The Search Party/Chapter 7

POET, writing, as some of them will, a parody on the work of another poet, has these words—

Patsy Devlin did not read much poetry, and had never come across the lines. If he had met them, he would have recognized at once that they express a great truth. His experience of life convinced him that the law in Ireland, though erratic in its methods, may be relied on in the end to get the upper hand of either daring or innocence. The proceedings of the police, depending as they do on the view which some complete stranger has promised his constituents in England to take of Irish affairs, are quite incalculable. Patsy himself had been praised by political orators, had been favourably mentioned by eminent statesmen in the House of Commons itself, for actions which he would have kept concealed if he could. What seemed to him to be serious misdemeanours, if not actual crimes, had more than once turned out to be virtuous deeds. It seemed likely, therefore, that the law might occasionally regard entire innocence as highly culpable. He would have been indignant, but he would not have been greatly surprised, if the Government, that remote deity from which there is no appeal, had decreed his arrest, trial, and execution for the murder of Dr. O'Grady. Patsy reasoned the matter out with himself. If, he thought, a man is not punished for the crimes he does commit, it is probable that he will be punished for those he has avoided committing. This consideration, coming on top of Lord Manton's friendly warning, made him uneasy. He determined to keep clear of the police barrack when he left Clonmore Castle.

Rosivera is a remote and lonely spot. It was extremely improbable that there would be any police lurking near it. It was not the sort of place to which a police sergeant would think of going if he were bent on the arrest of a murderous blacksmith. Patsy felt that he might, without running any undue risk, venture on a visit to Mr. Red. He was not willing to forego the chance of getting an additional subscription to the sports fund. He had in his pocket money enough to take him to America, but another pound, two pounds, perhaps even five pounds, would be very welcome to him. He was a good man, with a tender heart and a strong sense of his duty to those dependent on him. He wanted to be in a position to make some provision for the support of his wife and family when he left them. Mr. Red's subscription, if Mr. Red turned out to be a generous man, would enable him to leave Mrs. Devlin and the children comfortably provided for.

He went to Rosivera by a circuitous route, avoiding the public roads as much as possible, walking over fields and finally along the sea-shore. When he came in sight of the house, he reconnoitred it carefully, and approached it very much as a skilful scout might advance on an enemy's camp, availing himself of all the cover which the country afforded. Satisfied at last that there was no police patrol in the neighbourhood, he made a circuit of the house, and finally reached the yard gate by way of the kitchen garden. He entered the yard and made sure that there was no one in it. He peeped into the stable and the cow-house and found that they were both empty. He opened the door of the coach-house and took a long look at the motor car which stood there. It was well cleaned; its lamps and other metalwork shone brilliantly; it was a very handsome vehicle. Patsy felt reassured. Mr. Red might be eccentric, as Jimmy O'Loughlin hinted, might even be vicious, but he was unquestionably opulent. No one but a rich man could keep such a motor car. Patsy closed the coach-house door quietly and took a long look at the back windows of the house. They were all shut and veiled with drawn blinds; all of them, except one small window in the top storey. It was wide open. Patsy stared at it.

Suddenly, something flew from the window and dropped at Patsy's feet. It was a pellet of paper. Patsy looked round him cautiously and then stooped down and picked it up. He unwrapped the paper and discovered that it contained a small piece of china, apparently a fragment of a broken saucer. He put this into his waistcoat pocket and examined the paper in which it had been wrapped. He discovered a few words on it scribbled in pencil—

"Come back into the yard in twenty minutes. Don't wait now.—."

"Be damn," said Patsy softly, "it's the doctor himself!" Being a man of high intelligence, with a natural taste for conspiracy, he acted in the wisest possible way. Without the smallest display of emotion, or a single glance at the window from which the communication had come, he turned and slouched carelessly towards the yard gate. It was flung open before he reached it, and Mr. Red, a revolver in his hand, strode forward. Patsy displayed great presence of mind and resource.

