In the Bogey Hole rats scurried about, careless of the sentry who
tramped up and down, from end to end of the long stone passage, with
his rubber-heeled boots sounding loudly in the cavernous silence.
Drops of water gathered slowly on the stone ceilings and then fell
with soft, empty splashes to the stone floors. Except for the
scurrying of the rats, the falling of the water and the footfalls of
the sentry, there was silence.
The Bogey Hole, in which the Revolutionary Organization were about to
hold their inquiry into the cause of the death of Francis Joseph
McPhillip, had once been the wine cellars of a nobleman. Above it the
ruins of the house still remained. But everybody had long since
forgotten the name of the owner in the district. The hallway of the
house was choked with rubbish. The two top stories had fallen in. Only
a few rooms remained in a crumbling state. Children played in them and
parties of men played cards for money there on Sundays. That’s all.
But the wine cellars underneath were often used by the Revolutionary
Organization as a meeting-place and for other purposes.
A wide stone stairway led down into the cellars from the rear of the
hallway. There was a wide passage running straight through the cellars
and rooms opened off the passage on either side. In the first room to
the left of the stairway six men stood about. They were the guard,
seven men including the man who was on sentry. They stood about the
room, or sat on the floor by the wall, with their revolvers strapped
outside their raincoats. A lighted lantern was placed on the floor in
the centre of the room. The faces that were touched by the lantern
light were haggard and pale. Farther down on the same side of the
passage, a larger room was prepared for the inquiry. A small table had
been placed in it. A horse blanket covered the table. There were
several small forms there and a little “bedside table” to the right of
the main table, with a deck chair behind it. A big lamp, turned on
full, hung from the ceiling. It lit up the room so that the dampness
on the walls glittered. Two, tall, lean men stood by the entrance to
the room, one on either side of it.
Across the passage, still farther away from the stairway, the Rat
Mulligan was sitting on a form in another room. His three guards sat
opposite him on a form. They had their revolvers in their hands.
All along the passage the light of the big lamp penetrated. It reached
up three of the steps of the stairway. Beyond that and about the roof
of the passage, there was pitch darkness.
At the far end of the passage the outlines of a door could be seen. It
was a heavy oaken door, very old. Formerly it was the door of an
airtight room where special wines were kept. These wines were let down
into the room from the garden. A trap-door opened off the garden into
the room. The barrels were let down through this trap-door. Now,
however, the room was used by the Revolutionary Organization for
prisoners. A square hole had been made in the upper part of the door
to let in air, so that the prisoners would not suffocate.
It was three minutes past one. Three men, dressed in long raincoats
and soft hats, with masks over their eyes, came down the stone
stairway. They were immediately challenged by the sentry. One of them
mumbled a word casually. The sentry saluted. They walked quickly down
the passage and entered the inquiry room. The sentries at the door
stood to attention as they entered. They sat down. One of them, he who
sat in the middle, threw an attaché case on the table and yawned. They
all lit cigarettes and began to talk in whispers, with bored, sleepy
voices, hardly opening their lips. They were the three members of the
Central Executive Committee who had been appointed as judges for the
inquiry.
At twenty minutes past one Commandant Dan Gallagher came down the
stairs with Mary McPhillip. She wore a dark woolen overcoat buttoned
to the throat and belted at the waist. Gallagher was dressed as
before. She looked around her in a frightened manner. Gallagher had to
urge her along with his right hand that held her arm. When the sentry
uttered his challenge she stopped dead, gasped, and put her hands to
her lips. Gallagher began to whisper to reassure her. Trembling and
clutching at his arm, she was led by him into the inquiry room. He put
her sitting on a form and went over to talk to the members of the
Executive Committee, who had not got to their feet or taken any notice
whatsoever.
At twenty-five minutes past one, a hoarse voice was heard at the top
of the stairs, yelling the words of a ribald song, while another
voice, a hushed one, angrily expostulated. Then there was a savage
grunt, an oath, the sound of a heavy body crashing into something that
broke with a brittle crack and then Gypo came down the stairs. He came
down, slipping on his back, with his arms and legs stretched out,
groping at the air. He landed at the bottom with a thud. He sat up
stiffly. Then he broke out into an amazing peal of laughter.
Men rushed at him from all directions with their revolvers drawn, as
quickly as if they had been waiting a long time anxiously for his
appearance in that strange manner. But when they saw him sitting there
laughing, with his little tattered round hat fallen forward over his
forehead, they halted and put their revolvers back into their
holsters.
“Hello, boys,” cried Gypo. “Here I am. What are ye lookin’ at? I’ll
fight any six men that ever walked this earth. Who’s first?”
He jerked himself to his feet with one sudden forward movement, by
drawing up one heel under him. He stood up, towering suddenly over
those about him. They drew back. Mulholland, who at that moment was
limping down the stairs with his hand to his right eye, sidestepped
quickly with fright as Gypo stood up. He fell headlong past Gypo’s
right shoulder into the arms of two men who reached out to receive
him. Then Gallagher pushed his way to the front.
“What’s the matter here?” he cried sharply. “To your posts, men,
quickly. Well, Gypo? What’s troubling you now?”
Gypo clicked his heels with a loud noise and saluted. He staggered
slightly as he saluted. His face, wild with drunkenness, moved
spasmodically, but he remained silent. He had not put on his muffler
on leaving the brothel. His brown neck was bare, the muscles standing
out like ridges on a mountainside. Then he jerked his hat back into
its correct position and shuffled his feet. He broke into a low, thick
laugh. He spoke.
“You an’ me, Commandant,” he said with a foolish grin. “What ho! We’ll
put ’em all on the run. What d’ye say?”
Gallagher had been looking steadily at Gypo all the time without a
single movement in his face. He turned away in silence and addressed
Mulholland.
“What’s the matter with your eye, Bartly?” he said.
“Oh! he just came in me way,” interrupted Gypo taking a pace forward
and patting Gallagher familiarly on the shoulder. “He came in me
way—uh—an’ I hit him with the back o’ me hand. That’s all, upon me
soul. He’ll be all right again with a bit o’ beefsteak. Don’t worry
yersel’ about him, Commandant.”
Gallagher drew away with an irritated gesture and walked back to the
inquiry room. Mulholland looked at Gypo with savage hatred in his
eyes. Gypo looked around him arrogantly with his chest swelled out.
“Nolan,” called out Gallagher from the doorway of the inquiry room,
“get into that room there across the passage. Third on your right.
That’s it. Wait there until you are wanted. See?”
“All right, Commandant. I see it. I—uh—damn that wall. Stand outa me
way, will ye?”
