Merciless Reason

by Oisin McGann

  She returned to the townhouse late in the afternoon and retired to her rooms, telling her maids that she wished to rest and did not want to be disturbed. It took her less than fifteen minutes to change into some unremarkable, positively drab clothes, including a bonnet and veil to hide her face. She left her bedroom through a secret door concealed behind a painting and followed a hidden passage to the servants’ entrance to the mansion, where Hennessy was waiting for her, also dressed in ordinary street clothes. They walked with Daisy’s arm through Hennessy’s, as if they were father and daughter, making their way down Nassau Street, past Trinity College.

  Walking along the wide avenue that was Dame Street, they steered off into the narrow cobbled streets of Temple Bar, an area near the river that had started down the slow path to decay. Daisy looked casually around, then turned abruptly past a young boy leaning against the wall. She stepped through an anonymous-looking doorway and descended some stairs. Hennessy, believing he should have gone ahead to ensure the way was clear for his mistress, hurried after her down the narrow staircase.

  The pub that they found themselves in was dark, smoky and almost empty. The tables were long, rough, unfinished wood with benches either side and stools at either end. The bar appeared to serve stout or whiskey and little else. There was a myriad other peculiar and unpleasant smells present in the air, and Daisy did her level best to avoid trying to identify them. Women were not normally permitted in such a place, and she thought it was just as well. They might be overcome with the urge to open some windows and call for a mop and a bucket of soapy water.

  Apart from the tables, benches, stools and the odd chair, there was little in the way of features in the room. But hints of nationalism could be seen around if one looked closely. A small print of Daniel O’Connell hung on the wall to one side of the bar. A rather romantic and poorly rendered painting of the pirate queen, Grace O’Malley, hung near the door. Daisy cast her eyes over the image of the woman aboard a ship at full sail, as she had done on earlier visits. She felt a certain kinship with the unconventional warrior woman.

  There were only five men in the room; three were sitting at one table under one of the low windows that ran along the outer wall at street level, the other two sitting at the table nearest the door. All five men stood up as Daisy and Hennessy walked in.

  “Good afternoon, your Grace,” one of the three said, tilting his head in way of a bow. “Delighted you could join us. Can we offer you anything to drink?”

  “Good afternoon, Mister Duffy. A cup of tea would be lovely,” she replied, confident that if Eamon Duffy provided her with a cup of tea, its quality would be more than adequate, no matter what the surroundings.

  She took off her bonnet and veil and gave him a smile, holding her right hand out as he always insisted she should. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles in an old-fashioned, chivalrous gesture. She suspected he harbored feelings for her, but he was too discreet to let them get in the way of their business.

  “You have been injured,” he observed with concern, glancing down at the bandaged fingers on her left hand.

  “Trifling wounds,” she said in a tight voice. “Pay them no mind. It was a silly thing—I caught my fingers in a door.”

  Duffy was a square-shouldered man with greying hair framing a face that had a hard look about it, but inspired trust. He had a no-nonsense manner and the self-assurance of a man who had built his business from the ground up. He was also a leading figure in the nationalist movement—the Fenian rebels who caused the British so much trouble. Nate had worked with him years before to help keep the peace on the Wildenstern estates, and now Daisy had taken over the role. But neither of them were looking to avoid trouble this time.

  “We were worried you might not be able to make it,” he said to her as he ushered her over to the head of the table under the window and provided her with the best chair the place had to offer. “Your cousin’s ‘secret police’ have eyes and ears all over the city. My people tell me his surveillance of you is growing more constant, your Grace. Especially now that there is word that Nathaniel Wildenstern is coming home.”

  Daisy caught her breath, feeling her pulse quicken, but tried to hide her excitement under a mild expression of interest. The warm flush in her cheeks told her she was failing miserably.

  “And is that word reliable?”