"I'm just after knocking at the back door, your honour," he said, "thinking that it might be more agreeable if I didn't go round to the front, where maybe you'd be entertaining company. It was that I was collecting a trifle from the gentry round about for the grand annual horse races and athletic sports that does be held every year up beyond in Jimmy O'Loughlin's big field. And the committee would feel pleased, your honour, if you'd act as a vice-president or a starter, or the like, along with Lord Manton from the Castle."

Mr. Red raised the revolver and pointed it at Patsy's head.

"Hand me that note," he said.

"Sure your honour's joking. What would a poor man like me be doing with a note? If you're the gentleman they say you are, it's yourself will be giving a note to me, and maybe a five-pound note, for the sports."

Mr. Red took four steps forward, and stood so that Patsy had every opportunity of looking into the barrel of the revolver.

"Right about turn," he said; "march!"

"I was in the militia one time," said Patsy, "and I know well what you're saying. If it's into the house you want me to go through the back door, I'm willing. But there's no need for you to be looking at me that way or to be reaching out at me with your pistol. If you think I'm here trying to steal a motor car on you, you're making a big mistake. Anybody can tell you that I wouldn't do the like. If I wanted to itself I wouldn't be able. I couldn't drive one of them things no more than fly." "March!" said Mr. Red.

He held the revolver within a couple of inches of Patsy's head.

"A gentleman like yourself," said Patsy, "likes his bit of a joke. I know well it's only funning you are and that it's not loaded; but I'd be obliged to you if you'd point it the other way. Them things goes off sometimes when you're not expecting them."

By way of demonstrating that it was loaded, and that he was not "funning," Mr. Red fired a shot. The bullet went quite close to Patsy's head and buried itself in the kitchen door. Patsy, convinced that he had to do with a dangerous lunatic, turned quickly and walked into the kitchen. From the kitchen he was forced, at the point of the revolver, up several flights of stairs. He was bidden to halt at last opposite a door. Mr. Red produced the key from his pocket, and, still keeping the revolver levelled at Patsy, opened the door.

"Enter," he said.

"Be damn! but I will, and I'll be all the better pleased if you'll stay outside yourself."

This was exactly what Mr. Red did. The door was locked again, and Patsy found himself face to face with Dr. O'Grady.

"I'm sorry," said the doctor; "I'm infernally sorry. I was an ass to throw you out that note. I might have known that the Field Marshal would be spying round somewhere. It's just the kind of absolutely idiotic thing he does rather well."

"You needn't be sorry at all. Now that I know I'm not shot, I'd as soon be here as anywhere else."

"Would you? I'm glad you're satisfied. All the same I wish you were out of it. Now that there are two of us here, the police are bound to come after us and find us."

"They're out after me, anyway," said Patsy. "That's why I say I'd as soon be here as anywhere else."

"And what do they want you for. Is it any of your League work?"

"It is not. It's nothing to do with the League, good or bad. It's for murdering you and concealing your body after."

"Can't you talk sense, Patsy Devlin?"

"It's the truth I'm telling you, and I couldn't say different if I was put on my oath this minute."

"But, damn it all, I'm not murdered; I'm alive."

"That may be," said Patsy. "All I know is that Lord Manton's after telling the young lady that you are murdered; and what's more, he said it was Jimmy O'Loughlin and myself that done it."

"Tell me the truth now, Patsy. Is Miss Blow in Clonmore?"

"She is."

"You're sure of that?"

"I am sure. She came the day after you went to America. Why wouldn't I be sure when she has the whole of us riz ever since with the questions she did be asking about you; and not one in the place but told her lies, be the same more or less, for fear the creature would break her heart if she heard what you were after doing. And at the latter end his lordship told her we had murdered you, to quiet her like, for fear she might hear that you had gone to America, leaving her behind you, without ever a word to her, good nor bad."

"Good God, man! But I haven't gone to America."

