“Let’s just try the aspirin first,” I said, having reacted to the word arsenic. “I think it’s just a nasty cold and needs to take its course.”
I came out of the shop with my packets of aspirin powder and stood looking out at the blue waters of Narragansett Bay. A line of white sails stretched across the horizon, obviously the yacht race in which Archie was going to compete. I thought how pleasant it would be to take another stroll through the town, to sit in the sun on the harbor, and watch the boats. But I wanted to get the aspirin back to Daniel. Maybe if he slept after lunch I’d go for another walk.
I did keep a lookout for the man I encountered at the gate last night and I visited a couple of small hotels on the main street to ask if a single lady had been staying there. No such brazen ladies had darkened their doors, but one establishment did say that a lady and gentleman had come in very late a couple of nights ago, saying that they had missed the last train back to New York and would have to stay until morning. A Mr. and Mrs. Joseph. She had done most of the talking. He’d stayed in the background—big fellow with an impressive bushy mustache. They’d left early the next morning, without even waiting for breakfast for which they’d paid. The woman sounded amazed that anybody would do anything so foolish. “They must have been in a real hurry to get back to the city,” she’d added.
That sounded as if I’d hit on something. A Mr. and Mrs. Joseph? And he’d stayed in the background, and worn a big fake mustache. As a disguise it was always successful because the mustache was always the one thing that people remembered, not the face, the expression, or the voice. So it appeared that Joseph’s ladylove had taken the first train back to the city. That was probably correct, given the small size of Newport and the prejudice against a woman alone trying to stay at a hotel. Not that it could have any relevance to Brian Hannan’s death. I hardly thought that Brian Hannan’s brother would shove him over a cliff because his mistress was not welcome at Connemara. But something had made Joseph Hannan uneasy. It couldn’t just be suspicion of outsiders that had made him so anxious to get rid of us.
I gave one last regretful look at the bustling harbor scene and made my way back to the cottage. It was harder walking back with that wind full in my face and I was quite out of breath by the time I entered at the main gate. There was no sign of the gardener. No sign of anyone, in fact. I glanced up at the tower window and started as I thought I saw a movement. But then a second later a dove flew down and I realized that it must have been sitting on the windowsill.
Daniel was sound asleep and snoring noisily, so I need not have hurried back after all. But it was close to lunchtime so I heated up the soup I had made the night before and carried him up a tray with a hunk of bread. The bread was now getting stale and I didn’t like to repeat last night’s fiasco by visiting the kitchen for more. Crumbled into the soup it wasn’t so bad. I woke Daniel and he made a halfhearted attempt at eating. Then I gave him the aspirin mixture to drink and he made an awful fuss about the taste. Really men are such babies when it comes to sickness and medicine!
After lunch I decided against going back into town. There were clouds on the horizon that promised rain later. Instead I remembered that I had promised to write to Sid and Gus, so I took the little lap desk and went to sit in the gazebo. I noticed that the tray had been removed and big policemen’s boots had trampled the leaves on the floor. I wondered if they had searched for clues, then wondered what those clues might be. How did one detect whether one or two people sat on a bench, or stood together in a gazebo, when the place was littered with leaves? But then Chief Prescott was now treating this as an accident, wasn’t he? The case was closed as far as he was concerned.
I cleared a portion of the bench to sit down. It was dusty and damp, the leaves having been rained on recently. Not at all appealing as a place to write letters. I had just decided to give up and go back to write in the pleasant warmth of the little sitting room at our cottage when I heard footsteps tramping through the undergrowth. They were coming closer and closer—a heavy, measured tread.
Fifteen