Murder at the Queen's Old Castle

by Cora Harrison

  ‘That’s the major,’ said the young apprentice. ‘That’s him, Reverend Mother.’ He sounded quite excited.

  ‘And who is that man, Brian?’ queried the Reverend Mother.

  ‘Ah that fuster, that’s young Mr Fitzwilliam, Mr Robert. He’s just the shop floor manager.’ The boy sounded scornful and the Reverend Mother concealed a smile. That good old Cork word ‘fuster’ did seem to suit the harassed and worried air of the younger Mr Fitzwilliam, but now there were genuine grounds for concern, she thought, looking upwards at the motionless change barrels. The work of the shop seemed to have come to a full stop. The busy barrels on the wires over their head were jammed one behind the other. The twin daughters of the owner, Monica and Kitty, emerged from their counters and looked upwards at the static queue of small canisters.

  The door in the tiny office above was flung open. A figure, an elderly, heavily-built, tail-coated figure staggered out, lurching his way to the safety rail of the landing outside the office and leaned over it. And then, while the noise and chatter of the huge crowd of people quite suddenly ceased, Mr Joseph Fitzwilliam toppled over the safety bar and fell heavily down on to the stone floor beneath, almost directly at the Reverend Mother’s feet.

  ‘Janey Mack!’ exclaimed a blond-haired young apprentice from the Ladies’ Shoes department in horrified and frightened tones. ‘He’s had a fit. Old Mr Fitzwilliam has gone and had a fit.’

  The Reverend Mother moved forward. There was a strong smell of gas, and Major Fitzwilliam, his hurried ascent towards the office having been interrupted by the old man’s fall, now descended the stairs rapidly as he pushed himself through the dense crowd of people, still with a lit cigar between his first two fingers. She glanced around hastily. All of the gas lamps on the bronze pillars seemed to be burning steadily with a clear, white light. The aroma of gas, she thought, came from the man lying stretched out on the ground at her feet.

  The Reverend Mother knelt down. She touched the man’s forehead, picked up the flaccid hand, her finger on the pulse. The major, extinguishing the glowing end of his cigar against the stone floor, knelt opposite to her. He took the other hand, his finger, like hers, on the pulse and their eyes met across the body. He got to his feet instantly.

  ‘Robert,’ he said authoritatively to his younger brother, ‘take Mother and the girls home.’ He nodded at the three black-garbed figures who had made their way through the crowd and now stood silently looking down at the dead man.

  Mrs Agnes Fitzwilliam had changed greatly. She would be over seventy now, thought the Reverend Mother. A pretty girl in her youth, Agnes had turned, in middle age, into a smart, well-groomed, well-dressed woman, but was now an elderly figure with a bowed back and white hair. Did she really still work at the shop? The Reverend Mother wondered about that, but the black frock and the pair of scissors, attached by a piece of black tape to her waist, seemed to suggest this. Her two middle-aged daughters, Monica and Kitty – only a brother would call them ‘girls’, both dressed in black and both with a pair of scissors attached, stood silently on either side of their mother and looked down at the dead body of their father. None of the three wept, or made any gesture towards the corpse. A murmur rose from the crowd. News spreads fast, thought the Reverend Mother and wondered when the efficient Major Fitzwilliam would think of sending for a doctor.

  And then, to the Reverend Mother’s enormous relief, a rotund figure made his way towards them, tentatively moving his bulk around the shocked and now silent figures, with a touch on a sleeve, an apologetic whisper until he reached the cluster around the body. It was Dr Scher, with a pair of men’s shoes in one hand and his purse in the other. His eyes went immediately to the dead man. He dumped the pair of shoes on top of Brian’s basket, replaced the purse within his pocket and knelt down upon the flagstones, one competent finger on the pulse, the other lifting an eyelid. The Reverend Mother watched. Dr Scher was her own doctor, doctor to all of the nuns in the convent, a professor at the university and the man whom the police instantly called in the case of any suspicious death. He would handle the matter. She saw him bend over the corpse and inhale and knew that he, like she, had perceived the distinctive smell of gas.

