Hush Now, Don’t You Cry (34 page)

“But they rejected it,” I finished. “I think everyone wants to believe her guilty.”

“And you still don’t?”

“I really don’t want to. I know all the evidence points to her, but something else came up when I was in New York. A list of place-names on Brian Hannan’s desk—and they seem to be places where Father Patrick Hannan has been a priest. I’d really like to go back to the city and check them out, but I shouldn’t leave Daniel again.”

“So you’d like one of us to do it.” Sid had a great way of reading my mind. “I’d be happy to. To tell you the truth, I’m finding being with that child most disturbing. Gus is so much better at this sort of thing and if anyone can get through to her, Gus will. So tell me what you’d like me to do?”

“I’m not quite sure,” I said. “I have a list of five place-names and I suspect they are all in the Hudson Valley. Could you check the archives of
The New York Times
and the
Herald
and see if these names turn up in any context in the last year or so?”

“I can do that,” Sid said. “What sort of context are you looking for?”

“I really don’t know,” I said. “But Brian Hannan wrote that list for a reason just before he came here.”

Sid nodded. “So any mention of these five places during the past few years? I’ve a good day’s work ahead of me then. And if I find anything I’ll telephone the house here.”

“Wonderful,” I said.

“I’ll go and tell Gus,” Sid said. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“And if she wants me to keep her company with Kathleen, I’d be happy to do so if the police will let me,” I said.

A flight of seagulls wheeled overhead crying. We looked up at the tower.

“You know what Gus and I thought before this happened,” Sid said speculatively. “We wondered if the child’s death all those years ago was an accident and somehow Brian Hannan blamed himself for it. How about this—the girls were in his care and he wasn’t paying attention and allowed the tragedy to happen. Perhaps it was a simple accident but in a moment of weakness he allowed the blame to fall on Kathleen. He’s lived with that guilt ever since and summoned everyone here to make a full confession and set things right.”

“That’s a lot to swallow,” I said.

“No, I think it’s quite logical,” Sid said. “And somebody killed him because they found out the truth and now knew he was really to blame. And then we thought what if they all decided to punish him for his negligence, so they lured him here. Do we actually know that he invited them and not the other way around?”

“No, I don’t think we do,” I said. “The excuse was a yacht race that Archie Van Horn was competing in, but I don’t think we ever knew who invited whom.” As I said it I remembered Archie’s bad behavior when he had called upon the alderman and made a note that it was his yacht race that had lured them all here. Maybe there was something to what Sid was postulating.

“There you are then,” Sid said. “The death of Brian Hannan was a joint affair, a family plot. They’ll keep it a closed family secret.”

“Do you still believe that, now that Mrs. McCreedy has been killed and all evidence points to Kathleen?”

“I’m not sure,” Sid said. “I can’t help feeling that an important point is missing. I can believe that Kathleen killed Mrs. McCreedy. I could believe that Kathleen pushed her grandfather off a cliff. But what twelve-year-old child of simple intelligence, who has been locked away all her life, would know how to put poison in his whiskey glass? That is the crime of a sophisticated person and one who knew Hannan’s habits.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” I agreed.

“So what do you think this list of place-names might have to do with anything?” Sid asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s nothing of importance, but they were there on his blotter and must have been written in the last days before he came here. They were the only words, apart from his signature, that I could make out. So they had to have some importance.”

“I’ll head back to New York then, and see what I can dig up,” Sid said with her usual confidence. “Then maybe we’ll be wiser. What do you suspect these place-names will tell you?”

“I’ve no idea,” I said. “We may be chasing straws, but Kathleen has nobody else on her side but us. We owe it to her to find the truth if we can.”

“Yes we do,” Sid agreed. She hugged me. “I’ll be off then. I’ll telephone you as soon as I find something.”

Then she went back into the house, leaving me alone with the sound of the surf and the cry of the gulls.

Thirty-six

Daniel seemed quite animated after Chief Prescott’s visit.

“It seems I’ve been missing out on a lot,” he said. “And I owe you an apology, Molly.”

“You do?”

