The Eloquence of the Dead

by Conor Brady

  He paused for effect.

  ‘The same Miss Pollock this afternoon was traced be officers workin’ under me own instructions to the Northern Hotel. It would appear she intended takin’ the steamer to Liverpool, thus makin’ good her escape. Unhappily, she was nowhere to be found when Sergeant Swalla’ and Officer Mossop kem on the scene.’

  He glared at Swallow and Mossop.

  ‘However,’ he added, ‘there is reason to believe she may have been in possession of poison, to wit, prussic acid. Sergeant Swallow got the smell of it in the room, recovered a bottle, and this has gone to Dr Lafeyre to be analysed.

  ‘So the principal business now is to locate the woman, be she alive or dead. Also, we must consider if there are any outstandin’ lines of inquiry or action required. Dr Lafeyre will work late and conduct post-mortem examinations on the remains.’

  ‘What about informing next of kin?’ Stephen Doolan asked. ‘The family came from somewhere in the north of England, as I understand it.’

  ‘We got it out on the telegraph for all the English police forces,’ Mossop said. ‘But so far we’ve had nothing back.’

  ‘One way or another we’ll need an inventory of everything in the pawn shop,’ Swallow interjected. ‘We’re required to trace the owners of any unclaimed goods.’

  Doolan nodded.

  ‘You’re right on that. If there’s no beneficiaries the Crown will claim the value of what’s there. I think the Chief Commissioner is obliged to furnish a statement to the Solicitor General.’

  ‘I’d already adverted to that particular requirement meself,’ Boyle lied.

  The unwelcome prospect of many days of hard, painstaking work at Pollock’s loomed up in Boyle’s imagination.

  ‘That’ll be a matter for the local division to take care of,’ he announced. ‘Sergeant Doolan, can you take a couple of reliable men and start that job tomorrow mornin’ if you please?’

  Doolan nodded in resignation.

  ‘If Dr Lafeyre confirms the analysis, we’ll need to check the poisons registers as well,’ Swallow said. ‘She might have got the stuff elsewhere. But if she bought it in any of the local chemists, we’d need to know. I’ll circulate all divisions to check any purchases.’

  ‘I was comin’ to that aspect of things, Sergeant,’ Boyle lied again. ‘So it’ll please me if you’ll have that done and return any information here to Officer Swann.’

  He turned to Swallow.

  ‘What can you tell us, Mister Swalla’, about what happened at the Northern Hotel? I believe a substantial sum of money was recovered.’

  ‘We counted just over £300 in that,’ Pat Mossop said, holding up Phoebe Pollock’s case.

  There were whistles and gasps as he lifted the lid to reveal the bundle of banknotes.

  ‘Ill-gotten gains,’ Boyle declared dramatically. ‘Well, she won’t have much use for thim now.’

  Swallow caught Stephen Doolan’s fractionally raised eyebrow.

  ‘She’s still a missing woman at this stage,’ Doolan said. ‘She could have been taken against her will. So finding her quickly could make the difference between life and death. I think we need to be a bit cautious before ruling anything in or out.’

  ‘I didn’t get to me present rank through bein’ an incautious man, Sergeant,’ Doyle answered testily.

  Doolan shrugged with suppressed anger. Experience had taught him that ‘Duck’ Boyle could not open his mind to the possibility that his first conclusions on any matter might be ill-founded.

  Swallow broke the tension.

  ‘A lot of us know Phoebe Pollock from going in and out of the shop. We know she’s a harmless poor creature, whatever trouble she’s got herself into now. If she’s alive and in the wrong hands she won’t do well.’

  ‘We’re all sensitive to that, Swalla’, and we’re doin’ what we can to locate her,’ Boyle said impatiently. ‘But there’s other things to done as well, startin’ with the post-mortem.’

  ‘I’ll attend there if you like,’ Swallow offered. ‘I’d take Mossop and Feore with me.’

  It would be a relief from following Parnell around the city, he told himself. Or standing in the bloody rain outside his house watching the lights go off.

  Boyle had the grace to acknowledge the gesture.

