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

“Really? Then that is where I might have seen you. I also live in the States and often attend the theater in New York.”


“There you are, then,” I said. “Amazing as such a coincidence would be, we must have bumped into each other at a New York theater.”

“Do you believe in coincidence?” he asked. “I rather think I’m in favor of predestination myself. You and I were destined to run into each other on both sides of the Atlantic, which must mean something important.”

“I think it's more likely that you’re mistaking me for someone else,” I said. “I’m told I look typically Irish. I’m sure there are replicas of me in every major city of the world.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t agree to that,” he said. “Ripping play tonight, wasn’t it? Of course a little highbrow for my taste. I go for musical comedies myself. Did you see Oona Sheehan in that last thing of hers? What was it called? She was a corker, an absolute corker.”

I didn’t like this turn the conversation was taking. It occurred to me that he had very possibly been in the courtroom at the inquest and had seen me unmasked there. Was that why he had introduced Oona Sheehan into the conversation—to observe my reaction? In which case whynot just come out and say it? I decided that this was the moment to retreat.

“If you’ll excuse me, Mr.—” “Fitzpatrick,” he said, with a little bow.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick,” I finished, “I have a cab waiting and really have to go home. My family will be expecting me.”

I didn’t want him to know that I was all alone at a hotel. “Wait,” he called. “You didn’t tell me your name.” “It's Delaney,” I said. “Mary Delaney.”

“Is it really?” he asked, his head cocked on one side. “Fancy that.”

“I don’t see what's so extraordinary about it,” I said. “A very ordinary name, I’m sure. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

I turned away. I thought he was going to try and follow me, but at that exact moment there were wild cheers from the doorway and Maud Gonne made her entrance on the arm of Mr. Yeats and followed by other members of the cast. I took the opportunity of all that confusion to slip out into the night, where I hailed a cab and got safely away.





Twenty


In the middle of the night a storm blew up. Rain peppered my windows and the wind howled down my chimney and found cracks through which to stir my curtains. I suppose the tension of being alone in a strange city, added to that of having found a murdered girl and knowing that I was surrounded by trunks full of illegal guns, was enough to make anyone sleep poorly. On this night I found sleep absolutely impossible. Thoughts raced through my head and when I half-slipped into dreams they were disturbing and confused.

I must have drifted into some kind of sleep in the wee hours because I woke to a leaden sky and a sodden dawn. The wind was still driving the rain almost horizontally. The milkman had hunched his shoulders to keep out the rain, and his horse stood head down and miserable. It was the kind of day that makes one long for roaring fires and tea and crumpets. Since I had no pressing need to go out, after breakfast I found a cozy chair in the lounge and sat down to think. If the Gaelic League had also never heard of Terrence Moynihan, where did I go from there? Somehow I had to discover whether he was still in Dublin, and if Mary Ann was still with him. It was all too possible that they had gone abroad to escape the vengeance of the horrible Mr. Kelly. He and Mary Ann could be living in London, Boston, or even Sydney by now.

The man in the wing-backed chair beside me kept rustling his newspaper annoyingly as he turned the pages. As I glanced up, an idea came to me. I could put an advertisement in a Dublin newspaper. I’msure this was painfully obvious to anyone raised with a certain standard of culture, but newspapers were beyond our reach at home in Bal-lykillin. My father might have looked at one during his frequent visits to the pub, but he never brought one home for us. Had he done so, I might have known about things that were common knowledge to the rest of Ireland, like Cullen Quinlan and the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

I opened my little pad and composed a message. Seeking information on Terrence Moynihan, poet, and the former Mary Ann Burke. Anyone with information on contacting these people please refer to Box Number—.