A poet, writing, as some of them will, a parody on the work of another
poet, has these words--
“To every Irishman on earth
Arrest comes soon or late.”
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.--O’GRADY.”
“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 thinks 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.”