by Dorothy Eden
“I told you you wouldn’t like it.” He wasn’t being facetious now. He looked tired. There were deep lines in his face and a grim set to his mouth.
“How long have you known this?”
“Since yesterday, when I was in Dublin. I made progress yesterday, first with that scoundrel Regan—”
“Regan!”
“Yes, another Regan. Calling himself Brady this time. Another loyal brother of Moira’s. They were all in for the plucking of the goose, all right. This fine specimen lent his youngest child to the Mary and Joseph orphanage—sold would have been a better word—until his conscience bothered him too much.”
“You mean that a child had to be produced, otherwise your aunt couldn’t be blackmailed?”
“Exactly. Aunt Tilly is much too shrewd to be blackmailed over a child she’s never seen. And it had to be the right age, presuming Shamus had had a son. Having it put in the orphanage must have been one of her conditions.”
“Of course!” Cathleen exclaimed. “The man she was talking to on the telephone in Dublin that day must have been one of the brothers. But wasn’t he terribly careless, leaving that bit of torn letter in the bar for anyone to read.”
“He was a careless fellow,” said Rory. “He drank too much and let himself get drowned. The letter must have been to his wife, waiting for him in Loughneath. He tore it up, so his heart couldn’t have been in the business.”
Cathleen remembered the blithe whistle of the tinker. He had been a likeable rogue. Perhaps his heart hadn’t been in the plot. Perhaps his greedy wife had been pushing him on…
“But, Rory, if this is all true, can’t you get your aunt to talk? She must be terribly worried and frightened, especially when she thought it was only the tinker wanting money from her, and now there’s someone else. The brother in Dublin, I suppose.”
“No,” said Rory slowly. “Not him. He was not only scared to the depths of his soul by Danny’s death, but he swore on everything holy—and an Irishman doesn’t do that lightly—that he had had nothing more to do with it.”
Cathleen met his eyes. “Then who? Your aunt must talk.”
“You try to make her. I spent until midnight with her last night She won’t admit a thing. She says she wanted that five hundred pounds for gambling. Nothing else. The anonymous letters she had been receiving spreading scandalous rumours she burnt, which is the only way to treat such documents. And moreover, if Shamus’s wife is dead, it’s good riddance.”
“She can’t be as hard as that! She must be desperately worried. I told you, I saw her face yesterday when she got another letter.”
“Then whatever she’s hiding must be even more frightening,” Rory said. “The old fool! The magnificent old fool! She faces this the way my father faced the British Army!”
“Someone’s baby was in the castle,” Cathleen insisted. “If your aunt doesn’t know about it, then it must be Kitty who does. It must have been Kitty who pushed me down the stairs and then rushed down and took the baby’s shoe out of my hand, so that no one would believe me when I told them about it.” Cathleen stood up urgently. “We’ve got to find this woman, this Eileen Burke.”
“I agree. Let’s go.”
He put some money on the table for Mrs. Murphy. They went out into the thickening drizzle. The little lakes in the Connemara bogs wouldn’t be blue today, but a stormier grey than the sky. The grey of the wet donkeys pulling the turf-cutter’s carts with their load of neat black peat slabs.
“Where are you going?” Cathleen asked, as Rory started the car. “Have you the same idea as the police?” She spoke the words apprehensively. “The bogs?”
“No. I have another theory. If it’s true we won’t find Eileen Burke drowned in any bog.”
Cathleen clung to his arm, shivering. “Rory—the real secret is nothing to do with a child, is it?”
His jaw was hard, his eyes narrowed and cold.
“Didn’t I tell you our skeletons all have X certificates?”
They had to leave the car on the roadside and cross a boggy field.
“It’s all part of the estate,” Rory said. “It’s much shorter across country.”
“It’s near the lake,” Cathleen said instinctively, and fearfully.
“Yes. It’s a turf-cutter’s cabin. Hasn’t been lived in for years. We used to play in it as boys.”
The tumbledown cabin with its thatched roof was picturesque against the green hillside. It wasn’t until one was close that the gaping window and the holes in the roof were apparent. The door sagged half-open across a dark damp threshold.
