In Dublin's Fair City

by Rhys Bowen

  Gaelic poems—now that was a phrase that caught my interest. “I’m looking for a man who is a poet and a playwright,” I said, “a Mr. Ter-rence Moynihan. You wouldn’t have heard of him, would you?”

  She wrinkled her pretty little button nose. “The name is somehow familiar, but no, I can’t place him. You should attend the opening night of Mr. Yeat's new play tomorrow and ask your question there. All of those connected with the new Irish Literary Theatre will be in attendance, as well as all of the Dublin smart set, I’ve no doubt.”

  “I had certainly planned to be there,” I said. “Do you know if there are any tickets left?”

  “Let us walk to the theater together,” Alice said. “I’m heading that way myself.”

  Together we crossed the O’Connell Bridge.

  “Let me give you a word of warning,” Alice said. “Avoid the little iron bridge you see over there.”

  “Is it dangerous in some way?” It looked perfectly harmless to me.

  “Dangerous to the pocket book.” She laughed. “It's a toll bridge. They’ll extort a halfpenny a time from you for crossing.”

  “Then I’ll remember to walk the extra distance and cross here,” I said.

  We walked up Sackville Street, past Nelson's Column.

  “What's that very grand building on the left?” I asked. With its Roman portico, its columns and statues, it looked like a temple in the midst of this street of commerce.

  “That? Oh, that's just the post office.”

  I sighed. “I had always expected Dublin to be a lovely place, and it's exceeded my expectations. Even the post office looks like a temple.”

  “It will be even lovelier when we govern ourselves rather than being ruled from London,” Alice said. I noticed that she glanced over her shoulder, having made this utterance.

  We reached the Ambassador Theatre and I managed to buy one of the last remaining seats.

  “It's in the gods, unfortunately,” the man at the box office said, “but better than nothing if you want to be there to see history made.”

  “I do,” I said, and paid a very small sum. “What are the gods?” I whispered to Alice as we came out of the theater.

  She looked at me strangely. “The very top seats in the upper balcony. Don’t they use that term in America then?”

  I wasn’t about to admit that going to the theater wasn’t something I did often.

  “Not that I have heard,” I said.

  “I’ll take my leave of you here and hope to see you tomorrow night,” Alice said. “I’ll also be attending, sitting up in the gods. That's where most of us students sit.”

  “You’re a student?”

  “Indeed I am. I’m attending University College, where they are more broad-minded about admitting women and less protestant in their outlook than Trinity. Until tomorrow then, Mary.”

  We parted, with me feeling uneasy about giving her a false name when she was being so friendly. But as she said herself, the Daughters of Erin often adopted nicknames. As I walked back down Sackville Street, I saw a familiar figure coming in my direction.

  “Inspector Harris,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  He tipped his hat to me. “Afternoon, Miss Murphy. Glad to see you’re in good form. I’m here because I’m based in Dublin with the rest of the CID.”

  “So you’ve given up on the Rose McCreedy murder, have you?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “We have certain suspects who are being observed, and I have my men on the Majestic for the return crossing, finding out everything they can about those stewards.”

  “You still think it was a steward who killed her?”

  “You don’t?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what to think any more,” I said. “I had always thought that Rose was mistaken for Oona Sheehan and killed by mistake. Now I’m not sure of that.”

  “Anything happened to make you change your mind?” He was looking at me keenly.

  “Just that you seem to think that a steward killed her, and you’re the professional,” I said, in what I hoped was breezy manner.

  “Where are you staying, Miss Murphy?’

  “At the Shelbourne,” I said.

  “You’re certainly living the life of Riley, are you not?”

  “Not my idea. The room was booked for me.”

