More observations and potential hints

1. During the scene when the whole group are out in front of the house and they mockingly bow, when Mr. Neville has them sent away, Mrs. Herbert isn’t there. As the group walks back, a white figure quickly crosses the right, hedge entrance. Was this Mrs. Herbert? Her husband may have been killed, already – she may be the one who did it.

2. When Mrs. Herbert is talking alone with her daughter, Mrs. Tallman, I’d always thought she was just bravely putting on a good face, despite her humiliating encounters with Mr. Neville. But why would she be trying to convince Rebecca that she was okay and wasn’t feeling vulnerable; it was Rebecca’s idea, from the very, beginning and they were both aware of how humiliating it would be. No, Mother and daughter are getting their story straight because although she can heartily endure the absurdity of Mr. Neville, it’s perfectly reasonable that she would be shaken up and have emotional moments, over her killing her husband. She and her daughter are squaring away the story, should she break down.

3. At the end, I’d always thought it was just the pomegranate juice that was used as “proof” she was “attacked” by Neville. However, the entire film, it’s made clear that Neville is a brute, is rough in taking her and she may have been able to show bruises made by him, as proof, as well as any displays of her emotional vulnerability, if she had any difficult, public moments.

4. Mr. Noyes thinks he was in on the plan but he was just another pawn in the plot. Every, single, available female, is kept busy flirting, seducing or distracting the men. While Mrs. Pierpont Is pretending to be in cahoots with Mr. Noyes, she glances up the stairwell as they plot; is someone getting Mr. Herbert’s blue boots, to plant on the body? Did he even leave the grounds? Or was he dead before that? Why so much washing of certain clothes and not all times, by the maid?

5. Behind Mrs. Pierpont, we see a close-up of a painting of Samson and Delilah; Delilah betrayed her husband by cutting off his hair, in his sleep, zapping him of his strength. Did Mrs. Herbert kill her husband that night before he was to leave? The nephew might have even witnessed it, seeing how observant he was of The Green Man. When The Green Man motioned for him to keep silent, in the garden, was it just in playful jest or was it a reference to something more?

6. Remember, both Mother and Daughter converse with Mr. Herbert but they display an obvious, underlying contempt and exhaustion with him and his cruel arrogance, and it may have made getting him out of the way, significantly easier. He also had strong opinions against women owning property and may have been cruel with his daughter for not producing a grandson, yet. He was probably cruel to everyone around him, so rather than wait in anxiousness over his return, the moment he said he was leaving, everyone likely relaxed and put him out of their minds, until he was brought up as a topic. His closest “friend” was a man who had once been a rival for his wife’s hand in marriage, with a still fairly bitter assessment of it all, many, years later. Mr. Herbert didn't appear to have any or many real friends.