“Or her,” I repeated. “It is often said that poisoning is a woman’s crime.”
“Yes, but not in this case, surely.” He was clearly rattled by this. “A man does not drink a secret glass of whiskey with a woman. Simply not done, is it? And as for making sure he fell over the cliff—well, I think that might require a modicum of strength.”
Again my eyes went to Mrs. McCreedy, she who made up the beds in eight bedrooms and kept a house the size of a castle going year round. She’d have the modicum of strength all right.
Chief Prescott had clearly put me and my suggestion aside. He turned back to the group. “So I’m asking now, is there anything at all that you saw or heard that evening that would shed light on this horrible crime. Remember, a man who uses prussic acid to kill deserves no loyalty.”
There was silence apart from the sigh of the wind that was now gathering force again. I looked out to see a bank of storm clouds on the horizon. One of the maids put a hand up to hold on to her cap.
“And I ask you again—did not one of you see Brian Hannan arrive that evening?”
“I thought I saw him, sir,” one of the maids said hesitantly.
“And you are?”
“Alice, sir. Mrs. Van Horn’s maid. I was unpacking the mistress’s things and I just happened to look out across the courtyard and I saw a man going into the stables and it looked like Mr. Hannan. Of course it was almost dark by then and I don’t know him that well, and I know that he has two brothers, so I might have been wrong.”
“Thank you, Alice. Most helpful,” Chief Prescott said.
“Anyone else?”
“You might ask the servants if any of them spotted an outsider on the premises, someone they didn’t recognize,” Archie said. “And you might want to find out where someone got their hands on prussic acid in the first place.”
“I do know my job, sir,” Prescott said. “I was getting to that. So let me ask right away—is there any prussic acid stored in this house that any of you know about?”
“There is not,” Mrs. McCreedy said firmly. “I can tell you the exact contents of the cupboards in this house. I do the purchasing and I have had no need for prussic acid.”
“I have my men doing a search at this moment,” Chief Prescott said. “Let’s see what they turn up, shall we?”
“Searching our personal things?” Terrence said. “You’ve no right to do that.”
“Unless you’re hiding a vial of prussic acid you’ve no need to be alarmed, sir,” Chief Prescott said. “You’re not, are you?”
“Of course not. I don’t even know what the stuff looks like.”
“It can take several forms, as I’ve been told,” Prescott said. “But to go back to the first part of Mr. Van Horn’s question—did anyone notice an outsider on the premises that evening?”
“I already told you about the man at the gate,” I said, “but he couldn’t get in. The gate was already shut for the night.”
“About this gate,” Prescott said. “Is it usually locked at night?”
“It is,” Mrs. McCreedy said. “The gardeners do it when they go home around sundown. I feel more secure when I’m on my own here knowing that strangers can’t get in after dark.”
“So nobody can get in or out after that?”
“They can if they know how to,” she said. “There is a secret way in through a small door in the wall, but a stranger wouldn’t know where to look in the ivy. It’s not easy to find, especially not in the dark.”
“But as I pointed out before, anybody could get in during the day and it would be simple enough to elude the gardeners, by hiding out in the wilderness or one of the outbuildings,” Joseph said.
“Yes, we understand that, sir. But the intruder would have had to come out of the stable or the wilderness to meet Mr. Hannan, wouldn’t he? So how about it—did anyone here notice a person they didn’t recognize at any time during that day or evening?”
“I saw a woman creeping around the side of the house,” the footman said. “I remember thinking it was strange that she hadn’t gone to the front door and concluded that it was one of the local women coming to help with the serving that evening.”
“I believe I can explain that,” I said. “I walked down the side of the house in the dark that evening. I was going to the kitchen to see if Mrs. McCreedy could give me the ingredients to make my husband a soup. He was already feeling unwell, you see, and I didn’t want to disturb the family.”
“Could the woman you saw have been Mrs. Sullivan?” Prescott asked.
The young footman looked at me and then nodded. “Could have been.”
I had been wrestling with my own conscience about the person I had seen that evening. Now that prussic acid was involved I realized I could keep quiet no longer. “I saw somebody,” I said. “When I was passing beside the flower beds I saw the French doors open and a man came out. He looked around then set off, walking past in the direction of the wood, and the gazebo for that matter.”