Death on the Holy Mountain Read online

  ‘Responsibilities as landlords?’ Ormonde was in full cry again, his face as red now as his beef, ‘What horseshit! And what about the responsibilities of those bastards out there to keep the law? You keep talking as though I was about to commit some sort of crime. I am not. My Orangemen will be sworn in as militiamen or special constables or some other damned thing the lawyers can invent. Those bastards out there broke the law when they broke into my house. They started it, not me. You’re being most unhelpful, Butler, you really are.’

  ‘I’ve got another idea,’ said Butler, ‘I thought of it in the train on the way over. Why don’t we just collect all the paintings from the Big Houses and lock them away in a vault in Galway or even in Dublin? That way there won’t be any paintings for the thieves to steal.’

  ‘That,’ Ormonde snarled, ‘is just about the feeblest and most defeatist talk I’ve heard in months. Lock the paintings away? For one thing we’d never catch the thieves that way. For another they’d just take to stealing something else. Why don’t we take ourselves away too while we’re at it and lock ourselves up in some vault in Tunbridge Wells or Wells-next-the-sea? The Orangemen, one hundred Orangemen, that’s what we need.’

  ‘You seem to forget, Ormonde,’ said Richard Butler in the tone he might have adopted if he was talking to a small and rather stupid child, ‘the laws of action and counter action that have always applied in this island. You mutilate my cattle or damage my land and I’ll have a Coercion Bill through Parliament inside three months and a whole lot of those bastards, as you call them, are going to be locked up, many of them perfectly innocent people. At the end of it everything will blow over but the amount of hatred each side has for the other in the deposit boxes of their collective memory will have increased yet again. So the next round will be even worse.’

  ‘So what do you suggest I do?’ Ormonde was shouting now. The butler and the footmen, Powerscourt thought, wouldn’t need to be listening at the door, they could probably hear him if they were halfway up Croagh Patrick. ‘Ride into Westport with a fistful of Treasury notes in my pocket and hand them out to the local gombeens, asking them to be nice to us in future? Have an Open Day in Ormonde House? Come on in, boys, take all you want, everything must go?’

  ‘That’s absurd, and you know it.’

  ‘And you,’ Ormonde turned to glower at Powerscourt, munching loudly on a roast potato, ‘the great investigator, what do you have to say for yourself? What do you think we should do?’

  Powerscourt paused for three or four seconds to add weight to his question.

  ‘Did you get a letter?’ he asked, in what he hoped was his mildest voice.

  ‘A letter? Of course I got a bloody letter!’ Ormonde pointed a finger at Butler. ‘He got a letter, Moore got a letter, Connolly got a letter, all God’s children with the stolen paintings got letters. It’s in the rebel rule book, sending letters on occasions like this.’

  Out of the corner of his eye Powerscourt noticed Richard Butler turning a bright shade of pink. Ormonde noticed it too. He stared at Butler, and suddenly he knew.

  ‘You bloody fool,’ he said, speaking very quietly now. ‘You had a letter too but you didn’t tell our investigating friend here anything about it, did you? And the same goes, I’d bet a hundred pound, for Connolly and Moore. You were all in it together, fools all of you. How do you expect the man to find out anything when you don’t give him the facts? God in heaven!’ In a gesture of the more worldly sort he leant forward and helped himself to two more slices of his beef. He took more of his horseradish too.

  ‘It seemed for the best,’ said Butler. ‘It was done for the best of motives, I promise you.’

  ‘And what, Ormonde,’ said Powerscourt, ‘did the letter say?’

  ‘Damned if I’m going to tell you that,’ said Ormonde indistinctly, his mouth full. ‘Blackmail, that’s all you need to know, bloody blackmail.’

  ‘Let me ask you just one more question about the letter, if I may. Did it contain any bloodcurdling threats about what would happen if you did tell anybody about it?’

  ‘Didn’t curdle me,’ said Ormonde, still chomping at his beef, ‘didn’t curdle my blood at all. Obviously curdled Butler and all the rest of them. Well curdled, they are, all three of them. Ask yourself, Powerscourt, you’re obviously an intelligent man, the kind of thing a blackmailer would say if he wanted his bloody letter to stay a secret.’

