I went to the other end of the hall. It opened to a landing with doors all around. Some were locked. I found a key in one and tried the other doors. Some opened, some didn’t. What I found were empty rooms. But one on the far right opened into a narrow passage. It was dark and I couldn’t find an electric light switch. I went down it cautiously and found myself in a round area like a rotunda. As far as I could make out in the dim light it was nicely paneled in dark wood, with statues in niches around the walls. This must be the tower, I realized and looked for a door that might lead me higher. There was none. No door of any kind. So I had to conclude that Mrs. McCreedy had been telling the truth—it was just a folly, an unfinished area. I looked up at the ceiling and could make out what looked like a wooden trapdoor in the plaster. Mrs. McCreedy had said that you could only get up there with a ladder, so that must be the entry. But it was firmly closed and there didn’t appear to be a string that one could pull to open it. I stood there for a moment, trying to work out if the tightness in my chest that I felt was as a result of worrying about Mrs. McCreedy or if I was experiencing that same feeling of dread that had overcome me the first time I entered the house. I found myself looking around nervously, but no ghost appeared.
“I’ve done looking up here, ma’am,” Sarah called. “And she’s not anywhere.” She hesitated and then shouted with alarm in her voice, “Where are you, ma’am?”
“I’m coming,” I called back. I saw the relief in her face when I reappeared. I wondered if she sensed my alarm or had her own reasons to be uneasy up here. “I think we’d better check the grounds. She’s nowhere in the house.”
We went back to the staircase and walked down one flight then the next.
“Should we go and see first whether she’s turned up outside?” Sarah suggested, clearly not welcoming a long search around the estate.
“I suppose that might be a good idea,” I agreed. We reached the cavernous foyer at the front of the building. As we crossed it we heard footsteps. We looked up as someone came down the main stair toward us.
“Was someone calling my name?” Mrs. McCreedy asked.
Twenty-two
“Where were you?” I asked. “We were looking all over for you.”
“We searched the whole house,” Sarah added.
Mrs. McCreedy was obviously flustered but trying not to show it. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” she said. “I’ve been here all the time. Up and down taking the clean laundry up to bedrooms. There’s never a moment’s peace in this house. You say you’ve been looking for me? We must have just missed each other, that’s all.”
I didn’t see how she could have escaped us upstairs but I did wonder if she had a private little corner behind one of those locked doors where she could retreat and take a rest.
“Anyway, we’ve found you now,” I said. I felt a wave of relief that my vision of her lying on the rocks had merely been a product of my overactive imagination.
“What’s all the urgency, anyway?” she asked.
“Police Chief Prescott is here and wants all the servants outside, also the names and addresses of all the gardeners who aren’t here today.”
“All the gardeners?” She sniffed. “What’s all this about now, I’d like to know? Why don’t they just give the poor man a proper burial and let him rest in his grave?”
“I expect the police chief will make everything clear when we’re all assembled,” I said. “He’s waiting for us on the lawn with the family.”
We headed out of the front door. The servants had now added to the tableau, standing uncomfortably at attention behind those seated in the wicker chairs. The chef looked distinctly annoyed, the others worried. Chief Prescott looked up as we approached. “Ah, you’ve found her. Well done. Mrs. McCreedy, we need the names and addresses of all the gardeners. Then one of my men will go to their homes to fetch them.”
“I doubt you’ll find them at home on a fine Sunday afternoon,” Mrs. McCreedy said stiffly. “Newport men are mostly fishermen at heart. They’ll be out on a boat somewhere.”
“It will be dark before long. I expect we’ll find them,” he said. “My man here has a pad and pencil. So if you’d be so good…”
“I only know where you’d find Parsons, who is head gardener,” she said. “He’s in charge of the hiring and firing of the under gardeners. I can give you his address.”
“Very well.” Chief Prescott was looking decidedly vexed now, as if Mrs. McCreedy was deliberately holding things up—which maybe she was. Something had to explain her jumpy manner, her recent disappearance. I had thought before that she knew more than she was willing to tell us, but now I found myself wondering if maybe she had something to do with her master’s death. I looked at her—a big-boned, typical Irish woman of peasant stock. The kind I passed on the way to market every day at home. Surely such a woman would never concoct a plot to lure her employer outside and then poison him?
A young policeman scribbled down the address and then went over to the automobile. Chief Prescott waited until it had driven off, and then looked around the assembled group. “And while we’re waiting for the gardeners to arrive, we can maybe get some basic facts concerning the death of Brian Hannan. It is now confirmed that his death was no accident.” A gasp from one of the local girls. “Brian Hannan was poisoned, and the poisoner used prussic acid.” He paused. “I’m sure we’ve all come across it from time to time, dealing with wasps’ nests, for example. A fast-acting poison and a horrible death from suffocation. Somebody wishes that kind of death on a man who had apparently been a benefactor to all of you.”
A breeze from the ocean stirred ribbons in the maids’ caps and the womens’ skirts.
“So I think it behooves each and every one of you to help us find the cold-blooded killer and bring him to justice.”
“Or her,” I said.
Prescott looked sharply at me.