Murder at the Queen's Old Castle

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Indeed!’ Séamus O’Connor glared at Brian and Patrick felt the boy tremble. Poor little fellow, in for a beating, he wouldn’t be surprised. Still, better than being homeless on the streets of Cork, he told himself. Not much compassion from Séamus O’Connor. Must be fifty if he was a day. Never been married, though he was reputed to have a fine sum of money stashed away, according to Patrick’s mother. O’Connor had opened his mouth to ask a question, and it might be a difficult one to answer. What could the boy have wanted to tell the police? Patrick rapidly ran through various possibilities in his mind. Still, the police were in charge here and dealing with a murder case, Patrick told himself and he stiffened his backbone.

  ‘I’m sure that a man like you knows better than to ask me to talk about police business,’ he said rapidly. ‘Nothing must be said or done about the boy’s absence. I’m happy that he did the right thing in coming to me so promptly. And if anyone asks you about it, well, you know what to say. On police business,’ he repeated slowly and emphatically. Séamus O’Connor was now looking a bit flustered and that was all to the good. ‘Now, Brian, I’m sure that Mr O’Connor would like you to carry on with that work that he has had to do in your absence,’ he said severely to Brian and waited until the boy began packing away the shoes, before raising a finger to beckon Séamus O’Connor to his side.

  ‘Something that I omitted to ask you,’ he said. ‘Could we have a quiet word?’

  ‘Come down to the stockroom. No one there.’ Séamus O’Connor eyed him with a searching look. As they passed the Ladies’ Shoes department, Patrick noticed a quick exchange of glances between Miss Maria Mulcahy and her fellow worker. Nothing much, just an impression that he had, but he saw the man’s lips tighten with annoyance. He led the way downstairs and made sure that the door was closed behind them before saying in a nervous fashion, ‘What’s he been saying? Terrible boy for making up stories.’

  Patrick ignored that. He got out his notebook. ‘Something that I wanted to ask you, Mr O’Connor,’ he said. ‘Who was it who told you to be in the stockroom, last week, on the day when Mr Fitzwilliam died?’

  ‘It was Mr Robert, inspector. He’s the one to give the orders. No surprise, though. I was not going to be that busy. On a Monday morning you’d get mainly women. The men who have jobs wouldn’t be shopping. The ones out of work have to queue up at the labour exchange on a Monday morning and then after that they’d be queueing at the docks waiting for an unloading job. No, there’d be no problem in having my counter empty and Miss Mulcahy at the Ladies’ Shoes would keep an eye and send a boy down to get me if there was a customer.’

  ‘I see,’ said Patrick. Joe, of course, had noted all of that information but it had made a handy lead in and the man now looked more relaxed. Patrick looked up and nodded at the empty shelf. ‘You’ve put the gas cylinders away, I see.’

  ‘The major packed them up and has them in his own room in the house. Under his own eye. Very upset he was.’ The man’s face was wooden, but Patrick saw his eyes glance quickly from himself and then to the empty shelf. How easy it would have been for Séamus O’Connor to put one of those gas canisters into his pocket, pop up to his own counter, insert it into the change barrel. Leave it. And then return to the counter sometime later, perhaps pretend to make a sale; be seen wrapping up a shoe box and shoot off the little barrel with its deadly contents.

  ‘Of course we all thought that they weren’t that dangerous,’ said the man, almost as though he had read Patrick’s mind. ‘The major opened one when I was standing beside him, just opened it and flung it on top of the pile of dried-out, flood-damaged bedsheets. Didn’t do us a mite of harm. I smelled the gas, but just like you would have smelled a bit of gas before you lit it. They used them to fumigate trees out in California, the major told us that; took the mould from them, that’s what he said. Used to throw them up, first of all, but then they got machines to carry them into the trees. And then they started to use them on uniforms of prisoners, got the lice out of them. No problem in the open air and no problem either in a big room like this.’

