“As soon as it is full,” he replied. “The alderman was never one for waste.”
I leaned over the desk and tried to make out the words. It was as I had suspected—the secretary wrote the letters and Mr. Hannan merely signed them. On the maroon sheet I could discern the alderman’s signature several times, but not much else. There were some scribbled figures, but I had no way of knowing what they were. And on one side of the maroon blotting paper a small list of words. I took my notepad from my purse and tried to make sense of them, as of course they were scribbled backward in the Alderman’s bold hand.
Berlin
Salem
Granville
Cambridge
Brandon
I read out the words to Brady. “Do these mean anything to you? Was the alderman maybe planning a trip to Europe? Or maybe something to do with Massachusetts? There are a Cambridge and a Salem near Boston, are there not?”
He shook his head blankly. “I have never heard him mention any of those places to me. If indeed they are places. Isn’t there a new songwriter called Berlin? Brandon and Granville sound more like names.”
I nodded. “They do indeed.” I paused. I had heard one of these words recently, but in what context I couldn’t remember. A name someone had mentioned in connection with the Newport cottages? Maybe the owner of one of the neighboring homes? I frowned then shook my head. “But they mean nothing to you? Not a list of people the alderman had to meet, or deal with in some way?”
“I just told you, I don’t recall a mention of any of these names.”
“When did you say you last changed the blotter?”
He frowned. “Let me see. It would have been about a week before he left to go to Newport. He had a whole slew of dictation for me the day before he went, but just ordinary business letters, nothing of note.”
“So those words were important enough to jot down within the last week that he was here.”
“I suppose so,” he agreed grudgingly.
“I’ll ask the family about them when I return to Newport,” I said. “But in the meantime, I should be getting along. I’ve a lot to accomplish in one day before I return to Newport.”
He opened the door for me then followed me to the outer office. “You will let us know as soon as you have any news, won’t you?” he said. “And please tell Mr. Joseph Hannan that we are awaiting instructions on several matters to do with the business.”
“I will tell him,” I said. “I presume he’ll be running the business now, unless the alderman left everything to another family member in his will.”
“Even if he did, they were partners,” Brady pointed out. “To be sure Mr. Joseph was the junior but he’d still be involved in the running of the company.”
I held out my hand to Brady. “Thank you for your help,” I said.
“I wish we could have come up with more,” he replied. “But he was all efficiency at the office. If anything was happening in his life outside of his work, we’d never have heard about it.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, and went down the stairs, wondering where on earth to go next.
Thirty-three
I spent a frustrating hour visiting first Alderman Hannan’s accountant and then his attorney. The former told me in a cold and patronizing voice that he did not intend to discuss Hannan company business with anyone, least of all an unknown woman. For all he knew, I could be yet another member of the press, digging for scandal.
I assured him I was not only staying at the estate at the invitation of Alderman Hannan, but that my husband was a New York policeman. Didn’t he want to help solve Mr. Hannan’s murder, I inquired? If the police came to him, naturally he would answer their questions, he replied impassively. Until then … and he personally escorted me to the door.