  ‘That’d be a considherable help. Thank you, Misther Swalla’.’

  He stepped down from the rostrum.

  ‘As for meself, I’ve had an exhaustin’ day. I’m goin’ across the road to a certain licensed premises to take some refreshments up on a high stool. I’m that hungry, I could ate th’ arse off a low flyin goose.’

  EIGHT

  The three G-men stopped at the Scotch Inn on Temple Bar.

  ‘A lot of people think this place is named after Scotch whisky,’ Mossop said amiably as they took three seats in the snug. ‘But it’s not. A fella from Aberdeen used to be head barman so the boys from the Scottish regiments used to drink here. That’s why they called it … the Scotch Inn.’

  ‘That’s very useful information,’ Swallow retorted. ‘A great help when we’re trying to conduct a murder investigation and find a missing woman.’

  He ordered a Tullamore for himself, and a pint of Guinness’s stout each for Mossop and Feore. Technically, the G-men were off-duty for their meal break. As they finished the first drink, Feore ordered the same again. When that was put away, Mossop bought a third round.

  This time, Mossop drank Guinness plain, a halfpenny cheaper than the stout. Swallow had noted the small economy before. It irritated him slightly, but then he reminded himself that Mossop had a wife and four kids to maintain on a G-man’s pay.

  Once or twice he had been obliged to visit him where the family lived over a draper’s shop in Aungier Street. The children always seemed well fed and noisily happy. Mossop’s cheerful wife had occasional work as a seamstress, which supplemented the family income. As much as he understood the undoubted fulfilment in Mossop’s life, though, he recognised that it had to be a struggle.

  Sometimes he wondered how married life, perhaps with kids, might have been for him. There had been a girl he fell for when he was at medical school. A nurse from Tipperary, a doctor’s daughter, bright and lively, training at St Vincent’s Hospital on St Stephen’s Green. Eventually, she gave him an ultimatum: choose her or choose alcohol. He made his decision. Later, he knew, she moved to Edinburgh. He often wondered what had become of her, and hoped that she was happy.

  They crossed the Ha’penny Bridge, turned down Bachelors’ Walk and crossed Sackville Street, making for Marlborough Street and the morgue.

  Harry Lafeyre’s assistant-cum-coachman, Scollan, was at work in the examination room. The evening light was weakening, and he had switched on the powerful, new electric lamps that Lafeyre had persuaded the authorities to install, replacing the old, hissing gas mantles.

  ‘The stiff’s over there,’ Scollan jerked a thumb towards the examination tables.

  He had strung a white linen mask across his mouth, looping the cords behind prominent ears. It was a fruitless attempt to alleviate the stench. The G-men blanched. Mossop put a thumb and forefinger up to pinch his nose. Feore removed his cap and stuffed it around his mouth and nostrils. Swallow clamped a cotton handkerchief across his face. Harry Lafeyre, in a heavy surgical gown, had come in the door behind them.

  ‘Here, these will help.’ He handed each of them a fat, brown cigar.

  ‘The cheapest and foulest you’ll ever taste. They smell like boiled horse shit. It’s a trick I learned from an old pathologist in the Cape Colony.’

  With the first puff, Swallow acknowledged silently that Lafeyre was not exaggerating. But the acrid, poisonous smoke in his nostrils and throat did partially counter the odours of putrefaction.

  ‘I’ve tested the fluid in the bottle you gave me at the hotel with sulphide of ammonium,’ Lafeyre said. ‘The result for prussic acid was positive. It’s deadly, of course, in its pure form, but diluted and properly applied it can be
beneficial for some conditions. There was exactly an eighth of an ounce in solution in the bottle. That’s the standard dispensing dose, so it suggests that none of it was used.’

  ‘Yet I got the smell of bitter almonds in the room,’ Swallow said.

  ‘So the bottle had been opened. It would emit an odour on contact with the air. But you found it corked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lafeyre shrugged. ‘So the bottle was opened but none of the solution was taken. Make what you will of that.’

  He glanced at the wall clock.

  ‘We haven’t all night. Let’s see how we get on with the brother.’