  ‘Just in a small room like Mr Fitzwilliam’s office.’ Patrick nodded. His mind went to Dr Scher’s report of the autopsy. Death from heart failure induced by the inhalation of gas. Still murder was probably intended, thought Patrick. ‘But I suppose the major, being a careful man, explained that to everyone,’ he said aloud. ‘About the dangers of releasing the gas into enclosed spaces.’ Major Fitzwilliam had said that he had done that, but Patrick always liked to check and double-check every statement.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Séamus O’Connor shrugged his shoulders. ‘I wasn’t that interested, to tell you the truth. It was mostly the young lads that took a fancy to them. All excited they were. Keen on being soldiers, all of them. Had to give young Brian a clip around the ear to bring him back to the real world.’

  ‘And now Major Fitzwilliam is the new owner of the business.’ The news of the will was all around the town and Patrick was not surprised when Séamus nodded. He was surprised though to see that the man showed no sign of anxiety. And yet, few people could have believed that Major Fitzwilliam would keep the business on. Selling the shop might mean the staff would be without a job. However, it might just be kept on with the present counter hands and apprentices. Or, perhaps Séamus O’Connor had got himself a new job, or even something better. Patrick’s mind went to young Brian Maloney’s story about the secret kiss and the liaison between Miss Kitty Fitzwilliam and Séamus O’Connor. Perhaps the two of them were going to pool their resources, set up a little shop on their own. There would be little that either of them had to learn about the shop-keeping business in the city of Cork.

  ‘Well, that’s all, Mr O’Connor,’ he said aloud. ‘Thank you for your co-operation. And perhaps you would tell the other staff what I said about allowing apprentices to have free access to the police, with no questions asked. These young lads have sharp eyes and we all do want this business of Mr Fitzwilliam’s death to be cleared up as quickly as possible.’ He doubted whether the apprentices would actually be told that they had a right to take time off work in order to visit the police, but his words reinforced what he had said about not punishing Brian Maloney. He would, thought Patrick, be able to tell Eileen with a clear conscience, that he had done his best for the boy. He half-smiled to himself as he went out of the shop. Funny girl, Eileen MacSweeney, he thought. Still, at least she had given up all of that IRA business and seemed to have settled down to a steady job. And that article in the Cork Examiner, which everyone seemed to think had been written by her, had brought into the police barracks a flood of information from the customers in the Queen’s Old Castle on that morning when Mr Fitzwilliam fell to his death.

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘You’ll never guess what I did last night.’ Lucy hardly waited for Sister Bernadette to close the door behind her, before she came out with this pronouncement.

  ‘You were attending a dinner party,’ suggested the Reverend Mother. She sipped Sister Bernadette’s homemade cough mixture. The honey and carrageen seaweed seemed to soothe her chest.

  ‘Wrong,’ said Lucy triumphantly.

  ‘You were giving a dinner party.’

  ‘Wrong again,’ said Lucy.

  The Reverend Mother sat back. She was going to be enlightened and the sooner the better. Any more guesses would only hold up the news and from her cousin’s face she could guess that she had something of interest to communicate.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Weeell,’ said Lucy, drawing out the word, ‘you know what I am like about servants – spoil them! That’s what Maud O’Reilly said to me the other day when I met her for lunch. “Lucy, you spoil your servants.” That’s what she said.’

  ‘So! Get to the point, Lucy!’ said the Reverend Mother impatiently.

  ‘And so I give the cook the evening off every Tuesday, every single Tuesday,’ said Lucy with emphasis on the last three words. ‘Well, she was used to Sundays when she came to me, b
ut I couldn’t have that. Poor dear Rupert! His only full day away from that wretched office of his!’

  ‘So what does poor, dear Rupert do on Tuesday?’ enquired the Reverend Mother.

  ‘Takes me out to dinner in the Imperial Hotel, of course,’ said Lucy triumphantly. ‘And that is the point. There we were, just the two of us, just like a dear old Darby and Joan couple, drinking our coffee and sipping our brandy in the lounge of the Imperial when who should come along?’ Lucy paused dramatically. She leaned back in her chair and looked across at her cousin with a quizzical air.

  The Reverend Mother thought about it. ‘Major James Fitzwilliam,’ she said with a fair amount of promptitude.

