“Me? I really don’t know what to think. I don’t think I’d go along with his being drunk enough to walk over a cliff. My observation was that he held his liquor pretty well. Unless he was well soused before he got here, which I suppose is possible. But if he had drunk that amount, wouldn’t he have been more likely to have passed out, rather than gone blundering around in the dark? And as you pointed out, there is a perfectly good path back to the house.”
“Do you have a more plausible explanation?”
Terrence shook his head. “I really don’t. If someone tried to kill him—well, he was a big burly fellow. Kept himself in good shape. He’d have fought back. The police would have come across signs of a struggle.”
“Can you think of anyone who might want to kill him?”
At this Terrence had to chuckle. “Want to kill him? Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of those around. Let’s just say that the Hannan company doesn’t always play fair and straight. In fact they play downright dirty to get contracts and to knock out competitors. And Uncle Brian’s involvement with Tammany Hall—he never wanted the control himself but he liked playing kingmaker, and puppeteer. Yes, I think that described him well. He liked jerking the strings and making the rest of us dance to his tune.”
He fell silent while the wind rustled dead leaves and made branches creak around us. I wanted to take this one step further, to ask him whether his uncle had pulled on his strings and made him dance recently. I also wanted to ask where he had gone when he left the house the prior evening, but until this was ruled an accident he was a suspect like everyone else in the house. So instead I asked, “What does the rest of your family think?”
“As to that, I can’t tell you. We’re a reserved bunch. Keep our feelings and thoughts to ourselves. My father wants desperately to believe that it was an accident, brought on by Uncle Brian’s weakness for alcohol. Eliza is ready enough to go along with that. Irene is still in shock, I should say. She’s never had the strongest constitution and another body lying at the foot of the cliff is one too many for her to handle. Especially her adored papa who spoiled her horribly and kept her protected from the big bad world.”
“What about your other uncle, the priest? What does he think?”
Terrence shrugged. “Who knows? He’s a quiet, withdrawn sort of fellow. A little na?ve as most priests tend to be, especially when they are sent off to the seminary at fourteen as he was. So it probably hasn’t entered his head that it could be anything but an accident. He was saying to my father this morning how Brian’s drinking was grieving him and how he had hoped to speak to him about it while they were here.”
“And your aunt?”
“Not the brightest of souls, you know. And had no education to speak of. Hasn’t exactly come up in the world like the rest of us. So she’d be prepared to believe anything, especially if it was on the headline of some penny rag. Of course she doesn’t believe in the basic goodness of mankind like Father Patrick. She’s seen her share of the other side—drunken husband who knocked her around and now her daughter’s married to a lout of the same sort—always out of work, always drunk, always getting into fights. If he’d been anywhere near she’d have been all too keen to believe that he threw Uncle Brian over a cliff.”
“But you don’t think he was the one who showed up at the gate last night asking if Mr. Hannan had arrived?”
Terrence kicked at a pile of leaves with his well-polished shoe. “Frankly I don’t think he’d have the brains to find his way here. He’s probably never been out of the city in his life—certainly never had to change trains. Besides, he wouldn’t have had the money for the train fare—in addition to which it’s already been pointed out that he lives within a block or so of the company office. He could have seen my uncle whenever he wanted. And I know Uncle Brian occasionally could be tapped for money, so why kill the golden goose?”
Why indeed? I thought. That same reasoning would apply to all the family members. They all benefited from his beneficence and if he’d left his fortune to his only daughter, then the rest of them would be worse off now than they had been.
Terrence reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette case and a lighter. “Do you mind if I smoke? Irene makes a frightful fuss if I do it in the house. I don’t suppose you’d like one yourself, would you?”
“Uh, no thank you,” I said. “And I really should be getting back to my husband. He’s not well, so I should be keeping an eye on him.”
“Not another victim of poisoning?” Terrence asked.
“No, just a normal chill,” I replied. “At least I think it’s a little worse than a normal chill. It’s turned into a full-fledged grippe. However, I suspect that it’s partly a case of men making terrible patients. Women just get on with it and know they have to recover quickly or else.”