Death on the Holy Mountain lfp-7

by David Dickinson

  Johnny Fitzgerald was not with them on this day. He had, he said at breakfast, an appointment in Westport with a man who claimed to be a defrocked Christian Brother. Of the reasons for the defrocking Johnny was not aware but he thought the man might have a story to tell. Dennis Ormonde was busy on estate business, saying that in any case it was a damned long way to go to look at some picture of one of Moore’s bloody ancestors.

  ‘Do you think the painting will be the real thing, Francis?’ asked Lady Lucy as their cab carried them up the long drive to the crenellated castle.

  ‘I don’t believe it will be the real thing at all,’ said Powerscourt gloomily.

  One look at a crestfallen Moore at the top of the steps told them that Powerscourt’s fears were correct. Moore looked like a man who has just lost his fortune, or suffered a bereavement. His face was pale and his hands were trembling slightly.

  ‘Thank God you’ve come, Powerscourt, Lady Powerscourt, I’m in despair, I really am.’ He led them up the stairs with the stags’ heads and across the great hall with its gallery into the dining room. There indeed was the painting, a full-length of Alexander William O’Flaherty Moore hanging above the fireplace. Or rather, Powerscourt thought, inspecting it closely, it might have been turned into the ghost of a painting. The colours were fading, all of them, what must have been the deep blue of the cloak around Moore’s shoulders turned pale, the hair no longer receding from his forehead but virtually disappeared back into the off-white of the canvas, the colours everywhere ebbing away like the smile of the Cheshire cat. As he looked, Powerscourt thought you could almost see the painting vanishing away in front of your eyes. By the end of the day, or by the end of tomorrow, he thought, it would have disappeared completely, only the canvas and the frame remaining in their place of honour above the fireplace. Alexander William O’Flaherty Moore, here today, gone tomorrow.

  ‘How terrible, Mr Moore,’ said Lady Lucy, putting her hand on his arm in a gesture of sympathy, ‘and this is your grandfather, I think you said?’

  ‘It was,’ said Moore bitterly, ‘it bloody well was.’

  Powerscourt was looking very closely at the painting. ‘When did it start to disappear, if you see what I mean?’

  ‘It was fine for the first two days,’ said Moore, breaking off suddenly to sneeze violently. ‘Damn, I thought I’d got rid of the wretched influenza. It was on the third day I thought it looked odd but I put it down to the medicinal whiskey. Then yesterday there was no doubt about it, it had started its disappearing act.’

  What a way to send messages, Powerscourt thought. It was a form of Celtic voodoo, a desecration of the ancestors to discomfit and almost unman your enemies. If you had no ancestors, even symbolic ones, then who were you? You had lost your past to a cruel and unforgiving present. Your entire family history, a commodity very dear to these Irish patricians in their great houses, was under attack, the history stretching back far into the past to confirm your ancient right to these houses and these lands. That, after all, was why they put these paintings on the walls in the first place, a defiant statement of their right to be here, to be the masters in their Castles and Parks and Courts and Halls. Not for the first time Powerscourt wondered about the mind that had dreamt up this vicious onslaught. He thought briefly of Father O’Donovan Brady nursing his hatred of the Anglo-Irish along with his drink in the evenings in the priest’s house. He doubted if somebody who did not understand the mentality of these Butlers and Ormondes and Moores and Connollys could have worked out such a clever plan. It had to be somebody who knew how they thought, somebody who had lived in one of these houses perhaps. A servant with a grudge maybe? He remembered suddenly that some of the greatest fighters for Ireland’s freedom – and that would have meant a Catholic freedom, surely – had been Protestants. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, mortally wounded on the run, Parnell himself, the man who nearly brought Home Rule to Ireland. Did the Anglo-Irish generation of 1905 harbour a traitor in their midst?

  ‘Tell me, Powerscourt,’ Moore was speaking very quickly, as if he thought the remains of his ancestor on the wall might hear him, ‘what does it mean?’

  ‘Come away, man,’ said Powerscourt. ‘We can talk better away from the poor chap on the wall.’

