Murder at the Queen's Old Castle

by Cora Harrison

  And yet, Dr Scher had a worried look about him. The Reverend Mother, he thought, did not look very well. It was unusual for her to sit so closely to the fire. He saw Dr Scher shoot a few glances at her. And even when he spoke there was a slightly forced note in his voice.

  ‘I think that I’ll help myself to another one of Sister Bernadette’s delicious cakes,’ he said. ‘Great cook, Sister Bernadette. She’s a treasure to your establishment, Reverend Mother. Think of what those hotel cakes were like after the funeral. I just couldn’t fancy them at all.’

  ‘Not with all those hungry boy apprentices watching every move; not with that very thin child,’ said the Reverend Mother. She had the air of one who is glad to turn the conversation. ‘Did you notice that boy, Dr Scher? It’s rare to see a boy of that age reduced to skin and bone unless he has tuberculosis or something like that. I wonder if he is worked too hard or doesn’t get enough to eat for a growing boy.’ Patrick noticed how she watched Dr Scher as she said those words. He waited with interest to see what the doctor said. It was apparent, from his nod, that he, too, had noticed that child. The boy who was an apprentice on the Millinery counter. John Joe Burke. Painfully thin. Frightened, also. He could bet on that. He had questioned him as carefully as he could, but had elicited little except that one word: ‘dunno’.

  ‘Name of John Joseph Burke,’ said Dr Scher after a moment. ‘So he said. I’m sure that he was a more worthy recipient of the slice of chocolate cake than I would have been. I had a feeling that all of these boys were too thin. Hungry, too, but I wouldn’t take too much notice of that. Growing boys should be hungry, but that chap, scared stiff, poor young fellow. Had to force him to take it. To be honest,’ he said looking slightly embarrassed, ‘it did my heart good to see him swallow it down in a couple of bites. I swear that he looked brighter after it. I was only sorry that I couldn’t take him home and give him a few square meals, but I suppose that there is a law about stealing apprentices. And I hope that there is a law about feeding apprentices? Is that right, Patrick?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s not something that I’ve come across. I must look it up, though nobody has ever asked about it. I suppose there are rules, aren’t there? There must be,’ said Patrick hesitantly. ‘I suppose that the employers have to sign something to commit them to give their apprentices food and lodging, suitable food and suitable lodging.’ He stopped then. The laws of apprenticeship came from England. Appropriate food and lodging in a prosperous English town might not work out to be quite the same thing in Cork. Standards were low amongst the poor of the city. He had seen a child fight a seagull for a mouldy slice of bread. Were the Fitzwilliams, a prosperous family, treating their apprentices correctly? It was not a question that had ever occurred to him.

  He looked toward Dr Scher but the doctor was busying himself with the teapot and the cake knife and only said, almost mechanically, ‘Ah, yes, Patrick, you could do a bit of questioning of those apprentices. Sharp-eyed at that age. See things that we old people miss out on. And while you are doing it, well, you’d be told a few tales about how they are treated, I’d lay a bet on that.’

  Patrick accepted the cup of tea and welcomed the cake. Dr Scher had given him his opening. He could not waste time debating matters that were not his business. He had to solve the murder of a prominent Cork citizen. A murder that occurred within the man’s own shop and in the full view of a couple of hundred of Cork’s citizens.

  ‘I wanted to ask you about young Brian, Reverend Mother, the apprentice who was with you, young Brian Maloney. Mr Robert Fitzwilliam brought up his name. Said that he was unreliable. I wondered what your impression of him was.’ It wasn’t quite a question, but he saw her eyes look speculative and knew that, sooner or later, she would answer that query. In the meantime he stirred his tea, nibbled at his cake and pondered over the difficulties of the case. ‘If it was any other case, I’d be thanking God for having all those boys as witnesses!’ The words burst from him with a vigour that made him feel slightly ashamed. He struggled to find the words that would explain his frustrations. ‘You see, at that age they are as smart as paint and they usually see everything that is going on. You’re right, there, Dr Scher. If this was a case of a murder down on the quays, or even on board a ship, they’d all be bursting to tell me what had gone on. But this is different. It’s very different, Reverend Mother. These boys are probably terrified that they will lose their place if they say a word against their employers; that they’ll be out on the street even if they say a word that their employers haven’t already approved. So you see …’ Patrick turned from the Reverend Mother to Dr Scher and then spread his fingers wide. He gave an exasperated sigh and said, ‘So you see, I don’t know whether to accept their evidence, to believe it, or totally disregard it. Five of them, five young smart lads, all standing at those counters that I am interested in, all of them ready to be sent on errands, eyes wide open, standing there, looking around them.’

