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

It seemed only a few minutes before some lads arrived and hauled away Fitzpatrick under a tarpaulin on a cart. After he had gone, the tension didn’t leave the house with him. It was as if this little detour had reminded us of what lay ahead and thrust all our plans into high gear. At least, not my plans. I knew a lot of planning was going on, both in the house and out of it, but I wasn’t included in the details. I knew that Cullen was slipping in and out at odd hours. I heard creaks on the stairs at night, but I was left in the dark. I’ve never been the most patient person, and I felt that I was about to explode. Finally I waited until I heard the stairboards creaking, and I leaped out to accost Cullen. “I need you to tell me what's happening,” I said. Cullen shrugged. “Oh, this and that, you know.” At that I did explode. “Look here,” I said. “You want me to be part of your absurd scheme. You want me to put my life at risk and yet you tell me nothing? That's just not good enough for me. I’m not a pawn or a puppet, you know. If I’m to put my life at risk, then I need to know what I’m committing to.”


Cullen put an arm around me, which, if it was intended to calm me down, had the reverse effect. “Come inside,” he said, and led me into his room, closing the door behind us.

“Look, Molly, it's better if you don’t know too much,” he said gently. “Nobody knows more than he has to. That way, if any of us is captured, we can’t be forced to give away information we don’t have.”

I shuddered. “You don’t make it sound very encouraging. What exactly are our chances of success?”

Cullen sighed. “To tell you the truth, I couldn’t say, Molly. I’ve been out of Ireland for ten years and the Brotherhood fell apart during that time. These new lads are untried and pretty much untrained. We have no real explosives expert. Whether they’ll hold up under pressure, I couldn’t tell you. But we have to go ahead, whatever the chances of success. The only way to achieve independence is to make the English behave badly enough that they stir our countrymen out of apathy and onto our side. And we have to start small.”

“So we don’t really know whether we can actually rescue my brother?”

“I’d be lying to you if I said I was confident we would succeed, Molly, but I tell you this: we’ll give it a damned good try. And if you’re having second thoughts about your part in it, then I don’t blame you, and I’ll think none the less of you if you decided to catch the next boat back to America.”

“You’d let me go back to America?” I asked. “I thought I was your prisoner.”

“I wouldn’t keep you here against your will. I know you can be trusted now, and I know that you’re that one element we need to get us into that jail, but I wouldn’t force you to do it, Molly. You can go home now if you want to.”

“I don’t think I’d be allowed to do that, not until Rose McCreedy's murder is officially solved,” I said. “But I can’t tell Inspector Harris the truth, not while you’re holding Mr. Fitzpatrick prisoner anyway.”

“It might make things rather inconvenient for us.” Cullen gave a wry smile.

That smile didn’t make me feel any easier. “You have got Mr. Fitzpatrick safe and sound, haven’t you?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “As safe as houses.”

I didn’t know whether to believe him, but there was nothing I could do about it either way. I had done my best for someone who had wished only the worst for me and would have had no compunction about killing me. If he was now feeding the fishes, then it was better I didn’t know about it.

“I tell you what,” Cullen said. “You can write your inspector a letter telling him what really happened when you’re safely home in New York.”

“If I’m safely home in New York,” I said. “From what you’re saying, that fact isn’t at all guaranteed.”

“I’ve just told you that you don’t have to have any part in this.”

“Do you really think I’d be happy sailing home to New York, knowing that I could have helped rescue my brother and chose not to?” I demanded. “I swore I was ready to help you, and I won’t go back on my word, however afraid I am.”

He reached out and took my hands in his. “You’re a grand girl, Molly. I knew that the moment I set eyes on you when you came out fighting from under that horse blanket.”

I pulled my hands away because the close contact was making me uneasy.

“Can’t you at least tell me what my part in this marvelous scheme of yours will be? I’ll not be required to shoot anyone, will I, because I don’t think I have it in me to kill another human being.”

“Your part is simplicity itself,” Cullen said. “You are required to be Joseph Murphy's sister, wanting to see her brother one last time before she sails back to America. They will let you in and that way we’ll have someone inside the jail. You’re our Trojan horse, Molly.”

“How do we know they’ll let me in?” I asked.

“Because you’ll have a letter from the Home Secretary in London giving his permission.”

“The Home Secretary—what makes you think he’ll give his permission?”

He smiled. “Because the letter is already written and in our possession. We happen to have an excellent forger at our disposal.”

I stared at him. I think until now I suppose I had looked upon this as some kind of lark. Oh, I knew sure enough it was a dangerous lark, but a lark nonetheless. Now there were forged letters from the Home Secretary, and I was the one who was to get them into the jail. I was only just beginning to realize the ramifications of what it might mean if I was caught. Suddenly I was so afraid that I felt physically sick.

“And after I’m in there, what then?” I made myself ask in a calm and level tone.

“We haven’t quite agreed on that,” Cullen said. “The idea is to overpower the guard and get hold of his keys.”