  Lucy sat bold upright. ‘You are annoying, Dottie. You have no social manners at all. You should have said: “I haven’t a clue!” You’ve spoilt my story, now.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ said the Reverend Mother unrepentantly. ‘Go on, Lucy, tell me what he said.’ It had been, she thought, an easy guess. Of all the people whose names now drifted in and out of her head, of all the people who might have been guilty of putting a premature full stop to the life of Mr Fitzwilliam, only his eldest son, Major Fitzwilliam, was likely to be frequenting the expensive precincts of the Imperial Hotel. She sat back and waited for what was to come. Lucy, she knew by the sparkle in her cousin’s eye, had a piece of gossip to relate.

  ‘Well,’ said Lucy reluctantly and then the love of a good story overcame her sense of grievance. ‘Well,’ she said again and this time the monosyllable had a completely different sound. She leaned forward and said in hushed tones, ‘Wait until I tell you the whole story.’

  The Reverend Mother poured herself a cup of tea in order to do justice to the atmosphere, and to remove the bland sweet taste of the carrageen moss and honey from her mouth. Then she sat back. ‘There you were, you and Rupert, enjoying your after-dinner cup of coffee …’ she prompted.

  Lucy’s eyes sparkled. ‘When who should appear, but Major Fitzwilliam,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact, I was just returning from powdering my nose and he didn’t see me for a minute. He just came through the door and then almost ran across the room and seized Rupert by the hand. “My dear fellow” he kept saying and you could see that he had had a bit too much to drink. “My dear fellow. The very man. I want you to do an enormous favour for me. Won’t take more than ten minutes of your time. But I need some support.” Well, you know, Dottie, when I heard that, well, I hung back a bit, checked my hair in the mirror by the door to the cloakrooms. Didn’t want to intrude,’ said Lucy virtuously. ‘As a solicitor’s wife, well, I’m used to that sort of thing. You’d be amazed to know the number of people who after a few glasses of brandy suddenly remember that they should have made their will, or changed their will and nothing will serve them but to go charging up to Rupert and wanting him to do it there and then. He always gives them an appointment for eight-thirty o’clock on the following morning, and they never turn up,’ said Lucy with a chuckle.

  ‘But Major Fitzwilliam …’

  ‘But Major Fitzwilliam wanted a bit more. He wanted Rupert to come around to the Queen’s Old Castle with him, there and then, and explain his father’s will to all of the staff. “We’ll get a taxi, old boy, and be there for eight o’clock,” he kept on saying. “You explain everything to them, make it all sound much more professional.” Of course, I kept out of the way. Took up a magazine and started to look through it. Rupert was saying, “My dear fellow, what is the problem?” You know that soothing voice that he puts on; doesn’t do it to you, of course; he’s a bit afraid of you, thinks you are formidably intelligent, but he does it to me.’

  The Reverend Mother smiled to herself. When was it, she wondered, that family and friends had decided that of the two cousins, similar in age, brought up and educated side by side, that Dottie was to be the intelligent one and Lucy the social butterfly? Probably when it became apparent that Lucy was going to be the pretty one and her cousin the plain one, she decided and then turned her mind back to the problem of Major Fitzwilliam.

  ‘He’s sold, or has had an offer for the Queen’s Old Castle,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right!’ exclaimed Lucy, too carried away, now, by her story to resent her cousin’s interpolation. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, would you? So soon! Probate barely granted.’

  ‘Not for a shop, then?’ queried the Reverend Mother. She thought not. The major wouldn’t need the services of his solicitor if the news was going to be good.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lucy nodding her head wisely. ‘Just as I thought myself as soon as I heard him. Anyway, he said that Rupert could help him to explain to the staff about everything. Notice and that sort of thing. “You’d be so good at it, old man. Soothe them down. Make them see that I had no choice”.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother. A lot of worried homes last night, was her first thought and her second was that Christy Callinan would have his heart’s desire. He’d be back in Baltimore for the spring fishing.

  ‘You can just imagine how my eyes were popping and then Rupert started doing the perfect gentleman act. “Sorry, old man; I have to take Lucy home. Oh, there she is. Come along, my dear. We must be off.” And, of course, I couldn’t put up with that sort of thing so I just strolled over. Didn’t make any pretext of not having heard. I always think these sort of things are so tiresome, just went straight up to the major …’

  The Reverend Mother sat back with a smile. She could just imagine the scene. Rupert, under the mask of the perfect gentleman, inwardly fuming; Lucy, both hands outstretched, smiling sweetly, playing the role of the acquiescent wife and inwardly determined to see what all of this was about. ‘I suppose that you said that you would be perfectly happy to stop off at the Queen’s Old Castle,’ she suggested.

