In Dublin's Fair City Page 22

  “Should we cross to the north bank of the river here?” I asked. “We seem to be going into a less pleasant area.”

  “We do indeed,” Cullen said. “In fact that building to our right, beyond the railway, is one of my least favorite in Ireland. That's the Clancy Barracks, my girl—home of a regiment of Inniskilling Dragoons. The might of King Edward, just waiting to keep the peace.”

  “Then why go this way?” I tugged on his arm. “Let's turn around.”

  “Because there is something I want to show you,” he said. We walked on until we came to a road junction and there on the other side loomed the grim facade of a brick building. It was tall, with hardly any windows, and an iron fence around it.

  “Now there's an ugly building if ever I saw one,” I said.

  “That, my dear, is Kilmainham Gaol,” Cullen said. “I wanted you to see it, to see what we were up against. And I also wanted to take a closer inspection for myself. A lone man—well, he could be noticed. But a happy young couple like ourselves—nobody is going to look at us twice.”

  “So you brought me out as your decoy,” I said. He laughed. “I suppose you could put it that way.” “Nice little stroll indeed,” I said, and attempted to withdraw my arm. “You need to study it too,” he said. “Let us cross the road and look at it from the other side.”

  “It looks formidable,” I said. “Only one entrance and no windows at ground level. I don’t see how anybody could break in.”

  “You are going to get us in, my sweet,” he said, and patted my hand again. “It's all up to you.”

  It was in solemn mood that we walked home again, neither of us speaking, but lost in our thoughts. That night we ate supper together in Cullen's room, shared the bottle of Jameson's, and laughed, the grim task ahead for the moment forgotten.

  I saw nothing of Cullen the next day, or the day after that. Mrs. Boone brought me food and I thought it wise not to ask questions. I tried not to think about that jail and what possible part I might have to play. I tried not to think about my little brother, shut up in a cell without light or open air. I had to help rescue him, whatever the ultimate cost.

  The next afternoon Mrs. Boone came up to my room. “I’ve a favor to ask,” she said. “There's a message needs to be delivered right away, and Father is holding a meeting of the Parish Council, so they’ll need me to serve their teas. Would you be kind enough to take it for me?”

  “Yes, I’d be happy to,” I said.

  She handed me a slim envelope. “There's a bookshop on Grafton Street. If you drop it off with the proprietor there—he's an older man with white hair—and tell him it comes from Mrs. Boone, he’ll know what to do with it.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “I’ve a cape with a hood,” she said. “Maybe it's better if you’re not seen or recognized.”

  I came downstairs and she handed me a heavy Irish tweed cape. I put it on and pulled the hood over my head.

  “Come straight back, won’t you,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. I will.”

  She let me out of the front door. I heard her call, “Coming, Father. Just been giving those old clothes to a poor, destitute woman.”

  The wind hit me full in the face as I came out to the Liffy and I was glad of that warm cape and hood. I went along bent forward against the wind and almost ran into one of the benches along the riverside. As itwas I banged my shin and let out an exclamation, making the man sitting on the bench look up. Recognition dawned, and his face lit up in a big smile.

  “Miss Delaney! I am so glad to meet you again.”

  “Oh, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” I stammered. I had forgotten all about him. “How do you do?”

  “All the better for seeing you, Miss Delaney,” he said, still beaming at me. “When you didn’t appear for our little assignation on Tuesday, I feared you had left the city without telling me.”

  “Assignation?”

  “You had promised to come to the races with me, remember? I had to go alone and had the most infernal bad luck all afternoon. You would have been my one bright spark in the day and cheered my gloomy mood, I am sure. As it was, I came home in deepest depression.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I met friends of the family unexpectedly and got taken off to their place.”

  “You must come and have dinner with me,” he said. “I sail home for New York shortly.”

  “I told you, I am currently staying with friends.”

  “But surely your friends won’t object to your having dinner with a charming young man like myself,” he said, “or is there a jealous male among the friends who is likely to challenge me to a duel?”

  “There may be,” I said, and laughed.