  ‘And, of course, a sixth who was with me, and who would certainly have had his eyes open,’ put in the Reverend Mother.

  ‘You think that they have been browbeaten, have been bullied; have been trained not to open their mouths unless they have been told what to say, is that it?’ queried Dr Scher.

  ‘I do,’ said Patrick. ‘And what’s worse is that I don’t know how to get them to talk openly to me. If I take them down to the police station, well, their employers could reasonably object to that. Could say that it disrupted the work of the shop. And, it was probably only in the stress of the moment that Joe got away with interviewing them by themselves. The employer probably has a right to be with them.’ Of course, he thought, if it were true that the major was now the owner of the shop then he would be easier to deal with than his younger brother.

  ‘I do see what you mean, Patrick,’ said the Reverend Mother. He had the impression that she was reading his thoughts. ‘There is, however, a third course. If I were you, I would ask the questions, whether in front of the employer, or when the boys are alone, and, Patrick, I would listen very carefully to the answers, but I would also evaluate what else was meant below the surface. I would ask myself what the boy’s attitude conveyed, what was his reaction to a name or to the recollection of a procedure. And, of course, you would have to take into account the different personalities of the boys. Brian Maloney, as I remember him seven years ago, was a very confident, rather open, rather friendly sort of boy, very chatty and exuberant. That may now be overlaid with a layer of caution, but I would have thought that the basic personality is still there. Some of the other boys struck me as having a very different personality.’

  The Reverend Mother, thought Patrick, appeared to be hesitant, just a little unsure. He opened his mouth to assure her that her views on Brian were of great use to him, and then he closed it. There was some more to come. He knew that. She was thinking it over. He waited, sipping his tea and nibbling the cake in order to satisfy Dr Scher.

  ‘I think that if someone said to me that a boy was unreliable, I would certainly check to see whether that was the truth, but I think I might also wonder why a man who employed the boy would have said such a thing. After all, he wasn’t giving a reference; you weren’t seeking to employ the boy and so “unreliable” was an odd word to choose, was it not?’ The Reverend Mother sat back and looked meditatively into the fire.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Patrick hesitantly, ‘that he might have been warning me not to take his evidence seriously.’

  ‘And did Brian have any evidence to give?’ asked the Reverend Mother.

  Patrick looked through his notes. ‘Very little,’ he said. ‘Nothing of any consequence. But, of course, Mrs Fitzwilliam did accuse him of being the one that had committed a murder.’

  ‘And he was loose around the shop and could have gone to that Men’s Shoes counter. And I suppose one of the other boys might just have sent up the gas canister when their superior had turned their back. Come to that, I suppose that I could have sent it up, myself,�
� said Dr Scher. He spoke hurriedly and almost as though he wished to turn the conversation from the accusation made by Mrs Fitzwilliam by bringing up remote possibilities for suspects. His concern for his patient was understandable and praiseworthy, thought Patrick impatiently, but he, Patrick, had a difficult and mystifying murder to solve and he needed any possible insights into this strange family. And Brian Maloney was a child with his life in front of him and no parent or family to support him. He, like Patrick, had been one of the Reverend Mother’s pupils and now, he thought approvingly, she felt a duty towards the boy. It was very easy for the rich and the powerful to load their sins onto the shoulders of the poor and those without connections. Patrick felt that he could read the Reverend Mother’s mind and he waited now for her to challenge the suspicion that had been voiced against Brian Maloney.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said firmly, ‘that we all have it in our minds the accusation made by Mrs Fitzwilliam, when she said that Brian was responsible for sending up the change barrel with the deadly gas cylinder enclosed within it. Dr Scher is the lady’s medical attendant and, I have no doubt, Patrick, that if it is a police necessity, he will be able to talk to you in private.’ She stopped. She had, Patrick noticed, made it quite clear that she did not want anything to do with the business of Mrs Fitzwilliam’s mental health. ‘Brian,’ she continued, her voice dispassionate and even, ‘was with me for most of the time from the opening of the shop, right up to the time when I returned to the convent. He walked by my side, carried the basket and fetched articles which I pointed to. Normally, I understand, he would have been at the Men’s Shoes counter and under the supervision of Mr Séamus O’Connor. When he left me, it was by my wish and he seemed to reappear with lightning speed. So I think that I can vouch for him. But that is not to say that he didn’t disappear from time to time as he went to fetch me another towel or a child’s gymslip. There would have been no reason, however, for him to go to the Men’s Shoe department.’

