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.
In the end I gave up in frustration and had just decided to move away when the back door opened and three men came out. I stood still against the wall, hoping that they wouldn’t turn and look back in my direction, but fortunately they stood for a moment outside the door, then started walking away from me. I recognized one of them as the gardener to whom I had spoken—a pleasant-looking lad.
“Well, how about that, then?” he said to the other men. “Poor old geezer, what a way to go.”
“What do you mean, poor geezer?” a larger, big-boned carthorse of a youth said. “Why should we worry about him? What about us, that’s what I want to know? Who gets the property now? What if they decide to sell it?”
“I suppose it goes to Mr. Joseph, doesn’t it? He was the master’s partner in business,” the pleasant lad said.
“We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” An older man stepped in between them. “It’s not our place to speculate and until we’re told otherwise we get back to raking leaves and pulling weeds. Got it?”
“Yes, Mr. Parsons,” the boys muttered.
“You know what I think,” the gardener I had spoken to said. “I think there’s more to this than they are saying. The way they grilled those New York servants—they aren’t sure this was an accident, are they?”
“Watch your mouth, boy,” the older man hissed. “Nothin’ to do with us. We keep our mouths shut and stay well out of it.”
“Lucky for us we go home before dark, that’s what I say,” the bigger youth said, nudging his friend. “They can’t pin nothing on us.”
“Not so lucky if they find out that you haven’t got rid of those brambles over on the far side like you was supposed to,” the older man said.