In Dublin's Fair City (9 page)

“Yes, that was strange, wasn’t it? Was she dressed that way when you left her? Was she hoping to sneak into the ball?”

I shook my head. “No. I actually suggested she come to the ball with me, but she was horrified at the thought. I expect she probably put on the costume for a lark when nobody was looking. So my thought was that someone took the chance to be alone with Miss Sheehan and killed Rose by mistake.”

“And why would someone want to kill Miss Sheehan, in your opinion?”

“Unrequited love? She had plenty of admirers, some of whom bordered on the fanatic. Maybe she spurned one of them and it was too much for him. You know—if I can’t have her then nobody can.”

“I see.” He cocked his head again, studying me. “These admirers you talk about—did she mention any of them by name?”

“No, but she said she was growing tired of being pestered by them, and when I encountered a couple myself, I could see why.”

An eyebrow raised, almost imperceptibly. “You said you were instructed to stay in your cabin throughout the voyage, did you not? So where did you encounter these admirers?”

“I didn’t say I was told not to leave my cabin. I was advised keep to it for most of the journey by feigning sickness. But when I tried a turn about the deck, I saw instantly what Miss Sheehan had to go through. I was accosted almost immediately by love-sick young men.”

“Any names you can give me?”

I frowned, recreating the times I had been on deck. “One of them had a very silly name—Artie something. Rotweiler? Something Germanic sounding. Fortwrangler, that was it, Artie Fortwrangler,- but he seemed like a harmless sort of boy.”

“Fortwrangler,” the inspector said slowly as he wrote it down. “Did he make threats?”

“Oh no. Exactly the opposite. He professed undying love. He was like a love-sick puppy dog.”

“And who else?”

“There was a good-looking young man, spoke with an American accent but he was obviously of Irish heritage. Black Irish, you know. Now what was he called? Fitzwilliam, maybe? No, I think it was Fitzpatrick.

But he didn’t act the love-sick oaf like the other one. He was polite. He just said he was sorry to hear I was indisposed and expressed the hope that we’d meet again in Ireland.”

Inspector Harris nodded. “And then?”

“He went on his way.”

“Anyone else?”

I shook my head. “After that, if I left the cabin at all, I went out early, when fashionable young men are still asleep and there was nobody—except there was an older man who followed me at a distance sometimes. Tweed overcoat. Mustaches rather like your own. But he never approached me. It could have been that we both took our morning constitutional at the same time.”

“And that's it? Any young men try to come to the cabin?”

“All the time, but the stewards kept them out. There was someone called Teddy and someone called Bertie, who constantly sent me flowers. Teddy sent big displays like that one and gushing love notes. Bertie sent a dozen red roses every day. And there were others who sent me flowers, champagne, chocolates.”

“Do you have any of these notes?”

“I threw most of them away, I’m afraid, after I had a good laugh- but one or two may still be lying around or in the wastebasket.”

“Wastepaper basket, Jonesy,” the inspector said. He stretched out his legs, leaned back on the chaise, and studied me. “So tell me a little about yourself, Miss Murphy. It's not too often that a second-class passenger gets approached by a famous actress with the offer to trade cabins with her. You knew Miss Sheehan, did you, or was this a random selection on her part?”

“I had met her recently at a theatrical party. I gather she found out that I would be traveling on the same ship.”

“Exactly why were you making this voyage?”

I wasn’t sure how truthful to be and decided to play it safe. “Apart from visiting friends and relatives at home in Ireland, you mean? I’d been asked to look up the sister of a friend in New York.”

“You’re not married, I take it.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So you must have done pretty well for yourself in America if you can afford the passage home, just for a visit.”

“I’ve done well enough,” I said, and left it at that.

“And Miss Sheehan just happened to pick you to change cabins with her on the spur of the moment, did she?”

“Yes. Apparently I looked sufficiently like her to be able to carry off the switch.”

“Did you?” He sounded skeptical. I realized that after an almost sleepless night and with my hair still looking decidedly rattaily, I hardly looked like a famous actress.

“And this girl Rose was in on the plot?” he went on, before I could tell him about how I’d dressed up to impersonate the actress.

“She was, sir.”

“And what did she think of it?”

