Murder at the Queen's Old Castle

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Odd the way that he had his wife and his daughters working there, wasn’t it? Not the behaviour of a wealthy man,’ said the Reverend Mother. She felt slightly ashamed of herself for indulging in gossip, and sometimes wondered whether it was a sin that should be confessed. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable and did no one any harm, so she encouraged Lucy with a glance of enquiry. In any case, she told herself, Patrick, Inspector Patrick Cashman, her one-time pupil, would need a little help. Patrick was doing very well since he had become an inspector. He had extinguished child prostitution from some of the seediest public houses on the quays by having a uniformed Garda conspicuously in attendance at closing hour, he had instituted police patrols on the back streets and prevented fights exploding into neighbourhood battles, but when it came to dealing with the merchant families of Cork, he could be at a loss unless she were available to give him a few hints. Now she looked at her cousin enquiringly. If anyone knew the ins and outs of the Fitzwilliam family, it would be Lucy.

  ‘A miser, that’s what he was,’ said Lucy in her usual downright manner. ‘Mind you, I blame the wife. Why did she do it? Why did she allow those two girls to spend their time in a terrible shop like that? No wonder neither of them married. And herself! Standing there all day. Terrible varicose veins, so my housekeeper tells me. Poor woman. A martyr to them. No wonder! But why did she do it?’

  ‘I suppose that her husband wanted her help,’ said the Reverend Mother mildly and Lucy snorted.

  ‘Wanted! Well, that’s men for you! I’d have allowed him to go on wanting. Imagine if Rupert asked me to come into his office and pound on the typewriter. Well, I’d soon get that notion out of his head, I can tell you.’

  ‘Rupert is a rich man,’ said the Reverend Mother, smiling to herself at the thought of her elegantly-groomed cousin placing her painted and well-manicured fingernails on the keys of a typewriter. And at the impossibility of Rupert, one of the wealthiest solicitors in the city of Cork, making any such demand upon his wife.

  Lucy looked at her pityingly. ‘You don’t know the least thing about it, Dottie,’ she said. ‘Just because he sold goods to the poor, you think that he was poor himself. Not a bit of it! I’m telling you. You can believe me. He was as wealthy as any of them. Rupert was lifting his eyebrows and puffing out a few whistles when I asked him what the man was worth. Wouldn’t tell me, of course; men are so ridiculous about confidentiality, but I got the idea. When Rupert puts his eyebrows that high, you can bet that a really good sum was left, but …’ Lucy paused dramatically, leaned across the tea trolley and hissed the next words in a theatrical whisper, ‘You’ll never guess, Dottie, who gets it all. You won’t believe it, but the whole business is left to the major – “my eldest son”, that’s how it went.’

  ‘What!’ The Reverend Mother put her cup back onto the trolley with immense care in case she should drop it with astonishment. ‘But his wife, his daughters, the other son, Robert. And Robert was the one that worked in the shop, worked there all of his life, I think, and seemed to be working very hard,’ she added, mentally suppressing the word ‘fuster’ uttered by the astute young apprentice, Brian Maloney.

  ‘Didn’t want to divide the ownership.’ Lucy gave a shrug. ‘Thought he was a member of the aristocracy where everything descends to the eldest son. Oh, there’s the house, some shares and some money left to the wife, enough to keep her, though not in luxury. Same for the two daughters. Left them a thousand each. I suppose she might sell the house in Glenville Place and buy a small place for the three of them, somewhere in St Luke’s Cross or something like that.’

  ‘And Robert?’ queried the Reverend Mother.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all! Not a penny!’ said Lucy, spacing out the last three words so as to give them maximum drama. ‘Not that I know anything about it, not officially, you know.’

  ‘What! Nothing to Robert! I don’t believe it!’ exclaimed the Reverend Mother, too horrified to be amused at Lucy’s sudden withdrawal from the role of purveyor of information. She tried to recall the bustling figure in the shabby tailcoat. Aged somewhere between thirty and forty, she reckoned. Probably fit for nothing except the job of floor manager. What a dreadful thing for a father to do to the son who had probably served him faithfully and to the best of his ability.