  “I see.” He touched his hat again. “Your ‘employer’ again?” He put a satirical emphasis on the word. Then he touched his hat. “Well, I must be toddling along. Keep in touch, won’t you. Anything that you feel might be useful in our investigation. You can always leave a message for me at the police station.” And on he went, leaving me feeling quite shaken. Was it only by accident that we had bumped into one another, or was I being followed? The thought of those trunks, sitting right now in my room, made me go hot and cold all over. They had to go, and right away. I didn’t care how, I didn’t care where, just out of my room. I wanted nothing more to do with Oona Sheehan and her little schemes.

  I crossed the street to the general post office and composed a telegraph to send to Miss Sheehan in New York.

  YOUR TRUNKS STILL UNCOLLECTED. PLEASE ARRANGE PICKUP SOONEST. M. MURPHY.

  I was horrified at the enormous fee they wanted to send these few words. It was pointed out to me that the words had to be sent through a cable all the way under the Atlantic Ocean. Put that way, I had to agree that the fee was not excessive, so I paid up and the cable was sent. I came out with a stamped receipt. At least this showed that the trunks weren’t mine, and that I was trying to contact their true owner. And hopefully they would be whisked away from my room in the near future. It couldn’t be soon enough for me.

  Nineteen

  As I walked back to the Shelbourne, down Grafton Street, I passed a bookshop. Amid the notices pasted in its window was one that caught my attention:

  POETRY READING, SATURDAY EVENING. Mr. Desmond O’Connor reads from his Aran Island cycle and recounts his journeys in the Far West.

  The address was Davy Byrne's on Duke Street, and the sponsoring society was the Gaelic League. If I learned nothing of Terrence Moynihan at the play tomorrow night, then the Gaelic League might turn up trumps.

  I dined at the hotel and went to bed amid my mountains of luggage, but I didn’t find it easy to sleep knowing what those trunks contained. Conflicting emotions raged through my head—anger at Oona Sheehan for using me so shamelessly to do her dirty work and anger at myself for being duped and flattered so easily. I could just see her smirking as she told me how closely I resembled her and how I fell for it. Lying there with the noises of a strange city outside my window, I suddenly felt very alone and far from home. The trouble was that I didn’t know where I belonged any more. It wasn’t my home in county Mayo I was missing, to be sure. My memories of that were of drudgery and boredom and dreaming of something better. But I missed my friends in New York,and I had to admit that I missed Daniel. He was probably missing me equally at this moment, living in limbo as he was and not knowing what his future might hold. In my current position of uncertainty, I understood his moods more charitably and chided myself for not being more loving and sympathetic to him. My desire to be an independent woman and to punish him for what he had put me through had made me act coolly to him when he most needed me. I got up and wrote him an encouraging note. I even signed it “Your Molly” this time.

  That done, I fell asleep and only woke when the sun streamed in through my windows. I spent the day pleasantly enough, exploring the city. Each time I returned to my room, the trunks sat there untouched. I wondered how long it would take Oona Sheehan to act on my telegraph, and it occurred to me that maybe the person designated to retrieve her trunks might have been caught and was in jail. I had no idea what I’d do with them if they were still in my room when the time came for me to leave Ireland. Contact Inspector Harris, who seemed a reasonable sort of man, and tell him the truth, probably.

  In the evening I contemplated wearing one of Oona's ball gowns, then decided
that I’d be up in the gods with the students and should look inconspicuous. So it was the striped two-piece again, which was by now somewhat the worse for wear. But I did put my hair up and tucked a small feather into it. Then off I went into the night. It was a bitterly cold evening and the lacy shawl around my shoulders was no match for the wind sweeping in from the North Sea. I think windswept was also the word to describe my appearance when I finally landed up outside the theater.

  There was quite a crowd around the Ambassador. I pushed my way through and made it up many flights of stairs to the gods. As soon as I found my seat and looked around, I spotted Alice waving at me from the other side of the balcony. I had hoped that I might be able to draw my seatmates into conversation and find out more from them about the Dublin literary life and Terrence Moynihan, but on one side of me were two large ladies who engaged in nonstop gossip about the people they were observing in the stalls through their opera glasses and on the other a young couple so clearly in love and oblivious to the rest of the world that I hadn’t the heart to interrupt them.