Rory pushed it open and disappeared into the gloom. For a moment Cathleen couldn’t force herself to follow him. She waited, holding her breath, expecting some exclamation, expecting what?
But in a moment he called, “Aren’t you coming in? It’s dark, but you’ll get used to it in a minute or two.”
Then, as she stepped gingerly through the doorway, he did give an exclamation.
“That’s interesting. Look!”
She blinked, trying to see what he pointed to in the corner by the hearth. It shone faintly. It was a small collection of pots and pans.
“The tinker!” she whispered.
“Exactly. He must have been sleeping here. There’s been a fire quite recently.” He stirred the ashes with his foot, a very faint smoke rose. “Very recently,” he said thoughtfully.
Cathleen was looking at the wooden bunk, the sod floor dampened in circles where the rain dripped through the lamentable roof. That brown-faced bright-eyed man, so alive, so virile, must have thought the rewards were going to be sufficient to compensate for living in this discomfort. But no doubt he sneaked a few warm hours with his wife at nights. Had she known this was his hide-out, had she visited him here?
But certainly she had. For here, tucked at the side of the bunk, almost invisible against the crumbling wall, was a woman’s handkerchief.
Cathleen snatched it out. It had a little blood on it, dried brown.
“Rory!”
He took it from her, studying it. Then he began poking in the ashes with a stick.
“This fire hasn’t been out for more than twenty-four hours. It’s still warm. It looks as if—”
“As if what?” Cathleen cried in an agony.
“As if some kind of material has been burnt on it. Look, that ash isn’t peat. What would you say it was?”
“Something woollen,” said Cathleen, her lips stiff.
“Something with blood on it,” said Rory. “She had been hurt.”
“She?”
“Who else? She was hurt, she couldn’t look after her baby, it had either to be taken to the castle or left to bawl its head off or starve. She came here because she thought her husband had sent for her, she didn’t know he was dead. But when she got here there was—someone else. Someone who said if she didn’t agree to the new plans her baby would never come back.”
“What are you saying?” Cathleen whispered.
“Look!” said Rory, pointing to the wall. “It’s a bit dark. But can you read that? We wrote the names when we were kids playing here. Shamus, Rory, Liam.”
Cathleen stared at the names scratched with a burnt stick on the wall.
“But Liam is there twice. Once at the bottom—”
“In his correct place. Once at the top where he longed to be. He was a jealous youngster, Liam, particularly of Shamus. Not so much of me until Shamus died.”
Cathleen stared, not speaking.
“Look again,” said Rory. “The name at the top has been gone over.” He rubbed with his finger. “Very recently. I think, you know, it might be the only clue Eileen Burke could give us.”
“But where is she now?”
“I should think she’s perfectly all right, wherever she is. She’s got her baby back, you see. Which means she must have agreed to the new plan, and perhaps not too unwillingly at that, now she’s had time to think things over. After all, Danny drank too much and dragged her
down, and who knows, she might be ambitious enough to think that one day her son will really be the heir to the castle. Two can play at this game, this low-down rotten game. Let’s go home. Someone’s got to be made to talk.”
“But will they? Any of them?” Cathleen thought of Kitty, of Miss O’Riordan and her relentless vigil, of Liam telling her her fall had affected her brain… The O’Riordans stuck together, guarding their secrets.
“Wouldn’t it be the logical thing to find Eileen Burke now we’ve got this far?”
“No,” he said strangely. “I’ve found out all I need to about that part of the affair.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t you looking for the baby at all?”
“Baby, baby, baby! It’s only you who’s been fooled by that red herring.”
She shrank away from his hard eyes.
“I’ve been waiting a long time,” he said, very quietly, “to find this out.”
“To find what out?”
“Why, Mrs. Lamb, you’re not as bright as usual. The truth about my brother Shamus’s death, of course.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A WHITE FACE MOVED away from the window as they drove up. Kitty in her eternal role of the watcher, the listener. She came out to meet them.