“I didn’t believe that you’d seen a face at the turret window and it turns out that the girl was up there all the time.” He shook his head. “What a foolhardy thing to do—to keep an unstable child in such close proximity to her family all this time. Brian Hannan always appeared to me as such a sensible man, but he paid for this mistake with his life.”

I almost said, “If the girl did it,” but I swallowed back the words. No sense in sharing my doubts with Daniel at the moment. It would only mean I’d have to confess to doing my share of investigating and I didn’t want to upset him.

“I wonder if I’ll feel strong enough to get up and take a look at that tower for myself tomorrow,” he said. “I’d be most interested to see the child and the trapdoor.”

“You’re not to get up until the doctor says you can,” I reminded him.

“That old quack? What does he know about anything? I’ll get up when I feel like it, in fact I’m going to try walking a little now. Give me your hand, Molly.”

“Are you sure?” I held out my hand tentatively. Daniel swung his legs over the side of the bed, then pulled himself to his feet. “There, you see?” he said. He took a few steps across the room. “I’m doing splendidly. Back to normal in no time.” Then he swayed. “
Whoops.
Feeling a little dizzy. Room swinging around.” As I went to steady him, he went limp and collapsed to the floor.

“Daniel!” I shrieked and dropped beside him. My scream brought Mrs. Sullivan running.

“Oh, dear sweet Jesus, you’ve killed him!” she exclaimed, pushing me out of the way to reach him.

I felt a pulse. “No, he just fainted,” I said. “Help me get him back to bed.”

Together we lugged him with some difficulty. As we were finishing the operation he opened his eyes.

“What’s going on?” he murmured.

“You fainted,” I said. “Now I hope you realize that you’re not well enough to get up yet. You scared the living daylights out of your mother and me.”

“That’s interesting,” he said. “I don’t remember fainting before.”

“And I don’t want you to do so again.” I tucked bedclothes around him angrily. “You nearly died, Daniel. You have to take things slowly. First you sit in a chair for a while, then you try walking.”

“But if I don’t hurry up, I’ll have no chance to be a part of this investigation.” He sounded like a petulant child.

“Dang the investigation,” Mrs. Sullivan said. “You’re just like your father. He could never stop acting the detective, and look where it got him. Dead before he was sixty.”

“You can’t blame me for feeling frustrated,” he said. “I’m not used to lying still and being waited on while the local police need my help.”

“I’ll keep an eye on things for you,” I said.

This brought a chuckle, and a warning look. “I bet you’d love an excuse to get involved, but you’re not going to. You stay well out of it, do you hear? Old Hannan knew there was something wrong, didn’t he? And look what happened to him.”

I thought it wiser not to mention that Sid was on her way to New York, investigating on my behalf, and certainly not that I’d been up in that tower and seen the child for myself.

“I’ll see to your dinner, son,” Mrs. Sullivan said, patting his cheek. “How about my chicken and dumplings? You need to get your strength back.”

“And I should go and see how my friend Gus is doing,” I said. “Sid had to go back to New York in a hurry, so Gus may want to come and eat dinner with us.”

I put on my cloak and went out. The night wind had turned cold, reminding me that this was indeed October. I needed to walk and to think. If Sid’s research tomorrow turned up nothing, then what did I do next? I couldn’t confess to Daniel that I had unearthed shady business practices at Hannan Construction, that I had found the identity of the man at the gate, or even the Tammany threats. Even if he were well enough to listen, I rather felt that they were meaningless. Maybe Sid and Gus’s theory about the family luring Brian Hannan to his death was not so outlandish after all. I wondered if that lawyer was already on his way back to New York. I would have dearly loved to know if Brian Hannan had been about to make any changes to his will.

I paused, listening to the sound of the wind in the pine trees and the underlying thump of the waves below. Why did one or more of them want him dead? Need him dead so badly that they were willing to take a terrible risk? And how could it tie in with Colleen’s death? It seemed to be now that there had to be some connection. The moment that Kathleen’s presence was revealed, someone had found it necessary to kill Mrs. McCreedy. Either that, or Kathleen really had killed her caregiver for betraying her presence.

