In Like Flynn (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #4)

“And if anyone else had thought up the scheme and paid Bertie to help carry it out? What then?”


She thought for a moment, staring across my kitchen to where the sunlight came in dappled past the spindly ash tree in the back-yard. “I still don't think he'd have done anything that might risk little Brendan’s life. He wasn't that kind, miss.”

“Do you have any suspicions of your own as to who might have done it?”

She shook her head. “I've been over and over that day in my head. Mrs. Flynn had taken the train to New Yorkforthe day. The house was quiet. I put Brendan down for his nap as usual at one o'clock. I went to darn socks in my own room next door. When I checked on him at three, his crib was empty. He had just learned to climb out over the side, the little monkey that he was, so I went lookingforhim. But he wasn't anywhere to be found. I alerted the master, who was in the middle of a meeting in his study. He summoned all the servants and we searched everywhere—right down to the riverbank. Then that evening we found the ransom note at he front gate.”

“If the child could climb out of his own crib and wander away, then anyone could have taken a chance and snatched him.”

She shook her head violently. “He'd never have been able to wander off the estate by himself. It’s a good half-mile to the gate, and that was kept locked and there’s a gatekeeper at die lodge. It’s always possible that the kidnapper came by river, I suppose. There are places along the shoreline where a small boat could land without being observed, but”—she paused as if weighing the options, then hook her head again—”it was broad daylight. There are lawns ground the house, and there’s never a time you don't run into a servant or a gardener. And how would the kidnapper know that little Brendan would choose that very moment to climb out of his crib?”

I had to agree with her. If I were going to kidnap a child, I'd hardly have chosen broad daylight in the middle of the afternoon at the child’s own home, unless I were very sure of myself—which brecluded, in my mind, an outsider.

I extracted my notepad and pencil from a drawer in the kitchen Iresser.

“So who was in the house at the time?” I asked.

She frowned in concentration. “The Senator, of course, and Mr. Rimes?”

Mr. Rimes? Who’s he?”

“The master’s good friend and adviser. He started off by running Mr. Flynn’s first campaign, for the State Senate, and then he was asked to stay on and keep giving advice when Mr. Flynn went to Washington. The master thought a lot of him. Can't say that I did. He was rather rude and blustering for my taste. Not from the top drawer, if you get my meaning.”

“So they were in Mr. Flynn’s study together, is that right?”

“And both talking away nineteen to the dozen, if I know them, Both liked the sound of their own voices.”

“So they wouldn't have heard anything.”

She nodded agreement.

“Who else?”

“Oh, the Senator’s secretary would have been with them, taking notes.”

“And her name?”

“The secretary was a he,” she said. “A coldfishby the name of O'Mara. Desmond O'Mara.”

I scribbled it down, then looked up expectantly

“That’s all,” she said. “Like I said, the mistress had gone to town shopping, which meant that her cousin would have gone with her. This cousin, a spinster older lady called Miss Tompkins, lived with them, as a kind of companion for Mrs. Ffynn. Mrs. Flynn took her everywhere with her.”

“So no one else was in the house that afternoon except for the master in his study with his cronies?”

“That’s correct,” she said. “Except for the servants, of course.”

I was interested that she had hardly thought the servants worth mentioning, even though she had been one herself.

“And how many of them would there have been?”

She pushed her hair back from her face, resting her fingerson a grubbyforehead.”Let me see—the butler, of course—Mr. Soames. English. Very proper. Then there was a footman and the master’s valet, and the mistress’s lady’s maid, then just housemaids and parlor maids and cook and the scullery maid.”

“What about their names and anything you can tell me about them?”

“No point,” she said. “After the kidnapping, the mistress dis-missed everyone. She said she'd never be able to trust them again, so they went. They'd all be new now.”

“But did you suspect any of them at the time?”

There was one gardener, called Adam. A local man employed for the summer. I never liked the look of him—” She dared to look up expectantly. “Does this mean you're going to do it? You'll try and prove my innocence?”

“I'm going to be there anyway,” I said. “What harm can it do to ask ask a few questions?”