Hush Now, Don’t You Cry (33 page)

I gave a huge sigh of relief. Sid and Gus were with her. I was half-amused, half-impressed that they had conned their way to Kathleen, claiming to be experts. They’d make sure nothing terrible happened to her for the time being—until I could prove that she didn’t kill Mrs. McCreedy. I wanted to go to them right now but my husband came first. “I must go and see Daniel,” I said.

Mrs. Sullivan grabbed my arm. “He doesn’t know anything about this and he shouldn’t be told. No sense in upsetting him when he’s still so weak.”

I nodded agreement.

“And young Sam here better get started on his tea,” she added. “Tell Daniel I’ll be bringing a tray up to him in a few minutes.”

Sam brightened up instantly at the word tea. He was through the door of the kitchen and had grabbed a bun before I started up the stairs. Daniel was sitting propped up by pillows and his face lit up as I came in, making me feel a flush of warmth and gratitude.

“There you are,” he said. “I wondered where you had got to.”

“I was scouting out ways to have you transported back to New York safely,” I said. “You’re not up to traveling by train yet.”

“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?”

“No!” she said scornfully. “That it’s now obvious who killed Uncle Brian. She pushed her sister over the cliff, and then her grandfather, and now her caregiver…” She paused. “Poor little thing,” she added. “She’s obviously out of her mind. Uncle Brian left a large sum of money for one of us to take care of her, but now, after this, she’ll have to be locked away, won’t she? She’s clearly not safe.”

I looked around the group. Irene’s eyes were red as if she’d been crying, but other than her I could read the relief in their faces. It wasn’t one of them, it was a deranged person. Life could return to normal. I accepted a cup of tea from a maid.

“You’ve heard the shocking news about Brian’s granddaughter Kathleen, I suppose,” Joseph Hannan said as he noticed I had joined them. “What was he thinking to keep a dangerous lunatic here in the house, where she could have escaped and done harm to her brothers? We are just debating what should be done with her. She’s obviously not responsible for her actions but the police will want her locked away.”

“I was about to suggest that there was a very pleasant nursing home in my former parish in Cambridge,” Father Patrick said.

“I didn’t know you had a parish in Massachussets, Uncle Pat,” Terrence said.

“No, not Cambridge, Mass,” Father Patrick said. “A little town in the Hudson Valley. I was also once in Salem, New York—not a witch to be seen.” And he smiled.

I had taken a mouthful of tea but couldn’t swallow it. I forced it down, burning my throat. Now I remembered. On the night when Daniel was close to death and Father Patrick had chatted pleasantly to distract me from my worry, he had mentioned his little church in Granville.

Thirty-five

It was all I could do to sit there, my expression composed, sipping tea with them when every fiber in my being wanted to leap up and do something. I studied Father Patrick’s innocent serene face. Why had Brian Hannan written a list of the parishes in which he had served just when he was summoning Daniel and his family to the estate in Newport? It might be quite innocent, of course. He might have been talking with his brother and asked, “So how many parishes have you been in now?” and jotted down the list as Patrick dictated them. One does that to remember. But it was the only clue I had from Brian Hannan’s office.

I found my gaze going up to the tower. Could Kathleen really have pushed Mrs. McCreedy through an open trapdoor to her death? I had to conclude that it was possible. What if Mrs. McCreedy had taken away her favorite doll, or stopped her from doing something she wanted to, and the trapdoor was open? I had no idea why that would be, when there was obviously a proper staircase that led to the tower from the lower levels of the house. I stared at the ivy, wondering if I dared risk climbing up that way again, and if I made it undetected to the window, would I find the door guarded by a policeman?

I decided I couldn’t risk it and compromise my husband’s integrity. Prescott might jump to the conclusion that Daniel had sent me up there to snoop. Even as these thoughts passed through my head, I saw the front door open and Chief Prescott himself emerged from the house. He headed straight for us. “I’m afraid the girl is completely unresponsive,” he said. “She’s lying curled up under her bed and refuses to come out. I have left one of my men and the two young women who have experience with the language of twins with her, but I’m not sure…”

I rose to my feet. “Chief Prescott,” I said. “I happen to know a doctor in New York who is a specialist in diseases of the mind. He studied with Professor Freud in Vienna and might find a way to communicate with the girl. If you and the family agreed, I could send a telegram to New York, asking him to take a look at her.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Sullivan,” he said. “Unfortunately I think there is little anyone can do. In the eyes of the law she is a menace to society and will have to be locked away. We’ll try to make it as humane as possible, but as for reaching into that troubled brain … I just don’t think it is possible.”