“Where have you been? Aunt Tilly is furious. She says if Mrs. Lamb is well enough to go gadding about the country, she’s well enough to get on with her work.”
She spoke directly to Rory, not looking at Cathleen.
Cathleen said, “But I thought I’d been sacked.”
“You have been,” said Rory. “You’re getting away from here.”
“Rory!” That was Miss O’Riordan’s harsh voice coming from the shadows of the hall. “I won’t have you interfering in my affairs. If I’m forced to change my mind about Mrs. Lamb’s value to me, it’s none of your business.”
She crossed over to them. She was wearing the shabby tweed suit that today seemed to hang even more loosely on her broomstick figure. Her hair was pinned up inadequately, as if she had done it hastily without brushing it. Patches of rouge on her high cheekbones gave her an appearance of spectral animation.
“Does it occur to you, Aunt Tilly,” Rory said, “that Mrs. Lamb may not want to stay? She hardly bargained for these happenings when she took the job.”
“If you mean by ‘these happenings,’ her hallucinations, they’re her affair, aren’t they? She’d have them, wherever she was. Even, I’ve no doubt, in an English vicarage. They’re something she’s got to fight. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Lamb?” The heavily-lidded glittering eyes were on Cathleen now. “You can’t dismiss a nightmare by running away from it, can you? That’s when you have it with you forever.”
“I’ll be very glad to stay,” Cathleen said unhesitatingly. “Thank you for letting me.”
“Only because there’s no one else and I’m short of time. These things have to be recorded.”
For a moment Aunt Tilly brooded, and Cathleen was quite sure she wasn’t thinking of anything mentioned in the collection of letters and anecdotes. What she referred to was inside her own head, her private nightmare.
“Get out, Cathleen,” Rory said. “This is no place for strangers.”
Strangers! Cathleen was deeply hurt. It was Liam who came to her defence. He was dressed, as almost always in riding clothes. He looked slim and handsome, his eyes sparkling.
“They’re only using you, Cathleen. Aunt Tilly on this absurd book of hers, Rory on a wild-goose chase for a woman who’s probably crossed the Irish Sea by now. Am I right?”
Rory answered levelly, “You might know better than me. We’ve merely established that the woman you’re talking about kept a rendezvous with her husband in that old cabin. You remember? Where we used to play as boys.”
“More deduction?” said Liam.
“Oh, no, it was clear enough. The tinker seems to have been a violent chap. There’s evidence she was knocked about a bit. Perhaps he deserved to be pushed in the pool.”
“You think his wife—killed him?” That was Kitty, a macabre undercurrent of eagerness in her voice.
“Perhaps. Perhaps it was an accident. Anyway, she was well enough to get away. Liam may be right. She may be in England by now. Weren’t you talking of going over, Liam?”
Play it cool, thought Cathleen. Those might have been Rory’s unspoken words to her. She listened, watching the brothers.
“I’m hoping to take Red over for the Grand National, yes. In a few months’ time. What’s that got to do with it?”
“I understand Kitty thought it was to be much sooner than that. Didn’t you, Kitty?”
Kitty flashed a look at Liam. She could control her voice, but not her colour. The bright scarlet flowed in her cheeks.
“Good gracious, we weren’t being serious. Liam simply said it was time I had some fun. This year, next year, I don’t care.”
“Liam’s perfectly right,” said Aunt Tilly unexpectedly. “It is time Kitty came out of that ridiculous shell. Haven’t I been telling her so for long enough? No interest in clothes, no interest in men. Heavens, the girl isn’t normal. I tell you what, we’ll arrange a dance. She can go to Dublin and buy a new dress. Mrs. Lamb, you might be good enough to take her and give her some advice. Your taste seems sound enough.”
Had everyone gone mad? They were supposed to be talking about a missing woman, a possible murder, and here they were chatting about parties and clothes. To Kitty’s intense misery, and Liam’s obvious mystification. It wasn’t possible to read Rory’s thoughts. He seemed diverted more than anything else by his unpredictable aunt.
“She can wear her mother’s rubies,” said Aunt Tilly, “After all, they’ll be hers soon enough.”
