Richard Browne, senior partner in the firm that bore his name, was a small, silver-haired man in his middle sixties. He was wearing a very elegant dark suit that Powerscourt did not think had come from a Galway tailor with a cream shirt adorned by ornate silver cufflinks. He carried about him an air of great respectability. The room was large, with a fine marble mantelpiece, a desk by the window, a sofa and some easy chairs loosely grouped round a Regency table. Powerscourt was relieved to see that there were no stuffed animals in sight.
‘Lord Powerscourt, a very good morning to you. How can I be of assistance?’
‘Dennis Ormonde of Ormonde House suggested I call on you, Mr Browne,’ Powerscourt began. ‘Let me give you a little background, if I may. I am an investigator, sir, summoned to Ireland to look into a delicate matter of stolen paintings. So far there have been two deaths and a serious kidnapping during the course of my inquiries. I need to know about land, who is buying, who is selling, the general state of the market. Land is always central to what goes on in Ireland, I think. Dennis Ormonde said you would be the best person to consult in the whole of the west of Ireland.’
The old man laughed and began filling his pipe. ‘He flatters me, Lord Powerscourt. I shall be happy to oblige though I find it hard to detect the link between land and pictures. But tell me, didn’t your people once own a huge estate in County Wicklow? And Powerscourt House itself? All sold now, of course, but in its day, surely, it was one of the finest of its kind in Ireland.’
‘We did own it, Mr Browne. It was I who sold it, for reasons I won’t burden you with. There are no lands or houses owned by Powerscourts in Ireland now, I’m afraid.’
‘Pity, that,’ said Richard Browne. ‘The family went back a very long way. Now then.’ He forced a final lump of tobacco into his pipe and began fiddling with his matches. ‘Land, Lord Powerscourt, land in Ireland. Dear me. Where should I start? Two years ago, I tell you, I was going to retire. My wife and I had spent over a year planning a great journey round Europe by train. It was going to take three months. I have always wanted to see some of the great art galleries. My wife is very keen on gardens and great chateaux. We had the route planned, we even had the names of the hotels where we were going to make reservations. Then I heard about this Wyndham Act, the one that encourages the landlords to sell out and gives them a bonus of twelve per cent on the price for doing so. You know about this Act, Lord Powerscourt?’
Powerscourt remembered William Moore talking about it. He nodded.
‘Mabel, I said,’ the land agent went on, thin wisps of smoke beginning to curl out of his pipe, ‘in forty years in this trade I have never seen an opportunity like this. Business for a while will be brisker than we have ever known. I could not sit happy in Gstaad or Portofino and think of all those missing profits. So we postponed the trip. I had to buy Mabel a new house to make up for it, mind you, a Georgian place out near the coast, cost me a packet but it was well worth it.’
‘Did business boom, Mr Browne? Were your expectations justified?’
The land agent laughed. ‘It has been better than my wildest dreams, Lord Powerscourt. These Anglo-Irish landlords, you know, they’ve never been very good with money, most of them. They’re extravagant. If a neighbour builds a Gothic extension to his property, then you have to do the same. Most of those estates are lumbered with loans and mortgages of unimaginable size. Sometimes half or even two-thirds of the income goes on servicing the debts. If agricultural prices are good then the rents can be high. But they’ve not been too good for a long time with all these foreign imports of wheat and so on. So when George Wyndham proposed this Act, the landlords thought it was manna from heaven. Sell some of your land, sell all of your land, collect the bonus, and it’s a golden opportunity to pay off a lot of those debts and still be left with plenty of money. I’ve had people coming in here at a rate you wouldn’t believe, as if I was the bookmaker round the corner.’
‘So you have lots of sellers,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Who is buying? And might I make so bold as to raise the religious question? Dennis Ormonde said you dealt with all the Protestant sales. But it doesn’t sound as if there are many Protestant buyers on the market.’