  Ambrose Pollock’s wrists and ankles were still bound. Scollan moved forward with a knife to sever the thin ropes so that Layfeyre could begin his examination.

  ‘Make your cut well away from the knots on those ropes,’ Swallow wheezed through the choking cigar smoke. ‘I want to have a look at how they’re made.’

  Scollan ran the knife through the two cords, and laid them side by side at the end of the table. Then, with the tailor’s scissors, he started to cut through the dead pawnbroker’s clothing, putting each sectioned garment aside until the green-black corpse was bare. Mossop poised his pencil as Lafeyre started his narrative.

  First, Lafeyre probed the broken skull. Fragments of white bone fell away from the rotted flesh. Then he used a steel spatula to take a dark mess of hardened blood and brain matter from the cavity.

  ‘I won’t require the sectioning saw,’ he told Scollan. ‘The visible damage to the skull is very severe. The trauma to the brain would have been enormous, causing an immediate loss of consciousness and death.’

  Mossop worked his pencil swiftly, following Lafeyre’s commentary. The medical examiner thrust a rubber-gloved hand under the corpse’s head to turn it. With expert fingers he delineated the facial bones and probed around the eye sockets and the jaw. Globs of blackened skin and grey hair came away at the touch, showing further areas of dark red muscle and white bone.

  ‘There’s a fracture of the jawbone on the right side that tells us there was at least one further heavy blow. That’s the only fracture I can detect. But the lateral cartilage just below the nasal bone appears to be compacted. That was probably a third blow. On its own it wouldn’t have caused death, but it could have stunned him.’

  Swallow interrupted. ‘If he was struck on the back of the skull, and if there’s evidence of a blow to the side and on the nose, doesn’t that suggest attack from more than one direction? Maybe by two people?’

  Lafeyre shrugged, puffing on his cigar.

  ‘Not necessarily. The force of one blow could cause him to turn, maybe even as an attempt at self-defence. It could have been one person. It could have been two … or more.’

  ‘You saw the two-pound weight that Stephen Doolan found at the scene,’ Swallow changed tack. ‘He thinks it’s the likely murder weapon. Would that fit in with what you’ve seen here?’

  ‘It would crack any bone. I took it with me from Lamb Alley. It’s got blood spatters.’

  He gestured to the storage cupboards that ran the length of the room.

  ‘I have it safely if it’s needed as an exhibit. I want to look at the blood spatters because there are finger-marks.’

  Lafeyre made a ‘Y’ incision from the shoulders to the abdomen. Swallow had expected a wave of putrid gases, but Ambrose Pollock’s body had advanced in decomposition beyond that point. One by one, Lafeyre removed the organs, stomach, intestines, liver and kidneys, placing them in variously sized steel trays. He probed around the organs.

  ‘Nothing of significance,’ he said finally. ‘But any signs of injury would be masked by putrefaction in the soft tissues.’

  Swallow had been fingering the severed sections of rope with which the pawnbroker’s wrists and ankles had been bound. He offered the stump of his stinking cigar to Scollan.

  ‘Is there some place that you could dispose of this … object … for me please? I need both hands to demonstrate something.’

  Lafeyre drew heavily again on his cigar. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll persevere with this for the present. What’s in your mind?’

  Swallow took the length of rope that had bound Pollock’s wrists and extended it, holding the severed ends at arm’s length between thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Look at the knot. It’s a double hitch, right over left and then right over left again. It’s the easiest knot in the book, the sort a child would make. But it could loosen with tensing and flexing.’

  He placed it on the table and took up the section of rope that had secured the dead man’s ankles. As before, he extended it at arm’s length, displaying the knot in the middle.

  ‘But this knot, as you’ll see, is different. It’s a double hitch, but it’s right over left and then left under right, making it far more secure. The more tensing and flexing, the tighter the tie is going to be. It’s a more professional knot.’

  ‘Professional,’ Lafeyre said. ‘Do you mean like a sailor’s knot?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have to be a sailor. A shop assistant would be trained to use it to tie a string around a parcel.’

  Lafeyre ran an index finger over the section on the table, and then did the same with the length that Swallow still held.

