Old House of Fear

by Russell Kirk

  “And what,” Logan continued as he adjusted the clumsy bandage, “is life like at the Old House?”

  “Well, now, Mr. Detective Logan, do you mind that bit in Dante’s Inferno where old Dante and Vergil observe the stewing of the frauds in the chasms? That’ll be your reception at the Old House, and if you’ve a brain in your skull, Mr. Logan, you’ll be jumping into the little boat with Seamus and making for your headquarters. You’ll require a dozen constables with rifles, or more, to take Jackman’s gang.”

  Despite his brogue – which, Logan suspected, was in part the affectation of a virulent Irish nationalist, or of whimsy – Donley had not spoken like an unschooled man; and this literary allusion confirmed Logan’s surmise. “I think you’re what you Irish call a ‘spiled praist,’ Seamus Donley.”

  “Sure, never a praist,” Donley answered, grinning, “not myself. Yet I had some inclination after being a monk, and a lay-brother I was for nine praying months, in Sligo, till the love of the drink and the love of the girls undid me. Jackman was after calling me ‘Father Seamus’: he’s eyes in his head, more eyes by one than most men. His boy Ferd was for giving me a third eye for myself.” Here the gunman gingerly touched his bandaged forehead. “Ferd will be the deadliest of Jackman’s imps, as you’ll find to your sorrow; do you watch sharp for him. ’Tis the Maltese Cat I call him. Swift with a gun, and swift with a knife. And Jackman sent him to the Old One for a cook at the Old House! Ferd has virtue as a cook, no denying: the father of him keeps a little eating-house in Soho. But Ferd’s better at murthering than cooking.”

  “How many others are in the Old House?”

  Again Donley filled his tumbler of whiskey. “Jackman himself, and that walking cadaver Royall, that he calls his secretary – the only other political man in the lot. Then there will be five manservants, or a set of cutthroats that Jackman pawned off on the Old One for servants: butler, footman, gardener, gardener’s boy (a broth of a boy!) and a fellow that passes for stableman or cowman. I was the keeper or gillie. Then there are three men for the yacht and the launch, all Jackman’s pick: I singed the whiskers of one of them, Harry Till, a Liverpool longshoreman, and he may be at death’s door, praise be to the saints. Because Jackman told them so, the Old One and the Young One turned off all the old servants, even the laborers at the farm; Lagg sent his wife back to Galloway, and at the end, he was living in a room or two by himself at the New House. Except for the Old One and the Young One, there’s but one woman in Carnglass, and that’s a poor shawlie, old Agnes with the arthritis, fit for no better than scrubbing floors and carrying trays to the Old One. So the odds will be ten or eleven to one against Mr. Police-Detective, as they’ve been against myself these three days past. Come away, Mr. Detective Logan: yourself would last two days less than Seamus has.”

  “Do you mean that Lagg is dead?”

  Donley shifted uneasily. “Mind this, Mr. Logan: ’tis no doing of mine. What could be done to help Lagg, the old toad, I did. Nor did I see him die. They took him beyond the Chapel, to the highest of the cliffs, and they did not bring him back. ’Twas Seamus was meant to do the job, but I was one too many for even Dr. Edmund Jackman. Should ever there be a trial, and should yourself and myself come alive out of this, Mr. Logan, you’ll bear that in memory.”

  “If I’m to bear witness for you, Seamus, perhaps you’ll tell me the details of your part in the business.”

  Donley sighed. “Never did I think myself would turn informer, but that comes of the keeping of ill company. Not that Jackman and Royall will be common criminals: they’re uncommon enough. The rest will not be politicals, only hard cases that Jackman has some clutch upon. As for myself, Mr. Detective Logan, I never took a penny that was not mine, unless on Army orders.”

  Getting up abruptly, Donley went to the door and put his ear against it. “The wind is high still,” he said, “and sure they never will come to us in such dark as this – not Jackman’s town crew. But ’tis my nerves that are on edge, Mr. Logan: three days with next to nothing in my belly, mind, so that there have been times when I thought more people than Jackman’s were walking in Carnglass. A damned island. Well, then, my autobiography, or a bit of it, Mr. Police-Detective. Much good may the telling of it do you, or myself.” Thrusting his chair toward the smouldering fire, Donley warmed his boots. What little light there was played upon his scarred face. And Hugh Logan listened.

  Chapter 5

  “BELFAST IT WAS where I met with Davie Anderson,” Donley began, “a Glasgow razor-slasher of blasphemous conversation. Taking up with him was folly, Mr. Logan, but I’d small choice. The Republican Army – mollycoddles they are these days, to a man – would do nothing for me but hide me a week or two, and that with ill grace.