“I’ve no idea. She was always pleasant enough to me and respectful too. She said Miss Sheehan had instructed her to act as if I was her real mistress for the whole voyage, and she certainly did act that way.”

Inspector Harris leaned toward me. “You strike me as an intelligent young woman, Miss Murphy. Did Miss Sheehan's request ever seem odd to you?”

“To begin with, yes. Why would anyone want to trade this cabin for my little cupboard of a place. But then I saw how much she was pestered by unwanted admirers every time she went out, and I began to understand a little more.”

“Did you?” He continued to stare hard at me. “So you hardly left your cabin all week and had your meals brought to you?”

“I did, sir.”

“And so why couldn’t Miss Sheehan just have stayed in her own cabin all week long and have her food brought to her the way you did? Why was there a need to exchange cabins?”

I put my hand up to my mouth. “I see what you mean. Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Unless she suspected her life might be in danger, so she got me to take her place,” I finished in a hushed voice. “That never struck you before?”

“Only after I found Rose's body last night. Then it did occur to me that the person who killed Rose might have thought he was killing Oona Sheehan. I mean, who would want to take that risk, go to all that trouble just to kill a servant girl?”

“My sentiments exactly.” Inspector Harris nodded. “Not a very nice lady then, our Miss Sheehan, duping you into thinking you were getting a few days’ luxury and a paycheck for very little, when it was, in fact, in exchange for your life.”

“I’m sure she didn’t really believe . . .” I started to say.

“She's no longer on board. Then why did she disembark at the last moment? Either she never meant to travel at all and wanted you as a decoy, or she saw someone she didn’t trust and made a last-minute decision to put herself out of harm's way.”

I was afraid I had to agree with him. Miss Sheehan was definitely not a nice lady.

“I’m sure she’ll feel badly when she finds out that it was her maid who was killed and not me,” I said.

Eleven

I
nspector Harris glanced up as the policemen muttered something to each other. “Have you found something, Shaw?” “Under the bed, sir. A piece of broken glass, and a wet patch on the carpet.”

He held up a curved piece of glass, touching it with a clean handkerchief.

“That looks like a piece of the carafe from the bedside table,” I said. “It had water in it.”

“Most probably the girl thrashed around and broke it in her struggles then,” Inspector Harris said. “See if you can find the other pieces, lads.”

“They’re over here in the wastebasket, sir,” the other policeman said. “At least there are several pieces of broken glass in it.”

“A very tidy murderer,” Inspector Harris said. “I wonder why.”

“I think he wanted this room to appear normal for as long as possible,” I suggested, “to give himself a chance to get well away from the crime scene. Had my steward looked inside, he would have thought I was asleep in bed, and my body wouldn’t have been found until morning.”

“Right.” Inspector Harris nodded.

“And if there's broken glass, it's just possible that the murderer cut himself. You could look for cuts on the hand when you do your investigations of the passengers.”

Inspector Harris cocked his head to one side again. It must have been an unconscious gesture on his part. “You’ve obviously succeeded in the New World by living on your wits, Miss Murphy. I’m beginning to have second thoughts about this whole business. Now if you were some kind of confidence trickster, and you persuaded Miss Sheehan not to travel for some reason—”

“Hold on a minute,” I interrupted. “If I was as canny as you suggest, then I’d never have put myself in harm's way with the possibility of being killed, would I?”

He shrugged. “Plenty of explanations for that—you work as a team with a male criminal. Crooks fall out all the time. He thought he was killing you in the darkness of the room. Or Rose got the wind up about your little scheme as you approached the Irish coast. She threatened to spill the beans. You had to silence her.”

“As for that,” I said, “I was at the ball all evening. Plenty of witnesses could verify dancing with me and even watching me return to my cabin.”

“Actually nobody could do so.” He smirked. “What any witness would have seen was a powdered wig and a mask and a costume. I asked you myself if anyone recognized you, and you said that nobody did. You have no alibi as far as I can see, Miss Murphy.”

“But that's ridiculous,” I said, my voice rising now. It was hard to tell whether he really suspected me or was merely going through various possible motives in his mind.