  Her eyes followed his and went to the bronze pillars. Twenty-seven gas lamps had said poor Mr Fitzwilliam, and it did look like that. Nine tall pillars in the row ahead of her, each with its metal glowing a warm bronze, illuminated by the bracketed gas lamp. Moving her head discreetly, she counted another couple of rows behind her and each bracket seemed to be lit up in a similar way – not a bracket without a light. But yet, there was that smell.

  ‘Look at that!’ Brian’s half-broken voice cracked on the last note. Dumping the basket on the floor beside the Reverend Mother he plunged forward, scattering some of the crowd that pressed around. ‘Look at that, Major! It’s one of your canisters, one of your gas canisters. That’s where the smell is coming from.’ He bent to pick it up, but Dr Scher was too quick for him. He also had noted the canister.

  ‘Just leave that alone, sonny,’ he said. His hand went to his trouser pocket, pulled out a large, well-laundered and newly ironed handkerchief. He draped it over the canister and then picked up the small canister with great care. In a moment he had opened his attaché case and made a space where the canister could rest, still swathed in the handkerchief. A crescendo of sound swelled as half the crowd commented on the movement to the other half.

  And then, quite suddenly, Mrs Fitzwilliam began to scream. ‘I knew it, I knew it,’ she shrieked. ‘He’s been murdered. The wrong person has been murdered. That stupid boy made a mistake. He murdered my husband and he was supposed to murder me.’ She swung around and pointed a finger at Brian Maloney. ‘He murdered him with that gas!’ By now she was weeping hysterically, but her words in a high-pitched voice were clear to all. She would be heard all over the shop, thought the Reverend Mother, as she took a step forward and put an arm around the woman, watching Dr Scher open his medical attaché case and take out a syringe.

  TWO

  It was when she heard that blood-curdling scream that Eileen changed from being a clerk and delivery girl in a printer’s office to being a reporter, an author, a person who put feelings, atmosphere, sounds into words, and wove them into stories. Frequently she had short articles, news items, commentaries published in the Cork Examiner, but this, she decided instantly, was going to be aimed at the style of the English newspapers, the gutter press, according to the priests on the altar, who disliked the salacious tone of the stories that they uncovered in England and also in the cities of Ireland. But say what you like, these newspapers grabbed the attention and almost forced the money from people’s pockets. She slipped rapidly behind the curtain of the kitchenware counter and began to write.

  A good headline; she would need a good headline.

  DEATH SOARS ALOFT IN THE QUEEN’S OLD CASTLE

  She was not quite pleased with that, much too long, but would work on it. In the meantime, she had a dramatic story to tell:

  An ordinary morning in an ordinary shop in the city of Cork, [she wrote, the rapid shorthand symbols filling up the page as fast as her thoughts were flooding through her mind]. The Queen’s Old Castle was full of people taking advantage of the Flood Sale. Shoppers shopped; counter hands wrapped up parcels. As is the custom in this shop money was sent up in small barrels to Mr Fitzwilliam, owner of the shop, perched aloft in his office high above the ground. Change was sent back down again in those same barrels. As always was the practice in the Queen’s Old Castle.

  But something went wrong on this morning. While shoppers watched, mesmerized with horror, Mr Fitzwilliam came out from his office, clutching a small barrel, staggered to the railing, and toppled over, crashing down to the floor.

  There was no doubt that he was dead. No man could have survived that terrible fall. Or was he already dead when he fell? The shop was alive with rumours and information. ‘It’s gas,’ went the whispers. ‘You can smell it. The man has been gassed.’


  And then his wife had screamed out hysterically, out of her mind with horror. And the terrible word: ‘Murder’. The word first uttered by the wife of the dead man and then spreading outwards until it began to be whispered through the ranks of the shoppers in the Queen’s Old Castle.

  They had been married for over fifty years. Mrs Joseph Fitzwilliam, wife of the dead man was a hardworking wife, a devoted wife. She had stood this morning, as she always stood, behind the counter of the shop that they had built up together. And then came the terrible tragedy, the moment when, as her gaze wandered up towards the balcony where her husband sat, as always, counting out his money, she saw a terrible sight. Slowly, heavily, the body tumbled over the rail and fell to the floor. The man was dead!