  ‘I suppose that his brother might keep him on at the same job,’ she said dubiously. It would not be, she felt, a happy working relationship. Surely the business could have been divided between the brothers, or more fairly, bequeathed to the younger brother, since the major no doubt had cost his father plenty of money to equip him as an officer in the British army.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Lucy, reverting happily to the person who knew everything that was going on in the small city of Cork. ‘Not a chance!’ she said dramatically. ‘I know what James will do. He’ll sell the place as soon as he gets probate. What would a major in the British army want with a shabby shop selling cheap goods? It wouldn’t suit his style at all. He may have been doing a bit of hanging about the place for a few weeks on and off during the last few months, but that’s only while he is waiting for something to turn up. The word on the town is that he’s planning to go out to Palestine. He’ll be able to cut a fine figure out there with plenty of money in his pocket. They’ll make him an army judge, you mark my words. You knew he qualified as a barrister, didn’t you? They say that it’s a great life out there for the army officers, like a club. That’s what I’ve heard. A friend of mine, Mrs Hayes, was telling me about Palestine. She said that she wished they could stay for ever, but the children were very unhappy at boarding school in England. And so they came back.’

  The Reverend Mother thought about this information. There was a question on her lips, but she didn’t think that it was a good idea to ask a direct question of the discreet wife of a solicitor, a wife who would always, when asked a straight question, disclaim any knowledge of her husband’s legal affairs.

  And so she hospitably pressed fresh tea and more cake upon her guest, explained her cough as something that she got every spring and left a suitable interval before declaring casually, ‘I suppose that the will was made some time ago.’

  Lucy chewed her cake thoughtfully and then swallowed some tea before saying with huge enjoyment, ‘Last week! Would you believe it?’

  ‘Last week!’ Thoughts whirled around the Reverend Mother’s head and a question popped out before she had time to swallow it back. ‘Did they know?’ And then she was sorry that she had not phrased it more tactfully.

  Lucy, however, had weighed discretion and the love of a good story in the balance and the latter had won. She leaned forward, her blue eyes sparkling. ‘Oh, they knew all right, I’d say. The night before the major came home. Mr Fitzwilliam told them all about what he was going to do. Stopped them when they were going into the drawing room. Asked them all to stay after the dinner table was cleared. There they were all sitting around the table, all of them wondering what it was all about. An almighty row there was. Shouting at him, shouting at each other. Told them everything. So I’ve heard. Said he had asked the major to come home because he needed his help. Said that he would be the future owner of the business. The coffee was stone cold by the time that they came out of the dining room.’

  ‘How on earth do you know all that, Lucy?’ This was going too far. Her cousin’s husband might have disclosed the contents of the will under a vow of secrecy to his wife. After all, it would all be soon in the public domain, but she couldn’t see the discreet and reticent Rupert spewing out details of a huge family row, even if he were present.

  ‘Their housekeeper is my housekeeper’s sister,’ said Lucy briefly, brushing this aside as an irrelevant detail. ‘But can you just imagine, Dottie, what it would have meant to him, if they believed that he would do it. Why, every one of them, Monica, Kitty and, of course, Agnes, herself … all of them are just left with a pittance. And Robert, not a penny. Turned out like a shop assistant who has had his hand in the till. Well, they
must all have wanted to murder him.’

  Lucy left a slight silence after her last statement and her cheeks went slightly pink. ‘I don’t mean that, of course,’ she said hastily. ‘Just a manner of speaking.’

  ‘But if this happened before the major came home, and the day before the will was made, well …’

  ‘He probably told them that he was going to do it. But they wouldn’t have known when. Especially if he said no more about it. Popped out in his dinner hour, apparently. He’d just have five minutes’ walk to Rupert’s office in the South Mall. All signed and sealed. All done hours before James came home, though no one knew about it, I’d say. And, of course, there had been that terrible flood. And then the major produces those very handy little gas cylinders. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d say if I wanted to murder someone, these would certainly have given me something to think about,’ said Lucy triumphantly.