“Surely not!” Liam exclaimed. “They’re an heirloom. Won’t they belong to Rory’s wife?”
Aunt Tilly gave him a curious long look.
“You were going to say Shamus’s wife, weren’t you? And of course she should have had them, if she’d behaved like any normal wife. But since she’s out of the picture, I’m quite certain Cecilia would want Kitty to have them. Oh, be bothered as to whether that procedure is correct by law, or not. I say it should be done and I hope neither of you boys will disagree with me.”
The red flags of colour had left Kitty’s face.
“Do you really think mother would like me to have them?”
She was suddenly very young and piteous. She was reading into this the gesture of love which apparently she had always been denied.
“Of course she would,” said Aunt Tilly, with emphasis.
“Then that’s final,” said Rory. “I endorse it. And since it’s my wife who will be the loser, I’m making quite a sacrifice. It hardly affects you, Liam.”
Liam was slapping his riding crop against his leg. He did it as if something were irritating him.
All Cathleen could think was that this extraordinary family lived in near poverty while sitting on a collection of jewels worth a fortune. The Fabergé brooch, now these extraordinary rubies…
“Look here,” said Aunt Tilly, beginning to stride up and down. “Why don’t we shake ourselves out of these doldrums? Why don’t we have a party tonight? After all, that dreary tinker and his wife were nothing to us. We don’t have to go into mourning for them. Let’s have some gaiety.”
“Tonight?” said Liam.
“Now, if we could rustle up some guests. But you can’t dress for dinner at ten in the morning, and if Kitty’s to wear the rubies, she must have bare shoulders.”
“Aunt Tilly—”
“Now let’s see who to ask.” The extraordinary old woman was in her element, striding up and down, clapping her bony palms together, eyes snapping, hair awry. “Magdalene, that dreary old bore, Colonel Green, the Hunters, the McDirmids, who’s that young man who bought the O’Connal place, Rory? Kitty might find him interesting. We might dance a little, eh? Paddy O’Grady could play the fiddle.”
“You’ve gone mad,” Liam exclaimed.
“Not a bit of it, not a bit of it. Did we never give a ball at Loughneath Castle? Not perhaps at such short notice, but that will make it more amusing. The best parties are always the impromptu ones. There’s plenty of whisky, isn’t there? What more do we want?”
“Aunt Tilly!” Kitty was clutching at an irrelevancy. “How can I wear the rubies without a suitable dress?”
“I’ve one,” said Cathleen. “A green silk. It would suit, you. It may need a little alteration. You’re so slim.”
A look of aversion, or was it shame, came into Kitty’s eyes. Before she could protest Aunt Tilly gave Cathleen a hearty slap across the shoulder.
“Splendid, Mrs. Lamb, splendid. I knew you’d be our sort when you got rid of your morbid fancies. Ready for a party at a moment’s notice. We’ll all forget our troubles tonight. No sick, no orphaned, no dying. Liam! You seem worried. You haven’t any other engagement, have you?”
“No, I haven’t, but the whole countryside will think you’ve gone mad.”
“Perhaps I have, dear boy. Perhaps I have.”
“You’ve had two nights with almost no sleep. You should be resting.”
“I’ll rest, all in good time.” She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of anger. “Did you think I was in my dotage? I believe you did. That’s the explanation for it all.”
Once again she was making an ordinary statement cover a private thought.
It was Liam whose eyes fell beneath her contemptuous regard.
Cathleen had the opportunity for only a word with Rory.
“Now you won’t insist on my going?” She hadn’t meant to plead. Her voice sounded aggressive.
“You don’t want to miss the fun?”
“Fun!”
“For the onlooker,” Rory said pointedly.
“Rory, the old girl’s gone off her head,” Liam said angrily. “A party in the castle tonight, with the police hanging round half the time!”
“Suggest to them that Eileen Burke’s in England,” Rory said lightly. “They’ll be interested in your line of reasoning. By the way, this seems to be a free-for-all. I’m sure Aunt Tilly will have no objection to whom we ask.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
