A Shocking Assassination

by Cora Harrison

  The Reverend Mother shook her head sadly.

  ‘I wonder what made him write it?’ said Dr Scher. ‘I remember reading it and thinking that the Examiner could not keep him on after that. He named the man as well as the office. It was the height of stupidity. Of course he was, between ourselves, saying no more than they were saying in every hotel bar and public house in the town, but you’d think he would have been more careful, wouldn’t you, Reverend Mother?’

  ‘Very unwise,’ she said, ‘but of course he was very young. And he had probably begun to be more and more arrogant. If you look back, in the earlier articles he was more inclined to attack the Republicans, and I must say that he spoke out courageously and boldly against violence, but in the later months, before he lost his job, he had changed the focus of his articles. He had begun by attacking the shoddy work of some anonymous builders, had then moved on to veiled hints about corruption in high places, had even written an article attacking the town planning office, all carefully couched in a series of questions which he declared had been put to him by some “man in the street” about the town planning office—’

  ‘Let me read that one,’ interrupted Dr Scher. He leafed through the book and then thrust it impatiently at her. She found the article instantly and handed it to him, surreptitiously straightening a bent-over corner as she did so.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, fumbling for his glasses and then focussing on the print. ‘You know, of course, that Robert Newenham, the town planner, was standing just beside James Doyle when he was shot? That’s right, isn’t it, Patrick?’ he said after a moment.

  ‘So I noticed,’ said the Reverend Mother placidly. ‘As were also many others,’ she added.

  ‘This is clever; did you notice how he implies that there was some sort of old boy relationship between Robert Newenham and the late James Doyle. Do you think that they went to school together?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said the Reverend Mother, suppressing a smile. Dr Scher, she thought, was still quite naïve about the class structure in Cork city. He and Patrick were looking at her hopefully, but she shook her head. ‘Mr Doyle, I understand, went to the local Model School in Anglesea Street, and Mr Newenham, someone told me, went to school in England.’

  ‘But the city engineer would have had to get the permission from the town planner,’ said Patrick. ‘This article implies that the engineer had the planner in his pocket. Do you think that he bribed him?’

  ‘I have heard that the post of city engineer is not very highly paid,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘In fact,’ she said, picking her words carefully, ‘I understand that there are various rumours that James Doyle was a man who took bribes rather than gave them.’ She had a moment’s compunction about passing on Lucy’s gossip, but reflected that her patron saint, Thomas Aquinas, had advised that it was better to pass on a contemplated truth, rather than merely to contemplate. After her experience yesterday, she was almost certain that there was a strong reason why Robert Newenham had meekly done James Doyle’s bidding, and had fallen in with all his corrupt plans for allowing wealthy builders to become even wealthier during the rebuilding of Cork. His violent reaction to the mention of Captain Schulze seemed to point to something more akin to blackmail. She wrestled with her conscience only for a second. Even if Sam had been rescued from the gaol by the Republicans, his re-arrest, followed by a trial, still hung over his head. She owed it to him, and to Patrick, to help as much as possible to uncover the facts around this assassination or murder of James Doyle.

  ‘It has come to my ears,’ she said carefully, ‘that there was an association between Captain Schulze, commander of the Black and Tans here in Cork, and Captain Newenham. Both served in the Dorsetshire Regiment during the last war.’

  Both men stared at her with interest. Patrick was the first to find his voice.

  ‘I heard it said that the Black and Tans were supposed to have had a list …’

  The Reverend Mother smiled with pride at her former pupil. She said nothing, however. Lucy fed her information, but trusted her implicitly to keep her sources to herself.

  ‘And if there were a list,’ said Dr Scher triumphantly, ‘well, then, who better to write it than the town planner who would know every shop, every business place—’

  ‘And every man’s religion,’ put in Patrick. ‘They say that they just burned the business and homes of Catholics and left those owned by Protestants untouched. But that is over two years ago, though, isn’t it?’ he ended with a note of doubt in his mind.