  And now his hysterical wife, distraught with anguish, her wits muddled by tragedy, screamed out that there had been a mistake; that she had been meant to be the victim, that she should have been the one who died.

  That was a good way to put it, thought Eileen with satisfaction. No paper would publish an allegation that the husband had tried to kill the wife, but this implied something sacrificial, something like those Indian wives who threw themselves on to the fire where the body of their dead husband was being cremated.

  ‘He made a mistake,’ she screamed. ‘I was the one that was supposed to be killed. It was a stupid mistake. That stupid boy killed the wrong person.’

  Eileen leaned on the counter and wrote the words as Mrs Fitzwilliam succumbed to a fit of hysteria and began laughing and crying.

  All listening knew that shock had momentarily robbed her of her wits and there was a murmur of sympathy from all over the shop. Her sons and daughters rushed to be by her side. No one could do anything for the dead man, but the live wife needed help. Soothing voices and gentle hands.

  Eileen stuck her pencil between her teeth and climbed onto a stool behind a counter. Now she could see over the heads of the people. There was a cluster around Mrs Fitzwilliam. Her two sons and her two daughters. Someone holding a cup to her lips. Keeping her quiet, thought Eileen. No one could scream and drink at the same moment. And now Dr Scher had arrived. She climbed back down from the stool and continued the bare bones of an article which she was sure she could sell to the Cork Examiner. She had to be quick, though. Soon the story would spread over the city and a reporter would be despatched. She could do better, though. She was an eyewitness. She would go straight to the Cork Examiner office as soon as she finished and she would read her notes to the editor, promise to have them typed up in time for the Evening Echo or if not for the Cork Examiner.

  Doctor Scher, well known in the city of Cork, had come to their aid. Even as the elderly doctor bent over the body, the bereft wife still cried out, quite mad with grief, convinced that a mistake had been made. The doctor then took out his hypodermic needle. The poor woman still obviously distraught.

  But what was it that had killed her husband? Gas! The one word was muttered from person to person. The smell pervaded that end of the shop. The shoppers began to move towards the door. The family of the dead man, his two daughters, Miss Monica Fitzwilliam and Miss Kitty Fitzwilliam, Mr Robert Fitzwilliam, the floor manager and his older brother Major James Fitzwilliam, all huddled together and stared with horror at the corpse.

  And at the open, shrieking mouth of their mother who was saying the unthinkable. ‘It’s that boy. He sent the gas up.’ The woman’s finger pointed at a young boy, faced him with an accusation. ‘I saw him!’ she screamed and then the merciful power of the drug took effect and she slumped back into her daughter’s arms.

  Would the Examiner wear that one? Well, she could try, anyway. Eileen took a quick look around the shop. She wouldn’t have long, but she had a dramatic story and she needed to paint the scene. She noted the crowd – she could do a little about them, hunting for bargains, but now huddled together.

  Whispers hissed! Bit by bit the words surged through the air, became distinct. ‘Gas!’ ‘He’s been gassed!’ ‘Gas sent up from one of the counters!’ ‘Someone had it in for the old man!’ ‘Not hard to guess who could have done it!’

  These mutters would fill the spaces between her descriptions.

  She began to plan the article, and how to set the scene.

  She noted the cavernous space, remembering the history of this ancient building, writing a description of the strange slabs of glass on the roof, the steep steps and the long passageway that snaked its way high up on the ancient wall. She wrote a headline at the top of her piece: ‘MURDER IN THE QUEEN’S OLD CASTLE’. She wondered whether she could get away with that. Well, it would do for the moment. It would be such a shame if it was just an ordinary accident. Her eyes wandered over the staff, gathered in a cluster. Michael Dinan, she had heard of him, knew the company that he kept; Séamus O’Connor, the man who was running two love affairs behind the counters – and one of them with the daughter of the owner. And then there was the family. A mad mother, two sons, one the floor manager, the other, very posh, a major in the British army, and two daughters, each of them with a counter of her own. She would have to find out some more details. No accusations, no, the paper was not the kind to take risks. Just a whole lot of information without comment. It would be fun to do. She wondered how much she would earn from a series of articles. A description of that little office, forty feet up, almost touching the roof of the old castle. A description of the place where the dead man had spent his last minutes. That’s what I need now! Quickly Eileen shoved her notebook and pencil back into her handbag, picked up the batch of posters and sedately slipped up the stairs, keeping close to the wall. There were heavy black clouds drifting across the sky and the light in the upper section of the shop had dimmed. Her black leather coat, leather breeches and black hair would not show up until someone switched on the gas lamps. And the Queen’s Old Castle shop owners were notoriously mean and careful not to spend any unnecessary money.