  Moore led them into the sitting area at the back which had once been the entrance hall. He ordered coffee and a stiff whiskey for himself.

  ‘Let me say first of all,’ Powerscourt draped himself in an elegant chair and stared out at the lawns and the fountain that led down to Moore’s little river, ‘that in one sense it is the same as the Butler picture. That isn’t the original, I’m virtually certain of it. So, with luck we may recover the real thing in the end and your grandfather can go back on his walls. That picture in there is a copy, maybe done by the same man who painted the different version of The Master of the Hunt for Butler’s house. And the artist has used some very inferior paint, or he’s treated it with some fancy chemical so the paint fades away completely in a week. Some of the Old Masters, you know, in the days before commercially manufactured paint, used to mix their own. Sometimes the very same thing happened to them as has happened to yours – the work just faded away in a very short time.’ Powerscourt hoped that Moore might take some comfort in being bracketed with the likes of Albrecht Durer and Filippo Lippi, but if he did he was hiding it well. He continued scowling at his floor. ‘As to what it means, it’s the same thing as Butler’s. You’re not wanted. Your ancestors and what they stand for are repudiated. Your view of history and your family’s view of history and your class’s view of history are discredited, not valid any more. But it means something else as well, I think.’ Powerscourt paused to take a sip of his coffee. A great peacock was strutting outside on the lawn.

  ‘Can I just take you up on one thing you said earlier, Powerscourt? You said you thought we might recover the real painting in the end, that we might get my grandfather back again. Do you really believe that?’

  ‘I do, Moore, I believe it very strongly. I have a feeling, no, more than a feeling, that the paintings are safe. People who manipulate pictures and their significance as cleverly as these thieves must have an understanding of what they mean. They’re not likely to destroy them.’

  ‘You were about to say something more when I interrupted,’ said Moore, looking slightly happier though Powerscourt suspected it might be due to the whiskey which was disappearing at a rapid rate.

  ‘Yes,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I must ask you a question. In the original blackmail letter there was a deadline, a day by which you were meant to have done whatever it is they wanted you to do. Is that correct?’

  Moore nodded.

  ‘And has that day arrived, or are we very close to it?’

  There was a pause. Powerscourt looked over at Lady Lucy who never took her eyes off Moore’s face.

  ‘It’s very close,’ Moore murmured, ‘but it’s not quite yet.’

  ‘And have you given in to their demands, the blackmailers?’

  ‘No, I have not.’ Moore was firm and defiant now.

  ‘Very good,’ said Powerscourt, ‘then that is the other message from the disappearing grandfather next door. It’s a warning. They’re trying to frighten you. If you don’t agree to our demands, terrible things are going to happen to you. Vanishing relations in the family portraits for a start.’

  ‘You don’t think some more of my paintings are going to come back with things wrong with them, do you, Powerscourt?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Powerscourt firmly. ‘I don’t think they’ll try that particular stunt again.’

  Just what the thieves were going to try next became apparent all too soon. Ormonde House was in chaos when Powerscourt and Lady Lucy returned there in the late afternoon. Groups of Orangemen were searching the woods to the side of the house. Other Orangemen could be heard clumping about in the attics, opening doors and rooms that had not seen a visitor in years. Clouds of dust floated down from the top storey on to the floors below. The butler, Hanra
han, gave them the news. ‘It’s Mrs Ormonde and her sister Winifred that just came to visit her today, sir, they’ve disappeared. We can’t find them anywhere. The Chief Constable’s in with Mr Ormonde now, sir, if you’d like to join them.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll do that just now,’ said Powerscourt, his brain reeling from the news. The pictures were only a start. Then it’s the people. Your own wife, even. He took Lady Lucy’s hand absentmindedly into his own.

  ‘Do we know when they disappeared? Do we know where they were when they were taken? If they were taken, that is.’

  Hanrahan coughed. ‘I’m afraid it’s not altogether clear about when they were last seen, sir. Some people thought they went out on to the lawn. Others think they saw them after that in the house.’

  ‘They didn’t say if they were going out for a walk with a picnic perhaps, something like that? They didn’t go off in one of the carriages, did they?’