  ‘Well, I put it better than that,’ said Lucy, never one to baulk at giving herself credit. ‘You should have heard me. I did it very well. “The Queen’s Old Castle. Goodness, I don’t think that I have been there for more years than I can count!” And of course, the major perked up at that and Rupert looked furious, but he couldn’t say anything. You should have heard me, Dottie, I did it very well. “I won’t be in anyone’s way. I’ll just sit in the kitchen and read my magazine”. And then I just snatched up the hotel’s copy of Vogue, tucked it under my arm and went out the door. And, of course, as soon as dear Mr Flynn saw us coming, he sent a boy for our coats and another for the chauffeur and there we were, up the South Mall and down the Grand Parade before Rupert could think of anything to say. To give him his due,’ said Rupert’s dutiful wife, ‘he didn’t say a word, just listened to the major’s account of the great deal that he was going to make, and how he wanted to have everything run as smoothly as possible.’

  ‘And the deal …?’ put in the Reverend Mother. She had guessed, but thought that she should be tactful.

  ‘You’ll never guess,’ began Lucy, but then began to laugh. ‘Oh, all right then, you have guessed. Yes, not been sold as a shop, but for building – apartments – all the rage now, so I’ve heard. Two-bedroomed apartments. They should sell like hot cakes. Can you imagine! Right in the centre of town. But of course …’ Lucy grew serious and she grimaced a little.

  ‘All of the workers out of work, that’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very upset, poor things. I sat in the kitchen. And I heard it all. They have a little stove there with a kettle and one of the boys, a very thin, nervous-looking one – Burke was his name – he lit the fire for me. And he put the kettle on. And then he went back inside. I gave him sixpence, but he still looked very upset and worried. I suppose they had all begun to guess that something was up when they were asked to stay behind after work. But that’s not what I was going to tell you about.’

  ‘Was Mrs Fitzwilliam there?’ asked the Reverend Mother.

  ‘I knew you’d guess. It’s impossible to tell you anything!’ Lucy’s eyes were alight with interest. ‘But I don’t think that even you will guess the next bit of th
e story. Yes, she started to cry and I could hear her shriek. I could hear her very plainly. “My son is going to throw his old mother out on the street. He wants to kill his old mother.” That’s what she shouted. And there was a deadly silence from the shop. I could just imagine what everyone was thinking. And then Rupert and Monica brought her into the kitchen and by this time I had the kettle boiling and the teapot warming. You should have seen Rupert’s face. Never had known me to be so domesticated! And I didn’t ask a single question. Just put a cushion for the old lady onto a chair just by the stove. Monica fished out the tea canister. You wouldn’t believe it, Dottie, but they keep it locked up, just in case any of their shop assistants would pinch a few teaspoonfuls from it!

  ‘Rupert went back in, then. I could hear his voice explaining the law to the workers. Poor things! You won’t believe it, but they only get a week’s notice. I couldn’t hear much because Mrs Fitzwilliam kept moaning about being thrown into the street and then we heard someone coming …’ Lucy paused and said dramatically, ‘Monica jumped to her feet – glad to get away, I’d say. She went out and I heard her say. “Kitty!” …’ Lucy paused. ‘Now here comes the really strange part of the story, because Kitty said, quite loudly, “Is she any better? Keep her there, anyway! Keep your eye on her. We don’t want her sticking a knife into James, just as she did to Pa!” Well, what do you think of that, Dottie?’ Lucy paused dramatically, her eyes very widely opened and both palms held up as though she were a bishop greeting a crowd of worshippers.

  ‘Is it true?’ asked the Reverend Mother.

  ‘It could be; but I wouldn’t know,’ admitted Lucy reluctantly. ‘You see my housekeeper’s sister only got the job less than a year ago. Otherwise, well, I’d say that I would have heard something.’