“It would be kinder not to,” Eliza said. “One would not wish to bring her back to face the reality of what she had done.”

Chief Prescott came over to me. “I wondered if your husband might be feeling well enough for a visit today? Although I fear that the case may have solved itself in the meantime.”

“Yes, I think he might wish to hear everything that has transpired since his sickness,” I said.

“Then if you’d be good enough to accompany me,” he said. “I don’t want any unpleasantness with his mother, who seems to be guarding the door like a watchdog.”

“Of course,” I said. “Please excuse me.” I nodded to the company and left.

When we were out of hearing I asked the chief, “Do you know if my friends have made any progress in being able to interpret her language?”

“I don’t believe she has spoken a word since the body was found,” he said. “She is curled up like a wounded animal, poor little thing. One can’t help feeling sorry for her, even if she does possess this monstrous side to her.” He leaned confidentially closer to me. “I’ve only just been told that she killed her sister. One has to wonder if she also found a way to kill her grandfather. Sometimes these diseased minds can be fearfully cunning and clever when they want to be.”

“I presume you found no evidence that anyone else had been near that trapdoor and could have pushed the housekeeper?”

“Nobody else knew of its existence,” he said scornfully. “The family members were all shocked to find out that the child was in the house.”

“But it might not hurt to dust for fingerprints,” I suggested. “If anyone was up there…”

“Remember that the murderer of Brian Hannan left no obvious prints,” he said. “If anyone else was up there, he’d have been careful.”

“He or she,” I corrected. “We can’t rule out that a woman was involved.”

“Since it appears that a frail twelve-year-old girl has managed to push a hefty woman to her death, I suppose we can’t rule out a woman as a murderer,” he agreed, “although I’m afraid this latest death is all too horribly simple. I suspect that the housekeeper was about to tell the world about her secret charge and the girl tried to stop her the only way she knew how. If only those two women experts can interpret her speech, maybe we’ll find out what was going through her troubled brain.”

We reached the cottage door. I led the way and again bumped into Sam in the hallway.

“Hello, my boy, what have you been up to?” Chief Prescott asked.

Again the look of panic on Sam’s face. “Just eating some cake, sir,” Sam mumbled. “I’m on my way back.”

He pushed past us and almost ran down the path.

“That boy has something to hide,” Chief Prescott said. “Maybe I’ll take him aside and put the fear of the law into him.”

Daniel’s mother came out of the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you’re back again,” she began to say to the police chief, then saw me. “Oh, Molly, it’s you. This man keeps trying to see Daniel.”

“I think Daniel is now well enough for a visit,” I said, “and I’m sure he’ll want to be brought up to date with everything that has happened.”

“If you think so.” She gave me a look of resigned disgust. “You are his wife, after all.”

“Yes, I am. This way, please,” I said brightly and escorted the police chief up the stairs. As I had surmised, Daniel was pleased to see him. I decided that the police chief would speak more freely if they were alone.

“Don’t tire him out, Chief Prescott,” I said. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

And I bowed out of the room.
New York,
I thought. I needed to go back to New York to find out about that list of place-names. But I could hardly leave Daniel again. Who could I send in my place? I wondered if any of the Hannan family clan could be considered an ally, then I remembered Eliza’s relieved face when she said, “It wasn’t one of us.” No. They’d want Kathleen to be guilty and this nightmare to be behind them.

I went into the drawing room and took paper from the desk, then I wrote a note to Sid and Gus.
I need to speak with one of you on an urgent matter. Could one of you be spared for a while?

I blotted it and took it to the policeman at the front door. He agreed to deliver it and a few minutes later Sid appeared.

“Molly, you’re back. I suppose you’ve heard the news. What a sad, sad business. She seems such a sweet, gentle, pathetic little thing. And she’s inconsolable about the housekeeper.”

“I tried to persuade them to invite Dr. Birnbaum to examine her,” I said.

“What an excellent idea.”