  ‘Memories are still very strong,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘There is a lot of bitterness about what happened.’

  ‘And the lack of progress since,’ said Patrick, nodding his head.

  ‘It was an interesting collection of people there at the English Market last Friday.’ The Reverend Mother reflected for a moment while they looked at her. ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘there would be no legal objection to the town planner giving a list of businesses in the city to a man who, at the time, was in command of what was reckoned to be a police force. In the privacy of this room, we may speculate about that possibility, but no legal action would be taken against him for providing such a list. But, of course, in the eyes of the Republicans, and indeed, perhaps in the eyes of many who had suffered so badly on that terrible night, this would seem a heinous crime.’

  ‘So if Captain Newenham felt threatened by James Doyle, perhaps James Doyle even whispered a threat that he would have a word with the man in the raincoat and the slouch hat, unless the hush money was increased, then Captain Newenham might decide to get rid of him while there was a crowd all around him.’

  ‘And spotting Sam O’Mahony standing there, he thought that the police hunt for a killer could be neatly diverted to this man who would be expected to hate James Doyle, the person who had caused him to lose his job.’

  ‘And, of course, Captain Newenham would dislike Sam because of that article on the Examiner.’ The Reverend Mother completed the case and then thought about it. There were three questions, she thought. Was Robert Newenham capable of murder? Could he have thought and acted so quickly? And thirdly, would a threat of disclosure to the Republicans be enough to warrant murder?

  The answer to all three questions, she thought, was in the affirmative.

  ‘He had been in the army, was the sort of man who would carry a pistol, and who would possess a British army pistol,’ said Patrick watching her. ‘And anyone who went through the Great War and came out of it alive and unscathed is probably a quick thinker, one who acts instantly.’

  ‘My thought exactly,’ said the Reverend Mother. Patrick had not mentioned the third point, but she thought that Robert Newenham’s experiences in the war would also cover this. Anyone who survived that terrible war would probably have their senses highly tuned to personal survival at all costs. The more she thought about that incident at the Custom House, the more she felt that there had been a deliberate intention to kill. Robert, she decided, had acted very quickly to endeavour to silence her once she had brought up the name of the infamous Captain Schulze.

  Patrick was looking animated and scribbling hastily into his notebook. She did not like to interrupt him, but somehow a doubt about this earlier murder had intruded among her thoughts. Her threat to Robert Newenham today may well have been sudden and unforeseen. Who could have imagined that an elderly nun, a distant relative of his own, would suddenly bring up a name that could pose a great danger to him?

  But the case of the city engineer was quite different. If James Doyle had been blackmailing him for years, and Robert’s rather poverty-stricken way of life, as related by Lucy, had been due to systematic blackmail, then there must have been innumerable occasions on which he could have murdered him quietly and away from the eye of the public. An accident, such as he had tried to stage when she was in the Custom House, could have been a possibility. The two men must have been constantly in each other’s company, must have visited innumerable sites where fire had rendered the old walls d
angerous.

  And if that list had been dropped on the night of December 11th in 1920, then it had probably been in James Doyle’s hands for over two years. Why the sudden attempt at murder?

  Still, it was for Patrick to investigate this death and it was her duty as a responsible citizen to impart to the police any information which could be of use to them.

  And, she thought, Sam O’Mahony’s name must be cleared, both for his own sake and for the sake of his mother. It was important to have some other suspects to put forward while the truth was being established. Her mind went to one of the articles pasted with such loving care into that penny copy book.

  ‘This afternoon,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I almost had a fatal accident.’ Both heads turned towards her showing a flattering degree of alarm.

  ‘I was at a meeting in the Custom House, one of those committee meetings that Mrs Murphy organized to help with fundraising for a new project of mine. Mrs Murphy thought that the reopening of the newly built Roches Stores would provide a venue and she arranged the meeting to follow on from one of the town planning meetings. After all was over, Captain Newenham conducted me over the building, even up to the top floor where goods are stored. I found myself very near the edge of an open hatch where goods are winched up from the river, and he shouted a warning, which I fear would have been too late if I had not already stepped back. In fact,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘if a cat had not suddenly jumped down from the rafters and pounced on a rat close to me, I may well, in the bad light, have stepped over the edge. As it was, I stepped back and all was well.’

