“I may be wrong,” I said. “I really hope I am wrong.”
As I was talking I was taking in my surroundings. I saw that the room was made even darker by the creeper that half covered the window. Then I saw that it wasn't a window, but a pair of French doors. There was a way out of the house through Barney’s study. And the study was on the side of the house away from the main living rooms, which meant that someone like Desmond O'Mara, or even Soames, could have carried the child out of the house without being observed. All he would have to have done was walk past the blank back wall of the kitchen, into the tall bean rows of the kitchen garden and up to the cottage.
Then I reminded myself that Bamey and Joe Rimes and therefore also Desmond O'Mara were all overheard working in Barney’s study that afternoon. So that shot down an otherwise good theory.
“I’ll wait for you outside, Constable,” I said loudly as I emerged from the room, walked purposefully in the direction of the front door, then doubled back and sneaked up the back stairs to my room. If my conversation had indeed been overheard I was hoping to draw the rat to the bait. I opened my wardrobe and stepped in-side, half closing the door.
Then I waited. And waited. It was stuffy and cramped and the dust kept making me want to sneeze. After ten minutes turned into twenty and then half an hour, I began to think that this wasn't such a good idea after all. I was just about to come out and admit defeat when I saw my door handle start to turn. I held my breath. The door started to open and Cousin Clara came into the room.
She glanced around, then crept toward the cup and saucer still standing on my bedside table. I waited until her hand had almost touched the saucer, then I stepped out of the wardrobe. She gasped as she spun around.
“You're too late, Qara,” I said. “Some of the beef tea has already been taken to the police for testing.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “What beef tea?” “The beef tea on the table there that youflavoredwith arsenic for me last night. And several other nights before.”
I watched the color drain from her face, then she collected herself. “Absolute rubbish,” she said.
Then what brought you to my room? And why that cup and saucer? Have you taken over the maid’s duties?” I went over to her and stared at her, eye to eye. I hadn't noticed before that she was almost as tall as me and for a moment I wondered if I was taking too big a risk. But she looked away, flinchingas if I had struck her. “What I don't understand is what you hoped to gain from it. Why did you want to kill me?”
“I didn't want to kill you, you stupid girl,” Clara snapped. “I just wanted to warn you off.”
“Warn me off?”
“She liked you,” Clara almost spat out the words. “I could tell that she liked you better than me. She was going to make you her new companion and then it was you she would take shopping and to Europe and where would that leave me? Where would I go if I was turned out of this house?”
Without warning she deflated like a balloon and collapsed onto my bed, sniffing pitifully. “I have nobody, no one who wants me in the whole world. At least Theresa needed me, until you came …”
“You foolish old woman,” I said. “I had no intention of staying and becoming Theresa’s companion. I was just here for a short visit, that’s all—not trying to oust you.”
“I didn't want to really hurt you,” she sobbed. “That’s why it was always such a small amount. Just enough to make you want to go back home to Ireland, that’s all.”
“But you nearly did kill me,” I said. “I reckon one more night of that and they'd have found my body in the morning, just like they did Theresa’s.”
“Don't.” She put her handkerchief up to her mouth. 'Don't say that. I still can't get over…”
“Another thing I don't understand,” I said, “is why you'd want to kill Theresa if she was all you had in the world.”
She looked up. Her blotchy and tear-stained face was not a pretty sight. “Kill Theresa? You don't think … You can't possibly think… f she stammered. “Theresa took her own life.”
“I'm not so sure,” I said, “and since you've confessed to one poisoning, you'd be the obvious suspect to me.”
Her face went ashen. “No!” she exclaimed, 'You can't believe that. Theresa was all I had in the world. I loved her. I would have done anything for her—I would have drunk poison on her behalf.”
“That’s not how the police will see it,” I said. “When they find the arsenic in that beef tea sample, they'll immediately put two and two together and come up with you.”
She reached out and clutched at my skirt. “I really meant you no harm.”
In Like Flynn (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #4)
Rhys Bowen's books
- Malice at the Palace (The Royal Spyness Series Book 9)
- Bless the Bride (Molly Murphy, #10)
- City of Darkness and Light (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #13)
- Death of Riley (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #2)
- For the Love of Mike (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #3)
- Hush Now, Don't You Cry (Molly Murphy, #11)
- In a Gilded Cage (Molly Murphy, #8)
- In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)