Richard Browne puffed vigorously. ‘Good question, my lord, good question. Very rarely will a Protestant enter the market to buy. Some of the most efficient farmers have increased their holdings, it is true. But most of the time the land is offered to the existing tenants. That’s only fair, after all. It’s after that the business really takes off. Many of these people – we’d have called them peasants in days gone by – didn’t have very much land. If they sold it they might have enough money to emigrate or to pay off some of their debts. Or they could stay on and work on the land for the new landlord. Some of the larger Catholic farmers have amassed enormous amounts of land by buying out their co-religionists. Sometimes, I understand, they’re even harsher landlords than the ones who sold up. The key point is this shift in the ownership of land towards the native population and, in particular, the acquisition of these huge holdings. It’s history running backwards, my lord. Out go the Protestants who acquired or stole the land from the Catholic population hundreds of years ago, in come these great Catholic speculators buying up the Protestant land with the help and encouragement of the British Government in London. It could only happen in Ireland.’ Browne’s pipe had gone out. He began again the difficult search for matches, never to be found in the pocket where you thought you had put them.
‘Is that clear to you, my lord, the general picture, I mean?’
‘Admirably clear, Mr Browne, you have explained the situation very well. Might I trespass on your knowledge yet further and trail a couple of names before you, names of Catholic gentlemen who might be buying up the land in the manner you adumbrated so well?’
‘I’m afraid, my lord,’ Richard Browne had finally managed to relight his pipe and was now blowing great lungfuls of smoke in Powerscourt’s direction, ‘that at certain points the priorities and preoccupations of investigators, however distinguished, diverge from those of humble land agents like myself. We have a duty of confidentiality to our clients. It is not as rigorous as the duty that binds the priests in their confessionals, but we break it at our peril.’
‘Goodness me, Mr Browne,’ said Powerscourt, ‘forgive me, I was not thinking of anybody with whom you might be doing business here in Galway or Clare or however far your remit runs. I was thinking rather of somebody in the Midlands, somebody whose land agents would probably come from Athlone rather than Galway.’
‘It’s very unusual, my lord. I’m not sure I could countenance giving out any information where I was not in the full possession of the facts.’
Powerscourt threw his hat into the ring. ‘Mr Mulcahey, Mr Pronsias Mulcahey of Butler’s Cross – does that name ring any bells, even distant bells, with you, Mr Browne?’
Something in the land agent’s face told Powerscourt that he had scored a direct hit.
‘I couldn’t say, my lord, I really couldn’t say. Pronsias Mulcahey, grocer and moneylender of Market Square, Butler’s Cross. I couldn’t say, but you might be on to something there.’
Jameson was unwell. His owner, Charlie O’Malley, was very worried about him. He was not old, for a donkey. He still worked for his living but his performance was sporadic. Occasionally he sat down in the middle of the road and refused to move. He was not eating much. After their heroic efforts building the chapel on the summit of Croagh Patrick, Charlie and his animals were currently employed building a new hotel and bar near the beach at Old Head, a few miles from Louisburg. The land was flat and the effort involved for donkeys bringing materials out to the site was minute compared with the long haul up the Holy Mountain. Charlie had consulted widely among his cronies in the bar of Campbell’s public house. One had recommended large doses of whiskey, another great helpings of vegetable soup, another swore his granny had cured a dying donkey by feeding it a diet of potatoes soaked overnight in stout. The goodness of
the Guinness, according to Charlie’s informant’s aged relative, soaked into the spuds and effected the cure. Charlie had tried them all. He had mentioned to his wife the possibility of the vet and been soundly berated for his pains; how were the children to have clothes on their backs and shoes on their feet if all their hard-earned money was to be squandered on a delinquent donkey?
Charlie had virtually decided to have Jameson put down. The two of them and Bushmills had finished early for the day and Charlie was thinking of celebrating his release with a glass of refreshment in the public bar at Campbell’s when it happened. Jameson stopped at the bottom of the track that led to the summit. He stared upwards. Then he began trotting purposefully up the path.
‘Jameson!’ shouted Charlie. ‘Jameson! Where are you going, you stupid animal?’