  “I do believe you are turning me down flat,” he said. “Ah well. I can handle rejection as well as the next guy, I suppose, but may I not walk with you at least?”

  “I’m only going on an errand for an elderly friend,” I said. “Nowhere exciting.”

  “Maybe I find your company exciting,” he said. “Whither shall this errand lead us?”

  “Nowhere you’d want to go,” I said, thinking quickly. “Some hair pins, various medicinal preparations, and face cream, some crochet yarn, and a new novel to read. Such are the ways elderly ladies fill their days. She doesn’t go out much any more.”

  “Perhaps she would welcome a visit from a young buck like myself,” he said. “I’ve been told I have a way with elderly ladies.”

  “I really don’t think so,” I said. “She's not that kind of elderly lady.”

  “They all are in the end. A few words of flattery and flirtation from a handsome young man like myself, and I can have them positively eating out of my hand.”

  “This one would be biting your hand, I can promise you,” I said. His smugness was beginning to annoy me. He was clearly brought up to privilege, never had to do a day's work in his life, and thought that he was God's gift to women. I decided that my initial reaction to him of distrust and dislike had been well-founded.

  “Very well, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” I said. “You can come with me to buy hair pins and face cream if you like, but then I must take my leave of you.”

  “You are being a spoil sport, Miss Delaney,” he said grouchily. “You know I couldn’t bear standing around in a chemist's shop while you ladies discuss the merits of various face creams. I shall accept my rejection like a man and do the various chores I’ve been putting off—like visits to my own relatives.”

  He touched his hat to me and I watched him go with relief. I had been trying to think how I could pass across a message with the annoying Mr. Fitzpatrick breathing down my back. “Pompous ass,” I muttered myself. Our assignation, how dramatic, making it sound like a secret tryst.

  I walked on. The word continued to annoy me. Assignation. Then I realized where I had last heard it: spoken by the executioner at the costume party on board the Majestic. “We have a confirmed assignation, you and I,” he had said, and I had laughed it off. But some time that evening Rose had been murdered. I paused and looked back. Surely the oafish Mr. Fitzpatrick couldn’t have been the executioner? Hadn’t he denied even being at the ball? I took this one stage further: so was it also possible he had killed Rose, thinking he was killing Oona Sheehan? But why? I tried to remember my encounter with him, when I was disguised as Oona. He had been remarkably restrained and correct, if I remembered rightly, and hoped he would have a chance to run into me in Dublin. Not like the enthusiastic puppy love of an Artie Fortwrangler or some of those other men who had tried to make it to my door.

  I continued without incident to the bookshop, waited until it wasdevoid of customers, and handed over the note. The old man took it gravely.

  “More book requests from Mrs. Boone, I’ll wager,” he said. “Doesn’t that woman have anything to do but read?”

  I came out, put my hood over my head and made my way back to the rectory. As I was about to cross the road someone came running toward me. “Miss Delaney. Wait up!”r />
  Oh no. Mr. Fitzpatrick again.

  “We seem destined to bump into each other this afternoon,” he said. “Here I was, minding my own business, and suddenly you show up again. You see, you can’t escape from it. It is fate that we are to be together.”

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Fitzpatrick?” I asked. Now I was no longer feeling annoyed, but distinctly uneasy. I sensed that he might have been waiting here for me to return. I asked myself why he was pursuing me so relentlessly and couldn’t come up with an explanation. Certainly not for my beauty or my prospects.

  “Paying a courtesy call on my aged aunt,” he said. “And what are you doing? Going into the church to say a quick prayer?”

  “Your aunt? Mrs. Boone is your aunt?”

  “Absolutely. Don’t tell me you know her too? That's the most amazing coincidence. Dublin really is a small place after all.”

  Now I really was unsure of myself. Another idea was forming in my head. Was Mr. Fitzpatrick who he made himself out to be, or was he really one of us? Had he been sent to make sure the guns crossed the Atlantic safely? No matter, I decided. Mrs. Boone would dispatch him quickly enough if he was an imposter. I tapped on the front door, found it unlocked, and let myself in, with Mr. Fitzpatrick breathing down my neck.

