?”
“No, I don’t think we do,” I said. “The excuse was a yacht race that Archie Van Horn was competing in, but I don’t think we ever knew who invited whom.” As I said it I remembered Archie’s bad behavior when he had called upon the alderman and made a note that it was his yacht race that had lured them all here. Maybe there was something to what Sid was postulating.
“There you are then,” Sid said. “The death of Brian Hannan was a joint affair, a family plot. They’ll keep it a closed family secret.”
“Do you still believe that, now that Mrs. McCreedy has been killed and all evidence points to Kathleen?”
“I’m not sure,” Sid said. “I can’t help feeling that an important point is missing. I can believe that Kathleen killed Mrs. McCreedy. I could believe that Kathleen pushed her grandfather off a cliff. But what twelve-year-old child of simple intelligence, who has been locked away all her life, would know how to put poison in his whiskey glass? That is the crime of a sophisticated person and one who knew Hannan’s habits.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” I agreed.
“So what do you think this list of place-names might have to do with anything?” Sid asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s nothing of importance, but they were there on his blotter and must have been written in the last days before he came here. They were the only words, apart from his signature, that I could make out. So they had to have some importance.”
“I’ll head back to New York then, and see what I can dig up,” Sid said with her usual confidence. “Then maybe we’ll be wiser. What do you suspect these place-names will tell you?”
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “We may be chasing straws, but Kathleen has nobody else on her side but us. We owe it to her to find the truth if we can.”
“Yes we do,” Sid agreed. She hugged me. “I’ll be off then. I’ll telephone you as soon as I find something.”
Then she went back into the house, leaving me alone with the sound of the surf and the cry of the gulls.
Thirty-six
Daniel seemed quite animated after Chief Prescott’s visit.
“It seems I’ve been missing out on a lot,” he said. “And I owe you an apology, Molly.”
“You do?”
“I didn’t believe that you’d seen a face at the turret window and it turns out that the girl was up there all the time.” He shook his head. “What a foolhardy thing to do—to keep an unstable child in such close proximity to her family all this time. Brian Hannan always appeared to me as such a sensible man, but he paid for this mistake with his life.”
I almost said, “If the girl did it,” but I swallowed back the words. No sense in sharing my doubts with Daniel at the moment. It would only mean I’d have to confess to doing my share of investigating and I didn’t want to upset him.
“I wonder if I’ll feel strong enough to get up and take a look at that tower for myself tomorrow,” he said. “I’d be most interested to see the child and the trapdoor.”
“You’re not to get up until the doctor says you can,” I reminded him.