  ‘And what were you talking about before this happened, Reverend Mother?’ asked Patrick, eyeing her keenly.

  She met his gaze. ‘Oddly enough I had recalled that Captain Newenham had served in the Dorsetshire Regiment during the last war and that this had also been the regiment of Captain Schulze.’

  ‘I see,’ said Patrick quietly.

  ‘He’ll be your man,’ said Dr Scher. ‘Bet you fifty pounds, Patrick, he’ll be your man.’

  ‘I haven’t got fifty pounds,’ said Patrick with an absent-minded smile. Once again his notebook was out and he had licked the tip of his pencil, a habit which the Reverend Mother had to keep herself from condemning. He was not, she reminded herself, her pupil any longer.

  ‘Young people today. No spirit in them,’ grumbled Dr Scher and then when he saw that Patrick was not listening, he turned to his hostess. ‘Who else was at your meeting, Reverend Mother? Any more ferocious murderers?’

  The Reverend Mother gave him a look which she hoped would convey her disapproval of wild exaggerations like this one, but she was interested to see what Patrick would make of another one of the committee members so she said obligingly, ‘Well, Mr Browne, the acting city engineer was there. In fact, he was the focus of attention because the meeting before had been all about the rebuilding of the city hall and Mr Browne’s proposal was still there, on an easel.’

  She was right. Patrick immediately stopped writing, snapped a rubber band over his notebook, thrust it and the pencil back into his pocket.

  ‘I thought that he had something up his sleeve. I thought that he might have his own proposal. He rolled up a drawing and put it away when we arrived to talk with him that time. What was it like, Reverend Mother? The one that I saw on the wall looked like a rebuilding of the old place, exactly the same as the one that had been burned down.’ Patrick was always very professional, but there was an eager note of interest that his former teacher recognized. Patrick, she remembered, even as a small child, always wanted to pursue each enquiry to its utmost limits.

  ‘For one thing, it was built at the end of the Grand Parade,’ she said.

  ‘Impossible. There isn’t room,’ scoffed Dr Scher while Patrick waited to hear more.

  ‘Ah, but, there would be room,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘if you roofed over the river at that place, and don’t say that it can’t be done when it was accomplished over two hundred years ago. Enterprising ancestors of mine were instrumental in roofing over Patrick Street and the Grand Parade itself, and, of course, the South Mall.’

  ‘It could work,’ admitted Dr Scher. A smile spread over his face after a minute. He was quite an artist, thought the Reverend Mother. He had a cherished collection of silver on which he doted and spent large sums of money on. ‘Do you know,’ he said after a minute, ‘that’s a damn fine idea. What was the building itself like?’

  The Reverend Mother consulted her inner eye. ‘Beautiful,’ she said. ‘Just like something that you would find in Venice. Baroque in style. He had painted the drawing. A blue sky and St Fin Barre’s Cathedral and the hill of Barrack Street in the background. It looked wonderful.’ Even against a grey sky, it would still look pretty good, she thought.

  ‘Mr Doyle,’ said Patrick dispassionately, ‘would not, I reckon, be a man to promote his assistant’s idea in preference to his own.’

  ‘Could pinch it, couldn’t he?’ enquired Dr Scher.

  The Reverend Mother shook her head. ‘He would have been too astute a man for that,’ she said. ‘Mr Browne is related to many of the foremost families in the city. The city engineer could not have got away with a deliberate theft of his assistant’s idea. In fact, it may have rebounded to Thomas Browne’s advantage. Once that sparklingly individual idea had gained public knowledge, it may have been that Mr Doyle would have been forced to adopt it and it would have been Mr Browne who got the credit and even international renown. The idea, of course, would have been enormously expensive, but that does not seem to hold up many grandiose projects in this city of ours.’

