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

“I don’t see what option we’ve got,” Cullen said. “He was planning to kill the two of you, wasn’t he?” “Yes, but that's no excuse,” I said.

“I can’t risk keeping him alive,” Cullen said. “What do you think, Mab? My inclination is to have him taken out to sea and then thrown overboard. We’ve got the boat standing by.”

“Yes, but it's not without risk.”

“Can’t you just put him on a liner and send him home?” I said. “If he knows your men will kill him if he sets foot in Ireland again, that should be deterrent enough.”

“Who knows what connections he has?” Cullen said. “He might be in Whitehall's pocket.”

“His family fled in the famine,” I said. “Mary Ann was the only one left behind. What connections could he possibly have?”

“We can’t risk his contacting the authorities under any circumstances,” Cullen said firmly. “I’m sorry, but he has to go.”

Fitzpatrick whimpered.

Mrs. Boone looked down at him. “I don’t like killing unnecessarily,” she said, “but we can’t just let him walk away. We can’t even trust him to make his own way home.”

Fitzpatrick made more pathetic noises through the cloth.

“So what's the answer?” Cullen demanded in surly fashion. “Invite him to stay to tea?”

“Tea?” Mrs. Boone put her hand to her mouth. “Lord have mercy, we’ll have the Parish Council arriving any minute, wanting their teas. You, Cullen, put the kettle on and Molly, take those scones off the rack and put them on that plate over there. I’d best take the first tray into the dining room right away so they don’t come looking for me. The gun's on the table if you need it.”

She picked up a tray of cutlery, leaving me and Cullen looking at each other over Fitzpatrick's trussed body.

“It seems the two of you handled yourselves rather well,” Cullen said. “I take it he was the one who started out with the gun?”

“Jabbed into my side,” I said. “Mrs. Boone certainly knows a thing or two.”

“Yes, well she would, wouldn’t she, after what she's been through,” he said, and I realized that I had got it right after all. He had slipped and called her Mab. Mary Ann Burke. Her own initials all the time: Queen Mab.

She came back in, wiping off her apron. “I’d better change out of this before I take the teapot in,” she said. “I’m all covered in flour. That will never do.”

Cullen prodded Fitzpatrick with his toe. “You’ll be all right for a while if I go to get the lads and set up the transportation?” he asked.

“Oh, we’ll manage just fine,” Mary Ann said easily. “And I had a grand thought while I was putting out those teacups—Molly will send a cable to my brother in America. She’ll tell him what this boy tried to do, and urge him to take appropriate action when the boy gets home.”

“What? You’re thinking of letting him go home?” Cullen demanded. “Are you out of your senses?”

More noises came from Fitzpatrick's gagged mouth.

“I thought if you were going to France anyway, you could drop him off there. Then it would be up to him where he took his useless hide.”

Cullen prodded him with his foot. “You hear that, you pathetic specimen? Your life's being saved for now by these two kind women you tried to kill. But I swear this to you—put one toe out of line and it will give me great pleasure to finish you off.”

He slipped out of the back door, which opened quite easily. He had only been gone a minute or two before there were voices in the front hall. Then a tap on the kitchen door. My heart leaped to my mouth, and I tried to stand in front of the trussed Mr. Fitzpatrick. An elderly priest poked his head around the door.

“They’ve arrived, Mrs. Boone. If you’d be good enough to serve tea in a few minutes?”

“Coming, Father,” she said serenely.

As the door closed behind him she caught my eye and smiled. “Deaf as a post and blind as a bat,” she said.





Thirty