A Gruesome Discovery
Page 11
The city was full of people of that name, but the Reverend Mother resolved, now that she had checked that it was O’Sullivan, to have a word with Lucy’s husband. Rupert may have detested the father, but he would surely not refuse a word of advice for the sorrowing widow and her huge family if it came to problems with the solicitor. Things did not sound too good to her, though. It was obvious, even from that one short meeting that Mrs Mulcahy was unlikely to stand up to this forceful Mr McCarthy, or perhaps Mr O’Sullivan, either. Susan was under twenty-one and she had no rights to any of the money that her father had accumulated. She studied the girl for a few minutes. Clever, yes, she would take the girl’s word for that. The Mulcahy children were all endowed with brains. From what she had seen of them she could be sure of that and Susan had, as a small child, appeared to be very advanced, reading fluently at an early age, she seemed to remember Sister Bernadette bringing her to display her achievement to the Reverend Mother. The Mulcahy children were, to Sister Bernadette, like Bridie’s children and they were all praised and admired by the lay sisters in the kitchen. Susan, now that memories were coming back, had been as clever as her older brother Fred.
A very plain girl, though, and with an awkward stiff manner. Marriage offers might not come too easily.
‘When it comes to it, a girl with a good manner will score over just good looks,’ her cousin Lucy had declared when speaking of her granddaughters. She had poo-pooed the idea of brains. ‘Brains are best kept secret until after the marriage,’ she had said briskly. ‘No, a good manner, reasonable looks and an ability to dress well, that’s what will get a girl a good husband.’
The Reverend Mother debated the matter internally for a few minutes, looking across at Susan, dressed in the same style as her mother, almost ankle-length skirt, her hair bunched up under an oddly elderly straw hat. Virtually every girl of five or six years on either side of her age had shortened her skirt to such a degree that Sister Mary Immaculate had taken, at one stage, to pinning a flannelette frill on the bottom of any skirt which did not touch the ground when its owner knelt on the floor of the classroom. In Lucy’s eyes, this girl would have little hope of many offers of marriage, her manner was abrupt and awkward; her looks were plain and her dress sense non-existent. And the one offer that had been mooted was distasteful to her.
‘I suppose you have never considered becoming a nun, Susan.’ The words were out almost before she realised what she was saying, but she went ahead with the proposition. ‘Our order, as you probably know, deals with nursing as well as with teaching. I see no reason whatsoever why one of us should not go a step further and train to be a doctor. And, of course, the order would find the money for your training, just as it does to train nurses and teachers. Don’t answer me now. Think about it. And, in the meantime, I would suggest that you urge your mother to see this solicitor for herself and to find out exactly how she is left. It would probably be wise for you and a couple of your brothers to accompany her.’
Susan said nothing. She had, thought the Reverend Mother, very intelligent eyes, pale grey in colour and fringed with straw-coloured lashes. They did not enhance her face, did not lend any beauty to her plainness, but no one who looked into those eyes could fail to see a potential.
‘I’ll think about what you said, Reverend Mother.’ And then, half to herself, she muttered, ‘I suppose that I would safe in a convent.’ She gave a quick glance across at the nun. ‘I mean that I don’t suppose that Mam would make me marry Mr McCarthy if I was planning on being a nun.’ There was a silence for a couple of seconds and then she rose slowly to her feet.
The Reverend Mother stood up, also. She liked this girl very much and was willing to do what she could for her, but safety had not been on offer. She said nothing, however, but pressed the bell for Sister Bernadette, sent good wishes and renewed sympathy to Mrs Mulcahy and then turned back to her work.
There had been, she thought, something very odd about that remark, ‘I suppose that I would safe in a convent’. Was the reference really to a possible offer of marriage from her father’s friend Mr McCarthy, or did it allude to something quite different. She thought about the matter on and off as she wrote twenty ‘thank-you’ letters, managing, with the ease of long practice, to make each one sound different and personal to the recipient.