  And with that Ormonde gave his attention to his previously neglected peas. Richard Butler was looking at Powerscourt, his eyes pleading for support.

  ‘I really do feel, Ormonde,’ said Richard Butler, preparing, Powerscourt thought, to place his head in the lion’s jaws once more, ‘that this plan with the Orangemen is unwise. Understandable, of course, but unwise. I would like to consult with my relation Brandon over in England, to see what his view is. He owns some of the land I farm, after all. They say he has great influence in the House of Lords, you know.’

  ‘Your man Brandon,’ Ormonde had completed the rout of his peas now and was staring at Butler with thinly disguised contempt, as if he too was about to join the ranks of the bastards, ‘your man Brandon is scarcely able to get out of his seat. The gout’s got him. The chances of Brandon’s managing to get out of his house and park his arse alongside all the other well-upholstered arses on the red benches in the House of Lords over there in Westminster are pretty remote, if you ask me. Nobody’s walked into his house in the middle of the night and made off with his bloody Van Dycks, have they? Brandon wouldn’t be able to stop the thieves even if they walked up and shook his hand as they left with the canvases under their arm. Wouldn’t be able to get out of his bloody chair. Ask him his opinion if you want, I can’t stop you. Any more than you can stop me bringing in my Orangemen.’

  The butler and the footmen glided in and removed the plates. A great dish of meringue and cream and fruit replaced the beef at the place of demolition. Ormonde began hacking large portions out of the pudding and handed them round.

  ‘And you, Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘what is your view of my Orangemen? Are you in favour?’

  ‘I must ask you a question first,’ Powerscourt replied, trying to look as grave as he knew how. ‘Will they be wearing those dark suits with the Orange sashes? Will they have those hard black hats on their heads? Will they bring a marching band with those terrible Lambeg drums? Will they sing “The Sash My Father Wore” as they march along the Mall in Westport?’

  For the first time that day Dennis Ormonde laughed. He laughed with the same energy with which he carved his beef or cursed his enemies.

  ‘Lambeg drums! “Sash My Father Wore”! That’s good, Powerscourt. Very good. I say,’ he went on, crunching his way through a mouthful of meringue and cream, ‘this pudding’s good, damned good.’

  There was a brief moment of silence as he enjoyed his sweet course. Powerscourt was trying to find a way to buy time. The hands of the clock were ticking fast towards those two hundred Ulster boots stamping their way down the Louisburg road towards Ormonde House. Even a couple of days would help. He had a sudden vision of Father O’Donovan Brady mounting the steps of his pulpit to harangue the faithful after Mass. He shuddered when he thought of what the priest might say about an invasion of Protestant heretics from the north. Ormonde returned to the assault, siege engines refuelled by the cream and fruit.

  ‘Seriously though, Powerscourt, what do you think? Out with it, man!’

  ‘In one sense it is an admirable plan, Ormonde,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You should congratulate yourself for having thought of it. I say admirable because for one purpose, that of catching these thieves, it is the best plan possible. Mind you, I do have certain reservations about the possible side effects. However, I have a suggestion to make.’ Ormonde was helping himself to a third helping of the pudding. Powerscourt hoped it would ease his anger. ‘Please continue with the arrangements with the Grand Master of the Orange Lodge and the people from the Royal Black Preceptory, but with one slight change o
f plan. They are not to set forth immediately. Rather they are to be on standby, ready to go at a moment’s notice, boots polished, sashes cleaned, all that sort of thing. Because, gentlemen, we have forgotten a couple of very important people who should be with us in a day or so. I refer to the inspector and his colleague from the Intelligence Department in Dublin. They will have access to sources of intelligence and information in the local community which we do not possess. They will need time to conduct their investigations in as low a key as possible. I am certain that they will find it easier to carry out their work in what you might call a low temperature. Once the Lambeg drums begin to beat, as it were, the temperature will rise dramatically, it may go right off the scale, and it will be much harder for them, people will be less likely to talk. If they fail, so be it. The Ulstermen set off the very next day.’

  Powerscourt found himself praying that Richard Butler would keep his mouth shut. His prayers were answered. ‘I need time to think about that suggestion, Powerscourt. It has merit, I can certainly see that. I thank you for it. What do you think are the chances of the intelligence people finding the thieves? Evens? Three to one against? Worse?’