"I see that well enough now. But tell me this, doctor, why didn't you send us word, so as we'd know what to say to her?"

"I couldn't. The first chance I got was when I dropped that note out of the window to you. If you'd come back to the yard the way I told you, I'd have had a letter written to Jimmy O'Loughlin that you could have taken back with you. I'd have explained the whole situation."

"I was meaning to come back just as you bid me. Wasn't I walking out of the yard quiet and easy, so as I'd be able to come back at the end of half an hour or thereabouts, when that murdering villain came at me with a pistol and went very near shooting me dead?"

"I'll tell you what it is, Patsy. The sooner you're out of this the better. There's not the least difficulty about escaping. The Field Marshal think's [sic] he's a tremendous swell at conspiracies of all sorts; but as a matter of fact he's a perfect fool, and I have the lock loosened on the door this minute. You can walk out any time you like; and the best time in my opinion will be to-night."

"And why wouldn't you go yourself, doctor, if it's as easy as all that?"

"I don't want to go," said the doctor. "I'm very well contented where I am. It's much better for you to go."

"How would it do if the both of us went?"

"It wouldn't do at all. I tell you I want to stay. I don't want to escape. But you must. I don't want the police here searching for me."

"Be damn, then, but I won't go either! As sure as ever I went they'd have me hanged for murdering you, and that wouldn't suit me at all."

"Don't be a fool, Patsy. How can they hang you for murdering me when I'm alive?"

"But—but—without I'd bring them here to see you they'd never believe that you weren't dead. What with the young lady going round the country cursing like mad at them that killed you, and the old lord telling the police it was me and Jimmy O'Loughlin done it, what chance would a poor man like myself have against them? They'd have me hanged, I'm telling you."

"I'll give you two notes," said Dr. O'Grady; "one to Lord Manton, and one to Jimmy O'Loughlin, and between the three of you it'll be a queer thing if you can't keep the police quiet and stop all this silly rot about my being murdered."

"Will you give me a writing to the young lady herself?"

"I will not. I know very well what she'd do if she heard I was here. She'd come straight down after me."

"I'm not saying but what she might. From what I seen of her I'd say she's just the sort of a young lady that would."

"Well, then, can't you understand that the last thing in the world I want is for her to know where I am? If I could have got a note to her at the first go off, before she came to Clonmore, it would have been all right. I'd have told her that I was detained here in attendance on an important case, and that she was to stay at home and not come near Clonmore till I sent her word. But that silly old ass of a Field Marshal thought he knew better than I did how to deal with a girl, and he wouldn't let me send the note. Then you and Jimmy O'Loughlin and Lord Manton, and I suppose every soul about the place, go stuffing her up with a pack of lies until"

"Be damn, doctor! but that's a hard word. What we did was for the best. You wouldn't have us tell the creature the truth, and her thinking all the time that you'd rather die than desert her?"

"Tell her the truth! What truth?"

"That you were off to America so as you wouldn't have to pay Jimmy O'Loughlin what you owed him."

"But—oh, damn it all, Patsy, what a fool you are! That's not the truth. Can't you see that it's not the truth? Will I be obliged to leave a mark on your ugly face with my fist to prove to you that I'm not in America?"

"It was all the truth we had for her, anyway. But we wouldn't tell her. And why not? Because she was a fine girl, and we didn't want to see her going off into a decline before our eyes and maybe dying on us. And because we had a respect for your memory; and that's more than you had for yourself, hiding away here from a girl that any man might be proud to own. And it's more than you have for us, putting the hard word on us, and we doing the best we could from the start."

Dr. O'Grady was a reasonable man. His anger cooled. He came to see that his friends had acted with the best intentions. He apologized handsomely to Patsy Devlin.

"All the same," he added, "you will have to go. I tell you what it is, if the police do come here, the Field Marshal will shoot the two of us. He told me himself that that's what he'd do. And, whatever else he may be, he's a man of his word."

