Murphy's Law (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #1)

outside the men's dormitory while your accomplice was committing the crime inside."

"That's ridiculous," I said. "And anyway, the guard was there. He can tell you. He came out of the men's dormitory and yelled at us. That's when I ran away."

"The guard?" He sat up straight again making his chair clatter upright. "You're saying you saw a guard in the men's dormitory? In the middle of the night?"

I nodded. "I grabbed Bridie just as she was about to walk into the room. He appeared and yelled at us. From the way he was yelling, he obviously thought I was coming to visit one of the men. And he stood there watching until I picked up the child and ran away."

"This guard--you'd recognize him again?" "I think so. He was a big man, a lot of whiskers, a paunch, and a big voice."

He stood. "Harris!" A young policeman poked his head around the door. "Have all the guards assembled and tell me when you're ready."

He sat down again and smiled. "Thank you, Mrs. O'Connor. That is most helpful. If you can identify him, at least we'll be further along." He paused, tapping his pencil on the table. He was a very energetic man, never still, I noticed. "I'm wondering why he didn't volunteer the information himself that he saw you hanging around the men's dormitory. Surely that counts as suspicious behavior."

"Unless he had something to hide himself," I suggested.

He stared at me.

"He could have committed the crime," I went on.

"And why would an island watchman want to kill an immigrant?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Robbery? He had a fine gold watch, money in his pocket?"

"You're traveling steerage, Mrs. O'Connor," Captain Sullivan said. "If any of you had anything worth stealing, you'd have paid for a cabin."

This, of course, was true. I got up. "So you'll not be needing me anymore until I have to identify the guard for you?"

Again he looked at me long and hard as if there were questions he was considering. "Well, I think you can

wait outside for now. I'll know where to find you if I have more questions," he said. "You can't swim away." And he smiled that cheeky smile again. In any other circumstances I'd have enjoyed flirting with a man like him. But I was a married woman, looking forward to joining her long lost husband. I was also, it seemed, under suspicion.

Just as I was leaving the room, a young uniformed policeman came in. "Sorry to interrupt, sir," he said. He had a definite Irish brogue. Was the whole of New York from Ireland?

"Yes, what is it, Lynch?"

"About his boots, sir. O'Malley's boots." Sullivan looked up with interest. "Well, sir, we took them off, and they're very good quality, sir. They've the name of a bootmaker in London inside them and they're very well made--lined with kid and all."

"Are they, now?" Sullivan glanced at me. I had been the one who had just suggested that O'Malley might have had something worth stealing.

"So I thought, sir," Lynch went on excitedly, "that either this man O'Malley isn't what he seemed, or he stole the boots. In which case maybe Scotland Yard has a file on him."

"I've already telegraphed Scotland Yard with a description of the man," Sullivan said. "And I'm waiting to hear back from Dublin, too, with anything they can give us on his background. Have you located any luggage he might have stored down in the baggage room?"

"Two of the lads are down there right now, sir. We'll bring it up to you when we find it."

"Thanks, Lynch. Good work," Sullivan said.

"I was thinking, sir, about the boots," Lynch went on hesitantly. "if he was wearing fine boots like that, then maybe the motive was robbery."

Sullivan noticed me standing in the door. "You can go now, Mrs. O'Connor," he said, curtly. I tried not to smile.

More sitting and waiting in the big, drafty room. Then a line of uniformed guards filed in, looking surly and escorted by a couple of policemen. Daniel Sullivan beckoned me. "Take a good look and tell us which man you saw," he said. "Don't be nervous." I

walked down the line of navy blue uniforms. Then I shook my head. "I don't see him here," I whispered to the captain.

"Is this all the guards?" Sullivan asked. "Everyone who was on duty last night?"

"Some of the night shift would have gone home on the first boat this morning," one of the guards answered.

"I thought nobody left the island!" Daniel Sullivan's face flushed red with anger.

"No immigrants." The administrator stepped out of the shadows. "But some of the night shift boys went home on the boat that brought the day shift, as usual. They'd gone before we realized ... We only discovered the crime when the shifts were changing."

"So you're saying that any number of people could have sneaked away from the island?"

McSweeney laughed uncomfortably. "Oh no, that's not possible. Only men working on the night shift. It's a government launch. They wouldn't let anybody who wasn't an employee aboard."

"Damn," Sullivan muttered, then glanced up at me apologetically. "Sorry, ma'am."