  ‘We’ve checked all that, sir. There was no picnic ordered and the carriages are all there still now.’

  They heard the clatter of boots coming from the library. The Chief Constable was introduced, a former military man, Powerscourt decided. ‘Colonel Fitzwilliam, Lord Powerscourt.’ A grim-faced Ormonde made the introductions.

  ‘Delighted to meet you, Powerscourt,’ said the Colonel. ‘Heard you were roaming in these pastures. Aren’t you the chap who did all that intelligence work in South Africa?’

  ‘I am,’ said Powerscourt ruefully. ‘I feel I was more successful out there against the Boers than I am here with these thieves.’

  ‘Nonsense, man.’ The Colonel at least was in cheerful mood. ‘You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.’

  Powerscourt did not like to admit that he had been working on the case for many weeks now and did not feel any more advanced than on the day he started.

  ‘Ormonde will fill you in on the plans. I’ve got to get some sort of system organized for finding the women. Won’t do it without a system. I’ve always believed in systems, getting things properly organized. Nothing happens otherwise, civilians even worse than military.’

  With that Colonel Fitzwilliam clattered off out of the front door and was driven away at great speed toward his systems. Ormonde drew them into the drawing room. Powerscourt remembered the flood of uncontrollable anger that had swept through this man when he realized his paintings had gone from his walls. He wondered if the reaction would be the same this time, or worse. But he seemed calm at first. Powerscourt thought he could see the terrible wrath lurking just beneath the surface, waiting to explode.

  ‘Let me ask you one thing straight away, Powerscourt,’ he began. ‘Do you think they’re alive, my wife and her sister, I mean?’

  ‘I do,’ said Powerscourt firmly. ‘Let me tell you why I believe it. This whole affair is about blackmail. The thieves took one lot of chips, if you’ll pardon the expression, when they stole the pictures. They thought that would be enough to persuade you to do what they want. It wasn’t. So they’ve helped themselves to some more chips. But they have to keep the two hostages alive, it seems to me. They’re no use to them dead. You might get years in prison for stealing paintings and hijacking people. You hang for murder.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ormonde gravely. Lady Lucy didn’t feel she would like to be referred to as a chip as if she was part of a poker game but she let it go. ‘Now then, I’ll tell you the plan. The Chief Constable is planning a great sweep through a fifteen-mile arc around this house. Every house, great and small, is to be visited, the inhabitants questioned, notes taken about every single dwelling. Just as well Mayo is one of the least populated parts of the country. He’s bringing in extra policemen from all of Connaught and further afield if he needs them. Each force will have its own particular area to work on. The working day for policemen is to be extended until eight o’clock in the evening. The Orangemen are to abandon their defensive duties and search as much of the mountain and wasteland as they can in the time. Fitzwilliam wasn’t at all keen on their knocking on doors. I’ve got to go and talk to these Orangemen now, if you’ll forgive me. I shall return soon.’

  ‘Just one thing before you go,’ said Powerscourt quickly. ‘The deadline, the deadline in the blackmail letter. Has it come yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Ormonde.

  ‘How soon?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘Middle of next week, actually.’ Ormonde looked as though he would much rather not have had to part with this piece of information. ‘We’ve got five or six days to find the women. And,’ he glowered balefully at this point, ‘the bastards who took them.’

  Powerscourt wandered about the house talking to some of the servants who had been on duty that morning. He learnt that there had been an elderly gardener employed raking the gravel on the front drive and he had seen nothing. A couple of foresters had been working in the woods on either side of the road that led to the back exit and they had seen nothing. It was as if Mary Ormonde, wife of Dennis, and her sister Winifred, had vanished into thin air. Powerscourt resumed his deliberations in the garden to the rear of the house. A great terrace with a balustrade ran the full length of the back of Ormonde House. In front was a small statue spouting water and a long expanse of grass. To the right and at the far end of the lawn there was a lake which ran right down to the edge of the demesne. Powerscourt looked at the layout for some time and rushed in to find Lady Lucy who was deep in conversation with the housekeeper. ‘Forgive me Mrs O’Malley, I must borrow Lucy for a little while. I’ll bring her back presently, don’t worry.’ And with that he hurried her out into the garden. Powerscourt picked up a chair and placed it on the lawn at right angles to the terrace, so both house and lake could be seen. He motioned to Lady Lucy to sit in it.

