The Irish Cottage Murder by Dicey Deere Page A

no luck, we’ll try her car; it’s still parked in Dublin.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    At the little inlaid writing table, O’Hare searched the drawers: stamps, pencils, paperclips. No knife. O’Hare stood over the desk, frowning, pulling at his nose. A book lay on the blotter, The Loom of Language, Subtitled: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages. Inspector O’Hare flipped it open and read: “An example which illustrates how to make associations for memorizing words of Romance origin is ‘hospitable.’ The Oxford Dictionary tells us that this comes from the Latin verb hospitare (to entertain). The related word hospite meant either ‘guest’ or ‘host,’ and it has survived as the latter. Another related Latin word is hospitale, a place for ‘guests,’ later for ‘travelers.’ This was the original meaning of ‘hospital,’ and survives as such in Knights Hospitallers. ”
    “What’s that?” Jimmy Bryson was beside him, rummaging in a wastebasket.
    “Hmmm?” Inspector O’Hare read on. “In Old French it appears shortened to hostel, which exists in English. In modern French s before t or p has often disappeared. That it was once there is indicated by a circumflex accent over the preceding vowel, as in ‘hotel.’”
    “Inspector?”
    “Yes, Sergeant?” Unwillingly, he looked up. Bryson was holding out a paper. “This letter. It was on the floor. Must’ve fallen off the desk.” He handed it to the inspector.
    “Dear Donna,” the letter began. Inspector O’Hare scanned it. It said only that Torrey Tunet would be returning to North Hawk in a week and that she was excited about the possibilities, and that “You’re not to worry about the money. I will manage it somehow.”
    “Donna,” O’Hare said. He looked over the letter at Bryson. “That would be Donna Lefebvre. Her fellow thief. The one mentioned in the fax.”
    The fax from the North Hawk police in Massachusetts, in answer to O’Hare’s routine inquiry, already lay on his desk at Ballynagh. Reading it, O’Hare had said, “Mother of God!” under his breath. He’d been struck with the pity of it, the pity that the young Torrey Tunet’s half-mischievous thievery had ended by destroying the Willinger family and putting Torrey’s younger friend in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Terrible. Yet O’Hare found himself helplessly awash with sympathy for the perpetrator, Torrey Tunet. But now Miss Tunet was an adult and there was murder involved.
    Inspector O’Hare carefully folded the letter and slid it into an envelope he found on the desk. He glanced down at The Loom of Language and shook his head sorrowfully. “Miss Tunet reads interesting books. But she could well be convicted of murdering Desmond Moore. Prison is as good a place as any to pass the time with books.”
    “Yes,” said Sergeant Bryson, “well she might! Did she think we’d believe that Desmond Moore would give a thirty-thousand-pound necklace to a young lady he’d known for less than a week? She must take us for looneys.”
    “Yes,” Inspector O’Hare said.
    “And no alibi,” Jimmy Bryson said, incredulously. “Just strolling around Dublin! Eating a Chinese takeout in Saint Stephen’s Green! Walking along the Liffey. Come, now!”
    “Weak,” O’Hare had to concur. Miss Tunet, with the jaunty walk and the low, husky voice, a voice with a lilt that was almost Irish. A wave of sadness again washed over Inspector O’Hare. Thievery was one thing. But Desmond Moore’s slashed body lying among bits of hay in the Castle Moore stable was another.
    O’Hare shook his head; he would have to phone Chief Superintendent O’Reilly at the Garda Siochana headquarters in Dublin and tell him about the fax from America.
    He gave a last lingering glance toward the naked, winged cherubs on a nearby table. They looked to be made of marble. His wife’s birthday was coming up; maybe he’d find one at a shop in Dublin. “Come along, Jimmy.” He went toward the