Whatever Happenened to Molly Bloom?

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘Kind of you to come all this way to tell her, Inspector,’ Blazes Boylan said. ‘Shall I bring her out or will you …’

  ‘I’ll have a word with her where she’s most comfortable,’ Kinsella said. ‘Then, Mr Boylan, I’d like a few words with you in private.’

  ‘By all means. Anything you wish to know – any way in which I can help – I’ve nothing to hide,’ said Blazes, still unfazed, and pushed open the door to the dining room.

  EIGHT

  Milly Bloom was three months short of sixteen. She seemed older, though, more of an age with Violet than Daisy, Kinsella thought. She was certainly no skinny child, no whimpering waif crushed by grief. She was seated at an oval table, napkin in hand, with the remains of supper spread before her. The room, unlike the entrance hall, was lit by electricity. A crystal chandelier, adapted to take four glass bulbs, hung directly over the table but there were also lamps on the mantelshelf above the fireplace and, in a corner, a standing lamp placed before a head-high draft screen. There were no pictures on the walls and no additional furnishings. Kinsella suspected that at one time the room had been used as a meeting hall.

  The woman who’d opened the front door to him was almost as tall as he was and the old-fashioned outdoor jacket and pleated skirt made her seem even more imposing. She was, he guessed, in her mid forties, eight or ten years older than her brother. The other woman in the room was somewhat younger. She wore a tea-gown decorated with faded lace.

  Boylan introduced his sisters: Maude, the taller; Daphne, the younger. He stationed himself behind Milly’s chair and, leaning down, whispered into her ear. It occurred to Kinsella then that however composed Milly Bloom might appear to be she was probably still fragile and that the questions he’d planned to ask her were too leading to put to her here and now.

  He took off his hat, pulled out the chair that Boylan had vacated and seated himself.

  Milly Bloom stared at him, waiting for him to speak. She tossed down the napkin and touched a hand to her sandy-blonde curls. Her eyes, he noted, were a beautiful shade of blue and not free of tears.

  ‘Why have you arrested my father?’ she said.

  Blazes Boylan and his sisters nodded in unison as if the young woman spoke for all of them.

  ‘He’s only a suspect, Milly,’ Kinsella said.

  ‘Miss Bloom, if you please.’

  ‘My apologies. Your father was found at the scene.’

  ‘He lives there, don’t you know,’ Milly Bloom said. ‘Of course he was found at the scene. It’s because he’s a Jew, isn’t it?’

  Caught off guard, Kinsella glanced at the sister, Daphne, as if hoping that she might provide an answer, but all he received was a flinty glare.

  He said cautiously, ‘Isn’t your father a Protestant?’

  ‘He converted,’ Milly Bloom said, ‘but he’s still a Jew in everyone’s eyes. Is that why you have him in jail?’

  ‘The law acknowledges no such prejudice, Miss Bloom.’

  ‘The law is nothing but a collection of prejudices, Mr Kinsella,’ Maude Boylan said, ‘put together by the English ruling class.’

  The inspector ignored her. To Milly Bloom, he said, ‘A magistrate will decide if there’s a case to answer.’

  ‘And is there?’ Hugh Boylan put in.

  Kinsella hesitated. ‘There may be, yes.’

  The young woman toyed with her hair once more. Clinging on to the last vestiges of her self-control, she displayed an obstinate determination not to give in to emotion.

  ‘Where was my mother … I mean, where was she found?’

  ‘In her bedroom.’

  ‘How did she …?’

  ‘A blow to the head. She was struck down with a teapot.’

  Her lip trembled and tears welled up in her eyes. ‘A teapot? Mummy’s special teapot?’

  ‘What was special about it?’

  ‘It was a gift from Mr Boylan.’ Milly Bloom looked round at her guardian for confirmation. ‘After the tour?’

  ‘Something a little more lasting than a bouquet of flowers to remember us by,’ Hugh Boylan said.

  ‘Us?’ Kinsella said.

  ‘The party, the concert party.’

  ‘I see.’ Pushing back the chair, Kinsella got to his feet. ‘May I have a word with you alone now, Mr Boylan?’

  ‘My father would never lay a finger on Mummy,’ Milly Bloom blurted out. ‘He loved my mother. I’ll tell that to the magistrate. I’ll make him believe me.’ She reached for the napkin and held it to her face. ‘Papli wouldn’t do such a horrid thing. Never.’