  In any case, Eileen told herself, I have a perfect right to be here. I was sent here by my employer to deliver the printed posters to Mr Fitzwilliam. Downstairs, the shop was being cleared of shoppers, commands to put back the goods being shouted. That was Mr Robert. Always made a great fuss about everything. She kept as close to the wall as she could and climbed the stairs as quickly and as silently as possible. There was a great commotion from downstairs. No one was happy to have to abandon goods that they had picked up. Eileen quickened her steps. Now she had reached the top of the stairs and was on the thin, long corridor that was supported on a structure of iron pillars. It felt a little shaky, but she told herself that the elderly owner of the shop went up and down this corridor and those stairs twenty times a day. Nevertheless, she avoided glancing down at the floor of the shop forty feet below where she walked. Why, on earth, had Mr Fitzwilliam wanted to have an office up here? She would add a little to her story about it, she decided, shaping the idea in her head. A man’s obsession with supervision of his employees and his customers, and that obsession leads eventually to his death. She could manage to write something that delicately inferred, but did not spell out, the sheer oddness of the man and of his family, too. She felt less dizzy and less vulnerable as she planned her story.

  Nevertheless, she was glad to reach the sanctum of the office. The door was closed, but she opened it and she slipped inside, closing it behind her. A gas fire burned in one corner and the place was stiflingly hot. She held the bundle of posters in her hand and went forward to look at the desk.

  And at that moment she smelled the strong, suffocating smell of gas. She hesitated for a moment, and then self-preservation sent her flying for the door. It was opened before she got to it and she burst past the man standing there, gulping in great noisy gulps of the damp cold air outside the little airless office. It was Robert Fitzwilliam, she noticed, the younger son of the dead man and the shop floor manager.

  He caught her by the free arm before she could go back down. ‘What the hell are you doing up here?’ His tone was low, but there
was no mistaking the aggression. Eileen did not hesitate. Quickly she stamped on his foot with all of her strength and then thrust the heavy bundle of the printed posters up into his face. His hands came up automatically to shield himself as he grabbed the bundle.

  ‘Sorry!’ said Eileen and smiled to herself with satisfaction as she watched him try to regain his balance. She was a match for any shop man. She had spent a couple of years with the IRA when she had left school and had learned the elements of armed and unarmed combat. Surprise! That’s what Tom Hurley always said. And automatically she had followed her training. Now Robert Fitzwilliam had been taken by surprise and stood awkwardly on one foot with both of his arms encumbered with the load of printed posters.

  ‘Just delivering these from the printing works, Mr Robert,’ said Eileen casually. Never explain, never apologize, that had been one of the rules of unarmed combat. Make your opponent’s body work for you, had been another. Robert Fitzwilliam wasn’t much good at this sort of thing. He was still slightly off balance and trying to cope with the pile of posters she had thrust into his arms. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, making her voice sound casual. She went to the railing and looked down at the cluster of people. The body was still stretched out on the ground. Shop assistants, apprentice boys, the Fitzwilliam family, Dr Scher and the Reverend Mother. What on earth had brought the Reverend Mother here? Eileen took a step backwards before she could be seen.

  ‘You’d better get out of here,’ he said harshly. He wasn’t looking at her, but towards the front doors where Séamus O’Connor was standing, almost like a sentinel. ‘It’s the police,’ he hissed. ‘Now scarper! None of this is anything to do with you.’

  He was right. Never a good idea to get mixed up with the police. She had had enough of that in her past life. Now she was nineteen years old and a law-abiding citizen. She said no more, just sidled along the passageway with her back to the wall and her eyes on the figures by the front door. When she reached the stairs, she put out her hand to hold the safety bar and trod lightly, doing her best not to attract any attention.