George A. Birmingham

“ Goddard was himself a victim to the mysterious gang which had already made away with seven men? He might have gone the whole way to Rosivera. He might have fallen into some craftily arranged ambush on the road. Fear laid hold on her heart. Jimmy O’Loughlin, who was a little puzzled but not particularly anxious, seized his opportunity.
“It’ll be better for you,” he said, “to go to your bed, you and the rest of the ladies, where you’ll be safe till the morning. You’ll hardly be expecting any other man to be going out into the darkness of the night, risking his life maybe, to satisfy you. ”

“ There’s nothing inherently absurd in supposing that one man would do what another man has done several times. I needn’t say I wouldn’t do it myself. But that’s another matter. It’s far better for you to look facts straight in the face, however unpleasant they are.”
Whether Miss Blow looked at the facts or not, the facts as Lord Manton represented them, she certainly looked at Mr. Goddard. It seemed for a moment as if she was about to re-open the question of his flight to Ballymoy and his subsequent flight back again to Clonmore. ”

“ Miss Blow, who of course knew him well, was quite unimpressed by the housekeeper’s horrible suggestion. But she realized that the truth, whatever it was, was not to be reached by inquiries. Jimmy O’Loughlin and Patsy Devlin lied to her. So did Biddy Halloran. So did the house-keeper. There was evidently an organized conspiracy among the people of Clonmore for the concealment of the truth. Miss Blow had a logical mind. It seemed plain to her that if everybody agreed to tell lies the truth must be something of a dangerous or uncomfortable kind. ”

“ There is something very delightful in the confidences of a beautiful girl. Miss Blow had a way of looking up with her eyes wide open, which sent a curious thrill of pleasure through Mr. Goddard. There was only one thing which marred the enjoyment of the drive. Her confidences were of the most puzzling and embarrassing kind. She told how everybody in Clonmore had lied. And so far, Mr. Goddard sympathized with her. But he could not help asking himself why they lied. Even Jimmy O’Loughlin, as Mr. Goddard understood, would not lie persistently without a motive of some kind. ”

“ Goddard as well as myself—to do anything in our power. But what can we do? What do you suggest our doing? What do you want us to do?”
“Arrest the murderers,” said Miss Blow.
“Certainly,” said Lord Manton. “Goddard, go at once and arrest the murderers. You’re a policeman. It’s your business to arrest murderers. Don’t waste time. Do it.”
“Who am I to arrest?” said Mr. Goddard. “I don’t know any murderers. I don’t so much as know the name of a single murderer. If I did, I’d be off after him at once.”
“Who is he to arrest, Miss Blow?” said Lord Manton. ”

“ O’Grady was struck by the answer he received. Very few men, in search of a doctor at two o’clock in the morning, are so particular about grammar as to say, “It is I!” And the words were spoken in a solemn tone which seemed quite congruous with the measured and stately manner in which the door had been hammered. Dr. O’Grady put on a pair of trousers and a shirt, ran downstairs and opened the door. Mr. Red stood rigid like a soldier at attention on the doorstep. In the middle of the road was the motor car in which the English servant used to drive into Clonmore to do his marketing. ”

“ Jimmy O’Loughlin’s customers deserted him as soon as the noise of Mrs. Devlin’s wailing was heard in the street. He stood alone behind his bar when the police entered the hotel. He greeted the sergeant heartily, for he was a man of good conscience and unaware of any reason why he should dread a visit from the police. He was struck by the solemn severity with which Sergeant Farrelly replied to his greeting, and became vaguely uneasy. The business of a publican is beset with legal snares which only the most fortunate men succeed in avoiding altogether. ”

“ But why aren’t you in the big drawing-room with the other ladies? You oughtn’t to come down here, you know, especially without a chaperone.”
“You call yourselves gentlemen,” said Miss Blow.
“No,” said Lord Manton; “we don’t. I certainly don’t. And I should be surprised to hear that Mr. Goddard did. The word is quite out of fashion, I assure you. Nobody uses it nowadays. Don’t bring unjust charges against us, Miss Blow. There are lots of things we may be accused of with truth. We’re not the men we ought to be, especially Mr. Goddard. ”

“ O’Grady turned to the breakfast provided for him with an excellent appetite.
“Silly old ass that Emperor is,” he murmured. “I suppose now he’ll go and sit down beside his yellow crocodiles in the dining-room and try to invent some new kind of dynamite. He ought, as a matter of fact, to be in an asylum. Some day he will be if he doesn’t blow himself up first. Anyhow this is a jolly good business for me. If he chooses to pay me four pounds a day for sitting here twiddling my thumbs, I’m quite content. I only hope it will be some time before they think of looking for me at Rosivera. ”