  During the interval I sought out Alice. “What do you think of it so far?” she asked.

  “Maud Gonne is lovely,” I said. “I can understand why Mr. Yeats is besotted with her. Those eyes—they seem to take up half her face.”

  “But the language,” Alice said patiently. “Don’t you find the language stirring? An Irish play about Irish people, not other people's lives, but our own. Don’t you find that wonderful and new and exciting?”

  “Oh indeed,” I said, realizing that I was probably neither a true scholar nor patriot. In truth, I was finding parts of it long-winded.

  “Will you be coming to the party afterward?” Alice asked.

  “Party?”

  “There's going to be a celebration at a restaurant across the street,” Alice said.

  “But I’m not invited.”

  She laughed. “It will be a proper shindig, a free-for-all with the wine flowing like water if some of their other parties are anything to go by. Half of Dublin will be there.”

  “Then I’ll join in the fun by all means,” I said. If Terrence Moynihan had made any name for himself as a playwright then I should know by the end of tonight.

  The play ended to riotous applause. Mr. Yeats was called on stage to take a bow. He appeared, looking every inch the poet, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, and solemnly kissed Maud Gonne's hand. The crowd applauded wildly.

  “Give her a great big smacker,” someone shouted from the gods. He didn’t oblige but escorted her gallantly off the stage. We were swept down the stairs by the crowd and out into the chill night. We didn’t need to ask where the party was to take place. We were born across the street like leaves floating in a current and into a brightly lit saloon, already crowded with people. Alice saw people she knew immediately, and I was left to stand there, examining the scene. A familiar voice attracted my attention, and there was the lovely Grania from the hotel, holding court, surrounded by a circle of admirers.

  “So what did you think of the play?” a voice asked beside me and aserious-looking young man stood at my elbow. He was rather shabbily dressed, and I took him for another student.

  “Interesting,” I said cautiously. “I need more time to digest it. What did you think?”

  “As a playwright, I think Mr. Yeats is a very fine poet,” the young man replied with a twinkle in his eye. He held out his hand. “The name is Joyce,” he said.

  “Joyce? You have a woman's name?”

  He laughed. “That's my family appellation. First name is James, but it's not polite to be on first-name terms with young ladies with whom one is not familiar.”

  I laughed too. “Well spoken, Mr. Joyce. My name is”—again I hesitated and opted for caution—”Mary Delaney, visiting Dublin from New York. Are you a student?”

  “I am. Finishing up at University College here in the city. But also a writer, Miss Delaney,” he said, “at least a hopeful writer.”

  “Ah, James, there you are, you fine fellow.” A big hand was clapped on his shoulder, and he was borne into the crowd before I could find out whether he was another aspiring playwright and might have met Ter-rence Moynihan.

  Trays of wine came around and I took a glass. At least sipping it gave me something to do. The rest of the people in the crowd seemed to know each other and were all engaged in animated discussions. I moved closer to Grania and her set, shamelessly listening in on her conversation.

  “So is he going to be our new shining star of the theater?” someone was asking.

  “The words are lovely to be sure,” another chimed in, “but he doesn’t possess the wit of an Oscar Wilde or a Bernard Shaw, and certainly not of a Ryan O’Hare.”

  I pricked up my ears now. I’d forgotten that Ryan also came from Ireland. I knew he’d come to fame in England, where he had been blacklisted for writing a wickedly satirical play about Victoria and Albert.

  “And what about Cullen?” the first woman continued. “He would have topped them all by now, if he’d had a chance to go on writing. I certainly miss Cullen.”

  “We all miss Cullen,” Grania said.

  I had moved to the fringe of this group by now. “Who is Cullen?” I asked the young man standing beside me.

  He looked surprised. “Cullen Quinlan? You’ve not heard of him? He was a fine young writer ten years ago, but he got himself too involved in the Brotherhood.”