He clarified this by saying, quite sharply, “Is there anything more you’d like to tell me? The real reason that you switched cabins with Miss Sheehan? The real reason that you wound up in first-class?”

“It's exactly as I told you. I came onboard. Miss Sheehan sent for me and made this request. She offered me money, and I am not so well-heeled that I could turn it down. Besides, it seemed a bit of a lark, living like a grandee for a while.”

“And you say you’d only met Miss Sheehan once before at a party, I believe, but she singled you out right away to play this part.”

“Supposedly I looked enough like her to be able to get away with the deception. She put one of her wigs on me and made up my face, and there definitely was a likeness.”

“I see,” he said again, then paused and sucked through his teeth. “Now, if you’d just let Jones take your fingerprints, Miss Murphy.”

“My fingerprints?” I tried not to sound startled. Surely he didn’t suspect me? “Of course,” I said breezily, “my fingerprints will be all over the cabin anyway.”

“Naturally.” He nodded. “We need to rule them out.”

I sat in what I hoped was nonchalant indifference while one of the constables pressed each of my fingers onto a felt ink pad and then onto a sheet of paper. “Look, inspector,” I said. “If you want to get to the truth in this matter, then you should be sending a telegraph to Miss Sheehan herself. She can verify my story, and maybe she’ll even give you more insights.”

“It's already been done, Miss Murphy,” he said. “We should hear back from her later today, if we can locate her, that is.” “If you can locate her?”

“We’ve only your word that she was ever on this ship.” He was looking at me innocently enough, but I got the feeling that I was still a very definite suspect in his eyes.

“Of course she was on this ship,” I said angrily. “Somebody booked this cabin in Miss Sheehan's name, and it certainly wasn’t me. I might have done well in New York, but not well enough to travel first class. She’ll tell you the truth, you’ll see.”

“Let's just hope that she does,” he said.

Time to put my own skills to work, I decided.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” I said carefully, “if Rose and the intruder struggled, thrashing around enough to break that water jug, then isn’t it possible that he’ll have picked up one or more of her hairs on his clothing. Red hairs should be easy to spot, shouldn’t they?”

His eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “How did you say you made your fortune in America?” he asked.

I had to smile. “Actually, I run a private detective agency, but I’ve certainly not made a fortune.”

“Good God,” he muttered, then apologized profusely, of course. Somehow men think that swearing in front of a woman is a mortal sin— often the same men who think nothing of ordering a woman around, demanding to be waited on by a woman, or even giving her a good hiding. Not for the first time in my life I considered what a strange world we live in.

“And how would your detective agency go about solving this particular crime?” the inspector asked.

“Oh, I don’t take on cases of this magnitude,” I said hastily. “I stick to strictly domestic matters.” I decided to keep quiet about certain of my cases of a nondomestic nature. “But I do think the red hair might give you a good start.”

“You propose to round up all the men on this ship and examine their clothing?”

“It's not my place to tell you how to carry out your investigation,” I said.

He was still staring at me. “And may I ask what the nature of your real assignment to Ireland is? I presume it's not just a family visit.”

“It's exactly as I told you previously. An old friend asked me to locate his sister for him. He has lost touch with her and wishes to be reunited. Very simple really.”

“And the name of this friend?”

I saw the well-chewed pencil poised above his notebook. “Tommy Burke, the theater producer.”

“Heavens above,” he said, “You move in pretty exalted circles.”

I decided not to contradict him. Things might progress more smoothly for me if he thought I had exalted friends.

There was a tap at the door and a very harried-looking first officer came in.

“Sorry to disturb you, Inspector, but we’re being besieged by angry passengers demanding to know when they can go ashore. We’ve told them that they are being held up for medical reasons, but we can’t hold them indefinitely. Also, the captain is worried about falling too far behind schedule. What do I tell them, sir?”

Inspector Harris got to his feet. “We had better continue this discussion ashore later, Miss Murphy.” He turned to the first officer. “Do you have the passengers assembled in their respective lounges as I asked you? Good. In which case I’ll need passenger lists, and I’ll have my boys do a quick search of those cabins occupied by men.”

“You need a list of cabins occupied by single men?” the first officer asked.