The donkey did not deign to turn round. He continued, at a regular pace, in the direction of the statue of St Patrick. Charlie tethered Bushmills to the post outside Campbell’s and set off in pursuit.
‘Jameson!’ he shouted, spying the beast some two hundred yards further up and cruising steadily past St Patrick. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’
Jameson gave every indication of having a very good idea of where he was going. He was going up and nobody was going to stop him. By the time Charlie caught up with him, the donkey was almost at the first station and looking as if he might break the All Ireland Donkey record for the summit of The Reek. Charlie himself was panting heavily. The fitness established on those trips up and down to the chapel had long gone, eroded by the flat lands of Old Head and the stout of Campbell’s public bar. Anybody looking at the two of them now would have said that Jameson was the healthy one and Charlie the invalid. Onwards and upwards went the animal, five hundred yards from the summit, then three hundred, then eighty. Charlie was feeling rather unwell and had taken to reciting a series of Hail Marys. Jameson gave one triumphant bray when he reached the chapel he had helped to build and he peered out into Clew Bay, master of all he surveyed.
‘For Christ’s sake, Jameson,’ said Charlie, sitting down by the edge of the chapel, ‘won’t you take a rest? Sit down, in God’s name. You’re bloody well killing me.’
Jameson took no notice. He trotted past Charlie without even a glance and set off back down the scree. Charlie floundered after him, slithering on the rough stones, and once sitting down very uncomfortably. Charlie knew he had to stop Jameson disappearing off down the road at the bottom and escaping into some kind of donkey liberty. He redoubled his efforts but Jameson was too quick for him. By the time Charlie eventually reached the bottom, holding on to his side and panting heavily, Jameson was next to Bushmills. They appeared to be having a conversation in donkey language on the inadequacies of humans. Charlie tied the donkey up and staggered into the public bar. He had to be helped to a seat. He was too exhausted to speak. A variety of remedies were proposed.
‘Plain water, that’s what he needs,’ said a farmer from nearby Murrisk.
‘Plain water?’ said a carpenter from Westport. ‘You must be mad. When did plain water do anything for anybody, for God’s sake? Stout, that’s what he wants.’
‘No, no, not stout. It’ll puff him out like a football,’ said a small farmer. ‘whiskey, that’s the thing.’
‘Brandy,’ said the landlord, who had left his seat of custom for a close inspection of Charlie. ‘Here, take this very slowly. Don’t rush it or you’ll be ill.’ He handed over a large glass half filled with cognac and Charlie sipped it gently, like a man taking his medicine after a long illness. Gradually he felt himself returning to something approaching normal. Certainly the state of semi-inebriation brought on by the brandy was a condition well known to Charlie. And when he outlined the recent events concerning Jameson, he had the attention of every single person in the public bar.
‘He’s mad, the animal,’ said one. ‘Who ever heard of a mountaineering donkey?’
‘Take him to the Alps, Charlie,’ said another, who had not excelled at geography with the Christian Brothers. ‘See if he can climb the Horn of Matter!’
‘Matterhorn, you eejit,’ said his friend. ‘Why don’t we organize a donkey race up Croagh Patrick every summer? Jameson would be hot favourite. I’d put five shillings on him now, so I would.’
‘It just goes to show,’ said a solicitor’s clerk, ‘that all donkeys are mad. You can never tell with them, they’re so stupid.’
‘The spirit of St Patrick has entered the animal,’ said a teacher who had once contemplated a career in the priesthood. ‘Jameson has taken on the mantle of the patron saint.’
Charlie paid little attention to any of these theories. Jameson had certainly returned to health. He even attained a brief moment of local fame when the editor of the Mayo News, a veteran of the journalistic profession, florid of countenance and portly of figure, heard about the mountaineering donkey and sent one of his brightest young men to interview Jameson. The reporter quickly realized that donkeys, like the dead, cannot sue for libel and that he was therefore free to print whatever took his fancy. Jameson, he informed his readers, was an avid supporter of Home Rule as he much preferred staying in the field next to Charlie O’Malley’s house to going to work. And he deduced from the considerable amount of time the donkey spent outside Campbell’s public house that Jameson would favour a relaxation of the licensing laws and a lowering in the duty on the spirit that bore his name. Parties of schoolchildren would make appointments to come and see Jameson after this, bringing gifts of vegetables and stroking him happily. Twice a month Charlie took him up to the summit of Croagh Patrick to keep his health up. Charlie rejected all the theories about his donkey’s behaviour. Charlie knew the truth. Jameson was a pilgrim.