Gypo stalked down the passage, slightly unsteady on his feet and
breathing heavily. He brought up suddenly against the wall again and
laughed in his throat with his mouth shut. Then he headed straight for
the room where the Rat Mulligan was sitting with his guard. When he
had entered that room Gallagher beckoned to Mulholland. Mulholland
came up. They both disappeared into the inquiry room. The sentries
came to the doorway. They stood at ease across the doorway, facing the
passage, with their drawn revolvers in their hands. “The preliminary
investigation” had begun:
Gypo subsided on to a chair beside the Rat Mulligan. He sat for
several moments with a hand on each knee, staring intently at the
ground in front of him, breathing through his nose and twitching his
eyebrows that were like snouts. Then he raised his head and looked
about him. He examined each of the armed men and nodded to each as he
recognized him. They all nodded in return, but in a sour manner. Then
he looked towards the huddled form of the Rat Mulligan and he screwed
up his face in perplexity. He scratched his skull. He took off his hat
and beat it, in a confused way, against his trousers leg, as if he
were dusting it. Then he put it on his head again. He reached out his
right hand as if to touch Mulligan’s shoulder, but when the hand was
within an inch of Mulligan’s shoulder, he jerked it back suddenly.
Then he jumped to his feet with an oath and stood facing Mulligan with
his chest heaving.
“Mulligan,” he whispered thickly, but with great force. “Hey, Rat!
What ye doin’ here? Hey, Mulligan!”
Mulligan never moved for two seconds. He sat on his chair, with his
flat feet wide apart and his knees together, with his upturned palms
resting on his knees and his head resting on his palms. His little
emaciated body was covered with a heavy black overcoat, that hung
about him unbuttoned, with its ends trailing on the floor. His hat lay
on the ground beside him where it had fallen unheeded from his skull.
His shaggy black hair was tousled and damp. Then he slowly raised his
head to look at Gypo. His face was yellow and hollow cheeked, with
great sorrowful dark eyes and a large mouth filled with two perfect
rows of yellow teeth. His mouth was wide open. His eyes were staring
and bloodshot. His whole body, ravaged by consumption, was terrible to
behold. Gypo gasped, looking at it. A look of terror came into his
little eyes.
“Rat,” he whispered, “what brings ye here? Man alive, why aren’t ye in
yer bed? This is no hour for a sick man to be out.”
The Rat stared at Gypo aimlessly as if he had not heard him and could
not see him. Then, slowly, his head subsided once more on to his
palms. He shivered and sat still.
Gypo came up to him softly. He stooped down and touched him on the
shoulder, as if to console him or to sympathize with him. But as soon
as his hand touched Mulligan he drew back with an oath. Through his
drunken brain the whole memory of the evening’s proceedings rushed
back under the influence of that touch. He remembered distinctly
himself in the public-house, denouncing the Rat Mulligan to Gallagher,
as the man who had informed against McPhillip.
He looked about him suspiciously at the armed men. Their eyes were
cast about the room indiscriminately, with the habitual bored look of
men under discipline. They were taking absolutely no interest in Gypo
or in the Rat Mulligan. Gypo sat down again. He took his head between
his hands. He crushed his skull with all his might in a great effort
to regain control of his faculties.
For three minutes he sat that way, with all his strength concentrated
in the effort to conquer his drunkenness. He was barely conscious of
the effort he was making. It was instinct that warned him of the
dangers that lay ahead of him, instinct aroused by the contact with
Mulligan’s body. His drunkenness resisted fiercely. Continual waves of
reckless delirium surged through his body, rising up from his chest to
his head, with the spontaneous action of sea waves swelling up the
side of an abrupt precipice. His head hummed and swayed. His eyes
blinked. His tongue wagged loose and wanted to talk and sing and
laugh. An unaccountable joy permeated him, a joy that did not
originate in his actual self but in some strange being that had come
to lodge in him temporarily. He could contemplate that new strange
being with savage hatred as he pressed his hands against his skull.
That being was an enemy of his. He must conquer him.
At last he felt his drunkenness weakening, gradually, like the
lessening of a pain at night. It did not disappear but its effects
changed. Instead of feeling reckless and hilarious, he began to feel
cunning, careful, gloomy, defiant, recklessly strong. His head cooled
and steadied. It seemed to have become suddenly walled with steel, so
that he almost experienced a physical pain from the pressure of his
skull against the skin on his forehead. But he took away his hands
from his forehead and he found that the pain vanished. His teeth set.
His face assumed a look of stony apathy, the lips hanging flabbily,
the cheeks loose, the eyes vacant. All the muscles of his body went
loose, with the looseness of the athlete, who is standing at ease, but
ready to plunge off somewhere like an arrow.
In response to this change, as it were in his personality, he got to
his feet in a dignified, calculated, imperious manner. He cleared his
throat. He held out his right hand. He spoke.
“Listen, men,” he said. “I had a drop taken when I came in here. I
didn’t know what I was doin’. I just remembered now who I was talkin’
to an’ it nearly knocked me dead. Look at him.” He pointed a thick,
short, hairy forefinger at Mulligan. “He wouldn’t speak to me. He’s
afraid to look at me. I know why. It’s him that informed on Frankie
McPhillip an’ he knows that I saw him.”
“It’s a lie,” screamed Mulligan, suddenly starting up and spreading
out his hands and feet, downwards and outwards, as if he were resting
exhausted after a race. His face was distorted with fear, amazement
and rage. “It’s a lie, boys. It’s a lie I tell yez. Before the Blessed
Mother of the Infant Jesus I swear on me knees that I never left the
house to-day except to go to the chapel to say me prayers.”
“Ha! Me fine boyo!” cried Gypo excitedly. “Will ye listen to his
oaths? It’s easy work for an informer swearin’ oaths.”
“Never—” began Mulligan again. But he was cut short by two of the
armed men seizing him by the arms, forcing him back to his seat and
putting a handkerchief over his mouth.
At the same time Gallagher rushed out of the inquiry room and across
the passage with his pistol in his hand. His sallow, lean face was
aflame with anger. His eyes sparkled like points of fire. He looked at
Gypo for a fleeting moment. It was no longer the cold, contemptuous,
patronizing look with which he had regarded him in the public-house.
It was a look of fierce, relentless hatred. “The preliminary
investigation” had convinced him of something.
Gypo, on the other hand, looked at Gallagher in a friendly, intimate,
confident manner.
“Here he is,” he said, pointing at the convulsing body of Mulligan.
“He knows it’s all up with him already. He went into fits when I taxed
him with it. So he did.”
Then he opened his mouth and gave voice to a hoarse laugh.
Gallagher smiled faintly into Gypo’s eyes. There was something
diabolic in the smile. It was so inhuman.
“Come on, you two witnesses,” he said icily. “You, Nolan, and you,
Mulligan. You are wanted at the inquiry now. Lead them in, two of
you.”
