In Dublin's Fair City by Rhys Bowen Page B

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