  “I can go one better than rumor, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “I received a coded telegram this morning. He is in Wicklow as we speak, and hopes to be in Dublin by tomorrow. If all goes to plan, we’ll be able to meet up with him and Cathal Dempsey’s father tomorrow evening. But where we go from there will depend on you, your Grace. We’ve investigated a whole host of your family’s businesses, but with no luck. Tons of machinery, hundreds of engimals and an orphanage full of children, and we can’t find any of ’em.”

  “I suggest you try the mines in Glendalough,” Daisy said to him, pulling out a leather folder from beneath her brown shawl and laying it on the table. “And don’t be fooled if they look closed off.”

  “That makes sense,” one of the other men at the table, a blond fellow with a muscular build and intense eyes under jutting brows, commented to Duffy. “The evictions in the valley—sure, wasn’t the place emptied out last year? And remember the talk back then of a sea monster brought up to the docks durin’ the night last Christmas? Some say it was carved up in a warehouse on the quays and the pieces carried on wagons into the mountains. A leviathan, they said. Even in pieces, it’d be hard to hide. But turf everyone out of their homes so you have a whole valley and some deep mines to lose it in—transport it in at night and you’re laughin’.”

  “Under other circumstances, Pádraig, I’d be givin’ short shrift to such fairy tales,” Duffy grunted. “But with Gerald Gordon, anything’s possible.”

  He opened the folder and examined the contents, his thick fingers flicking through the documents. Daisy noticed some words scratched into the wood of the tabletop. The table was constructed of rough, unfinished wooden planks nailed lengthways atop a long, simple frame. In her world it was hard to imagine such an object being considered ‘furniture.’ The words, dug into the wood in rough square letters just as a schoolchild might mark their desk, were in Irish: “Rapparee Go Breath.” “The Rapparee Forever.” The mysterious Highwayboy was starting to be seen as a nationalist figure, someone the people could rally behind. Whatever about being a celebrated rogue, the boy delinquent would be hard pressed to survive once the British saw him in this new light.

  Duffy glanced at Pádraig, and then his eyes lifted up to meet Daisy’s.

  “It’s all here. And signed too, I see. I won’t ask how you managed that, your Grace.”

  “No, don’t,” she replied. She drew in a deep shuddering breath and let it out slowly. She found she was trembling slightly, and clasped her hands together to keep them still. “So … we move ahead as planned?”

  “There’s nothing for it now,” he replied, closing the folder and holding it up. “You’ve set us on the path, your Grace. With the stroke of a pen, you’ve given us the break we need, stopped the Wildensterns from using their influence in the police against us … and placed yourself firmly in the sights of Gerald Gordon’s unholy wrath. It is a cunning plan, and I commend your courage, your Grace. And I hope you’re prepared.”

  The expression on his face was one of stern compassion. He knew enough about the family to know the price of a Wildenstern woman’s defiance. His hand pressed against his belly, as if he had felt a twinge from an old wound.

  “I am,” she said firmly, as the image of the steel-framed window in a turret on the roof of Wildenstern Hall passed through her mind. She repeated more quietly, “I am.”

  A boy came running down the stairs—the boy who had been keeping watch at the door.

  “Someone’s coming!” he cried. “I think it’s Mister Gordon!”

  “Christ!
What’s he doing, coming down this way?” Duffy snarled, turning to Daisy in alarm. “He must have followed you! If he sees you here with us …”

  “In here, your Grace.” Pádraig gestured towards a storeroom behind the bar. He grabbed her bonnet and the leather folder and pushed them into her hands. “Come on, Hennessy! Quickly!”

  Daisy and Hennessy hurried behind the bar and into the tiny dark room. Pádraig had only just closed the door behind them when a man came down the steps into the pub. There was a slatted window in the door, and Daisy was able to peer through and get a limited view of the room. It was Gerald. His coming here could not have been a coincidence. Did he know she was still here? Daisy found she was holding her breath and forced herself to exhale and breathe normally. But silently. With the storeroom in darkness, he should not be able to see her through the narrow slats. Even so, she should stay away from the window. But she couldn’t.