Gypo walked across the passage jauntily, swinging his shoulders, with
his chest thrown out with his head in the air. Mulligan had to be
carried across. He sobbed all the way fitfully. The two sentries with
drawn revolvers again took up their position in the doorway. Now,
however, they had their backs to the passage. They faced the two
witnesses. The two witnesses were seated on a small form in front of
the larger table. They sat side by side. The two armed men who had
conducted them into the room stood close behind them. The three judges
sat in front of Gypo and of Mulligan at the large table. Gallagher sat
at the little table to the right, with Mulholland standing a little to
his rear, peering over his shoulder at what he was reading. To the
right of the judges Mary McPhillip sat on a form alone.
There was a deadly silence for several moments. Drops of water, one
after another, in irregular succession, could be heard falling from
the stone roof to the stone floor, near the walls. Then the centre
judge spoke in a bored, drawling voice.
“Take Peter Mulligan’s statement, comrade Gallagher,” he said.
As soon as Mulligan heard his name mentioned he tried to jump to his
feet, but the man standing behind him held him down. At the same time
Gypo put his hand on Mulligan’s thigh and made a threatening gesture
with his head.
“Keep quiet, will ye? Ye rat!” he growled.
“Peter Mulligan,” said Gallagher, “give an account of your whereabouts
from noon to-day until midnight when you were brought in here.”
Mulligan looked at Gallagher for some time before replying. He was
obviously trying to speak. His lips moved. But terror held the tip of
his tongue against his upper teeth. He could only jabber inaudibly.
Then at last the tongue sprang loose and the words rushed out in a
flood, incoherent, almost inarticulate, like the barking of a dog.
Then he gasped. He paused. When he continued, his speech was regular
and almost calm. He had become possessed of that meaningless courage
that comes to nervous and timorous people, when they find themselves
in a position where it is useless to be careful, or to exercise any
control over themselves.
“What’s the meaning of this treatment of a working-man?” he cried. “By
you men that are supposed to be out for the freedom of the working
class. Can ye find no better man to arrest an’ carry off in the middle
o’ the night than me, that’s dyin’ on me feet o’ consumption? An’
havin’, still an’ all, to work me hands off at me trade, tailorin’ an’
stitchin’ in a basement, that’s more like the cave of a wild animal
than a room. Me that’s——”
“Mulligan,” interrupted Gallagher impassively but sharply, “I asked
you for a statement of your whereabouts, between noon to-day and
midnight to-night. You better be quick about your statement. We have
no time to waste.”
Suddenly Mulligan’s short-lived arrogance vanished. He looked around
him on all sides pathetically. He saw only stern, unsympathetic faces.
He sighed and dug his hands deep into his overcoat pockets. Then he
drew the pockets closely about his body and crouched low on his seat.
He began to speak in a meek, timorous voice.
“Lemme see,” he said, looking at the ground. “At noon to-day, or let
us say dinner time, if it’s the same to you, I was lyin’ in me bed. I
had a bad pain in me right side from bronchitis all the mornin’ an’ I
had to stay in bed with it. At one o’clock about, the old woman gev me
a cup o’ tay an’ an egg. I remember I couldn’t ate the egg. Well,
that’s no matter. I had to get up then, on account of a suit that has
to be made for Mick Foley the carter. It’s got to be finished be
Friday. His daughter is gettin’ married next Monday to——”
“Don’t mind Foley’s daughter,” snapped Gallagher. “What had she got to
do with your movements? Tell us about yourself.”
Mulligan began to cough furiously. His body shook and he almost fell
off the form. Then the fit subsided. He sat shivering and unable to
speak.
“Come on, Rat,” growled Gypo, nudging him with his elbow in the ribs.
“Ye might as well come out with it now as another time. Go ahead an’
tell ’em all about it.”
Mulligan looked at Gypo. His lips trembled. His great dark eyes filled
with tears. The terrific, massive countenance of Gypo, cunning with
drunkenness, did not inspire him at that moment with fear. For some
peculiar reason, his poor, shattered soul had gathered to itself just
then a great courage. His withered face shone with a spiritual power.
He spoke softly, tenderly, with pity.
“It’s not for me to condemn ye,” he said; “maybe yer not responsible.”
“Blast ye,” yelled Gypo, jumping to his feet. “What does he mean,
Commandant Gallagher, about me not bein’ res-re-prosible? What does he
mean by it? I want to know what he’s drivin’ at.”
“Sit down, Nolan,” cried Gallagher. “Sit down immediately and keep
quiet. Sit down, I say.”
Gypo sat down with a clutter. He stared at Gallagher, with the
strange, bewildered look of a dog that has been reprimanded by his
master and is wondering why he has been reprimanded. For the first
time he realized that there was a cold, dangerous ring in Gallagher’s
voice. He sat immovable for two moments, without drawing breath,
meditating on this hostile ring which he had heard in Gallagher’s
voice.
Unconsciously he took off his little, tattered, round, slouch hat. He
pushed it, without looking at it, into his right-hand trousers pocket.
Mulligan began again to talk.
“Lemme see,” he said, “where was I? Oh, yes. I worked on till about
half-past three or maybe a quarter to four, when Charlie Corrigan came
in an’ said that his brother Dave had just come outa jail, after bein’
on hunger strike for eighteen days. Ye remember he was thrown in on
account of the Slum Rents Agitation. ‘He’s upstairs,’ says Charlie.
Well, I went up an’ we talked over a cup o’ tay until about six
o’clock. It was just six when I left, because I heard the angelus
beginnin’ to strike an’ I on me way down the stairs, because I stopped
to cross mesel’. Then I ran down home an’ put on me overcoat and went
out to the chapel. I’m makin’ the Stations o’ the Cross for . . .” He
stopped and flushed. . . . “Well, it’s no matter to no man why I’m
makin’ em.”
“All right, then,” snapped Gallagher. “We don’t want to know why you
are making them. We merely want facts, not superstitions. You went
into the chapel at six o’clock, or a few minutes afterwards to be
precise. How far is the chapel from your house?”
“Maybe it’s a hundred yards, maybe it’s more. If ye go around the
corner be Kane’s it’s less, but be goin’ the other road around——”
“Oh, damn the other road. Pardon me, Miss McPhillip. Let us say it’s
one hundred yards. You arrived at the chapel then at about three
minutes past six. That correct?”
“Uh . . . that ud be right . . . about that.”
“Well? How long did you stay there?”
“I stayed there until about half-past six. An’ then I stayed talkin’
outside the door to Fr. Conroy for maybe ten minutes. He wanted to
know——”
“Did you talk to anybody other than the priest you mention?”
“I’m comin’ to that. After I left Fr. Conroy I met Barney Kerrigan.”
