In Like Flynn (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #4)

“Anyone from Adare here?” the man shouted. “I've a Miss Gaffney waiting to be picked up.”


A small, wiry man with a shock of gray hair poking from under a cap came running up from the direction of the shore. “Hold your horses, I'm coming,” he announced, then took off his cap to me. “Sorry to keep you waiting, miss. I got held up while a string of barges was coming past. Which is your luggage?” I pointed and he hoisted the valise onto one shoulder, while I carried the hatbox. “The skiff’s this way, miss. If you'd be so good as to follow me.”

I thanked the gentleman who had been watching over me and followed my valise down a rocky path to the shore. A small boat was tied up there and a second man, this one young and strapping, sprang to attention as we approached.

“You found her then, Tom. That’s good,” he said. “Here, miss. Ever been around boats before?”

I was just about to answer that I'd lived on the shore for most of my life when I remembered that I came from the city of Limerick and probably hadn't needed to go anywhere by boat. “Not really,” I said.

“Take my hand then, miss, and try to step into the middle of the craft,” the young man said and almost lifted me down. I was conscious of big, muscular arms and enormous strength.

“And your name is?“

“Adam, miss,” he said. Tom and I are gardeners at Adare, and also boatmen when the need arises.”

Tom loaded in my bags, jumped down with an agility that I wouldn't have expected from his age, untied the rope and we drifted out into the stream. Immediately the current caught us and the two men had to strain on the oars, pulling strongly against the force of the current.

“So Adare is upstream from here, is it?” I asked.

“No, miss, not really,” Adam said. “You can catch a glimpse of it through the trees on the other bank there. But with this current, if we don't start out heading upstream, we'd be back in the Tappan Zee before we knew what had hit us.”

Adam, I thought, watching the burfy one pull at the oar. Annie Lomax had mentioned a gardener called Adam. But she'd also said that all of the servants had been dismissed. Was this a new gardener with the same name, or had he somehow managed to escape the purge? I glanced at him with interest. If it were the same Adam, then Annie hadn't trusted him. I wondered now if that was because he was a sly individual or because of his way with women. He was certainly giving me the eye at this moment.

“So have you been with the Senator long?” Tasked, addressing them both.

“Old Tom’s been at Adare since before the Senator’s time,” Adam said. The Senator bought the house about ten years ago, wouldn't you say, Tom?”

Tom nodded, grunting with the pull of the oars.

“And I came as apprentice about five years ago.“

“Was that before the tragedy with the Senator’s son?” I asked.

“A few months before,” he said. So it was indeed the same man.

“That must have been so terrible for everyone at the house,” I said. “His family in Ireland certainly felt it hard enough. My poor mother never stopped crying.”

Adam nodded. “It was bad,” he said. “A bad time. If you ask me they've never really gotten over it.”

Tom glared at him. 'You keep your mind on the rowing and forget about the gossiping. It was none of our business then and it still ain't now.”

“You two must have been lucky or particularly good workers,” I pressed on. “1 heard that Cousin Flynn fired all his employees after the tragedy.”

“Most of them, yes,” Tom said. “But it just happened that Adam and I were away when it took place. I was laid up with pneumonia and Adam was visiting his sick mother, who lives on the other side of the river. So the master figured we could have had nothing to do with the crime and he kept us on.”

I nodded. The western bank was fast approaching, but as yet I saw no sign of a house. A great hill rose up, clad in a shaggy coat of trees, with the occasional boulder showing through—as wild as anything I'd seen in Connemara at home.

“So from what we heard, it was the chauffeur did it?” I ventured as the two rowers negotiated us past a clump of swirling vegetation brought down from upstream. “He must have been a smart one to have planned something as cunning as that.”

Adam looked up now. “Bertie? He never struck me as another Thomas Edison, nor as having an evil nature either. We often went for a pint at the tavern and—”

“Watch your oar, boy” old Tom snapped. 'You'll run us aground and the little lady will be feeding the fishes.”

They rowed in silence past some frightening-looking rocks. Then I looked up and gasped. The trees had parted. In front of me were green lawns and behind them a sprawling, gray stone house, rising three stories high amid the trees. It had a romantic look to it, with a round tower on the far right and painted shutters at the windows.