After half an hour, she put down her pen and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Nine o’clock. Not too late. Her cousin would probably not be going to bed for another hour or two. But how could she talk in privacy? She stood up, stretched herself and then decided.
‘Thank you, Miss Clayton,’ she said as the telephonist expressed a conviction that Mrs Murphy would still be up and would be delighted to talk to the Reverend Mother. She waited, holding the receiver to her ear, listening with interest to the background comments from the telephone exchange ladies: ‘She’s up late, thought they all went to bed at six o’clock … They’d be praying all night, that’s what I’ve heard … Not a bit of it … how would they be fit for teaching those bold young rashers if they’d been up all night …’ and then there were a few clicks and Lucy came on the phone.
The Reverend Mother was ready, immediately greeting her in French. When she and Lucy were girls they had spent a year with cousins in Bordeaux and both still spoke fluent, idiomatic French. Miss Clayton may have studied French as a schoolgirl but she would be unlikely to be able to keep up. Nevertheless, the Reverend Mother persisted until she heard a click and the light buzzing sound disappeared from the line. Lucy heard it at the same moment.
‘Thank goodness, I was beginning to run out of family news; my French is getting rusty. She did hang on for a long time, didn’t she? Wonder whether she has a French dictionary. Now what have you really telephoned about?’
‘I wanted to ask Rupert a question, well, to ask you to ask him.’ Rupert, she knew, would probably be reading the Irish Times from cover to cover at this time in the evening. He was a man of regular habits. Read the Cork Examiner while digesting his meal and chatting to Lucy, then flicked through the Law Journal and, by this time of the evening, would have settled down to study the articles in the Irish Times.
‘I’ll try. You’d better make it interesting, though. He’s reading an article about Stanley Baldwin, and shouting comments about it – don’t know why he’s so concerned.’
‘I just want his opinion of a Mr O’Sullivan on Pope’s Quay – one of his profession,’ she added. Rupert tended to have a top-lofty view of the solicitors in Cork and might not easily recognize such a common name, especially one who was practising, not in the hallowed precincts of the South Mall, but from the obscurity of the north side of the river and on the fringes of Shandon.
She listened to the click of Lucy’s heels and resigned herself for a wait. Rupert might well have fallen asleep, despite his interest in Stanley Baldwin, or he might prove recalcitrant about giving a view on a fellow solicitor, or he might, in a post-prandial haze, have difficulty in recollecting such an obscure personage. What she was not prepared for, however, was a masculine voice in her ear, saying, quietly, ‘Good evening, Reverend Mother.’
‘Good evening, Rupert.’ The Reverend Mother did not waste time with meaningless apologies at having interrupted him. No point in saying what you didn’t mean, she had decided a very long time ago and in general she kept to that resolution.
‘As to your question,’ he said, ‘I would advise you to have nothing to do with the subject.’ He spoke with heavy deliberation.
‘I see.’ The Reverend Mother followed his cautious lead.
‘Certainly no investment.’
‘I see,’ she said again. The choice of the word ‘investment’ was an interesting one. Surely investment meant that money would be involved. This was unexpected and most probably very significant. Rupert was a cautious man. He would not use the word ‘certainly’ unless that word was the only one that served his purpose. She wondered how to prolong the conversation without alarming him.
‘A young
friend of mine has been thinking about training to be a lawyer,’ she said. ‘You have probably heard me talk of her, one of the cleverest pupils that I have ever taught. What would you say are the most important qualities that a lawyer, a solicitor, needs?’
‘Probity,’ he said without hesitation and she could hear the sound of relief in his voice. Her reference to Eileen had reassured him. ‘You see, my dear Reverend Mother, a solicitor bears a great trust. If a house is sold, a house bought, in the main it is the solicitor who will hold that money. He will hold it in a special clients’ account, that’s if he is wise and honest, but if he is not honest, if he is easily tempted and lacks probity, then that money can sometimes be used for other matters. Mainly, I would say, with the intention of paying it back, but sometimes, unfortunately, with the intention to deceive and to defraud.’
‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother thoughtfully. ‘Well, I shall certainly have a chat with her about that point, though I would think that she is a person of high ideals. Her hopes would be to benefit the poor by the use of her professional knowledge.’
‘That’s good to hear.’ Rupert was enjoying himself, she could hear the expansive tone of his voice and imagined him drawing on his cigar. ‘Certainly ignorance and diffidence makes the life of an embezzler an easy one. Never be afraid to ask a question, Reverend Mother. If anyone has money belonging to you, then ask and ask again until you are satisfied with the answers. And, if I were you, I would give that advice to anyone you know. I don’t believe in blind trust, you know. If ever you have trust in anyone, make sure that trust is built on a rock and survey it with a pair of binoculars from time to time. Myself, I don’t believe in trust,’ he repeated. ‘I believe that the good Lord gave us brains to assess information, gave us a tongue to ask questions, and gave us friends and relations to point us in the right direction.’ Rupert finished with a laugh and probably another quick puff on his cigar.
‘Thank you, Rupert, that’s extremely useful,’ she said. As he went to call back Lucy to the phone she pondered on the position of Mrs Mulcahy. The house at Montenotte had been bought and paid for, according to Susan, but there was money from the sale of the house on Shandon hill, the sale of the furniture and the income from the prosperous business. This solicitor on Pope’s Quay held the will, did he also hold the money?
TEN
Issue of General Order No. 14
‘No man of any rank who is addicted to drink will be permitted to remain a member of the Civic Guard. This is a penalty which will be rigidly enforced.’
Patrick had made an appointment with Mr O’Sullivan for nine o’clock in the morning so as to see the solicitor before he left to attend the funeral of his client, possibly one of his few clients, thought Patrick as he went down the basement steps of an insurance company, following the sign that said: ‘Ignatius O’Sullivan, Solicitor’.
There were two rooms in the cellar. One door was firmly shut, but the other stood wide open. Patrick went in there and looked around. It was sparsely furnished with a couple of chairs, a table and on the table was a hand bell, with a handwritten notice ‘PLEASE RING FOR ASSISTANCE’ placed beside it. No typewriter, no filing cabinet, no sign of a clerk. Patrick gave a swift glance at the mould-covered window and the dusty floor. In a very small way, this solicitor; perhaps that was what had attracted Mr Mulcahy to him. Looked as though he would not charge much. A man like the merchant, who had made his money from the waste products of the meat market, would not want to waste it on a fancy lawyer in South Mall. Patrick picked up the bell, shook it vigorously and then realized that the other door had already opened and a man was standing right behind him. Surprisingly old; I had expected him to be about my own age, at the beginning of his career, thought Patrick. The voice on the telephone had been young, slightly high pitched. Very assured, though, shaking hands in a brisk but formal way.
‘Good morning, inspector, you are very punctual, come into my office.’
The office also was fairly bare. A chair for the solicitor, and a couple on the other side of the table. An elderly typewriter – so no clerk, no filing cabinet here either, but there were some shelves that held five, rather battered looking black tin boxes. There was a smell of paint in the air and Patrick could see that one of the five had been newly painted, the white letters slightly dripping down the black background. It bore the legend: Estate of Henry Mulcahy decd. And he wondered if that had been done for his benefit. The other four black boxes preserved their anonymity, although they looked well used and no dust had accumulated on them. The solicitor lifted down the Mulcahy box and placed it solemnly in the centre of the table, moving aside the typewriter to accommodate it. Patrick took off his badge and held it out for perusal and Mr O’Sullivan smiled politely.
‘I know you well, by sight and by repute, inspector,’ he said, waving away the badge. ‘Now what can I help you with? What about a sherry. I won’t tell anyone. I know that you’re human like the rest of us.’
‘No, thank you, Mr O’Sullivan,’ said Patrick politely and then, almost without drawing a breath: ‘You’ve heard of the tragic death of Mr Mulcahy.’
The solicitor bowed his head in acknowledgement.