  “The Brotherhood?”

  “The Irish Republican Brotherhood. The secret society dedicated to getting rid of the English. You’ve not heard of them either? Where have you been, under a rock?”

  I laughed uneasily. “No, in New York, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, New York,” he said, implying that was almost as bad as under a rock.

  “Where I do happen to know Ryan O’Hare well,” I said, playing my one trump card.

  His face lit up. “You know Ryan? How is he doing these days?”

  “Fair to middling, I should say. He's had his successes and his failures. In truth I think he's too wickedly witty for the New York crowd, who like their spectacles and big musical productions.”

  “Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?” the young man agreed. “He was too wickedly witty for London, was he not?” He noticed the others in the group had turned their attention to us. “This young lady knows Ryan in New York,” he said.

  I was suddenly part of the circle. “Dear Ryan. And how is he doing in New York?” Grania asked, in her cool, elegant voice.

  “He's had his successes,” I said, “but he's had some bad luck too. One of his plays was due to open when President McKinley was shot. Another of his ideas was stolen from him. I’m afraid Ryan does talk rather expansively.”

  They all laughed at this.

  “When you see him, tell him we miss him,” Grania said. “Tell him Grania wants him to come home, Grania Hyde-Borne.” “I’ll do that,” I said.

  “All the beautiful young men have left us.” One of the men sighed. “Oscar and Ryan and Cullen. All so talented and such a treat for the eye as well.”

  “Don’t let anyone hear you saying that, Tristan, or they’ll get the wrong impression and you’ll be following Oscar to jail.”

  “Such a terrible shame,” an older woman said, “and such a sad end for a brilliant young man.”

  “It seems that all the true stars in the firmament are destined to flame briefly and then die,” the man called Tristan said. “Oscar and Cullen. Who can say what they might have contributed to the world of literature in their mature years had they been allowed to keep on writing.”

  I turned to the young chap beside me who had been my supplier of information. “So what happened to Cullen?” I whispered.

  “As I said, he became involved with the IRB, the Brotherhood. They attempted to blow up a barracks when there was that last push for home rule, and Cullen's name was implicated although I don’t think he had any part in the planting of the explosives, mind you. But he
was a known name, and it was decided to make an example of him. He was hauled off to jail and nothing has been heard of him since. We don’t even know if he's alive or dead. Word has it that he died of typhoid. You know what the conditions are like in those places.”

  I nodded. I did know. I had visited Daniel in a similar place. If his case ever came to trial, it was just possible that a spiteful judge could send him back there. I shivered, then reminded myself that this was no time for personal worries. I had enough concerns on my plate right here in Dublin.

  “So tell me,” I said to the young man, “Do you happen to know a playwright called Terrence Moynihan?”

  He frowned, then shook his head. “Can’t say the name means anything to me. Ask Grania. She knows everyone. Grania!” he attracted her attention, “have you ever heard of Terrence Moynihan?”

  “The name is familiar,” she said. “Terrence Moynihan. Let me see. It was some time ago that I heard his name mentioned. A poet, wasn’t he? But I haven’t come across him personally, nor heard his name for quite a while.”

  So Mr. Moynihan had become a poet, rather than a playwright. I’d have to visit the Gaelic League on Saturday night to find out more. Ihad a feeling that if Grania Hyde-Borne didn’t know him, he was no longer part of Dublin literary life.

  More people crowded in upon Grania, and I found myself outside her little group. I looked around for Alice but couldn’t see her. There probably wasn’t any point in lingering any longer, and it was becoming impossibly loud for conversation anyway. As I fought my way to the door, a tall young man in a black frock coat grabbed my arm.

  “Pardon me, but we’ve met before, I believe.”

  I recognized him right away, of course. It was Mr. Fitzpatrick, whom I had encountered when playing the part of Oona Sheehan on the ship. He was staring hard at me, but he obviously couldn’t place me without my makeup and wig.