In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

The station clock was striking twelve as we pulled up. I would still have plenty of time to go to Waterford that day. Presumably I’d find somewhere to spend the night in that city, if necessary. I realized as I hurried down the platform that I should have told Inspector Harris of my plan to leave the city, but I decided that it was his fault he hadn’t provided adequate protection for me at the court building. I’d drop him a note when I knew where I’d be staying.

The train that took me to Waterford was not a merry little yellow-and-green puffing affair, but a big main-line engine and we sped along at a rapid pace, frightening horses and cows as we roared past their meadows. I arrived in Waterford and asked about Ormond Hall. I learned that it was about eight miles out of town, near the village ofDunhill. I inquired if another train went in that direction and learned that none did, however the Royal Mail had a coach going out that way every morning and took on extra passengers. I had no wish to walk eight miles that afternoon and risk arriving at a great house looking like something dragged through a hedgerow, so I found a modest boarding-house on the waterfront. Probably not a good choice of location, as I was kept awake by rowdy singing, raised voices, and what sounded like blows.

In the morning I went to pick up the coach. It was a misty, chilly day, and we passengers huddled together with a rug over us as we were quite exposed to the elements. The mail, one gathered, stayed dry. From my fellow passengers I learned that the hall had been in the Con-roy family for generations. Old Sir Henry Conroy had died a couple of years ago, and the new Lord of the Manor was Sir Toby Conroy. They didn’t say, but I got the feeling that the change in masters had not been for the better. Young Sir Toby had been in the army until he inherited the estates and had run up some enormous debts during his time with the Irish Guards—debts from which his father had had to bail him out, so one gathered. And no, he wasn’t married yet. Maybe he’d settle down when he finally chose a wife.

They were obviously curious about why I was planning a visit there. In my current dress, I was probably not going into service there, and yet I was clearly not posh enough to be making a social call. I put their minds at rest by saying I was inquiring about an aunt of mine who had been in service there once and with whom the family in America had lost touch.

“Oh really?” one of the ladies asked. “And who was your aunt? I was in service there myself for a while.”

“Her name was Mary Anne Burke,” I said.

“Mary Ann—no, the name doesn’t ring a bell. What position did she hold?”

“I’m not even sure of that,” I said. “It would have been quite a while ago. I think she went there in 1869.”

The woman started laughing. “Eighteen sixty-nine? I was only a child of five then, so I’m afraid our paths never would have crossed.”

The coach stopped at the bottom of a long driveway, lined with poplar trees.

“Here we are then, me darlin’,” the driver said cheekily. “Watch out for that one, won’t you? They say he's a terrible one for the ladies.”

The coach drove off and I stood facing an imposing gateway, the two gateposts crowned with stone lions, each one resting a paw on a stone ball. I took a deep breath before entering. The driveway was made of fine gravel and continued for a while before it swung to the right and the house came into view. And what a fine house it was, almost a castle with its battlements and turrets, and with an ornamental lake before it. Mary Ann must have thought she’d died and gone to heaven when she went from the orphanage to this place, I decided.