  ‘Lucy,’ said her husband, ‘I want you to pretend to be Mary Ormonde. I didn’t think Mrs O’Malley would be quite right for your sister Winifred so you’re just going to have to pretend you have an imaginary friend sitting next to you.’

  ‘Like Olivia used to do when she was little?’ asked Lady Lucy. Powerscourt remembered his daughter having long and involved conversations with her phantom friend, often involving food and not going to bed for some reason.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Now I am going to disappear for a moment or two but I shall come back. You two have a nice little chat, you know how much you ladies enjoy conversation.’

  Powerscourt could have been seen from the terrace dragging something along the side of the lake. Suddenly Lady Lucy felt something hard and round poking into the middle of her back. ‘Don’t make a noise,’ said Powerscourt in his nastiest voice, ‘or I’ll kill the pair of you. Just leave your things there and come to the water with me. If you value your lives you’ll climb into that rowing boat as fast as your feet will carry you.’

  Powerscourt led the way to the water’s edge and climbed into the boat. ‘Stern for you,’ said Powerscourt, settling himself in the middle of the little craft and rowing as hard as he could. ‘Don’t we look innocent, Lucy,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘Nobody would think anything untoward was going on at all. Two ladies being taken for a row by some young man, probably a servant.’

  ‘I think it’s quite nice being abducted by you in a rowing boat, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy, trailing a hand in the water. ‘Do you think we should do it more often?’

  ‘Now then,’ said the villainous Powerscourt, taking his little stick out of his pocket and pointing it at his wife once more, ‘when we get to the far side, do exactly as I say or you’re for it.’

  He beached the boat and pointed to a little door that led out into the world beyond the Big House. One hundred yards away was a jetty with two of Dennis Ormonde’s yachts moored close by.

  ‘Just pretend, Mrs Ormonde,’ he snarled ‘that one of those boats is ours.’ Powerscourt stared out at the blue water and the islands. ‘You could be clean away,’ he said in his normal voice, ‘in five minutes from the first encounter in the garden.’

  ‘Do you think tha
t’s how they were taken, Francis?’ asked Lady Lucy. ‘It’s quite risky, isn’t it?’

  ‘Once you’ve got them out of the garden,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it’s plain sailing, if you’ll forgive the expression. With all those Orangemen wandering about nobody’s going to look twice at any strange young man or men roaming about. It’s all quite normal.’

  ‘So what happened then?’ asked Lady Lucy. ‘Do they sail away for a year and a day to the land where the bong tree grows?’

  Powerscourt laughed. ‘I very much doubt it. I don’t think they met any pigs selling rings either. I suspect they met something rather nastier than the pig. We’d better go back, I suppose. I’d better tell my theory to Ormonde though I can’t see for the life of me how it’s going to help finding them.’

  Father O’Donovan Brady was on his second sherry of the evening when Cathal Rafferty knocked on his front door. The Father always limited the sherry before his tea on the days when Pronsias Mulcahy came to call with his fresh bottle of John Powers.

  ‘Good evening, young man, what can I do for you?’ Father O’Donovan Brady did not sound overjoyed at the prospect of his visitor.

  ‘Good evening, Father,’ said Cathal, wringing his cap in his hands, and falling silent. Somehow it had been easier to rehearse this conversation when there was only one of you. It seemed much more difficult when there were two.

  ‘Well,’ said the priest, ‘I cannot offer you any guidance if you don’t speak, you know.’

  ‘You remember, Father, you told me that if I saw or heard of any wickedness going on round here, I was to come and tell you.’

  ‘The Devil never sleeps, not even in Ireland, that’s what I said,’ said Father O’Donovan Brady, curious now to know what sins this strange young man had witnessed. Sin excited the Father. He found discussion of it stimulating, possibly because the hearing of the sins was as near as he would ever get to committing them. ‘What have you seen, young Cathal?’