  “Mister Gordon,” Duffy greeted the new visitor. “We wouldn’t have expected a gentleman of your stature to grace us with his presence in an establishment such as this. To what do we owe the honor?”

  “Eamon Duffy,” Gerald said, taking off his top hat and laying it on the table, then throwing his navy blue cloak over the back of the chair on which Daisy had just been sitting. “I wouldn’t have expected to find you in such a pigsty. A man of your considerable means can surely find more comfortable surroundings to entertain his charming friends.”

  With one hand, Gerald gestured to the other four Fenians, who were too obviously on their guard. Gerald sat down in the chair at the head of Duffy’s table. Duffy was seated, to his left, with another fellow to his right. The pair of men by the door stayed where they were. Pádraig pretended to polish the bar for a moment—as if that might in any way improve its appearance—before crossing over to sit down at the other end of the table to Gerald.

  “I was told I might find you here,” Gerald went on, tilting his head towards Duffy in a leisurely manner as he took his silver case from his pocket, opened it and slipped a French cigarette between his lips. Duffy struck a match and lit the gasper for him. Gerald nodded his thanks. “Thought I’d drop in for a chinwag. You seem so intent on keeping abreast with my activities, I thought it only right that we should meet and catch up in person.”

  “My only interest in your activities, Mister Gordon,” Duffy said, “lies in their effects on ordinary working people. At the moment, I am particularly interested in an orphanage full of children who have disappeared while under the patronage of your family. We know you have no qualms in using children in your factories. We were wondering if perhaps you had found them gainful employment and had neglected to tell anyone.”

  “You appear to know more about the matter than I,” Gerald replied, dangling the cigarette casually from his fingers. “I haven’t the foggiest, frankly. Children, to me, are merely adults who are not yet ripened; small, dense, difficult to prepare and quite lacking in any kind of taste. The ones you seek are setting a good example, as far as I’m concerned. Children should be neither seen nor heard until they have reached a sufficient level of maturity and usefulness. Now, as to the whereabouts of my cousin, the Duchess, you might be able to enlighten me better.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Did you know that she has a unique scent, the Duchess?” Gerald inhaled through his nose, holding the cigarette away from his face as he did so. “She uses a particular skin cream imported from Paris, and sometimes she wears L’Air du Temps … but not today.”

  His gaze dropped down to the top of the table, and Daisy thought he might have seen the words written there, for his fingers brushed its surface. He lifted his head to meet Duffy’s cold stare.

  “You’re up to something, the pair of you. I have to say I’m intrigued. I’ve had you investigated, of course, and from what I’ve learned of you, Duffy, you are a resolute man. A man with a cause. That’s a type of enemy I do not underestimate. Understand, however, that I have a cause of my own. One of immense importance to the wider world. I am a mere cog in a great machine. Now, I’m sure any threat I made regarding your safety or that of your men would have little effect. But take care that you don’t involve any Wildenstern women in your schemes, Duffy. I think you know even better than I how that can turn out.”

  Duffy’s face was set in a tense mask that hid a sudden fury, but he did not move from where he was. Pádraig jumped to his feet at the other end of the table, a knife appearing in his right hand.

  “What kind of cur are you, to be threatening a woman?” he rasped. “I don’t care who you are, or who your family is, I’ll—”

  Sticking his cigarette between his lips, Gerald gave a crude grin and struck the edge of the table with the heel of his hand. The force of the blow snapped nails and splintered wood as the plank drove forward into Padraig’s groin. As Pádraig howled and fell to the floor with his hands between his legs, Gerald seized the loose plank and hurled it across the room like a javelin, catching one of the Fenians on the head. The plank dropped to the floor with a clatter, the man following close behind. The rebel at the table beside Gerald pulled a gun, but Gerald swept his arm in a lock up behind his back and slammed his face down on the tabletop. The arm-lock that Gerald maintained with one hand kept the man securely pinned there. The second man near the door drew a revolver. In a blur of motion, Gerald’s free hand whipped to his body and then out, and the remaining Fenian found the sleeve of his gun-hand pinned to the doorframe by a throwing knife.