“ A fee of such extravagant amount must be meant to purchase something else besides his medical skill. Men, even if they are as rich as Mr. Red appeared to be, even if they have the eyes of a mad gander and an eccentric taste in house decoration, do not pay ten pounds to a country doctor for dressing a wound. Dr. O’Grady began to wonder whether he might not be called upon to deal with the victim of some kind of foul play, whether he were being paid to keep his mouth shut. ”

“ The girl’s uncommonly good-looking.”
“Good looks aren’t everything,” said Lord Manton; “when you come to my time of life, you’ll understand that. Just put yourself in the doctor’s place for a minute. You’ve had some little experience of Miss Blow. So have I. But the poor doctor knew her a great deal better than we do. Just think of what his feelings must have been when he heard that she was coming over here to pay his debts. He’d be bound to marry her straight off after that. And then—just think of sitting down to breakfast every morning opposite a young woman of her character. ”

“ O’Grady, “nor is Patsy Devlin. So far we haven’t been asked to join the organization. We’re simply prisoners. We’ve been captured by the brotherhood. But we had sense enough to wear our ordinary clothes. You may think it’s the proper thing to go about in nothing but your shirt because you happen to be in the house of an anarchist, but I can tell you——”
Mr. Sanders, who still lay on the floor, groaned dismally.
“Loose that fellow, Patsy,” said the doctor. “He appears to be in pain of some sort.”
“Anarchists!” said Mr. Dick. “Good heavens! How frightful! My wife! My poor wife!” ”

“ The Emperor has frightfully strict, old-fashioned ideas about lots of things. He objects to cards, for instance, as demoralizing. I’m sure that mixed bathing would simply horrify him. There’s no greater mistake than to think that just because a man’s an anarchist, you can do what you like without shocking him. You can’t. The Emperor has his prejudices just like the rest of us.”
[160]
Patsy Devlin set Mr. Sanders on his feet and rubbed him down carefully. The poor man seemed dazed and bewildered.
“Do you belong to the bathing party too?” asked Dr. O’Grady. ”

“ Anarchism isn’t a bit like your futile old League. It doesn’t go about the country making speeches and pretending it’s going to boycott people that it hasn’t the least notion of doing any harm to. A genuine anarchist, a man like the Field Marshal, for instance, doesn’t say a word to anybody, but just goes quietly and blows up a town.”
“I’ll not have you speaking against the League, doctor. I’ve been a member of it since ever there was a branch started in Clonmore. I’d be a member of it still, if it wasn’t that they went against me the time of the election of the inspector of sheep dipping. ”

“ I defy any man to joke after spending half an hour with Miss Blow. She is the most determined young woman I ever met. She could do anything, absolutely anything. There isn’t a judge or a jury could stand out against her for an hour. If I were you, Patsy, I’d make a bolt for it and join the doctor in America. Your life’s not safe in this country. I expect by this time you have as much collected for the sports as would pay your passage out. ”

“ O’Grady, “are you an anti-military anarchist getting into training for the simple life? Or are you a new recruit undergoing the ceremony of initiation into the brotherhood? Or is it nothing but the heat of the day?”
Mr. Red and the bearded anarchist dragged Mr. Sanders into the room and deposited him, still bound, on the floor.
“Oh,” said the doctor, “another captive! Good. But don’t overdo the thing, Emperor. You can’t you know, go on storing up men in this way without attracting public attention. Patsy Devlin and I are all right, of course. We’re not important people. ”

“ The constable disappeared, grinning. The housekeeper was uneasily conscious that he was putting a wrong meaning into the fact of Miss Blow’s presence in the house.
At nine o’clock Mr. Goddard, still in tennis flannels, and accompanied by Captain Fielding, climbed over the wall of his own back garden, and slipped through the yard into the kitchen.
“Mary,” he said to the housekeeper, “is that young lady gone?”
“She is not; and, what’s more, it’s my opinion that she won’t go.”
“There,” said Mr. Goddard to Captain Fielding, “what did I tell you? She’s an amazingly persistent woman.” ”

“ I don’t believe they’re murdered. Neither does Mr. Goddard, and if anybody knows the ins and outs of this unfortunate business it’s Mr. Goddard. He’s a policeman, the chief policeman of this district. It stands to reason that he must know. Don’t be the least uneasy, ladies. There’s no necessity for tears. Nobody is murdered.”
Mrs. Dick allowed herself to be a little comforted by this strong assurance. She stopped making any very loud noise and let her crying subside into a subdued and inoffensive whimper. On the other hand, Miss Blow was evidently enraged by Lord Manton’s scepticism. ”