The Archbishop of Tuam, the Very Reverend John Healey, was perusing a large pile of documents on his desk as Powerscourt was shown into his study.
‘Lord Powerscourt, how good to see you again. Please take a seat. Is your mission to Ireland nearly completed?’
Powerscourt quite liked the thought of his mission. It linked him to the saints and scholars of Ireland’s past, perhaps even to Patrick himself out here in the country where a great mountain was named in his honour.
‘I believe I am on the last lap, Your Grace. I hope so anyway.’
‘So you think you have found the answer?’
‘In this case, Your Grace, I think it will come down to answers in the plural rather than answer in the singular. So often in my investigations there has been one perpetrator, one single individual who committed the crime or murdered the innocent or forged the paintings. Here I think there may be a number of individuals. It has made it very difficult to work out the links that held them together.’
‘I’m sure you will get to the bottom of it all. Tell me, Lord Powerscourt, I have received a great many letters complaining about the shooting of a young man on the Maum road very recently. My correspondents say that the young man was totally innocent and was victimized by the soldiers for no reason. And his companion, another young man, had been badly beaten up. Do you know anything about this?’
Powerscourt smiled. ‘Is it possible, Your Grace, that some of these letters are in the same hand? Or that the words in one are remarkably similar to those in another?’
The Archbishop frowned. He riffled through the stack of letters. ‘God bless my soul! Both of those statements are true,’ he said in surprise. ‘How very strange. Do you think somebody is orchestrating this campaign?’
‘That might indeed be the case, Your Grace,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but let me give you the facts. You see, I was present, or almost present, at the time. Those two young men were responsible for the kidnapping of two Protestant women from Ormonde House. They kept them locked up in a fishing lodge near Leenane for some days. The ladies were only freed when Johnny Fitzgerald and I substituted ourselves for them, and became hostages in our turn. We were all going to Galway in the finest Ormonde coach, with Johnny and I told not to move or we would be shot.’
Dr Healey’s ample eyebrows shot high up the archepiscopal forehead. ‘Goodness me,’ he said, ‘what colourful lives you people lead. I’m sure Lord Edward Fitzgerald would have been proud of his descendant’s gallantry, mind you. Please go on.’
‘Well, Your Grace, we managed to set ourselves free by a violent assault on the young men when they were nearly asleep and kicking them out of the coach. Then they were intercepted by a party of troopers who were following our progress at a discreet distance. The young man who was shot could have allowed himself to be arrested. He must have known he and his colleague were outnumbered. But he did not. We only knew him as Mick, Your Grace. That was not his real name and he was a very excitable young man. He fired at the cavalrymen. They fired back. He was killed. I am sure he preferred death and glory to capture and a prison sentence in Castlebar Jail. No doubt there will be a ballad about him soon.’
‘I think there already is,’ said the Archbishop. ‘One of the grooms here heard it last night in the Mitre across the road. I see, Lord Powerscourt. I feel I should pay little attention to these protesters. But tell me, I only saw you on the way up the mountain, not on the way down. Did you enjoy the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage? Did it have meaning for you?’
‘It most certainly did,’ replied Powerscourt. ‘It was, for me, a spiritual experience. I am most grateful to Your Grace for inviting us. Could I extend, on behalf of Lucy and myself, an invitation to you, Your Grace, to come and see us when you are next in London? You could meet the children. We live in Markham Square in Chelsea. Sir Thomas More lived not far away, we have the Royal Hospital close by, one of the most beautiful buildings in London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, we have the river Thames, but we have no mountains and no pilgrimages.’
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