  Daphne Boylan reached across the table and patted the young woman’s hand. Blazes said, ‘If you’ll give me a moment to fetch a jacket, Inspector, we’ll go next door.’

  ‘Why can’t you talk to him here?’ said Maude.

  ‘Hughie has no secrets from us,’ said Daphne.

  Either Hugh Boylan’s sisters were blind and deaf, which patently wasn’t the case, or they had their heads planted in the sand. It wasn’t a question of what they knew about dear Hughie’s double life but what they would be prepared to admit to knowing.

  Kinsella had no desire to spar with the Boylan clan, not with Miss Bloom sitting there with her ears flapping. He would leave it to Machin to take statements from the Boylan sisters. Perhaps the sight of a uniform would intimidate them, but he doubted it.

  He said, ‘Have you any other questions for me, Miss Bloom?’

  She shook her head and held the napkin to her face once more. Her eyes were still dry, though, and she had about her the same watchful mien he’d detected in her father that morning.

  ‘We’ll talk again soon,’ Kinsella promised and, with a polite nod to the hawk-eyed sisters, allowed Boylan to usher him from the room.

  The room Boylan had chosen for the interview was nothing much more than a dusty storeroom containing an odd assortment of chairs and side tables and an old grandfather clock; no fireplace and no electrical light. He offered the inspector a choice of brandy or port but Kinsella would have neither. Something told the inspector that however shallow Boylan might appear he was no fool and in dealing with him, man to man, he would need all his wits about him. Boylan turned up the gas jet that protruded from the wall then dug a bottle of brandy and a glass from inside the clock case and, after a final, ‘Are you sure?’ to Kinsella, poured himself a snifter. He flicked dust from a chair and gestured to Kinsella to be seated while he, glass in hand and thumb tucked into the top pocket of his waistcoat, strolled round the store with the swaggering air of a landed gentleman.

  ‘My haven,’ he said. ‘My refuge from domestic travail. You might suppose a man’s home would be his castle, but it’s not so in my case. My castle is my office in D’Olier Street and, I daresay, the city of Dublin itself.’ He drank from the glass. ‘Gentlewomen? No, not at this season of year. We had a few last summer, strays passing through town, but my sisters are not welcoming. We’ve no servants, you see. Maude won’t countenance another woman doing what she can do perfectly well for herself. The sight of my sisters on hands and knees scrubbing floors or splashing about in laundry tubs fairly raises my hackles but they, like all women, are stubborn creatures, recalcitrant as camels. Not that I’ve much experience of camels, mind.’ Another sip of brandy, then, ‘I didn’t think he’d do it. I honestly didn’t believe he had it in him. Goes to show, you can never judge a book by its cover or a man by the face he presents to the world.’

  ‘Bloom, you mean?’

  ‘Who else?’ Blazes Boylan said. ‘I was convinced Molly had him on a leash, and so, indeed, was she. In all honesty I thought he didn’t mind.’

  ‘Didn’t mind what?’

  ‘My potting the meat for him.’

  ‘Good God!’ Kinsella exclaimed.

  ‘Come on now,’ Boylan said, ‘don’t pretend you’re shocked. It was no secret Molly was hot stuff. For a woman of her attributes, not to speak of appetites, she needed more than Bloom could provide. Once she’d sampled the real thing she
just couldn’t get enough of it.’

  ‘When did the affair begin?’

  ‘June, last year.’ Blazes sighed. ‘By Jesus, I thought she’d drain me dry that first time. She came and came like a geyser, and—’

  ‘Was she in love with you?’

  ‘She was in love with my cock, if that’s what you mean, but the other thing? No, I doubt it.’ Blazes refilled his glass. ‘What she liked in me were all the things she hated in herself. She was as randy as I was in my glory days but she didn’t dare admit to it.’ He sighed and, lifting the glass, toasted an invisible presence. ‘Damn me, if it hadn’t been for Bloom I might even have married her.’