  “Mrs. Boone?” I called from the entrance hall. “In here, my dear. In the kitchen, to your left.come on in.” “I’ve someone with me,” I called. “He says he's your nephew.” “My nephew? Really?”

  She emerged from the kitchen, wiping floury hands on a large apron. “Now let me take a look at the young man who says he is my nephew.”

  “Aunty.” Mr. Fitzpatrick opened his arms wide in a dramatic gesture. “All these years I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong person,” Mrs. Boone said. “I have no nephews. I was an orphan. So I suggest you run off and go to find your true aunt.”

  “But you are my true aunt,” he said. “I wasn’t sure until I saw you, but now I’m absolutely certain I’ve got it right. Your eyes, you see. The way they slant down at the sides and something about the way you carry your head. It reminds me of my dear departed mother and of my Uncle Tommy.”

  “Uncle Tommy?” She was still standing in the kitchen doorway, hands on hips and frowning.

  “Tommy Burke,” he said. “You are Mary Ann Burke, are you not?”

  Twenty-nine

  Mrs. Boone glared at me. “What have you been telling him, you foolish girl?”

  “Me? I told him nothing, except I was staying with a

  crotchety old lady who was a friend of the family. I had no idea, not the least idea.”

  Even as I spoke I realized why I had seen something I deemed to be masculine in her features. It was the strong resemblance to Tommy Burke.

  “What do you mean, you hadn’t the least idea,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said scornfully. “Why else are you here when you were sent by my uncle on a mission to find this woman, Miss Molly Murphy?”

  I must have reacted at the mention of my real name because he laughed. “Did you think for a moment I bought that Delaney nonsense? I knew who you were the first time we met—on the deck of the Majestic when you were wearing that ridiculous Oona Sheehan wig. Oh yes, I heard all about the stupid idea to trade cabins as well. Oona was dining with my uncle and shared her little plan with him.”

  “So why didn’t you let me know you knew the truth?” I demanded angrily. “Why let me go on making a fool of myself?”

  “Isn’t that simple to answer? So you would lead me to her—save me the trouble of seeking her out for myself. I’ve always been a lazy fellow at heart. And a selfish one too, so I’m told. Not willing to share my uncle's fortune with a previously unknown aunt anyway.”

  I had been observing him closely as he spoke, and I’m afraid that I was realizing many hard truths—things I should have known and recognized before and didn’t. He had been the executioner at the fancy dress ball, and what's more, he had been warning me what he planned to do to me. “I am your executioner,” he had said. Only he killed Rose by mistake. We had got it all wrong, Inspector Harris and I. The murderer hadn’t been out to get Miss Sheehan: I had been his target all along. The easiest course of action for him would have been to prevent me from ever reaching Ireland. I looked at his affable face and knew I had to tread very carefully. I couldn’t tell what Mrs. Boone was thinking. She certainly didn’t appear to be worried.

  “I gave up that name and that identity long ago,” she said, “when Terrence died. When Terrence was murdered by the English, I made a vow that I’d devote the rest of my life to the republican cause. So you can go back to America, young man, and tell your family that Mary Ann Burke does not exist.”

  He actually laughed. “Quite right. Well spoken. That's exactly what I’ll tell them. How easy you’ve made it for me.”

  He reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and produced a pistol with one fluid movement. Before either of us could react, he had jammed the gun into my side.

  “Into the kitchen, both of you. And you, Mary Ann, shut the door. Is there anyone else in the house?”

  “Father Flannigan is in his study, and the Parish Council is expected in half an hour,” Mrs. Boone said.

  “Too late to be any use to either of you,” he said. “By the time they get here, you’ll both be dead.”

  “May I ask why you have developed such a hatred for an aunt you’ve never even known?” Mrs. Boone asked. She still seemed calm and in control of herself, but then she didn’t have the barrel of a gun pressed into her ribs.

