Speidel’s note to Oliver

Speidel’s note to Oliver was a brief written request for a private meeting, but its delayed and uncertain passage made it central to the investigation of Nathan Oliver’s death. It was meant to bring Raimund Speidel and Oliver together at the lighthouse at eight o’clock; instead, the note passed through several hands and was left in a postbox, while Speidel arrived to find the lighthouse locked. The note helped establish a possible timeline, but the gaps in its delivery left open who might have known of the appointment and when Oliver learned of it.

Purpose and Contents

Speidel said he wrote the note the day before his planned meeting, after illness kept him from attending dinner where he expected to see Oliver. He asked the young woman bringing his provisions, Millie Tranter, to deliver it. The message was written on plain white paper and headed with the name and telephone number of Shearwater Cottage, along with the date and time. Speidel said he apologized for disturbing Oliver’s solitude, described the matter as important to himself and of interest to Oliver, and requested a private meeting at the lighthouse at eight the next morning. If that time did not suit, Oliver was asked to telephone Shearwater Cottage to arrange another.

The request was private, but Speidel said he had not instructed Millie to conceal it or destroy it after reading. He remembered the wording and clarified that the time appeared in words rather than numerals. That detail, together with his account of the note’s contents, made the intended appointment specific: it was not an open-ended invitation, but a meeting at a named place and hour. Speidel believed there was little reason for concern when he found the lighthouse locked, since Oliver remained on the island and could still be contacted.

Delivery and Delay

Millie first put the note into the leather pouch marked Post on the dashboard of the buggy. She said she did not take it directly to Oliver, because Speidel had not told her it was urgent; she also admitted that she forgot about it. The pouch was used for mail delivered to the island cottages and for letters collected for Jago Tamlyn to take to the mainland, so placing the note there entered it into an ordinary circulation system rather than ensuring prompt delivery to its named recipient.

After speaking with Jago, Millie remembered the note and took the buggy to Peregrine Cottage. She did not see Oliver, so she put it in the porch postbox instead of handing it to someone inside. She could hear Miranda Oliver speaking with someone in the sitting room but chose not to give the note to her, since it was addressed to Oliver. Millie’s account therefore places the note at Peregrine Cottage, but does not establish that Oliver read it before leaving for the lighthouse. She suggested that if he had not received it, it might still be in the postbox; the evidence here does not confirm what ultimately happened to the paper.

Testimony and Uncertainty

When Dalgliesh questioned Millie, she initially equivocated about receiving and delivering the note. She eventually acknowledged that she had read it while it was open, and admitted that she told Jago about both the note and the lighthouse meeting. Jago told her to take it to Peregrine Cottage straight away. He later confirmed that she had mentioned it and that he had urged her to deliver it, but denied seeing or reading the note himself. He explained that he had expected Speidel to provide the information when he arrived, and had considered visitors’ movements and meetings outside his responsibility.

Millie’s admission established that the appointment was known to Jago before the murder investigation began. It also complicated the note’s chain of custody: after being placed in the unattended buggy’s pouch, it could potentially have been accessible to someone else. Dalgliesh observed that Miranda and Dennis Tremlett might also have learned of the meeting, as could anyone who saw the buggy while it was unattended. Miranda later said that neither she nor Tremlett had checked the postbox or opened letters addressed to her father. These possibilities were not proof that any of them had read the message; they marked the limits of what the note’s route could establish.

Role in the Investigation

Speidel said he walked to the lighthouse, hoping to go unobserved, and arrived at six minutes past eight. The door was locked. He had been ill during the night and was late setting out, so his arrival does not show precisely when Oliver might have reached the building or whether the two men could have met. Speidel had assumed Oliver might have found the lighthouse locked and gone to fetch a key, might not have intended to meet him, or might never have received the message.

The note thus functioned as both a record and a source of suspense in the inquiry. Its exact appointment time gave the detectives a point against which to compare movements, while the delay in delivery made Oliver’s knowledge of the meeting uncertain. Because Millie read the message and told Jago, the note also widened the circle of people who knew of the planned encounter. Yet no account in this evidence establishes that anyone other than Millie actually read it, or that Oliver saw it before setting out. Its importance lies as much in that unresolved gap as in the meeting it was intended to arrange: the note documents a plan, but cannot by itself explain why the lighthouse was locked or what happened to Oliver there.