  Kinsella attempted to interrupt but Boylan, with barely a pause, was off again. ‘At first Molly was nothing to me but a bored wife with an itch begging to be scratched. Then, God help me, during that autumn tour, I got the taste of her. We were two of a kind, as close as makes no matter.’ He smiled and clicked his tongue in his cheek. ‘Every evening it was “Love’s Old Sweet Song” on stage or platform and in the hotel bed every night more of same. Coming home to Dublin was hard on both of us. Believe it or not, I was jealous of Bloom, though Molly assured me, on her Bible oath, she never gave him more than a rub and a tickle.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’

  ‘What choice did I have?’ said Blazes. ‘She jumped on me eagerly enough two or three afternoons a week. We were hard at it down in the kitchen when the servant walked in. She didn’t even flinch, my Molly, didn’t miss a stroke.’

  ‘Bloom didn’t visit you on the concert tours?’

  ‘No, he kept well away. Deliberately, I reckon.’

  ‘How long have you known the Blooms?’

  ‘Too many years to count.’

  ‘A friend of the family, might you say?’ Kinsella asked.

  The irony was lost on Boylan. ‘I suppose you might say that.’ He seemed suddenly weary as if all that strolling about had caught up with him. He seated himself on one of the chairs, planted his elbows on his knees, peered into the brandy glass and gave the liquid a swirl.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘when did I first meet Molly? Would it be 1890? Yes, 1890, at the races at Leopardstown. What was I, twenty-three? She came down with Josie – I don’t recall her other name – and Bloom. Josie and Bloom were making sheep’s eyes at each other. Molly was mad at him so I thought I’d chance my arm with Molly. But she wouldn’t wear it. Bloom worked for Hely’s, the stationers, then. I gave him an order for paper and we did business on and off. But Molly, no, I didn’t bump into her again until I stood in for D’Arcy at a church soiree. She was carrying the kiddie she lost, Rudy, and—’

  Before Boylan got completely carried away on a wave of nostalgia, Kinsella intervened. ‘I find it difficult to believe it took a man like you close to fifteen years to get what you wanted?’

  ‘You mean, Molly out of her stays?’ Blazes looked up, grinning. ‘Oh, we sniffed each other like dogs but the time was never quite ripe for her.’

  ‘What changed her mind?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Were there others in the meantime, other men?’

  ‘Rumour was she had a fancy for Simon Dedalus’s boy but he was far too young for her and everyone knew it. Anyway, he scuffed off to Paris in the fall.’

  ‘Any others you can put a name to?’

  ‘Fellow called Gardener, a solider. He died of a fever in the Transvaal five or six years back, I think. My father knew of him but my father won’t say a word about the war since everyone called him a traitor for selling horses to the English and, by the by, raking in a packet in the process.’

  ‘Where is your father now?’

  ‘Cork; but he won’t talk to you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He thinks all coppers are shite.’

  ‘He’s not alone in that opinion,’ Kinsella said. ‘Where were you last night, Mr Boylan?’

  ‘Sure I knew you’d get around to it sooner or later,’ Blazes said. ‘I was here at home, in bed.’

  ‘Will your sisters confirm it?’

  ‘They’d better,’ Blazes said, adding, ‘ay, they will, they will.’

  ‘And you didn’t leave the house after midnight?’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘To visit Mrs Bloom, perhaps.’

  ‘With Bloom at home? No.’

  ‘Bloom wasn’t at home,’ Kinsella said. ‘What’s more, neither were you, Mr Boylan. I have a witness—’

  ‘He’s lying.’

  ‘I have a witness who saw you outside Bella Cohen’s—’

  ‘Lying, lying, I swear he’s lying.’

  ‘—who saw you arguing with Leopold Bloom at midnight outside Bella Cohen’s.’

  Boylan shook his head vigorously. ‘No, I tell you. No.’

  ‘What was the argument about?’ Kinsella said. ‘Were you arguing about Mrs Bloom?’

  ‘Fact is, I was nowhere near Bella Cohen’s last night.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Boylan,’ Kinsella said, ‘you’re not some grubby young soldier indistinguishable from all the other grubby young soldiers who invade the Monto after nightfall. You’re known to every publican and brothel-keeper in Dublin. If I found one witness without even trying don’t you suppose I won’t find others?’

  Blazes blew out his cheeks, fluttered his lips and surrendered. ‘It wasn’t Bella Cohen’s,’ he said. ‘It was Nancy O’Rourke’s and it wasn’t midnight. It was half past eleven at the latest. I was coming out just as Bloom was going in. We weren’t arguing. We were sharing a joke. I’d had a skinful, you see.’