“Where? Near the chapel?”
“Yes. It must have been within fifty yards of it, as yer goin’ be
measurements, although we never——”
“Just a moment. Were you ever a member of the Revolutionary
Organization?”
“What makes ye ask that? Does any man know better than yersel’ whether
I was or not?”
“_Were you a member?_”
“Sure I was.”
“That’s better. Why did you leave it?”
“I left it, Commandant Gallagher, for reasons that are known to
yersel’ as well as they are to me.” His voice became passionate and
shrill. “I left it because the only one I cared for in this world,
outside me old woman, that’s me sister, came to her doom through it.
But it’s not for me to judge. It’s not for me . . .”
“Very well,” interrupted Gallagher. “You left the Organization owing
to a personal grievance. Was that grievance against any particular
member of the Organization?”
“I bear no fellow-man a grudge,” cried Mulligan solemnly.
“You had no grievance against Francis Joseph McPhillip?”
“Lord have mercy on his soul,” cried Mulligan, crossing himself with
his eyes on the ceiling. “I hope his sorrows are over him.” He turned
to Miss McPhillip. “I swear on me immortal soul, Miss McPhillip, that
I bore no grudge agin yer brother.”
“All right,” said Gallagher. “Well. Tell us what you did after leaving
Barney Kerrigan.”
“I went back to the house after that. I did another bit o’ work until
about eight o’clock. I didn’t do much because fellahs kept comin’ in
an’ out an’ me eyes are not as good as they used to be an’ the gas now
is a disgrace to the city. But anyhow, I finished the waistcoat. Then
I went upstairs to Jim Daly’s room on the third floor. Poor man, he’s
sick this three years with bad kidneys. Only for a pension he has outa
the British Navy, there’s no knowin’ what ud happen to him, an’ he
havin’ no one to look after him but himself, an’ he that delicate. We
had a smoke an’ a talk until about ten o’clock. Then I came down
again. The old woman had just come in, so we had another cup o’ tay
an’ a herring. Then I sat be the fire readin’ a newspaper until about
half-past eleven. Then I began to pouch about makin’ ready to go to
bed, when three men under Tommy Connor came in an’ put a mask over me
face an’ bundled me into a car, without by yer leave, as if I was a
criminal. That’s all.”
There was a slight pause. Everybody sighed for some reason.
“Very good, Mulligan,” said Gallagher. “That will do.”
He got up and went over to the judges’ table. The four of them talked
for about two minutes. The centre judge read from a paper in a
mumbling voice. Another judge took notes, scratching loudly with his
pen. There was a pause. Then another discussion in whispers began.
Then Gallagher came back to his seat.
“Nolan,” he said, quite suddenly, “repeat the statement concerning
Peter Mulligan that you made to me in Ryan’s public-house in Titt
Street at ten-forty-five this night.”
“Yes, Commandant,” said Gypo immediately.
He cleared his throat aggressively and rattled off the story about his
having seen Mulligan track Francis Joseph McPhillip out of the Dunboy
Lodging House. He spoke in a clear, loud and distinct voice, making
arrogant gestures and looking straight into Gallagher’s eyes as he
spoke.
Mulligan kept trembling while Gypo spoke. He seemed all the time
trying to interrupt, but although his lips twitched and his hands
trembled he neither moved nor spoke.
Gypo finished speaking. His loud, strong voice died out, leaving a
sudden silence behind it. There was another slight pause.
“What time exactly did you see Mulligan leave the lodging-house?” said
Gallagher.
“Just half-past six,” replied Gypo immediately. “I know because I
looked at the clock in the hall.”
“Very well,” said Gallagher. “That will do you, Nolan. Miss McPhillip,
what time did your brother arrive at your father’s house?”
“He arrived at ten minutes to seven,” said Mary, after a little pause,
during which she blushed slightly, glanced at Gallagher and then
looked at the ground. “It might be a little earlier than that, but not
more than a minute or so. I had just come in from business.”
“Did he say anything about being followed when he came?”
“No. On the contrary, he said that he was certain that he was not
noticed since he came into town at half-past five. Mother was very
worried about his being in town, and she wanted to get him away
immediately, but he was so confident about being safe that she thought
it was all right his staying for the night. He said he met Nolan at
the lodging-house. That was the only person he spoke to, he said. He
came by back streets after leaving the lodging-house. He never stopped
anywhere and he spoke to nobody. He crossed the river at the Metal
Bridge. It was pitch-black at that time on account of the rain and the
fog. Anybody that knew Frankie’s way of going along, listening to
every sound, with ears as sharp as a fox, could hardly believe that he
was followed without his knowing it. He came in suddenly by the back
entrance through the yard. We thought it was his ghost,” she said with
a little shiver of remembrance. She stopped and put her handkerchief
to her face.
“Thank you, Miss McPhillip,” said Gallagher. “Barney Kerrigan out
there?”
“Kerrigan there?”
“Kerrigan?”
“Yes. I’m coming,” came a voice from along the passage somewhere.
A tall man, wearing a black slouch hat and a new, though shabby, grey
overcoat with a velvet collar, came into the room. He had a revolver
strapped over his overcoat at the waist. He saluted and stood to
attention.
“Did you meet Peter Mulligan at six-thirty this evening?” said
Gallagher.
“Yes, Commandant,” replied Kerrigan. “I saw him just about that time
comin’ down the street. He stopped me to know did I know anythin’ for
the Grand National.”
“Very well. You are quite sure about the time?”
“Well, I couldn’t give ye the exact second, but it couldn’t be more
than a minute one way or the other. I knocked off work at six an’ it
takes me always just about twenty minutes to walk from the quays as
far as Farelly’s. Well, I had a pint in Farelly’s an’ I stopped for a
few minutes to talk to the boys, an’ then when I came out I met Peter
Mulligan. Just about half-past six I’d say it was.”
“Very well,” said Gallagher, “return to your post. Peter Mulligan, you
can go now. You will be taken home in the car that brought you here
and we’ll see you right for any inconvenience that was caused to you.”
He walked over to the judges and whispered something hurriedly. They
all nodded and put their hands in their pockets. “One moment,
Mulligan,” he called. They all gave him money. He added some from his
own pocket. He came over to Mulligan and handed him a fistful of
silver. “For the present this might help you. I’ll see what can be
done for you later on. I’ll bring your case up before the Relief
Committee. Good-night, Comrade.”
Mulligan took the money with bowed head. He got up and moved to the
door hurriedly without saying a word, with his hat crushed in his two
hands and his overcoat flapping behind him. He disappeared out the
door, head first, stooping, hauling his two flat feet after him as if
he were dragging them against their will. Then, with a hard, biting
cough he disappeared.