  ‘Difficult to say, Ormonde,’ Powerscourt replied, remembering a commanding officer’s advice that when the time came to blow your own trumpet you didn’t pussyfoot around but gave it as big a blast as you could manage. ‘I have been involved in intelligence work in India and I was sent out by the Prime Minister in person to reorganize the supply of military intelligence for the British forces in the early stages of the Boer War. And I had dealings with the gentlemen from Dublin Castle in an affair at the time of the Queen’s Jubilee which must remain secret to this day. I have a great deal of respect for the Dublin Castle men. If anybody can locate these thieves, they can.’

  ‘Didn’t realize you had all that military experience, Powerscourt,’ Ormonde said, rising from his seat and beginning to pace up and down his dining room as the remains of the pudding were cleared away. Up and down he went, Powerscourt and Richard Butler sitting as stiff as they could, like children playing a game of statues. At last he spoke.

  ‘I’ll do it, Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it with one condition. Can we set a time limit for the intelligence people? Can’t stand hanging about waiting for other people to do things myself, makes me nervous. If they haven’t solved it in a given time limit, I bring in my Orangemen. What do you say?’

  ‘What do you say,’ Powerscourt replied quickly, ‘to the time limit?’

  ‘A week,’ said Ormonde, ‘would a week be satisfactory, from your experience of military intelligence?’

  ‘A week would be splendid,’ said Powerscourt, relieved that the man hadn’t asked for forty-eight hours.

  ‘Done,’ said Ormonde, his mood lightening. ‘Now then, what do you say to a walk in the grounds? Or we could take one of my boats out for a sail round the bay? Would you like to stay the night?’

  ‘I would be delighted to stay the night,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but I have left my wife behind at Butler’s Court and she has only just arrived in the country.’

  ‘You should have brought her with you,’ Ormonde was the genial host now, ‘she could have kept my wife company. Always keeps well out of my way, the wife, when I’m in a mood. She calls them my Attila the Hun days. But you will bring her with you when you come back to confer with the intelligence people, won’t you?’

  Nothing, Powerscourt assured him, would give him greater pleasure. At Westport railway station he eluded Richard Butler for a moment and had a brief conversation with the stationmaster. Westport and the neighbouring parishes, the railway man assured him, were part of the Archbishopric of Tuam whose current incumbent was His Grace the Most Reverend Dr John Healy, resident in the Archbishop’s Palace, Cathedral Street, Tuam, County Galway.

  7

  Lord Francis Powerscourt was sitting in the Butler library, staring intently at a sheet of writing paper. In ten minutes’ time Lady Lucy and Johnny Fitzgerald were coming for tea and barm brack and a conversation about the way forward. It was difficult, he thought, to write a letter when you couldn’t say what you meant. It was a contradiction in terms. Maybe he should have learnt Morse Code.

  ‘Your Grace,’ he began, for his correspondent was none other than the mighty prelate Dr John Healy, Archbishop of Tuam, ‘I am writing to you on a matter of the gravest importance which could have dire consequences for your flock and for the politics of this country. I am reluctant to divulge any of the details in this letter.’ Powerscourt was sure the man would know what he meant. ‘I am an investigator, currently working on a case here in Ireland. In the past I have given service to the household of the Prince of Wales and to the previous Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. I fear I must emphasize not only the gravity but the urgency of this matter. I believe the situation could turn very serious very soon. I would be most grateful if you could grant me an audience’ – did one ask for an audience or an interview with an archbishop? Just have to take a chance – ‘at your earliest convenience where I could lay the matter before you with all the details. I do hope you will be able to help, for your help, I firmly believe, could be pivotal. My apologies for such an importunate request, Yours, Powerscourt.’ He wondered if there was some special formula you had to insert at the end of ecclesiastical correspondence as if you were writing letters in the French language, but there was no time to find out.

