“I did not get that impression,” Daniel said. “Quite the opposite. He waxed eloquent about how delightful it was and what a perfect spot for my delayed honeymoon.”
The chief took a drink of his own tea. “Did he tell you why he’d invited his family this particular weekend? None of them seems to know. Something about his son-in-law taking part in a yacht race, but surely there was more to it than that. It’s quite unheard of for owners of cottages to come here after the season.”
“I realize that now,” Daniel said. “Frankly at the time it never crossed my mind that there was anything unusual about it. I’m not often invited to mix with the Newport elite.”
“It had to have been planned for a purpose,” Chief Prescott said. “I did hear from Mr. Hannan’s family members that they had been issued the royal summons and felt that they had to come. But not one of them had any idea about what it could mean.”
“Maybe he was planning to change his will,” I suggested, making them both look in my direction as if they had forgotten I was in the room.
“Now there’s a thought.” Chief Prescott put down his teacup. “And a good motive, if it turns out to be murder. If one of them was about to be cut out of a fortune…”
“I don’t think that was about to happen,” I said. “One thing I have noticed was that they all speak warmly of him. They were concerned about his recent drinking but that was because they were fond of him.”
“Fondness can change if one discovers one is being cut out of an inheritance,” Prescott said. “Especially among people like this who are used to enjoying the good lifestyle. And that would explain the tray in the gazebo.” He smiled with satisfaction. “He knew he was going to tell them something unpleasant. He wanted to fortify himself before he faced them, so he carried out the decanter and a glass and had a quiet drink.”
“I presume you’ve had the contents of the glass and the decanter tested if you suspect he might have ingested poison?” Daniel asked.
“Again, an initial testing. Frankly our facilities here in a small town like Newport are not the best. We’ve sent them to Providence with the blood sample.”
“And were traces of a poison present?”
“Not that we could detect,” Chief Prescott said. “The glass and decanter seemed to contain nothing but Irish whiskey.”
“What about fingerprints?” I asked.
Again he looked at me in surprise. “Your wife is certainly up-to-date in her methods, isn’t she?” He said with a nervous chuckle. “Yes, we’ll have them tested for fingerprints.”
“I have something else that might be of assistance,” I said. “Wait one minute.” I left the room and went to collect my handkerchief containing the fragments of glass I had picked up on the rocks. I returned and opened it on the table in front of them. “Here,” I said. “I found these earlier today when I was walking on the clifftop above where Mr. Hannan was found. I saw the glint of something shining in the sunlight. I thought it might be important, so I climbed down to retrieve it.”
“Good gracious,” the chief said again.
“And it turned out to be these pieces of glass. At the time I thought they could have lain there any amount of time or even fallen from a passing ship, but now I’m wondering—was there a second glass on that tray? Was Mr. Hannan holding it when he drank and fell?”
They said nothing so I went on. “I picked them up with my handkerchief as carefully as possible, so that I wouldn’t disturb any fingerprints, but I’m afraid the waves will probably have washed away any trace of what the glass contained.”
“Mrs. Sullivan, you astound me,” Chief Prescott said. “You’ve got yourself a clever little woman there, Sullivan. She’ll no doubt be a big help to you in your profession.”
“So I keep telling him,” I remarked dryly.
Daniel wisely said nothing.
With that the interview came to an end. The police chief stood up.
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, and wish you a speedy recovery,” he said, shaking Daniel’s hand. “You have been most helpful. A tricky business, Captain Sullivan. A prominent family—lots of money, influential in politics. I’ll have the eyes of the country on me when this gets out. I can’t afford to make a mistake. I keep thinking that maybe we’re reading more into this than actually happened. What if it was an accident?”
“But the poison?”
“What if turns out to be something his pharmacist prescribed that has toxic qualities. Many medicines do, don’t they? There are plenty of tonics containing arsenic or mercury.”
“A competent physician will be able to tell you whether any substance was in his bloodstream in sufficient quantities to kill him,” Daniel said. “And his physician will vouch for what he prescribed. So all we have to do right now is watch and wait.”