The sentries stood again across the door. Gallagher walked slowly back
to his table. He sat down. There was a deadly silence.
The silence lasted only about twelve seconds. During this pause
Gallagher took out a notebook and turned over the pages, while
Mulholland bent over his shoulder whispering something, and the three
judges murmured with their heads close together. But to Gypo these
twelve seconds were as long as twelve years to a man stricken with a
painful and incurable disease. A succession of terrors flitted through
his mind. They were not ideas or thoughts, but almost tangible terrors
that seemed to materialize in his brain as the result of the reasoning
of some foreign being. His cunning and his assurance were gripped
suddenly by that amazing foreigner and hurled out of him, clean out of
him into oblivion, like two bullets fired through the air.
Ha! They were hurled out of him by the amazing fact of Mulligan’s
disappearance, free, with money in his pocket given to him by
Gallagher. They had given him money. They had called him comrade. They
had promised to bring his case up before the Relief Committee. They
sent him away free. He had gone. . . . Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What
was the meaning of it?
Then suddenly, as he sat there, bolt upright on his seat, massive,
those unspeakable terrors crowded into his mind. They came ready-made,
fully matured, nauseating like bilious attacks, sharp and biting like
bayonet wounds, heavy and ponderous like palpitations of the heart.
They came, one, two, three, four . . . scores of them, lining up in
his brain, shoulder to shoulder, in a mass, standing there solidly and
then immediately disappearing like ghosts without a sound and giving
place to others. There was a mass of them but each one was distinct.
Each had its own peculiar silent screech. Each had its own peculiar
demoniac grin. Each had its own peculiar . . . damn them all! The
curse of them was that he did not know what they were. It seemed that
his personality was bound in chains and he was unable to grapple with
the cursed things. He must sit still, bolt upright on his wooden form,
and permit them to stand there unchallenged in his brain. He was
helpless. A cold sweat came out through every pore of his body.
Four seconds passed. Then his mind began to grope about among the
terrors, timorously, like a snail that has been touched and has gone
into his shell feigning death and has come out again touching blades
of grass suspiciously and wriggling its horns. Gypo opened his
nostrils and his mouth. He drew in a deep breath through both organs
simultaneously. The cold sweat suddenly became warm. His blood flooded
his head with a surging movement. He became ferocious. At first his
eyes narrowed and his eyebrows that were like snouts bent down. Then
his eyes opened wide and his eyebrows lifted, like guns that are
elevated in order to train them on a target. His lower lip dropped.
His mind began to work methodically. The terrors vanished out of it
and gave place to an iron determination to fight to the bitter end.
With his blood maddened by alcohol, he became conscious of the vast
strength in his body. He almost experienced a feeling of happiness at
this opportunity for using it. It was that savage joy that is always
present in the Irish soul in time of danger, the great fighting spirit
of our race, born of the mists and the mountains and the gurgling
torrents and the endless clamour of the sea.
He looked around him measuring those against whom he had to fight. To
his left he saw Mary McPhillip sitting. She had her hands in her lap.
She was leaning forward slightly, with a nervous expectant look in her
eyes, looking at Gallagher. She cast a terrified glance, occasionally,
towards Gypo, but her eyes always came back to Gallagher’s face as if
they were fascinated by it. It was obvious that she was terrified and
that her mind was trying to keep itself fixed on the object of the
prayers which her moving lips were uttering. Gypo saw the terror in
her quivering face and knew that he had nothing to fear from her. Then
he looked at the three judges. He knew those masked men. They were
merely puppets, politicians, figure-heads who would do Gallagher’s
bidding, afraid to contradict him. Ha! Gallagher was the man he had to
fight. Gallagher and that rat Mulholland. He saw them over by the
little table with their heads together. He fixed his eyes on them.
Feverishly he set himself to form a plan, not that he hoped anything
at this hour from the formation of a plan, but merely because making a
plan was an end in itself to his peculiar reason. But he could not
even think of a plan. All his energies were concentrated on
maintaining his anger at fever heat. He struggled feebly with threads
of ideas and then dropped them hopelessly. He doubled up his fists and
held them, knuckles downwards, one on each hip. The two armed men who
stood behind him, saw his back muscles rise and strain against his
dungaree jacket.
Then the silence broke. Gallagher got up with his open notebook in his
hand. He walked over to the judges’ table. He placed the notebook in
front of the judges, pointing out something with his finger. The
centre judge nodded. Gallagher walked back again to his table and sat
down. Gypo followed every movement with frenzied excitement. He seemed
to be on the point of jumping to his feet and rushing at Gallagher.
The two sentries in the doorway and the two armed men standing behind
Gypo’s back slipped their fingers over their revolver triggers. They
leaned forward slightly. There was a tense moment. Then Gallagher
looked at Gypo and began to speak sharply, in a low, restrained voice.
“Now Gypo,” he began, “tell us how you spent your time from six
o’clock this evening until you came in here at half-past one. Hurry
up. Don’t waste any time. We are in a hurry.”
Gypo’s eyes almost shut. Then his face seemed to swell. His mouth
contorted.
“What’s it got to do with you where I ben?” he thundered in a queer,
hollow voice. It seemed his mouth had gone dry.
“You never know,” said Gallagher carelessly. “It might be interesting
for us to know. Don’t you feel like telling us how you’ve been amusing
yourself from the time you met Francis Joseph McPhillip at six o’clock
in the Dunboy Lodging House until you came in here?”
“An’ supposin’ I don’t tell ye, what are ye goin’ to do? Wha’?”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you that. But we can do a lot. You know
that yourself, don’t you? You have your choice in the matter. You
either tell me or I’ll go to the trouble of telling you and the court
myself.” He paused for an instant and then added: “with the help of
Bartly Mulholland here.”
Then he stared at Gypo dispassionately, with the cold and indifferent
look of a man examining a statue. Gypo’s chest heaved in and out. He
had not been prepared for this point-blank attack from Gallagher. He
had expected that Gallagher would adopt his usual tactics of
friendliness and cajolery, trusting to madden his prey into letting
some choice important word slip unawares from his lips. Gypo felt
himself actually cheated out of his rights by this insultingly crude
and insolent attack. Gallagher was not even doing him the honour of
playing with him. Then he must know everything already. Did he?
The last trace of his self-control left Gypo. He abandoned himself to
a frenzy of passion. A delirious wave of ferocity mastered him. He
clenched his fists so that the bones cracked. His right leg went so
rigid that the boot rushed along the stone floor with a harsh scraping
sound, until it brought up with a bang against the leg of the form.
There it stayed. His knee was pointed and shivering. He opened his
mouth and yelled, almost incoherently, a torrent of blasphemous and
obscene oaths at Gallagher. He yelled them in an endless sentence,
without a verb or pronoun or conjunction. He kept yelling until he had
to stop for breath.