  ‘Nobody there at that counter when I picked up that pair of shoes for that poor one-legged man,’ said Dr Scher. ‘Don’t know how reliable a witness I would be for things going on around me in the street, but I do know that I picked up that bargain pair of the largest shoes I could find and looked around to see if I could get anyone to take the money for them – and there was no one to take my money.’

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to be manned that morning,’ said Patrick. ‘Séamus O’Connor had been sent by Mr Robert down into the basement in order to deal with more of the flood-damaged stock. It was definitely Mr Robert who gave him that order, not Mr Fitzwilliam Senior, according to Joe. I checked on that.’ He smiled a little at the approving nod from the Reverend Mother. ‘I always do double-check on things,’ he said, feeling slightly embarrassed. ‘I find it saves a lot of time later on if I can be sure that I’ve done a double-check on everything.’

  ‘Significant, that, isn’t it? What do you think, Reverend Mother? I mean that Robert Fitzwilliam was the one who made sure that no one was on that counter,’ said Dr Scher.

  Patrick waited for her to comment but she said nothing. She wore a slight frown on her face and he wondered what she was thinking. After a few moments, he filled the silence after Dr Scher’s comment. It did him good, he thought, to voice his thoughts aloud. Somehow to hear them said meant that he could assess whether they rang true. A clear, logical setting out of the facts was often a trigger to new thoughts. That had been his experience.

  ‘There had been six change barrels up there on the desk in the office,’ he said, picturing them in his mind as he spoke. ‘Each one had been emptied of its canister when Mr Fitzwilliam fell to his death. One of them came up from that unmanned counter, but it is impossible to tell which one of them held the gas cylinder because all six barrels were empty. Joe smelled each one of them but could get no hint of gas from any one of the six. Understandable as the gas canister would have been closed when put in and only opened after it had been taken out of the barrel. More likely the cover was just on loosely and fell off when the canister was tipped out.’ Patrick looked from one elderly face to the other and then got up impatiently and went to the window. Murder, he thought, irritably, was such an illogical business. No one committed murder unless they were a little bit mad and it was hard for a rational man with a plodding brain like his to delve into the mind of someone who was not quite sane.

  ‘Unmanned, on purpose? If you think that, then you must think that Robert Fitzwilliam was the one who killed his father, or who planned it in any case.’ Dr Scher returned his tea cup to its saucer with a decisive bang.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said the Reverend Mother drily. Patrick wondered at her tone. Did she think that the doctor was distracting attention from Mrs Fitzwilliam and her daughters? It was possible that he was. An old-fashioned man, Dr Scher. Found it hard to think evil of women. Wouldn’t mind putting the blame on Robert’s shoulders. Did that, thought Patrick, mean that Dr Scher had suspicions of Mrs Fitzwilliam? Hope not, thought Patrick. I’d never get a conviction. That apprentice of hers is a bag of nerves. Never get him to be convincing in the witness box. And all Cork would be up in arms at the very thought of an elderly woman who suffered from her nerves being removed from her home, taken to the police station and from there to the gaol. It would be the end of his career if he made a mistake with this murder.