  “Enough!” Duffy snapped, his jaw set in a look of impatience. “Enough. This is a stupid waste of time.”

  “I agree,” Gerald replied, releasing the arm-lock and plucking the cigarette from his mouth. “You are amateurs playing a professional’s game, Duffy. You play it at your own cost. But take care that others don’t end up paying that price for you. Do not involve the Duchess in your meddling, you tired old bog-trotter. It’ll end badly for both of you,”

  And with that, he took up his hat and cloak and departed, leaving the rebels to pick themselves up. When they were sure he was gone, Duffy went back to the storeroom and let Daisy out.

  “So it begins,” he remarked to her. “You’d best go out the back way, your Grace, in case he’s still waiting nearby, although I don’t think he means to harm you directly. There’s no tellin’ what he’ll do once we put your plan into action, though. You’ve unleashed a dangerous one there, ma’am, and no mistake. What’s that famous quote everyone uses at times like this? ‘Cry havoc; and let slip the dogs of war!’ A fitting line, I’d say.”

  “It’s from Julius Caesar,” Daisy said. “Are you a fan of Shakespeare?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said as he walked her to another door on the far side of the room, with Hennessy following a couple of strides behind them.

  “Too much old-fashioned language?”

  “Too much violence,” he replied with a grim smile. “I’ve seen enough in my life, and I’ve had my fill. There’s something immoral about portraying it for the sake of entertainment. I prefer a spot of poetry myself.”

  Stopping at the door, he took her hand and kissed it once more.

  “Take care, your Grace. You’ve set some fierce dangerous events in motion.”

  “Call me Daisy, Eamon.”

  “Take care, Daisy,” he said, bowing his head. “God be with you.”

  “And with you,” she answered.

  He put his hand to his belly again.

  “I’ve been blessed with one miracle in my life. It would be too much to expect any more Divine intervention. But maybe, with a bit of luck, we’ll come through.”

  Daisy said goodbye, and she and Hennessy made their way up a flight of stairs, through a house joined onto the back of the pub and out a door onto another of Temple Bar’s narrow cobbled lanes. It had grown dark, and Dublin’s smog was congealing, forming a soupy gas that obscured everythin
g in its gritty fumes. Daisy walked away towards Dame Street with Hennessy close behind her.

  As she disappeared into the smog, Gerald stepped out of the shadow of a doorway and straightened the cloak draped over his shoulders. His eyes gazed out from under the rim of his top hat, his face illuminated momentarily as he struck a match and lit a fresh cigarette. He blew out some smoke and turned in the other direction, his heels clicking against the cobbles as he made his way in the direction of the river. Everything was shrouded in blurry fug, and for his own amusement Gerald whistled while he walked. And as he did, the smog parted before him as if it were curtains that could be drawn aside. Then the dirty fog closed around him and thickened behind him, and in moments he had disappeared.

  XXIV

  MOBY

  CATHAL STOOD AT HIS WORKTABLE, pulling the brain out of a wheel-wolf. Each of the creature’s four stumpy legs ended in a chubby wheel with a heavily ridged, flexible covering. The legs themselves were short but powerfully sprung, the shoulders and flanks broad, with the narrow back bowed as if to take a saddle, which many of these creatures did. They were not as fast as velocycles, but were easier to ride and kept their footing better over very rough ground.

  With a pair of heavy pliers, Cathal detached the brain from its bonds in the elongated skull. The brain itself was the size of a small marble, joined to the inside of the skull with engimal-gut, those strands of filament that were as thin as fishing line but as strong as steel wire. With a heavy breath, he wrote a description of the creature on a label and tied it to the brain, before placing it in a box beside others that he had removed that day. Gerald insisted that all of the engimals’ vital organs be labeled—a service only a few of the children could provide, as most of them could neither read nor write.