When Gypo stopped, Mary McPhillip’s sobs became audible. She was
trembling violently and sobbing. Gallagher got up, walked past Gypo
without taking the slightest notice of him and took Mary by the arm.
He led her up to the judge’s table.
“I have no further need of this witness,” he said, “so I suppose I may
take her into another room.”
The judges nodded. He led Mary out of the room. Gypo’s eyes followed
him everywhere. He was staring wildly and he seemed to have lost all
power of directing his bodily activities. He was shivering
spasmodically in his legs. Gallagher came back into the room and sat
down at his table.
Still Gypo’s eyes were concentrated on Gallagher’s face. His outburst
had left him completely empty, like a shaken sack. There was a pain at
the pit of the stomach. Mob orators know that pain, when they have
spoken for over an hour under a perfect hail of frenzied
interruptions. His eyes were dazed. Some machinal force kept his eyes
concentrated on Gallagher’s face. He responded to every movement of
Gallagher’s face in a half-conscious way. Every time Gallagher moved a
limb he felt a sharp stab in the pit of the stomach. He was conscious
of even the most minute movements. A thing that terrified him
especially was Gallagher’s chronic habit of twitching his cheeks by
grinding his back teeth at intervals.
As before, this agony lasted during a few moments only, during the
time that Gallagher was looking at some notes on his table, with
furrowed forehead. But the moments seemed years, the agony was so
concentrated. Gallagher spoke again.
Then again a strange change came over Gypo. For as soon as Gallagher
spoke he felt an instantaneous relief. He breathed deeply. He sighed.
A delicious tremor swept over his body like a cool breeze sweeping the
back of a sultry sea in summer. His jaws set again. Gallagher’s voice
had a different ring in it. It was softer. It was friendly. It
was . . . honour bright . . . it was argumentative. Then there was a
chance. . . . There must be a chance yet. . . .
“What did you mean, Gypo?” cried Gallagher. “What did you mean by
telling us all those lies about the Rat Mulligan? You should be
ashamed of yourself. Even if you got a grudge against a man, that’s no
reason why you should try to get a thing like that slung on to him.
Good Lord! You’re a funny man, Gypo. What put it into your head to
tell me that you saw him this evening at the Dunboy Lodging House,
when we know very well that he was within one hundred yards of his own
home at that very minute, three miles away or more? Were you drunk or
what?”
“I know I was drunk,” cried Gypo, responding joyfully to this friendly
overture from Gallagher. His anger vanished. His whole soul leaned out
eagerly towards Gallagher, craving support. He paused momentarily
after uttering the first sentence. He remained silent, leaning
forward, looking at Gallagher, intently, as if he expected Gallagher
to finish the statement for him. But when Gallagher’s thin lips
remained sealed, he hurtled on excitedly, as if he were stumbling
recklessly through dangerous obstacles. His voice was uneven and
flurried. “But I’d swear be Almighty God that it was him I saw goin’
out the door and runnin’ up the lane after Frankie. An’ if it wasn’t
him it must have been somebody else like him, for I’d know the cut of
his shoulders anywhere. I would if ye put my head in a bag.”
“You told me,” continued Gallagher in the same friendly scolding tone,
“that you followed the Rat across town until you came to . . . Where
was that you said you lost sight of him? I forgot now.”
Gypo started and stuttered. Good Lord, what had he said? He must say
the same thing he had said before. But he could not remember saying
that he followed the Rat across town. Did he say it in the
public-house or did he not. His forehead was burning. The hammering at
the top of his skull was blinding his eyes with pain. Almost
unconsciously he put his hand to his forehead and blurted out,
pathetically, on a peculiar high note, an amazingly childish and
hysterical sentence.
“Commandant, I’m all mixed up an’ I can remember nothin’.”
It was horrid, that pitiful, forlorn cry of pain and of absolute
despair coming from such a giant.
“All right then,” said Gallagher, “don’t worry yourself. We have to
get to the bottom of this business, so we’ll just set to work, the two
of us, and maybe we can piece the whole thing together. Now the best
thing we can do is to begin at the end and go backwards. We’ll work
backwards until we come to the point where you lost that man you saw
tracking Frankie McPhillip out of the Dunboy Lodging House. In that
case we’ll begin with where you were before you came in here. Bartly
Mulholland tells us that you were at Aunt Betty’s, with a woman called
Connemara Maggie. You must have been with her, because Bartly saw you
with his own eyes giving her two pound notes. There were three empty
whisky bottles in the room. They had been bought by you, I suppose.
Well? A man is entitled to drink his own whisky that he has bought
with his _own_ money, I suppose. That has got nothing to do with our
business, has it Gypo? None whatsoever. We merely want to trace that
man that tracked Francis Joseph McPhillip out of the Dunboy Lodging
House. Well! What do we find next? A friend of yours called Katie Fox,
once upon a time a comrade of ours, they are all to the front in this
business, all those people that were once comrades of ours, she told
Bartly Mulholland that you gave three pounds to an English woman at
Aunt Betty’s and two pounds to Aunt Betty to pay a debt for this
woman. You wanted to send her back to London. A kind of Barnardo’s
Home or something, this Aunt Betty’s, for stray women. Well, of
course, that again has nothing to do with us. A man is entitled to do
what he likes with his _own_ money. But. . . . Good Lord, Gypo,” he
cried, striking the table and bursting out into a strange hilarious
laugh, “you were having a time of it. Where did you get all the money?
Ha! Now don’t get excited. I know it’s no business of mine. But
if you’re going to be taken back into the Organization . . . Well!
There are ugly rumours flying about. . . . You know the way silly
rumours fly around Dublin. It’s awful. But the fact is, that people
are talking about sailors, American sailors, being robbed at the
back of Cassidy’s public-house. It’s only a rumour, of course, and
again, that friend of yours, Katie Fox—shall we call her one of our
ex-comrades?—she is responsible for the rumour, according to Bartly
Mulholland. Of course, it’s obviously originated with her. She has
very probably invented that story out of spite, simply because you
went with the other girl. Or . . . Tell me, is there any truth in it,
Gypo? I mean in the rumour of your having robbed a sailor?”
Gypo started, as if out of a heavy sleep. His brain went “thud, thud,
thud,” trying to think whether he should say “yes,” or “no.” If he
said “yes,” would he be caught in the act of telling a lie? If he said
“no,” would he be able to find any other means of explaining how he
got the money? Several other questions and problems also crowded into
his mind simultaneously, in confusion. There were doubts,
uncertainties and suspicions. He was completely in a mesh. His mind
was like a refuse heap. There was no beginning or end to any chain of
reasoning. He gave it up in despair.