  But I’m damned if they get me to fix it onto someone else who is innocent, he thought and then almost blushed as he saw the Reverend Mother’s eyes on him.

  ‘What do you think about Robert Fitzwilliam, Patrick?’ she asked and Patrick quickly averted his mind from that strange old woman and the sudden vision of her stuffing the gas cylinder into the change barrel. If John Joe Burke had seen her, well that explained why he was such a bundle of nerves, he thought, before replying to the Reverend Mother’s question.

  ‘It’s quite understandable that Robert Fitzwilliam, as floor manager, had told Séamus O’Connor to leave his counter and to work among the damaged goods, sorting them out according to the degree of flood damage and saleability,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘On a Monday morning, it was unlikely that men, who had the money to purchase shoes, would be at leisure to visit the shop. But, of course, that meant that the Men’s Shoes counter had no one standing there and …’

  ‘Anyone could have seized the opportunity …’ put in Dr Scher.

  ‘I noticed, when I was there, how the light came and went in that shop,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘It got quite dark when it started to rain. Anyone who worked there would have known that there would be a moment when no one would notice them. Our skies here are very rarely without clouds and, of course, fog can shut out the light almost as well as rain.’

  Patrick made a note on the back page of his notebook. That, of course, he said to himself, was a good point. In fine weather and in daylight the Queen’s Old Castle was mainly lit from above, through those sheets of glass, but rain fell in Cork city on two days out of three and fog filled many of those rain-free days. The shop had bright periods and then suddenly became full of shadows. Very easy for someone to wait for a cloud and then to quickly insert the deadly gas canister into the change barrel. Would anyone notice in a shop full of people? He doubted it.

  ‘Patrick, who would have sent for Mr O’Connor if he had been wanted?’ asked Dr Scher.

  Patrick produced a neatly-drawn plan, folded and secured with a rubber band inside the back cover of his notebook and smiled a little as he noticed how the Reverend Mother nodded approval.

  ‘I checked on that,’ he said. ‘It was Miss Mulcahy, Miss Maria Mulcahy. Séamus O’Connor had said that he left instructions at the Ladies’ Shoes counter that he was to be called if anyone needed a pair of men’s shoes.’ After a moment, he said, ‘The word is that they’re doing a line.’

  ‘Doing a line?’ Dr Scher raised his eyebrows at the Reverend Mother.

  ‘Walking out together, a Cork term for a sort of pre-engagement,’ translated the Reverend Mother, addi
ng tartly, ‘goodness, me, Dr Scher, surely you know what “doing a line” means, after all the years that you have spent in Cork.’ She turned back to Patrick. ‘Would you have thought that she would connive at murder, though? She’s a niece of Sister Philomena. She’s often visited the convent. A fairly strait-laced young lady, I would have thought. Not so young now; if she and Séamus O’Connor did have an understanding, then it is time for them to get married.’

  Probably meant that Maria Mulcahy would soon be approaching the age when she could no longer have children, thought Patrick, remembering that the same thought had occurred to him. And, he remembered, that he could not see much wrong with that. Cork was too full of children that no one was looking after, in his opinion. And the Church should stop forcing people to have children, he thought. The sailors down the quays were always selling rubber condoms brought over from England, but it would be a mortal sin for any church-going couple to use one of those. The only other alternative was for a man to wait until the woman of his choice was near to the end of her childbearing years. And that, he thought, was not a very attractive thought.

  And then he was conscious of the Reverend Mother’s eyes upon him and felt himself blush. He tried to shift the feelings of guilt from his mind, to sit up straight and to look competent and in charge.

  ‘There was no sign of this young lady, or of her apprentice, when I went to the Men’s Shoes counter,’ said Dr Scher. ‘I stood for a few minutes with them in my hand, holding them up high, in fact. I was looking all around and I wondered whether to go the Ladies’ Shoes counter, but when I wandered over, there was no one there except a young boy and he said that he was not allowed to take money and he was told not to leave the counter until Miss Mulcahy came back. So Miss Maria Mulcahy, she who is doing a line, was not at her counter at that moment, just a little apprentice.’