  ‘I think I’ll go and see him again,’ said Patrick rising to his feet. Dr Scher followed him reluctantly as the Reverend Mother touched the bell for Sister Bernadette. She would, she thought, have to get back to her accounts and her bill paying, though there was one of those pasted-in articles that she wanted to reread.

  ‘Patsy Mullane from the library is waiting in one of the parlours, Reverend Mother,’ said Sister Bernadette when she arrived. ‘I told her that you were very busy today, but she insisted on waiting. She said she doesn’t mind how long that she has to wait, but she must speak to you.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Reverend Mother with an inward sigh. ‘Bring her in as soon as you have shown out Dr Scher and the inspector.’

  Her visitors had not discussed whether Mrs O’Mahony’s tragic death was likely to be a murder or a suicide and she was quite glad about that. She wanted time to ponder the possibilities. Was it feasible, she wondered, that the murderer of James Doyle thought that the poor woman had witnessed something, something which might not have seemed significant at the time, but which, later, she might have recalled?

  Or could there be another reason for the killing of Mrs O’Mahony?

  And what, she wondered, as she waited quietly for her next visitor, could Patsy Mullane, former library assistant and now a sweeper of sawdust at the English Market, have to say to the Reverend Mother at St Mary’s of the Isle?

  But when Sister Bernadette returned, she was alone.

  ‘She just went, Reverend Mother. Not a sign of her anywhere. I told her that she would have to wait as you had visitors with you, that Inspector Cashman and Dr Scher were in your room with you. I offered her a cup of tea. I gave her the Cork Examiner to read.’ Sister Bernadette’s voice was getting more aggrieved by the minute.

  ‘I expect she remembered an appointment,’ said the Reverend Mother absent-mindedly. Was it, she wondered when the lay sister had taken herself off, was it the mention of the doctor or of the civic guard that had made Patsy rush away? The latter, she suspected. But if so, why?

  EIGHTEEN

  W.B. Yeats:

  I write it out in a verse –

  McDonagh and Mac Bride

  And Connolly and Pearse

  Now, and in time to be,

  Whenever green is worn,

  Are changed, changed utterly:

  A terrible beauty is born. />
  Eileen was feeling frozen. The damp mud slathered onto Sister Mary Immaculate’s bloomers had now penetrated the stout flannel from which they had been made and they clung clammily to her skin. The remains of the old black woollen dress did nothing much to warm her. It was threadbare in places and very thin over the rest of it. It was probably about forty years old, she thought. She had no memory of her mother wearing it, so it may have belonged, like the shawl, to her grandmother. She quickened her step, longing to swing her arms, but the narrow raised path inside the tunnel was only about two feet wide, and here and there the roughly cut stones poked jagged edges out so that she had to turn sideways to get past them. She could not risk a false step which would send her tumbling onto the rails four feet below her and might result in a broken ankle. Still, she could see better now, and she went as fast as she could. But after a few minutes she looked back. Where was Sam?

  He seemed to hang back, fumbling at the wall with one hand. Of course his sight was poor and his glasses might not help down here in the dark. She suppressed a feeling of impatience and waited for him.

  ‘How long does this thing go on for?’ He sounded angry and frustrated and she didn’t reply. It was dangerous to talk too much. He should have the sense to know that. She felt irritated. She had risked so much for this daring rescue. She shuddered to think what Tom Hurley would say about them bringing a lorry-load of soldiers within a couple of miles of their hideout, if he ever found out. She walked on, moving as fast as she dared.

  But she was steadily getting colder. Her feet and legs up to the knee, luckily, were encased in warm woollen socks and close-fitting leather boots, but her hands were like blocks of ice and she was beginning to shiver. She couldn’t keep on creeping like this. She would have to take a chance. Keeping her arms tightly squeezed against her sides, she began to run along the narrow pathway that was more like a ledge, but she didn’t care. The blood began to move around in her body and warmed her. She daren’t look over her shoulder in case she lost her balance, but she hoped that Sam was following her example.