  “‘You’re impulsive, Donley,’ said they to me. I do believe they wished me back in Derry gaol. And who was it that blew the bridge ten years past? And who was it that was at the lighting of the fires in Belfast, to show the Luftwaffe where to drop their bombs? Why, Seamus Donley, none other. The Germans were nothing to myself, nor Jackman and his politics, neither; but it was enough for me that the English would catch it.

  “No, the I.R.A. never sent the files that took me out of Derry gaol, nor the money, nor the motorcar, though at the time I took it for their work. Jackman it was: Jackman knew Seamus Donley for a man to handle the explosives.” He poured more whiskey.

  “When Davie Anderson came to me, I said I would do Jackman’s work for Jackman’s pay. A month ago it was that they brought me to Carnglass, and made me gamekeeper, and showed me the explosives, and told me the work I was to do, when the time came. Davie Anderson! Davie Anderson! Once let me come in reach of you, Davie Anderson, and you’ll seduce no more honest rebels.”

  “Does Davie Anderson have a brother Jock, in the Gallowgate of Glasgow?” Logan put in.

  “That has he, Mr. Detective Logan. I perceive you’re not so innocent as you seem, not by half. A bad case, either Davie or Jock, like all Jackman’s lot. Nine-tenths criminals, and but one-tenth politicals. And that political tenth not my patriotic politics. ’Tis a rough life I’ve led, Mr. Logan, and I’m no man for small scruples. But needless murthering, unpolitical murthering, never suited my fancy. And in the murthering of women I will have no part, not even the mur-thering of old witches. And Jackman’s plan it was, or I’m a Black and Tan, to lay the slaughter to Seamus Donley’s account.”

  “What good would killing women be to Jackman?” Logan asked.

  “There’s no need for you to play the cherub with me, Mr. Police-Detective. ’Twas the money, of course: all that money. ‘Tis not for his own self’s sake Jackman seeks the money, but to ingratiate himself again with his party. Sure, and didn’t they cast him out for a premature deviationist, and for the wild things he’d done? But the money, and the spying about the islands, and the explosives under the new installations – faith, if that thing might be done, the party would take him back, soon enough. A risky work it is, but if Jackman does it well, all’s kisses. And the party is all Jackman’s life, he being a political through and through: that I’ll say for him. Jackman and his boys never told me, for never did they trust me, nor I them. But I’ve eyes in my head, Mr. Detective Logan, and a brain for right reasoning. When the time came, the women must die. And if ever it came to the prisoner in the box, who would they have for scapegoat? Why, old Seamus Donley, that’s a fugitive from English justice.”

  “And did Lagg know of this?”

  “Tam Lagg took Jackman’s money two years and more. Yet the murthering never came into Lagg’s thick wits, I do believe, until a month ago. To help Jackman to bully the Old One into making him her heir was one thing; to plot mur-ther was another. And treason, too. Lagg’s was no stomach for such tactics. But where could Tam Lagg turn? He could not get ashore, nor even post a letter, without Jackman’s leave. When Lagg saw what I had seen, and thought the thoughts I had thought – concerning the plot for murther, I mean – he took fright. Jackman sees through a man as
if flesh were glass, and Jackman will have known this month past that Lagg could be trusted no more.

  “Then Jackman was the cat, and Lagg the mouse. And Jackman and his boys watched Lagg by day and by night. When they caught Lagg lighting the fire behind the hill, they made an end of him.”

  “What sort of fire, Donley?”

  “Why, the fire that might have been seen by folk in Daldour, to bring them over from curiosity; but it never came to a blaze. That afternoon I sat by my cottage at the New House, mending rabbit-snares – for they had lodged me in the keeper’s cottage, as if they feared to have me much about the Old House, near the gelignite – when Jackman came striding up, and with him Royall and Davie Anderson and Rab, that holy terror of a boy. Three days ago it was, but for old Seamus it seems like three years, what with the hiding and the running and the starving since.

  “‘Donley,’ Jackman says to me, in his quiet wicked way, ‘come along. We’re hunting today.’

  “‘Then I’ll be wanting my shotgun, Dr. Jackman,’ I say to him. But he shakes his misbegotten head.

  “‘No, Donley, you old ruffian,’ says he, ‘we’ve guns enough for this hunting of ours.’ And I see that Rab and Davie have rifles slung over their shoulders. Jackman himself carries no weapon ever, they say; and sure I’ve not seen him with any. ’Tis terror that he carries.