  ‘Yes, it does make one think, of course,’ said the Reverend Mother thoughtfully. ‘After all, the man is dead. We can’t get away from that. And it does look, does it not, as if someone killed him. I saw the faces when Dr Scher handed over that gas cylinder. Everyone in the shop – all of the staff, even the apprentices – knew all about these gas cylinders. Certainly young Brian Maloney told me all about it and he’s not yet fourteen years old, I’d say. They’d been using them to get the damp smell from the clothes that had been in the flood.’

  Lucy brushed aside the question of the shop staff. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. ‘And, of course, Robert and the girls, well they would have a motive,’ she hissed, leaning across the tea trolley so that her face was very near to her cousin. ‘But, of course, there’s James, Major James Fitzwilliam. Think of that, Dottie! He gets the whole business, lock, stock and barrel. He’s going to be a rich man if he sells that huge place now. Between ourselves we have to say that this death of his father has turned out very well for him. Gives him a nice little nest egg! Don’t you think that gives him a motive too? Come on, Dottie, admit. I know that he would get it in the long run, that’s if Mr Fitzwilliam didn’t change his will once more – and I can tell you, in confidence, it would not have been at all surprising, if I can read Rupert’s expression properly. I’d say that Mr Fitzwilliam was one of those people who made a habit of changing his will. Lawyers love clients like that!’

  ‘Not after one week, surely,’ observed the Reverend Mother. She felt keenly interested in the whole matter and sat for a moment, turning matters over in her mind. What a toxic brew was simmering in that household, she thought. A disappointed middle-aged son, now doomed to an existence with no money and no prospects. Two middle-aged daughters, with no hope now of a suitable marriage, and about to be denied even of such comforts as they had previously enjoyed. And a wife who had worked so hard in her husband’s business, now to be left with nothing to show for it. ‘So, Major James Fitzwilliam just had to sit and wait for his inheritance,’ she said aloud.

  Lucy shook her head. ‘But remember he must be forty-five if he is a day. And his father was very spry. Just the type to live to the age of ninety. The money wouldn’t have been much good to James by then. Quite a ladies’ man, too, so I’ve heard. A few stories about him drifted over from London. Might have his eye on someone, but if it’s the lady I heard mentioned, well, he could feel that he might not have enough money to set her up in the style she was accustomed to. But the way that it has worked out, it’s been good for him. See for yourself, Dottie. His father is dead. He has the money in his pocket now. He’s young enough to enjoy it. He could make a good match or else stay a wealthy and eligible bachelor.’

  ‘And he was the one who, according to my young friend, Brian, was the source of those little cylinders filled with gas, a left-over from the Great War, apparently. Would know everything about their effect.’ The Reverend Mother thought about the matter. War, she had often considered, was a form of licenced killing. And once licenced to kill, well, human life becomes of less importance. Somehow it seemed easier to think of Major James Fitzwilliam, a man who had probably shot many other human beings, being the murderer than any of the rest of his family, or even than any of his employees. All of them under suspicion, she thought and wondered how Patrick was getting on with questioning them. That unmanned counter made it possible for any employee to have sent up the deadly canister.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lucy enthusiastically. ‘He was the one that supplied the gas cylinders. Rupert said that everyone was talking about it at the club last night. The major brought them back with him. May have brought them on purpose to give them to his father. My housekeeper tells me that the goods at the Queen’s Old Castle often smell of damp. Says she wouldn’t dream of shopping there for anything, no matter what the bargain. They’re near to the river there. You get a flood going up North Main Street and it’s bound to seep into the shop. And these old stone floors always hold moisture. I don’t like them at all. Anyway, when that flood came into the shop itself, well, these gas cylinders were great for taking the smell out of the clothes and the linens.’

  ‘I wonder how many of them he had?’ said the Reverend Mother, half to herself and half to her cousin.

  ‘What size are they?’ asked Lucy.