‘From his widow?’ asked Patrick with a slight degree of curiosity. Among the wealthy families of Blackrock and Montenotte, he had learned, the custom would be to summon the family solicitor in the event of any crisis, a death, a robbery, a problem with a recalcitrant son who was in trouble with the police, an insurance claim or even an unexpected win on the races. But amongst the denizens of Shandon Street, or Barrack Street where he had been raised, this sort of professional help would be fairly unknown, even in the case of those who had money. The solicitor was unexpected, somehow. A man like Henry Mulcahy who had risen the hard way, had been a barrow boy at one stage, men like that didn’t often go to the luxury of having a solicitor.
‘No, not from the widow.’ There was almost a hint of a … not exactly a smile, but a twitch of the lips. Mrs Mulcahy would have not thought of sending for the solicitor. Patrick could have betted on that. ‘No, not Mrs Mulcahy, poor lady. I heard it from Mr McCarthy, a trading partner of the deceased.’
‘And when was that, sir?’ Patrick had his notebook out. ‘Trading partner’ – he added a question mark at the end of the two words. I must find out if that is true.
‘Must have been Friday evening,’ said the solicitor after a moment’s hesitation.
‘Friday evening, you must have been working late, sir.’ It would have been eight o’clock in the evening by the time that news had broken to the widow.
There was a moment’s silence. ‘He came around to my private residence.’
‘I see.’ Patrick made another note while he thought about this. Rather strange. It seemed as though the two men were on friendly terms. He must meet this Mr McCarthy. A quick word after the funeral, he thought. Half the business in Cork is done after funerals; he had once heard someone say that and he had often noticed the little clusters standing closely together, at a good distance from others, and speaking low and softly with many backward glances.
‘And Mr McCarthy is an old friend of the Mulcahy family, I suppose.’
‘That’s right. And, of course, he is executor of Mr Henry Mulcahy’s will.’ The solicitor pulled the tin box towards him and took out an impressively large bunch of keys, very old keys. Patrick eyed them sharply, wondering whether he bought them as a job lot in the Coal Quay market. Many were quite rusted and looked as though they had not been near a lock in an age. Mr O’Sullivan selected one that was bright and shining and inserted it into the padlock on the tin box. He did not open it, though, just paused, looking enquiringly at Patrick and awaiting a nod from him before he clicked open the lock.
Brand new padlock, brand new key, recently opened, I could bet, thought Patrick. The room was full of dust, but the tin box was shiningly clean. He leaned forward as the lid was raised. Only one item within it, a parchment scroll tied up with a pink linen ribbon.
‘Last will?’ queried Patrick.
The solicitor laughed gently. ‘Just a legal expression, inspector. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the unfortunate gentleman made only one will and this is the one that I hold in my hand.’
‘And the date when it was signed?’ Patrick inserted the words ‘will’ and ‘date’ onto a fresh page of his notebook.
Mr O’Sullivan hesitated a little, glanced at the will and then back at the inspector. ‘A week today,’ he said and pursed his lips as though to whistle a little tune.
‘A week today.’ Patrick was startled. ‘Last Tuesday. But that’s the day when we assume that he was killed.’
‘So I believe. But the body was only discovered on Friday. As I’ve been told,’ he added quickly.
‘And he came here to make his will.’ Patrick gave a quick glance around at the empty shelves and the dust that lay thick all over the flat surfaces and even clung to draped spiders’ webs from the pale green walls.
‘I took his instructions here, but the will itself was, in fact, signed in his office in Shandon Street.’
‘You had known the deceased, well? Or just recently? For how long?’ Patrick stretched his legs beneath the desk and encountered an obstacle. He moved a toe carefully along the length between the legs of the table. A solid wall of tin boxes were piled up in there.
Mr O’Sullivan had considered this question for a long moment before replying, ‘Mr McCarthy introduced him.’ And then as Patrick still waited, he finished by saying, ‘A few weeks ago, I believe. Mr Mulcahy wanted to make a will, mentioned the matter to Mr McCarthy who brought him to see me, on a Monday, I believe. We discussed the matter very fully and I arranged to bring it up to his house the next day once I had drafted it.’