  “So up I get, as you see me now, bareheaded and in my coat, and tramp round with Jackman and his boys to the shoulder of the hill they call Mucaird, and over the shoulder till we come close up to the broken farmhouse there. And from within the house, smoke is beginning to rise.

  “‘Hush, gentlemen,’ whispers Jackman. ‘We must not disturb the factor at his little games.’ In through the empty doorway we creep; and there crouches that fat toad Lagg, his back to us, feeding a fire in a corner, pouring petrol on a heap of trash, so as to set the whole ruin ablaze. A noble beacon it would have made.

  “Jackman grins his devil-grin. ‘Good day, Mr. Lagg,’ says he. ‘You’re a warm friend, Mr. Lagg.’

  “Tam Lagg squeals like a pig when you come with the butchering-knife, and jumps round: a gross ugly man in corduroys, his face red and puffy always, but now white as a cadaver’s. ‘Dr. Jackman!’ he squeals. ‘Dr. Jackman!’ And he can say no more, for there is no more to be said.

  “‘Yes, your old patron, Dr. Jackman,’ that Beelzebub tells him. ‘I assume that you’re weary of our company, Mr. Lagg.’ Davie and Rab tramp out the fire in the damp roofless room, while Lagg crouches by the wall like a trapped hare.

  “‘Even the fondest of friends must part, Mr. Lagg,’ says Jackman, cheery as a cat with a rotten mackerel, ‘and you’re come to the end of your tether, my good and faithful servant.’ Then Davie and Rab take Lagg by the arms and fling him upon the rubbish, and Davie unslings his rifle.

  “‘For God’s sake, Dr. Jackman,’ says Lagg, puffing and weeping, ‘I’ve an auld wifie in Galloway, by Gatehouse of Fleet, and four bairns. And this is a civilized land.’

  “Why, Donley’s compatriots have a phrase that fits your situation, Mr. Lagg,’ smiles Jackman. “‘What’s all the world to a man,” the Irish say, “when his wife’s a widdy?” You’ll never be missed, Lagg. You’ll have been lost at sea, merrily fishing. These are wild waters round Carnglass. And as for civilized lands – why, “had ye been where I ha’been, and see wha’ I ha’seen” – eh, Thomas Lagg? This is the end of an old refrain for you. I never took to your red face. And even if I wished to spare you, still there would be the problem of morale among my associates here, wouldn’t there? There’s nothing like an execution or two to encourage the others. And Lady MacAskival will be so obliging as to write to the police concerning your sad disappearance at sea.’ He’s in love with dying – other men’s dying – is Jackman.

  “It came to me then, Mr. Logan, that when my usefulness to Jackman was done, Jackman and his boys would crowd old Seamus into some such corner. There’s no honor among the lot of them. Lagg and Seamus were outsiders. And that man Lagg did cry so, lying there in the smouldering rubbish. Davie pokes him with the muzzle of his rifle, and Jackman gloats, like a sloat down a rabbit’s burrow. I was standing behind the crowd of them. ‘Though the creature’s a Presbyterian,’ I say to Jackman, ‘at the least you’ll grant him a moment for his prayers.’ And that said, I whisk out Meg here.” Donley patted the revolver inside his coat. “Jackman’s lot never had known I kept Meg under my arm.

  “They all turn to face me, Davie with the rifle half raised. ‘Davie Anderson,’ say I, ‘drop it!’ And Davie lets the gun fall, for he knows the reputation of Seamus Donley. Rab’s rifle is slung over his shoulder; Royall’s pistol is in his pocket. Yet it is four to one. Jackman’s devil-grin never changes.

  “‘Why, Father Seamus,’ he says, genteel as Brian Boru, ‘I presume you aspire to the role of confessor.’

  “‘No, I’m no priest, Jackman,’ say I. ‘Yet you’ll have the grace to grant Lagg a moment for repentance, or ‘tis myself will have another Englishman’s life on my conscience.’

  “‘I’ll humor your piety, Father Seamus,’ Jackman says, though his black eyes are like hell-coals. ‘Mr. Lagg, to your devotions.’

  “Lagg grovels in the dirt, moaning; and if he prays, the words run all together; and as for myself, I am too bent on watching Jackman and the rest to listen to him. A long minute it was, Mr. Logan.

  “Jackman looks at his wrist-watch. ‘Pax vobiscum,’ says he, ever so sneering. ‘And now, Father Seamus, seeing that you have your little gun conveniently in your Fenian paw, perhaps you will be so kind as to administer the coup de grace to our old comrade here.’ The eyes of those four murtherers are turned on myself like dogs round a badger.