  The Reverend Mother picked up the sugar bowl, its silver polished carefully by Sister Bernadette who reserved its use for important guests. ‘I suppose they are not much bigger, in bulk, than this sugar bowl, longer but slightly slimmer,’ she said. ‘The one found on the floor certainly fitted inside the change barrel, would have been about the same size as the little canisters that counter assistants put into them.’ But one person at one of the counters put a different and a lethal canister into a change barrel. Which one of them? The Reverend Mother’s mind wandered over the faces from that morning.

  ‘Could put fifty of them in a suitcase, if you thought that they might be of use back home in civvy street,’ said Lucy thoughtfully and the Reverend Mother nodded.

  ‘He made no secret of it, though. He said immediately that they were his and Brian, the boy I told you about, said that the major had been using them to fumigate some of the flood-damaged goods.’

  ‘Well, he would have been stupid, though, wouldn’t he, not to admit to owning them. Probably most of the staff knew that he had brought them in, probably shown some of them how to use them safely. And, of course,’ said Lucy slowly, ‘his family would have known all about them. These people who were in the war, well, they are forever telling stories about it. In fact, I seem to remember Colonel Taylor ruining a dinner party of mine, lovely piece of venison the cook had dished up and this wretched man would go on telling stories about the men cooking rats in the trenches. I’d say that Major Fitzwilliam would have shown those handy little cylinders to all of his family.’

  ‘His brother would certainly have known,’ said the Reverend Mother. She was conscious that her comment sounded slightly distracted and was not surprised when Lucy pounced.

  ‘Not just the brother. Those two daughters, the twins, Kitty and Monica, they worked in the place and then there is Agnes, herself.’ She paused, took another sip of her tea and then said in a voice that she strove to make casual, ‘Dottie, what did you make of Agnes?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ The Reverend Mother knew that Lucy was bursting to tell her something, but she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to know or not. Still, she thought to herself, better that I should know. Her mind went back to the woman’s face, to the stiff pose, the eyes empty of expression. Was Mrs Fitzwilliam a patient of Dr Scher? And if so, why, when he had, by his account, given up his private practice, had he continued to feel responsible for her? Dr Scher had a very concerned look when he had stood beside her, not taking her pulse nor taking his stethoscope from his case, but stroking her hand and murmuring reassurances into her ear. Nervous problems, diagnosed the Reverend Mother. There was a lot of it about. Struck down the rich as well as the poor. There was that look about her, dull eyes, compressed mouth, trembling hands. Worse, and more di
stressing than any physical problems.

  ‘For a moment Lucy looked annoyed at the curt question, but then she leaned forward and hissed into her cousin’s ear. ‘Agnes Fitzwilliam tried to commit suicide a few months ago. They sent for Dr Scher and he pulled her around. Poor thing.’

  ‘Really,’ said the Reverend Mother calmly. The housekeeper, again, she thought. She could just see the two women, the Fitzwilliam housekeeper and Lucy’s housekeeper, heads together whispering pieces of gossip. So that’s why Dr Scher was so protective of the woman. Cork was a terrible place for suicides; Dr Scher had reminded her once and had made her feel ashamed of her impatience. Now she thought with concern of the blank face of the woman who had just lost her husband of almost fifty years. Poor woman, not an easy life working in a shop in order to increase her husband’s income, when there was really no need for her to do something like that. The Reverend Mother recalled to her mind the feel of one of the cold hands between the two of hers. The skin was very rough, rough, as though the woman, the wife of a rich man, had been scrubbing floors for a living. Not that, of course, but the continual handling of material, measuring it, cutting off a length, refolding the bundle. Half a century of work like that would roughen any skin. Not an easy life. Not the life for the elderly wife of a wealthy man. There had been something very odd about Agnes Fitzwilliam and her reaction to her husband’s sudden and violent death. If she had loved him, would she not weep? If she had hated him, would she not show some briskness of bearing, some consciousness that the business could be now hers to run, rather than a place where she, a woman in her seventies, had to work like a slave? Yes, something strange about Agnes Fitzwilliam’s aspect.

  Not sad. Not jubilant, nor even quietly satisfied.