  “Oh, I don’t hate you, dear Auntie,” he said. “It's just that my uncle has a large fortune and he was planning to settle the bulk of it on you, if he could find you.”

  “My family has certainly taken its time to come and reclaim me,”she said dryly. “Where were they when I was in the orphanage? When I was in service?”

  “Tommy Burke only found out about your existence when his mother was dying and spoke of you in her final rambling.” I managed to make the words come out, even though I was finding it hard to breathe evenly. “Before that he had no idea that a baby sister had been left behind when they went to America. He wanted to make amends immediately. That's why he sent me to find you.”

  “Unfortunately your search came to naught,” Fitzpatrick said, giving the gun an extra little jab into my side. “Two women found shot to death in a rectory. And I on the boat to England from where I shall return home. My uncle need never know that I have been in Ireland or ever met you.”

  “You would kill for money?” Mrs. Boone demanded. “You poor stupid boy. Money is not worth killing for.”

  “On the contrary, one can only truly lead a happy life with sufficient money and I’m not allowing two meddling women to get in the way of my future happiness.”

  “And how do you think you are going to carry out this deed?” Mrs. Boone said, still sounding remarkably calm—disinterested almost. “You can’t shoot us here, you know. Father Flannigan's study is just across the hall, and he has ears like a hawk. He’d be in here in a second, and he used to a fine boxer in his younger days. And that back door is always kept locked—nasty rusty lock too, so I wouldn’t count on making my escape that way. No, you’d have to force your way past Father Flannigan into the hall and risk running into the Parish Council who will be arriving at any moment.”

  “You—unlock the back door,” Fitzpatrick said, no longer sounding the affable oaf. He prodded me forward with the gun.

  “I can’t,” I whimpered, deciding that the helpless female impersonation might serve us best at this stage. “My hands are shaking so badly that I won’t be able to do it. I think I might faint.”

  “Do it!” he shouted.

  “I wouldn’t yell, if I were you,” Mrs. Boone said. “Father Flanningan will be in here, and I don’t think that even you can fight off three of us,especially not Father when his temper is roused. But you are hopeless, girl. You go to p
ieces at the least little thing.” And she rolled her eyes upward in a gesture of despair. For a moment I thought she was condemning me. Then I saw the rack hanging in the ceiling. It had a couple of big pots, some ladles and drying cloths on it. With my eyes I traced down the wall to where the cord to raise and lower it was secured. If one of us could only get over to it. If we could lure him to the right spot—

  “Here,” she said, still sounding annoyed. “Out of the way, I’ll open the lock for you, if you must.” She pushed us aside and started to wrestle with the lock on the back door. “It hasn’t been opened in years,” she said. “We keep it locked for safety reasons. Never know who might be prowling along the waterfront. Ah, wait a minute, I can feel it moving just a little.”

  I glanced at him. His eyes were on her, while she reached up and struggled with the lock. I was close to that cord on the wall, but not close enough to risk it. Somehow I had to get the gun out of my side first.

  Suddenly Mrs. Boone spun around, looking surprised. “Father Flan-ningan!” she exclaimed.

  Fitzpatrick turned instinctively to look at the closed door. I gave him an almighty shove and released the cord. A shot fired upward over my head as the rack crashed down onto him, knocking him to the floor in a jumble of cloths and pots. One of the large pots must have struck him with some force because he just lay there stunned for a second— long enough for Mrs. Boone to retrieve the gun.

  “Stay where you are, boy,” she commanded, when he groaned. “Don’t try to move. I should warn you that I’m rather good with one of these things, and you wouldn’t be the first man I’ve killed. Molly, there is twine in that drawer behind you. Tie his wrists together please, then his legs.”

  He started to struggle as I tied his wrists but I managed to bind them together securely before he could free himself from the rack. Then I started on his legs. By now he was wide awake again, and I had to sit on his legs to keep him from lashing out.

  “You stupid old woman!” Fitzpatrick shouted. “What do you think you’re going to do now, eh? Do you think I’m afraid of you?”