  ‘I can see they’re different. Is this leading up to something?’

  ‘Nothing that’s absolutely conclusive. But it could indicate that the knots were tied by two different people. Most people use one kind of knot all the time. They don’t vary it, particularly when they’re repeating an exercise.’

  ‘You’re a mine of information.’

  ‘I learned a few things at medical school when I wasn’t drinking. Like how to knot bandages.’

  Lafeyre started to remove his apron and gloves.

  ‘I’ll do some further testing on his organs since there’s poison here somewhere in the story. And I’ll see if there’s anything to be learned from the marks on the iron weight.’

  ‘Are you hopeful, Doctor?’ Mossop asked.

  ‘Who knows?’ Lafeyre answered. ‘Bodies can tell you a lot. There can be an eloquence about the dead. But you have to be able to interpret what they’re telling you.’

  Mossop sighed. ‘If Sergeant Swallow is right about the knots, it seems that there might have been two people involved. Phoebe Pollock didn’t act alone.’

  ‘That’s at least a possibility,’ Lafeyre agreed.

  Mossop put down his pencil and placed his hands over his face.

  ‘But it could mean that we’ve got two murderers still loose.’

  Swallow grimaced.

  ‘The crowd in the Upper Yard will make a big meal out of it. But these things aren’t supposed to happen where the Queen’s loyal subjects live in safety, protected by the Dublin Metropolitan Police … and all that sort of shite.’

  Mossop grinned mirthlessly.

  ‘Hah. Loyal subjects, me arse. I’d find it hard to name any o’ that kind up around Lamb Alley.’

  NINE

  There was a time when Arthur Clinton was content to drink in public houses like the Bleeding Horse on Camden Street. He enjoyed the warmth of its mahogany fittings and the brilliance of the polished mirrors in which he could admire himself.

  He was rather handsome if a bit short. Intelligent looking, he thought. He dressed well. That was important if one did not want to stay forever as a poorly paid law clerk. But a man on the way up should be seen to patronise the better hotels rather than run-of-the-mill public houses.

  Nonetheless, the Bleeding Horse suited the purpose of the meeting to which he had been summoned. The man he had to meet had to be discreet. His coming and going would not be remarked upon here. Their muted conversation would be lost in the hubbub of the bar.

  The other man was there first. He sat with a whiskey and water in one of the booths by the small windows that gave on to Charlotte Way. A copy of the Evening Mail was spread out on the table, opened at the main news page.

  Clinton
ordered himself a brandy at the counter, and installed himself opposite. He nodded to the open newspaper.

  ‘You’ve read the news.’

  ‘Of course. What happened?’

  ‘How would I know?’ Arthur replied defensively. ‘I only know what I’ve read in the newspaper.’

  His companion could pass for a Londoner or even a Parisian with his pencil moustache, pale complexion and well-cut suit. Clinton reckoned him to be about the same age as himself, in his mid-thirties with cold, grey eyes. Arthur always found himself a little frightened in his presence.

  He seemed to consider Arthur’s answer for a moment.

  ‘The current consignment of … merchandise … is still there? At his place?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes.’

  The eyes shone like ice.

  ‘It’s your business to know, Clinton. I’ve set up everything across the water. All you have to do is make sure the stuff is kept safe and then shipped. It’s not very difficult.’

  ‘You can say that. But there’s a lot of organising. And there’s paperwork at the office. I have to be very careful.’

  ‘The reason I wanted to meet you is because I’m hearing reports … rumours … that some items are beginning to turn up in shops around the city. Can you throw any light on that?’

  Arthur became defensive again.

  ‘I told you, everything is taken care of. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  The man nodded.

  ‘I’ll do my own checking. I just hope for your sake it’s as tight as it should be.’

  Arthur felt he had to defend himself.

  ‘If you know so much, you tell me what happened to Pollock.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m as far removed from that sort of thing as could be. But I’ll have to inform London. It won’t be well received.’

  He shrugged. ‘It may just be that someone did for him, that’s all. It happens sometimes, in that part of the city.’

  ‘You’ve no reason to believe it’s connected with our … business?’