I had to see Kathleen again, and I had a good excuse. I went to the policeman at the front door.

“I take it that Miss Walcott is still up with the girl in the tower?” I said. “Has anybody taken dinner up to them yet?”

“I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am,” the young constable said.

“I’d be happy to take them some food, if you’d allow me into the kitchen.”

He looked at me, weighing whether my motives were pure, no doubt.

“I am a guest here,” I reminded him. “Alderman Hannan invited me. I should be able to go in and out of the house as I choose.”

“That was before two murders,” he said. “Chief Prescott says nobody comes in and out and we’ve got to keep an eye on the family at all times. We even have a constable keeping an eye on their bedrooms at night.”

“Then I’d be saving you extra work if I took food up to my friend and the little girl, wouldn’t I?” I said.

“Why are you so keen to get up there? Morbid curiosity to see a child murderer, is it?”

“Certainly not.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” he said. “You should see the way the people mill around when we’ve a murderer in the jail. Just to catch a glimpse of him.”

“I assure you it’s not morbid curiosity. It’s purely concern for my friend up with the child, that she is not forgotten at mealtimes. She’s been up there alone long enough.”

“One of our men is with her,” he said. “But I do see your point. Very well, then. You can take them up food, but I’m having you escorted straight down again.”

He called another constable to guard the door for him, then led me back to the kitchen, where the chef gave me two plates of food, a glass of milk for the child, and one of water for Gus. The constable gallantly offered to carry it for me and told me to follow him. Then to my surprise he opened the door across from the kitchen. It was the same door where I had so startled Mrs. McCreedy and I realized now that she had just come down from Kathleen’s room. Down a long dark passage we went, then up a long, equally dark stair.

“I don’t know how the old woman managed going up and down this all day long,” he grunted to me. “The least that that Hannan guy could have done was to put in an elevator. All the newer houses have one now, you know. All the rage, it is.”

He stopped talking as the stairs went on. Finally we reach the window through which I had climbed, then up the last flight to the door to Kathleen’s rooms. It was firmly shut and my constable tapped on it before it was opened by yet another policeman.

“This lady has brought up their supper,” he said. “All right for her to bring it in? The girl’s not likely to be dangerous, is she?”

“See for yourself.” The constable opened wide the door to reveal Gus sitting on the floor with Kathleen lying with her head on Gus’s lap. She was sucking her thumb and had her arm around the big rag doll she called Colleen. Gus looked up, smiled, and put her finger to her lips.

“She’s almost asleep, I believe,” she said gently.

“I’ve brought you some supper. I thought they might forget you,” I said, as the constable put the tray on the table.

“Thank you. Most kind of you,” Gus said. “I must admit it seems as if I’ve been up here a fearfully long time.”

“Has nobody else been to see Kathleen?”

“That pompous policeman. Of course he got nowhere. He terrified her and she went to hide under her bed.”

“But her family hasn’t come to see her yet? Not her parents?”

Gus shook her head. “Perhaps the police have forbidden them to,” she suggested, as usual looking for the kindest explanation and dismissing the more logical one that they wanted nothing to do with her.

“Are you planning to stay with her all night?” I asked.

“I thought I might,” she said. “As you can see, she has really taken to me. Poor little soul, she was terrified. And do you know what? I don’t believe anybody has touched her or hugged her all the time she has been here. Or sung to her. You should have seen her face when I sang a lullaby. She looked as if an angel had just stepped out of Heaven.”

“You have a way with children,” I said.

“I seem to.” She smiled again and stroked Kathleen’s hair.

As I talked I pulled over a low table and put the two plates on it, so that Gus could eat without changing her position or disturbing the girl.

“Not particularly exciting fare,” Gus commented, prodding experimentally with her fork. “Or am I getting what the servants eat?”

“I got the impression that the chef is sulking or in mourning. Perhaps he fears he’s going to lose his job.”

“Then he should be working harder to impress.” Gus prodded at the meat. “This joint was cooked yesterday, I’ll wager. And reheated.”

Nonetheless she began to eat. The smell of food reached Kathleen. She sat up, started in fear when she saw me, and grabbed at Gus.