“ A fellow like that would be as cunning as an old fox, hiding himself when he saw the police after him.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Dick, “I do hope nothing has happened to them. It would be too terrible.”
“The sergeant,” said Jimmy, “is a heavy man. He wouldn’t be as quick as another at doing a run on a bicycle.”
“Still,” said Miss Blow, “he’s had four hours and it’s only sixteen miles.” ”

“ Miss Blow looked up at him, and smiled through her tears. Even an ordinary girl, with no particular pretensions to beauty, looks very charming when she succeeds in smiling and crying at the same time. Miss Blow seemed radiantly lovely. Mr. Goddard felt that he was losing command of himself. ”

“ In England people have a great regard for the truth so long as it does not interfere with business. Miss Blow expressed her scorn for the two men who had tried to deceive her quite plainly both by her words and the tone in which she spoke them. In Connacht truth is less respected. Good manners and consideration for other people’s feelings are looked upon as virtues superior to blunt accuracy of statement. Jimmy O’Loughlin lied feebly, but he lied with the best intentions. He wanted to spare Miss Blow the knowledge that her lover had deserted her. ”

“ The man who makes debts and does not pay them is vastly more interesting to his neighbours than the morbidly honest individual who will not owe a penny.
Dr. O’Grady owed a good deal, and just at the time of Lord Manton’s return to Clonmore, his money difficulties reached the point at which they began to attract public attention. Like most good-humoured and easy-going men, Dr. O’Grady lived beyond his income. There was a good deal of excuse for him. He enjoyed, as dispensary doctor, a salary of £120 a year. ”

“ My own mare was over at Ballymoy yesterday with Constable Moriarty and the doctor’s young lady. It’s a day’s rest she ought to have by rights, and not to be going off on the road again.”
“It can’t be helped,” said Mr. Goddard. “I must have the horses.”
“There isn’t another gentleman about the country,” said Jimmy, “that I’d do it for only yourself; but seeing that the party is friends of your own, I’ll let my mare go, and I’ll get Patsy Devlin’s grey pony that was promised to Mr. Byrne for the day to be carting home the turf, the same pony that the priest was thinking of buying. ”

“ I don’t mind telling you that there are a couple of men—Jimmy O’Loughlin for one, and Lorraine Vavasour for another—who will be particularly keen on finding me. What will you do when they turn up?”
“The waters of the bay are deep,” said Mr. Red grimly. “Your body will not be found.”
“I catch your meaning all right,” said Dr. O’Grady, [28] “but I think you’ll make a mistake if you push things to extremes in that way. You’ve got the usual idea into your head that Ireland is a country in which every one kills any one they don’t like, and no questions are ever asked. ”

“ There are, as Patsy Devlin reminded Jimmy O’Loughlin on the occasion of Miss Blow’s first visit to Lord Manton, two ways of getting to the Castle from the village of Clonmore. There is the longer way by the great avenue which leads through the demesne and is remarkable for its fine rows of beech trees. By it all visitors who drive must go. They leave the public road a mile to the east of the village, having passed, supposing them to start from Jimmy O’Loughlin’s hotel, both the police barrack and the railway station. ”

“ There’d hardly be more of them if there was to be a Member of Parliament making speeches about the land!”
“There now,” said Jimmy O’Loughlin, reproachfully, to Miss Blow. “What did I tell you? Sure, Mr. Goddard’s as fine a man as e’er a one that’s in it. It’s himself will do a job in fine style when once he takes it in hand at all. That’s eleven men, and Constable Moriarty makes twelve, and there was a sergeant with the first lot that I seen myself. Was there e’er a sergeant on the other car, Bridgy?” ”

“ He’d see Miss Farquharson, and he’d be absolutely certain to hear Miss Blow.”
“I think we could put pressure on him,” said Lord Manton. “In fact, it would be a choice for him between marrying and a criminal prosecution. A man can’t kidnap people in this wholesale sort of way without suffering for it. He’ll understand that when we put it to him. But you’ve had an exhausting day, Goddard, and I dare say you’d like to toddle up to bed. Wilkins will leave you whatever you want. We’ll have a great time to-morrow, raiding Rosivera.” ”

“ No man could tell a girl that her—— But, look here, Lord Manton, your theory may be all very well so far as O’Grady is concerned; but there’s another man gone now.”
“Patsy Devlin,” said Lord Manton. “I heard about that.”
“Do you think he has run away through fear of his wife?”
“No, I don’t. There are plenty of other ways of accounting for his disappearance. Besides, in the case of Mrs. Devlin—you know her, perhaps?”
“No; I never set eyes on the woman in my life.”
“Well, she’s not equal to Miss Blow in personal appearance; but she has a certain charm of her own. ”