“Commandant,” he said, again touching his forehead, “I can make out
nothin’. My head is sore. I must be drunk.”
Again it was the same bewildered, agonizing cry of a lost human soul.
A weak, thin, childish voice, coming from a giant.
“Well, never mind,” said Gallagher cheerfully, “we’ll leave it at
that. We’ll carry on. Before you went down to Aunt Betty’s, Mulholland
saw you in a fish-and-chip shop, treating a crowd of people to a free
meal. He said you spent about a pound there. Two pounds, three pounds,
two pounds, one pound. . . . Well! You certainly were in a generous
mood. American sailors are paid well of course. Throwing money about
in all directions, eh? Like a millionaire! But of course that’s your
own business. We are simply trying to get at the bottom of the
business we have in hand. That business is simply this: _who informed
on your pal Francis Joseph McPhillip?_”
Gallagher uttered the sentence slowly and in a loud voice, looking
closely at Gypo as he did so. Gypo started. His lips opened wide. But
he remained silent. His lips moved, forming the words Gallagher had
uttered, silently.
Gallagher watched the movement of Gypo’s lips with curious detachment.
Then he smiled slightly before continuing.
“Before that of course,” he continued, “I met you myself in the
public-house, in—er—Ryan’s public-house in Titt Street. There was
where you told me that funny story about the Rat Mulligan. Ha, ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha! . . .”
Gallagher suddenly roared with laughter, holding his sides, with his
head in the air. Gypo almost leaped from his form. He trembled.
“Well, of all the stories!” continued Gallagher, pretending to gasp
with laughter. “I can’t make out why you told me that story, Gypo. I
can’t make it out. Well, there’s no knowing. . . . But we must get on
with our own work. Time’s running short and we have some stiff work to
do before the night’s over. Some stiff work, Gypo. Well? Before you
came into the public-house you were in Francis McPhillip’s house in 44
Titt Street. There again, you seemed to be acting in a very funny way,
according to Bartly Mulholland. Of course, I can understand your being
stirred up and excited on account of the death of your pal. But
still. . . . Do you remember giving Mrs. McPhillip the money that fell
out of your pocket on to the kitchen floor? What did you do that for?
Eh? Good Lord! You have left a trail of gold after you all the
evening. I wish it were as easy to track the man you saw coming out of
the Dunboy Lodging House after Frankie. But why did you give that few
shillings to Mrs. McPhillip and say it was all the money you had when
you knew very well you had a lot more in your pocket at that very
moment?”
“I don’t know,” growled Gypo.
His voice was no longer weak and childish. He was stiffening again.
“Maybe you were drunk even then,” suggested Gallagher, almost
excitedly, as if he were deliberately trying to apologize for Gypo’s
absurdities. “Maybe you were drunk. What?”
“Didn’t I tell ye before I was drunk,” grunted Gypo.
“Ha! I knew ye were drunk. Where had you been drinking?”
“Couldn’t tell ye where, but I know I was drinkin’ with Katie Fox.”
“Ha! Now we have it,” cried Gallagher, striking the table.
“Now you got what?” yelled Gypo, panting and leaning forward savagely.
He opened his fists out like claws. He spread his feet out ready to
spring. “What have ye got, Commandant?” he yelled hoarsely.
Gallagher took his pistol by the butt and tapped the muzzle slightly
on the table three times. The two armed men pointed their revolvers at
Gypo’s back. The three judges who had been calmly smoking cigarettes
started. Mulholland made a slight movement towards the door.
Then Gypo subsided into his seat loosely. The dreadful fascination of
Gallagher’s cold eyes sucked his passion clean out of him. Breathing
in a tired way, he sat still. The tension relaxed again. Gallagher
laid his pistol on the table and smiled.
“No need to have got excited, Gypo,” he said. “I was just saying that
it was when you were drinking with Katie Fox you said you robbed a
sailor at the back of Cassidy’s public-house. Maybe she asked you
where you got the money out of pure idle curiosity and you told her
that as a joke. We all know what curious creatures women are. That
doesn’t matter, though. What does matter is this. Could you remember
what time that was? When you were drinking with Katie Fox? What time
was it?”
“I can’t say,” mumbled Gypo stolidly. “I’m drunk. I can’t remember.”
“Well, now that’s a pity,” said Gallagher. “For it’s very important
for us to find out what that time was. If we were able to find out
what time that was, then we would surely be able to find out lots
more. Let us say it was nine o’clock at that time. Let us say nine.
That wouldn’t be far out? Would it be far out, Gypo?”
“How do I know what time it was?” roared Gypo. “Amn’t I tellin’ ye
that I was drunk?”
“Well, now,” continued Gallagher, getting a little more excited, “we
have got as far as nine o’clock. We are as far back as nine o’clock.”
He paused. His face began to light up and his forehead began to
wrinkle. His eyes were no longer steely and cold. They became restless
points, fiery and full of turbulent activity. They kept roaming over
Gypo’s face. His lips, on the contrary, were creased at the corners in
a strange, dry smile. His voice was laughing and at a slightly higher
and sweeter pitch.
“Now we have arrived at nine o’clock,” he continued, “travelling
backwards. Great way this for travelling, Gypo. You never know what
you are going to bump against without knowing. Any minute now we are
liable to find something, Gypo. We might in a few moments, even jump
on the man that informed on Frankie McPhillip. _We might jump on him._
Now! Easy there, Gypo. I mean the man you saw tracking Frankie
McPhillip out of the Dunboy Lodging House. Could you give the court
any idea of the description of that man you saw? You say he was like
Mulligan? Do you say he was like Mulligan? Speak, man. _Speak, I
say_,” he roared.
But Gypo was no longer able to speak.
A sudden transformation had come over him. As a thunder-storm bursts
over a calm sea on a sultry day, rending the oily ocean back and
covering it with cavorting, black ridges and white, churning froth, so
his body and soul responded to the sudden lightning in Gallagher’s
eyes and the ominous crackle of his voice, uttering sugared threats,
gambolling devilishly with words. He crumbled away into an immense,
flabby, supine mass, that writhed on the wooden form, a tangled heap
of limbs lying piled helplessly. His head dropped forward on his
chest, swaying from side to side on the pivot of his chin. His eyes
sank into their sockets. His face went ashen and still. His legs
became lax. His stomach wrinkled up like an unpropped wall collapsing
on its own foundations. His whole body shivered and started into
awe-inspiring movement, monstrous and inhuman, revolting as a
spectacle of degrading vice and yet pitiful in its helplessness.
All the countless centuries of human development that had left their
impression on that body, to make it into the glorious image of a
God-like human being, withered away during that time of agony, leaving
only a chaotic collection of limbs writhing and strange visions racing
over his convulsing features.