“Married men have been known to stray occasionally,” the inspector said dryly. He turned to me. “You’d better accompany me to the maid's quarters. Maybe you’ll be able to identify anything belonging to Miss Sheehan or anything that shouldn’t have been there.”

“Shouldn’t have been there?”

“It wouldn’t have been the first time a maid filched stuff from her employer.”

“Oh, I’m sure Rose was most loyal,” I said, glancing back at the bed. The body had been covered again in a sheet now. I tiptoed past as the inspector escorted me out of the cabin.

We made our way down several flights of stairs, each steeper and more Spartan than the previous one, and were shown to a cabin even less inviting than my own. Great pipes ran across the ceiling. It was smelly and airless. It had obviously been shared by four girls, with two top bunks and two bottom. At a request from the inspector, someone was dispatched to bring back the three other girls.

Someone must have broken the news to them, or they’d picked it up on the grapevine, because they shuffled in looking terrified—all young Irish maids like Rose. They pointed to her bunk and to the drawer containing her belongings but they were too terrified to answer questions in more than a whisper. No, Rose had no gentlemen callers on board, as far as they knew. No man ever came to the cabin. No, Rose never disclosed that the woman she was serving was not really her mistress. She did mention something once about “wouldn’t they all be surprised?” and she told some juicy stories about Miss Sheehan's men, but that was it. When asked to name these men, however, they shook their heads blankly. They’d hardly had much time for talk and had spent their days waiting on their own mistresses, up in first class.

Inspector Harris turned back the covers on Rose's bunk, then opened her drawer. I felt a new wave of pity when I saw those few possessions—well-darned stockings,- gray-looking underclothing; a clean, well-starched blouse,- a single lace handkerchief,- her missal with a ribbon bookmarker in it. Her second uniform was hanging in thewardrobe. Not much to show for a life. And certainly no sign of Miss Sheehan's jewel case. Then, among the bags piled on top of the wardrobe, I saw something I recognized. My own valise.

“That's mine,” I called, pointing at it, and it was brought down. “I wondered what could have happened to it when it had vanished from my cabin.”

“You see what I was saying about filching things?” Inspector Harris smirked again.

“I don’t think Rose would have any interest in my few possessions, not when Miss Sheehan had so many lovely things.” “Then what was the bag doing in here?”

I shook my head. “That I can’t tell you. Possibly Miss Sheehan had instructed her to remove it from my cabin and keep it hidden. I’ve no idea why.”

The inspector had moved the other pieces of luggage aside and brought down my bag. When I opened it, all of my possessions were there intact and on top of them was a note addressed to me. I opened it, conscious of Inspector Harris's eyes on me.

“ ‘Dear Miss Murphy. Thank you for carrying out your assignment so splendidly. Owing to an emergency, I am not able to collect my luggage immediately. Would you please have Rose pack up my things and keep them with your own luggage until you receive instructions from me.’“

It was signed Oona Sheehan.

I handed the letter to the inspector. “Now at least you can verify what I’ve told you. Miss Sheehan planned this. I didn’t push her off the ship or dispose of her in any other way. Neither did I harm Rose.”

He examined the note, nodded, then handed it back to me.

“Perhaps I’d better go and pack up her things, now that Rose can’t do it for her,” I said. “Will it be all right to do that, do you think? She has so much clothing that it will be a mammoth task and if I’m not quick, the ship will have left for Liverpool.”

“The ship's not going anywhere until I’m done with it,” the inspector said bluntly. “and I’ll need to keep that cabin the way it is until my photographer arrives and my lads have finished.”

“But some of my things are up there,” I said. “Am I not permitted to take them with me?”

“Not until I’m done, and since all her possessions are to be shipped under your name, you’ll just have to wait and get them all at the same time, I’m afraid. You’ll not be going far, anyway. You’ll be needed for the inquest.”

“I wasn’t planning to go far,” I said. “My search for the missing woman will begin not far from Cork. I’ll probably take a room in that city.”

“That will do admirably,” he said. “I’m sure the inquest will be held at the Coroner's Court there. You’ll let us know where to find you as soon as you’ve taken lodgings.” He glanced up with that half smirk on his face, which I had once found friendly and now found annoying. “Luckily it's not easy to run away when you’re on an island and the ports are being watched.”