  ‘I’ve been taking the lie of the land, as you might say.’ Johnny Fitzgerald was munching his way happily through his third slice of barm brack and butter. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy smiled at each other. Taking the lie of the land for Johnny usually meant spending a lot of time in the local pubs. ‘It’s not bad, MacSwiggin’s down in the square, though they start singing very early in the evening if you ask me. Anyway, the power in the land is that grocer man Mulcahy with his shop very near the hotel. It’s not the bread and ham that make his fortune, it’s the loans. Fall behind with your rent, Mulcahy’s your man. Need some ready cash to marry off a daughter and give her a dowry, the Grocer’s Bank has the answer. I don’t think he’d lend you money to bet on the horses but I wouldn’t be surprised. One fellow said Mulcahy had more money circulating, as he put it, than the Bank of Ireland.’

  ‘Are you allowed to set yourself up as a moneylender like that, Johnny?’ Lady Lucy asked.

  ‘This is Ireland,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald. ‘Ask no questions, hear no lies.’

  ‘Any word about the paintings at all?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ said Johnny. ‘I’ve absolutely no doubt that they all know something is going on, but the rumour factory has been working well. It’s the stout, I’ve always believed that stout makes people exaggerate things. One old boy, sitting under the Blessed Virgin Mary all evening and not moving an inch, claimed it was the furniture that had gone. All of it. There’s not a chair to sit on or a table to eat your bread off in the whole of Butler’s Court. He was certain of it. Another fellow maintained it was just the table in the dining room and the big mirrors that had been taken. Said it had been lifted to order for some coal merchant in Dublin who wanted antique stuff to furnish his new house. This theory didn’t take any account of the other robberies – maybe they went for the drawing-room furniture at Connolly’s and the beds from Moore Castle. Word of Ormonde House hasn’t reached them yet, which is surprising seeing that news usually travels faster than the railways round here.’

  ‘And the Orangemen? Any word of the Orangemen?’ Powerscourt wondered what they would make of that in the snug in MacSwiggin’s Hotel and Bar.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Fitzgerald cheerfully. ‘When that hits town it’ll probably be an army three thousand strong, enough to take Galway in a siege. I tell you one sad thing, Lady Lucy and Francis. I was talking to the middle Delaney – who’s one of the three Delaneys, solicitors with offices in the square, Lady Lucy,’ – Johnny remembered she had only arrived recently – ‘in the saloon bar of MacSwiggin’s, a nice place to
take a drink if you like to be surrounded by religious pictures, and he was telling me sad stories about the cricket team. He’s a great fan of the cricket, Bartholomew Delaney, been playing for the local team for ages. He says it’s dying out, the Butler’s Cross Eleven, no new recruits coming in at all. Soon, according to Bartholomew, there won’t be any young fellows left out in the field to chase the ball and cut it off before it reaches the boundary. The opposing batsmen, he said, will just have to hit the bloody ball and it’ll go for four. Butler’s Cross fielders will all be too decrepit to run after the thing. The opposing side will make hundreds and hundreds of runs. Butler’s Cross cricket team, old age pensioners a speciality, will never win a match again.’

  ‘What’s happened, Johnny?’ asked Lady Lucy. ‘Where have all the young men gone?’

  ‘They’ve gone Gaelic, that’s what they’ve done. The Gaelic Athletic Association, or GAA as it’s called, is very strong in these parts. They’re allowed to play Gaelic football and hurling, but only Irish games. Once you sign up, you can’t play cricket or soccer, it’s against the rules. Ping pong, Bartholomew Delaney maintained sourly, was still allowed but the rest are proscribed as the games of the occupying power.’

  ‘And who runs this GAA, Johnny?’ Powerscourt had an improbable vision of the Pickwickian Father O’Donovan Brady, whistle in hand, refereeing a match, whiskey flask concealed in his baggy shorts.

  ‘Ah,’ said Johnny, ‘there’s a thing now. It’s the Christian Brothers, so it is. Militant for independence and Home Rule, most of them. There’s another thing, Francis, I nearly forgot. They’ve heard all about you down there in MacSwiggin’s – well, in the public they have. I’m not sure about the saloon. They say you’re a great detective man from London who’s never failed to solve a crime, so they do. You’ve got almost magical powers, according to them, a Merlin come to Meath.’

  ‘God in heaven,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m not sure I want my name bandied about in Diarmuid MacSwiggin’s Bar and Hotel. I might pick up all sorts of unappetizing clients.’