The sight was fearsome even to the callous men that surrounded him.
Even _their_ hardened souls saw a vision of a strange life just then,
an unknown and unexpected phantom that comes to some once in their
lives and that never comes to many, the phantom of a human soul
stripped naked of the covering of civilization, lying naked and
horror-stricken, without help, without hope of mercy. They forgot for
the moment their hatred of him. They forgot that this helpless,
shapeless mass of humanity was a menace to their lives. They forgot
that he was a viper they must crush. They only knew at that moment,
that he was a poor, weak human being like themselves, a human soul,
weak and helpless in suffering, shivering in the toils of the eternal
struggle of the human soul with pain.
Their mouths opened wide. Their eyes grew soft. Some made unconscious
movements with their hands, others with their feet, unconscious
movements of which their minds were not aware. For their minds,
disciplined by the corroding influence of hatred, sat still and
indifferent.
One man alone revelled in Gypo’s agony. He revelled in it
unconsciously. He was no longer conscious of his emotions. He had
become demented, drunk with the fury of his hatred. That man was
Gallagher.
He rose lightly from the table, without a word, pawing the table
softly with his hands for support, like a panther finding foothold for
a spring. His lean, glossy, sallow face was lit with a glow of
passionate eagerness, like a lover approaching his beloved. But it was
not the pure, resplendent eagerness of love. It was the eagerness of
the preying beast about to spring. The lips laughed, thin, wrinkled,
red lips drawn upwards and downwards from the set, white teeth. The
eyes glittered. The forehead twitched. The hands trembled. The whole
body shivered slightly, with those minute shivers that pass down the
side of a setter when he stands poised over his prey. He rose
gradually from the table. He stepped over his chair with his right
foot, to avoid moving the chair. He released his body from contact
with the table and the chair. His eyes were fixed on Gypo’s face. He
stood crouching. His head was swung forward, almost on a level with
his stooping shoulders. He groped with his right hand on the table for
his pistol. His fingers found the butt. Slowly they embraced it. The
forefinger sought the trigger and found it. He lifted the pistol from
the table. He brought it with a sharp movement to his hip. Its muzzle
pointed at Gypo’s chest. He took one short pace forward.
Gypo uttered a sharp yell and put his two hands to his face, shielding
his eyes. But he took them away again almost immediately. They dropped
to his sides. He must look at Gallagher’s eyes. He could not remain
hidden from those eyes. They burned into his flesh unless he looked at
them with his own.
Gallagher spoke. His voice was almost inaudible. It was soft and sweet
like a girl’s voice.
“As you seem to have lost your voice,” he whispered, “I had better
tell you myself who that man was. There’s no need to describe him for
the court. The court can see the man for themselves. I’m going to tell
the court the very name of the informer that betrayed his comrade,
Francis Joseph McPhillip, I’m going to point out the informer with my
own hand. That is the man,” he cried suddenly, with terrific force,
turning to the judges and pointing his pistol at Gypo. “Comrades, the
informer is Gypo Nolan, who is sitting there on that form.”
He had scarcely finished when Gypo uttered a muffled scream like a
dumb animal in mortal agony. He tumbled forward to the stone floor. He
frothed at the mouth. He reached out his trembling hands towards
Gallagher.
“Commandant,” he cried, “I didn’t know what I was doin’. I declare to
God I didn’t know what I was doin’. Can’t ye see what I mane?” He
raised his voice to a scream and he kept dragging himself forward over
the floor towards Gallagher’s feet. Then he struggled to his hands and
knees. He stretched out his hands on either side, panting: “Is there
no man here to tell him why I did it? I can’t tell him. My head is
sore. I can’t tell him. Commandant, Commandant, you an’ me,
Commandant. We’ll make a plan, the two of us . . . uh-r-r-r. . . .”
His voice sank into an inarticulate jabber as his hands clutched
Gallagher’s boots and he sank again prone to the ground. His thick
lips that tried to kiss Gallagher’s boots were imprinting kisses on
the stone flags. Gallagher kicked away the clutching hands and called
out sharply:
“Take him to the cell and place him under close guard.”
Immediately the four armed men rushed forward and bent down to seize
Gypo. But as soon as they touched him, he stiffened. He immediately
rose with them to his feet, with an accession of unaccountable
strength. He shook the four men off with a shrug of his whole body.
Then he was about to crouch to rush at Gallagher, when the four of
them flung themselves upon him again with a simultaneous cry. He
swayed for a moment on bent thighs, reeling under the impact of the
four bodies, two of them on his back, two gripping him about the
waist. Then he took a fierce, taut step forward with his right foot,
gasping as he did so. He planted the boot on the floor with a ringing
sound and then jerked himself backwards. The two men who had landed on
his back, flung their arms around his neck and swayed, banging their
heads together, their legs flying adrift. A cry arose: “Overpower him.
Help! Help!”
The three judges moved back from the table and stood against the wall,
undecided whether to run for safety, or to rush to the attack.
Mulholland pulled at Gallagher’s arm excitedly.
“Will I fire, Commandant?” he whispered.
“Don’t shoot,” murmured Gallagher in a dazed, sleepy voice. He was
staring at the struggling men with a sad smile on his face, as if he
were dreaming. “Don’t shoot. He’s not sentenced yet. Don’t fire, I
tell you.”
Then Mulholland ran crouching and threw himself at Gypo’s legs, trying
to encompass them with his arms. There were now five men hanging on to
Gypo. He was like Laocoön, entwined with snakes. He stood bolt
upright, with every muscle on his body knotted.
Then he lurched away to the right towards the door, with that human
cargo, unmoored and swinging by the sudden lurch, clashing with soft
thuds, in a panting mass. He was brought within three paces of the
door by the lurch. He saw the door. With an immense wrench that made
his biceps crack, he shook the men from off his back and neck. They
slithered downwards with a scratching sound of their nails clawing his
clothes. They clung round his hips. Then he growled and stooped down
to manhandle the men that clung to his legs. His groping hands
clutched Mulholland’s hair. His fingers groped downwards, seeking the
throat to garrotte him, when a mad rush of feet startled him. He
looked up.
They were rushing at him through the doorway. He saw them for a
moment, a number of flashing eyes, and set lips and clawing hands,
rushing at him. Then he dived headlong at his new enemies. He forced
them backwards in a mass into the doorway. There they all fell, amid
yells and hissing curses and shrieks of pain. Then Gypo’s great boots
stuck out of the pile in the centre, while Mulholland’s grinning,
sallow face peered up between them.
When they cleared away the jam of human bodies from him he was
exhausted. Four men pinioned his arms behind his back. Then he was
dragged along the passage into the prison cell. They loosed him and
threw him in. They bolted the door.