"He dursn't, not with the police in the house. He'd be hanged."

"He doesn't care a pin whether he's hanged or not. As a matter of fact, I expect he'd rather like to be hanged. He's an anti-militarist."

"I was just thinking," said Patsy, "when he gave the word of command to me there in the yard, that he'd been in the militia himself some time."

"Well, he hasn't, so you're out there. So far as I can make out, one of his main objects in life is to blow up the militia, and the regular army along with it. He's an anarchist of the most advanced kind."

"Be damn, and is he that?"

"He is. And I can tell you an anarchist isn't what you'd call a playboy. 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 can tell you there's them in it would think very little of making the country hot for the man that went against the will of the people in the matter of grazing ranches or the like."

"I don't want to argue about the League either on one side or another. What I'm trying to get you to understand is simply this. You've got to go, and to go to-night, as soon as ever the Field Marshal is tucked up in his little bed and the house quiet. Listen to me now, and I'll make the position plain to you. As long as I was here by myself I was more or less safe. The disappearance of one man doesn't make much difference in a neighbourhood like ours; but when it comes to two men vanishing in the inside of one week there's bound to be a fuss. The police will take the matter up to a certainty. If they come here—and they will come here when they've tried everywhere else—you and I will be shot by the Field Marshal."

He looked at Patsy as he spoke, and noticed with regret that he was producing little or no impression.

"And what's more, I'll lose well over a hundred pounds; a hundred pounds that I want badly."

"Why didn't you tell me that before?" said Patsy. "Is it likely now that I'd want to stand between you and a lump of money like that? I wouldn't do it to any man, much less one like yourself, that I have a respect for. Give me the writings now that we were speaking of, and I'll start at once."

"You can't start till night; but I'll write the notes at once if you like."

"And the one to the young lady along with the other two."

"I told you before," said Dr. O'Grady, "that I won't give you a note to her."

"Then I'll stay where I am. It's more than I dare to go back without a line of some sort to quiet her. Don't I tell you she'd have me hanged? And when that's done she'll be down here after you with the police, and you'll be as badly off as you were before."

"She'll not be able to do that. Lord Manton would stop the police."

"She'll come without them, then. That sort of a young lady would do anything."

"If she does," said Dr. O'Grady, "the Field Marshal will shut her up too. He won't do her any harm, and I'll be delighted to have her here."

"You want her here along with you?"

"I'd be glad to have her, of course. Don't you know that she and I are engaged to be married?"

"Well, aren't you the queer man? Anybody'd think you were trying to hide yourself from her for fear she'd marry you against your will."

"Is that one of the lies you and Jimmy O'Loughlin have been telling Miss Blow?"

"It is not, of course."

"Well, don't let me catch you saying anything of the sort, or it'll be the worse for you. Now, leave me in peace till I write the notes."

"I'm not going with them," said Patsy; "so you needn't trouble yourself to be writing."

"All right. If you prefer to stay here and be shot, you can. You'll be sorry afterwards, that's all. I tell you the Emperor is not a man to be trifled with. There's a fellow downstairs here that's sick, and I go twice every day to attend him. I give you my word, Patsy, all the time I'm dressing his wounds I have the muzzle of that revolver stuck up against the back of my neck. I'd be uncommonly nervous if I didn't know that the poor old Emperor is a good sort and reliable, in spite of his fondness for yellow crocodiles."

"Is there crocodiles in this house?"

"There are; large yellow ones. The dining-room is crawling with them."

"That settles it, then," said Patsy. "If I was ever so keen to get out of this, I wouldn't do it after that. I'd be in dread of them beasts; and I dursn't face them. They'd be out after me, and me going down the stairs in the dark; and I wouldn't know how to speak to them the way they wouldn't bite."

"Don't be an ass, Patsy. They're not real crocodiles. They're dead."

"Alive or dead, I'll not face them; so it's no use your talking. They're not what I'm used to, and I'd rather stay here along with you where I'd be safe."