“And what did you find?” He took my hand in his as I sat beside him.
“There is a regular steamship service. I can reserve a cabin as soon as you feel strong enough to be moved.”
“That’s good.” He took a breath as if speaking was still an effort. “I thought for one awful moment that you were running around doing your own bit of detecting. There are still Prescott’s men all over the place. Do you know if they’ve made any progress?”
“I’ve only just returned,” I said. “I have no idea what the police are doing here until I go and ask them.”
“Then find out and report back to me.” He squeezed my hand. “I’m feeling strong enough to be nosy again.”
I turned to kiss him. “You’re as bad as I am.”
He took my face in his hands. “Some honeymoon this has turned out to be, hasn’t it?” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ll try to make it up to you.”
“You already did.” I gazed at him lovingly. “By not dying. Now I’ve got my whole life ahead with you. That’s all I need.”
His lips came toward mine in our first proper kiss for days. The moment was spoiled by footsteps coming up the stairs and his mother appearing in the doorway. “Here we are, son,” she said. “Some of my soda bread. That’s just what you need to build you up.”
I stood up, still holding his hand. “I’ll leave you to it then,” I said. “I’ll report back as soon as I find out anything.”
Mrs. Sullivan shot me a warning glance as I went past her. I paused in the kitchen to help myself to a slice of soda bread. Sam had already decimated the plate of cakes.
“She’s a good cook, “ he said. “Mrs. McCreedy used to be a good cook too. She made jam tarts.” And that bleak sadness returned to his face. I remembered what I had been told.
“Sam,” I said cautiously. “When your cousin Colleen died, you weren’t on the lawn with everyone else. Your cousin Eliza said you came running up, looking guilty.”
His young face flushed bright red. “How did you know about that?” he said.
I ignored the question. “So what had you been doing?” I asked. “Why weren’t you with the others?”
He grimaced. “All right, if you really want to know—I’d been in the kitchen, helping myself to cakes,” he said. “She told me not to touch them, that they were still cooling, but I snuck in when everyone else was sitting on the lawn. Then I heard this awful scream and everyone was yelling. It was horrible. I really liked my little cousin. We used to play together. I’ve always felt, you know, that I might have been able to save her if I’d been around.”
“You believe that Kathleen pushed her, do you?”
He looked up, surprised. “Of course. How else could she have fallen backward over the cliff? And Kathleen never said a word after that. That had to mean she was guilty, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d like to find out.”
“She pushed Mrs. McCreedy today,” he said. “Nobody else could have done that.”
That was true enough. I wanted to believe Kathleen innocent, but nobody else knew that she had been hiding up in the tower.
I left him to his eating and made my way across the grounds. Two policemen were standing at the door to the house. They barred my way. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but nobody is to go in at the moment. The chief and the doctor are still up there.”
“And my friends are still with the young girl?”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “I just know that I have orders that nobody is to go inside. You’ll find the rest of the family out on the lawn, I believe.”
He folded his arms, making it quite clear that he was not going to let me past that door. So I had no choice but to go to the lawn and join the family. I wasn’t sure they’d welcome an outsider at a moment like this, but they appeared almost jolly as I approached them, chatting away and passing food. Eliza looked up and spotted me.
“Mrs. Sullivan, do come and join us. Have you heard the latest news?”
“I’ve been out all day,” I said. “I just returned to find more newspapermen and the police won’t let me in the house.”
“That’s because poor Mrs. McCreedy was found dead,” Eliza said. She motioned to the maid to pull up a chair for me. I sat. “And you asked me about our cousin Kathleen. Little did we know that she’s been in the house all this time. My uncle Brian had a suite of rooms made for her up in the tower and apparently Mrs. McCreedy was taking care of her, until now.” She leaned closer to me. “I can tell you it’s a load off everyone’s mind.”
“That your uncle has been providing for her so well?”