  ‘Was Bloom drunk too?’

  ‘Bloom doesn’t drink. Glass of wine now and then when someone else is paying, never the hard stuff.’

  ‘So,’ Kinsella said, ‘you knew Mrs Bloom was alone?’

  ‘Ah now, you’re not going to catch me on that one, Mr Kinsella. I picked up a cab, poured myself into it and was home here on the stroke of midnight. If you doubt my word ask Maude. She it was who let me in and helped me through to my bed.’

  ‘Were you surprised to meet Bloom at Nancy O’Rourke’s?’

  ‘To look at Bloom you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth but he’s just as big a rascal as the rest of us. He mightn’t be able to raise the flag with his wife but, by God, he loves his nights upstairs with Nancy’s girls.’

  ‘Did Molly know about this … this hobby of his?’

  ‘She had her suspicions.’

  ‘You didn’t tell her, did you?’

  ‘I’d hardly be one to grudge Bloom his pleasures, would I? Of course, I didn’t say anything to Molly. If Leo needs a tickle with a pandybat on his bare bum to get it up, it’s no business of mine.’

  ‘Is that what goes on upstairs in O’Rourke’s?’

  ‘Among other things,’ said Blazes. ‘See, now you’ve tricked me into giving Bloom an opportunity as well as a motive.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Kinsella said. ‘If Bloom wasn’t tucked up with his wife in Eccles Street last night, his claim she was killed by someone else gains credibility.’

  ‘By someone else? I hope you don’t mean me?’

  ‘Now why would you think that, Mr Boylan?’

  ‘What reason in the world would I have for killing Molly?’

  ‘Perhaps you were tired of her?’

  ‘If I had been, I’d just have walked away. Fact is, I wasn’t tired of her. I liked her. I enjoyed her. Oh!’ said Boylan, ruffled now. ‘Do you think I might have done her in because she was throwing me over? Na, na, Inspector, that’s a woman’s trick, not something a man would do, not a man like me anyhow.’

  ‘Where’s your room, your bedroom?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In which part of the house?’

  ‘Two doors down off the corridor. Why?’

  ‘And your sisters sleep where?’

  ‘Upstairs.’ Blazes clicked his tongue in his cheek again. ‘I see. You think I slipped out, don’t you? Slipped out and we
nt all the way over to Eccles Street to beat Molly Bloom to death with a teapot?’

  ‘That may not have been your intention.’

  ‘Good luck to you, fella,’ Blazes said. ‘You’ll not be finding a cabman in the whole of Dublin who’ll swear he took me back to Eccles Street in dead of night. I was home here in bed, too bloody pickled to tie me own bootlaces let alone stagger half way across town to murder someone with a bloody teapot.’

  Blazes drank off the contents of the brandy glass, placed the glass on one of the tables and, hoisting himself to his feet, began to pace the room once more. ‘Bloom did it,’ he said. ‘You know it and I know it. Bloom’s your man, Inspector. As for me, well, I’d no motive for doing Molly in, no motive and no opportunity. And I have – what is it you call it? – an iron-clad alibi.’

  ‘Which your sisters will no doubt support.’

  ‘Too deuced right, they will.’

  Kinsella slapped his hands to his knees and got up. ‘Well, Mr Boylan, I think you’ve answered all my questions, most of them anyway. I can’t guarantee you won’t be bothered again, however.’

  ‘No,’ Blazes said, with a nod of acknowledgement. ‘I’m the third party, like it or not. Bloom, me, and Molly. I’m as much to blame as he is, I suppose. Poor bitch. What a price to pay for a bit of pleasure, eh?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Kinsella agreed.

  He watched Boylan open the door and turn off the gas. In the whisper of light from the corridor he looked larger than he really was, not the big man that some folks believed him to be but a shadow, a huge shadow cast by a trick of the light.

  ‘What are you going to do with the girl?’ Kinsella asked.

  Boylan’s head whipped round. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Milly Bloom, what will you do with her?’

  ‘Keep her here,’ Blazes said, ‘at least until things are settled.’

  ‘Is she amenable to that arrangement?’

  ‘Doesn’t have much choice, does she?’ Blazes said. ‘Anyhow, taking care of her kiddie is the least I can do for Molly now.’