  “‘Jackman,’ I tell him, ‘may I screech in Hell if I lift a finger in this bloody business.’

  “‘Perhaps, in any event, Mr. Lagg would prefer a cold plunge,’ Jackman says, smoothly. Lagg does no more than look at me, gasping and choking, as if I were the king of glory. But the odds are four to one, Mr. Logan, and Seamus has himself to think of, and Lagg was a tricky old toad.

  “‘Being but one man, Jackman,’ say I, ‘I cannot hinder you. Yet you’ll not harm the rascal in my sight.’

  “‘As you wish, Reverend Father.’ And Jackman nods to Rab and Davie. They take Lagg by the arms, he screaming out my name the while, and drag him through the doorway; and Royall picks up Davie’s rifle, though careful not to lift it high nor point it toward old Seamus. ‘Donley,’ Jackman murmurs, as he follows them out the door, ‘go back to your cottage. You and I must have a serious conversation later.’

  “And they lead Lagg along the hill toward St. Merin’s Chapel and the cliffs, he weak as water, while I watch them from an empty window, being cautious not to show much of myself, lest Rab or Davie be inclined toward a lucky shot. And soon the bracken swallows them. Seamus has given Tam Lagg his minute of grace, and now Lagg must give Seamus Donley his hour for action.

  “Jackman is cunning, think I to myself; but this once he’s reckoned without his man. There were two things that I might try: first, to get clean away from Carnglass, which would leave Jackman with no good hand for the explosives, and no scapegoat; or second, to send up a signal like the signal Lagg meant to make of that farmhouse to call heed to strange doings in Carnglass. Now being a runaway gaolbird, I preferred the first method, Mr. Logan; and besides, ’tis the surer method; and it might save the women, since what with Seamus gone to the mainland and talking with whom he might, sure Jackman would think twice before doing more murther.

  “So soon, then, as Jackman and the rest were out of sight, I ran down the track toward the New House and Askival harbor – and the boats. Two craft there were in the harbor, both Lady MacAskival’s, though she’d scant need of them for her own self: a sixty-foot sailing yacht, old but with an auxiliary engine, and a fast motor-launch, half decked. Could I but get aboard either, and take it out of harbor – the motor-launch would be the better – I might make land somewhe
re and be out of sight before either Jackman or you darling police might say Daniel O’Connell.

  “But somewhere there would be seven more of Jackman’s boys: Sam Tompkins, a Cockney, with the grand title of butler – though he’s little better than a pickpocket, and not to be dreaded; Ferd, the Cat o’ Malta; a tinker-like fellow called Niven, that they’d made gardener; a Lancashire rough, Simmons, the stableman. Then the three boatmen, all out of Liverpool: Jim Powert, Harry Till, and Bill Carruthers. If the gang should be at the Old House, all of them, well and good: I never would try for the Old House, that being a strong place with but one gate. And if there should be but a man or two at the harbor, my little Meg and myself, between the two of us, might do their business. Now I’d a shotgun at my cottage, and like enough Lagg had a gun or two in the New House, unless Jackman had taken precautions. A shotgun or a rifle in the hands of such a one as myself is worth half a dozen men, Mr. Detective Logan, as I fancy you’ve heard tell. So it was to my cottage that I ran first, not looking back toward St. Merin’s Chapel, nor liking to think what might be done there on the cliffs.

  “All the way, I met no man. And my cottage was empty; but the shotgun was gone. ‘Oho,’ say I to myself, ‘then Jackman will have a suspicion of old Seamus, and will have left orders to keep a weather eye on him.’ I stuffed my coat pockets with biscuits from a tin, for there was no saying when I might dine again; and then, very quiet, I had a look about the New House, which has a little fir-plantation between it and the gamekeeper’s cottage.

  “As bad cess would have it, three men – Ferd, and Niven, and Simmons – came out of the back gate of the New House when I looked that way from the firs. They not spying me, I knelt there silent, and they walked on toward the Old House, having locked the door behind them. Simmons was carrying my own shotgun. These are dull dogs, Mr. Logan, with no talent for hide-and-seek – though Ferd is sharp enough, but being a Soho spiv, he’s out of his element in Carnglass. Once they were gone, I trotted on to the harbor, just beyond the New House; they would have taken the guns from the New House, for Ferd and Niven, too, had been carrying weapons. Now it must be the boats for Seamus Donley, with no help but little Meg. The night was coming down, praise be, and I might creep along the quay safe enough, keeping behind a little low breakwater that has a walk between it and the outer edge of the quay.