The Irish Cottage Murder by Dicey Deere

barn.”
    “Desmond’s been murdered. Knifed! In the stable at Castle Moore.” Winifred’s square-jawed face was burningly alive. Her voice was thick with excitement. Her eyes glittered. “It was on a news flash on television. Torrey Tunet killed Desmond! She stole that ugly Moore diamond necklace and tried to peddle it in Dublin. They caught her.”
    Sheila made an exasperated hissing sound between her teeth. “I don’t look at television, as you well know. Are you drunk? You promised —”
    “Oh, stop it! I’m not drunk. Or hallucinating. It happened. There—” Winifred jerked her head toward the television set above the bar. A news flash had come on; the newscaster was saying Desmond’s name. Then something about Torrey Tunet.
    In the noisy bar, Winifred watched Sheila’s jaw drop as she distinguished the newscaster’s words. There was a momentary shot of a jewelry clerk at Weir’s on Grafton Street being interviewed.
    “I can’t believe it!” Sheila’s eyes were wide with shock. “Something’s wrong. Winifred, Torrey Tunet’s too smart. If she killed Desmond, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to sell the necklace in Dublin right after. She’d hide it and take it to America to a … you know … a—”
    “A fence,” Winifred said. “But I’m glad Ms. Tunet was that stupid. Otherwise, you know what the gardai would think?” She watched Sheila’s face turn pale and nodded with grim satisfaction. “Otherwise they’d think I killed Desmond. After all, I’ll inherit. And I don’t have an alibi.”
    “Alibi? Where were you this afternoon, Winifred?”
    “Ah,” said Winifred, “hanging about the piers in Dun Laoghaire, holding the poetry medal in my pocket in case I ran into my dead pa, so’s I could show him. As though he’d done right…” Her voice had begun to quiver. She bit her lips, gave her shoulders a shake, and stood up. “Come on! I already paid, but I had to wait for you. It must be merry hell at the castle.”

27
    “In here, sir, Ms. Tunet’s room.”
    Janet Slocum, the long-faced, bony maid senior over Rose, the other maid, opened the door to the bedroom and Inspector O’Hare stepped inside, followed by Sgt. Jimmy Bryson.
    It was seven o’clock, two hours after Ms. Torrey Tunet had been arrested at Weir’s in Dublin. The evening sun shone golden through the wide bedroom windows.
    Inspector O’Hare surveyed the bedroom, thinking how his wife would have loved it. There was a queen-sized canopy bed and a marble fireplace full of silk flowers, and a thick rug with scrolly designs. There was a rose-colored lounging chair, a pair of soft chairs, and a scattering of small tables with Moore family photographs and bits of decorative things on them—porcelain cherubs and the like, naked little reclining figures with wings. The kind of thing his wife particularly liked.
    The Garda Siochana in Dublin was holding Ms. Tunet for theft, and possibly for murder. The gardai had impounded the Moore diamond necklace, which had been variously reported on the RTE, the Irish National Television News, to be worth ten thousand pounds, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, and even a half-million. On RTE, Torrey Tunet had rated a full thirty seconds of vehement denial. She had not murdered Desmond Moore. She had not stolen the Moore necklace. Mr. Moore had given her the necklace. Undeniably attractive she was, with that swag of satiny dark hair and the style of her and that uplifted chin, despite her grim situation.
    “Anything special, sir?” Janet Slocum asked from the bedroom doorway, “that you’ll be wanting?”
    Inspector O’Hare shook his head. He narrowed his eyes at a scattering of books, writing paper, and letters on a lady’s desk near a window. “Just having a look round.” Maybe to draw the noose securely. Murder was not on his list of approved activities. “Sergeant,” he said to Jimmy Bryson, “check out this room and the bathroom. You’re looking for a knife. If