The Blood Dimmed Tide

by Anthony Quinn

  ‘Nothing I can think of.’

  ‘What about the police investigation? Did the Constabulary tell you who their suspects were?’

  ‘They rounded up half a dozen men who had danced with her the previous night. Then the police found out about her political allegiances. An Inspector came calling from Dublin Castle, and everything changed. The men were released without charge.’

  ‘What do you think happened that night?’

  His eyes went dark. ‘I think a lot of things.’

  ‘Had your daughter shown any signs of fear or worry?

  ‘Not at all.’ He regarded me closely. ‘If you believe she took her own life you’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting that. But sometimes our nearest and dearest are good at hiding their feelings.’

  ‘Rosemary would never hurt herself. She was nineteen years old. She had everything to live for.’

  ‘But had she ever harmed herself in the past?’

  He shook his head in silence.

  ‘Ever attempted to drown herself?’

  He seemed to sink into a deep loneliness. Again he shook his head and sighed.

  ‘Staff at the estate saw her wade out at night into the sea when it was freezing cold,’ I pressed on.

  The creases on his perplexed brow deepened.

  ‘I’ve had enough talking. Feel free to look in her bedroom, if that is what you wish. Maybe you’ll find something to satisfy your curiosity there.’

  He slumped over the turf embers like a man condemned to toil over a fire that would never give enough heat or light.

  I stepped beneath the lintel into her bedroom, feeling more than a twinge of embarrassment. For the first time I experienced the secret thrill of a witness observing the scene of a tragedy. I stood in the centre of the room without making a sound. I took a slow look around. The room was bare and clean. Like an empty shell on a beach. Far removed from the life and soul of a nineteen-year-old rebel girl. I peered into the shadows hoping to find some trace of her, but the distempered walls were blank, and there were no ornaments or books on the windowsill, or on the shelves and bedside cabinet. A jug and basin sat on a table, next to a cracked bar of soap in a dish. The neat bed with its folded blankets looked innocent of nightmares; the naked light of day was all that lay upon it. Somehow, it did not look like the bed of a dangerous revolutionary.

  I realised that if I were going to uncover any clues, I would need some assistance. I decided to test Mr Galton’s new theory of fingerprint detection with a little practical application. I removed a tiny phial containing iodine crystals from my pocket and emptied them onto the soap dish. A fine brown vapour rose into the air. According to Galton, the fumes emitted by the crystals should attach themselves to the oily substances of a fingerprint, making them visible to the naked eye. I moved the soap dish around the room, wafting the vapour across the few pieces of furniture, but everything drew a blank. Not a fingerprint in sight. The room had been thoroughly cleaned. I checked the walls, again nothing, apart from a partial hand-print that appeared at an odd angle above her bed like a welcoming signal from the spirit world. My pulse quickened. I had found my first trace of Rosemary O’Grady. I stood on the bed and placed my hand over the fading outline. She had put her hand there for balance. I looked up at the ceiling rafter. I ran the burner along its length and found a concentration of fingerprints appearing like phantoms at one particular spot. I reached up and felt around the timber. My fingers found an old tin biscuit box amid the dusty cobwebs and husks of dead insects. It was the closest thing to a treasure chest in that miserable abode.

  Inside the box were an old fountain pen, a leather notebook, fragrant petals of flowers and herbs, and some old scraps of newspaper. I opened the notebook. It was damp and smelled of the sea. The smudged pages were filled with an indecipherable stream of numbers and words. A cryptic code written in a delicate hand.

  Frothy 16B 4th Phase 42 11

  Cheerful Charlie 23B 2nd Phase 42 12

  Comte de Chombard 14B 13th Phase 42 9

  Invincible 18B 13th Phase 41 9

  May Queen 16B 28th Phase 42 9

  1-12y, 2-14y, 3-15y, 4-13y, 5-17y, 6-18y, 7-20y, 8-21y, 9-21y, 10-23y, 11-23y, 12-24y, 13-21y, 14-24y, 15-24y, 16-22y, 17-22y, 18-21y, 19-19y, 20-19y, 21-17y, 22-17y, 23-15y, 24-15y, 25-13y, 26-13y, 27-13y, 28-12y

  And on it continued for about a dozen pages, including a series of charts, each of them divided into twenty-eight segments with more reams of numbers. A photograph slipped out of the back. It showed a tall, captivating woman with an exquisitely pale face and darkened eyes staring to the side of the camera with a fierce look, as though poised for battle. She was dressed in layers of black wool and silk with a mannequin’s waist. The face was strangely familiar in spite of the heavy make-up. It was a woman I had seen not so long ago, someone who wore more than one disguise, had more than one role. The Red Cross nurse on the mail boat. Below the photograph ran the caption: ‘Maud Gonne playing Cathleen Ni Houlihan on the Abbey stage’. Followed by a date: 1902. I placed the notebook in my pocket and returned the tin box to its hiding place.

  I glanced into the main room. Rosemary’s father was still tending to the fire with pointless Napoleonic effort. His poker stirred the embers, raising little more than a few writhing rags of smoke. Through the tiny back window, I caught a glimpse of a field riddled with hummocks of weeds and stone, and in the distance, the spectral forms thrown up by waves breaking on the Atlantic coast. Denver had yet to return, and it occurred to me that this might be the perfect opportunity to probe the invisible world.

  Taking care that the old man would not disturb me, I locked the bedroom door and prepared myself for a spiritual vigil. Drawing my legs underneath in the Hindu style, I sat in the dead centre of the room. From a coat pocket, I took out Rosemary’s letter and on a sheet of paper drew out the letters and numbers of a Ouija board, a ghost-hunter’s first tool of investigation. I placed a coin on the piece of paper and lightly rested my fingertips upon it. Where was her ghost hiding? I wondered. What messages might she wish to communicate? I closed my eyes and cleared my mind. The coin moved slightly. I felt a sudden infusion of confidence mingled with excitement. I had the notion that it might be within my grasp to solve this mystery before the day was over and triumphantly bring my findings back to London, to the rapturous attention of Yeats and the guardians of the Golden Dawn.

  I opened my eyes, closed them again, shivered, and groaned slightly. I concentrated with all my might. ‘What secrets do you wish to communicate?’ I murmured aloud. The coin slid across the paper. I followed its movements as it glided from one corner of the paper to the other. The hairs on the back of my neck stirred. The coin twisted and changed direction, lively as an eel, barely resting a moment on any particular letter or number. My mind struggled to spell out the frenzied message.

  My concentration was irretrievably broken by a sudden rasping that shook the bedroom door. I watched the coin spin back and forth between the letters ‘O’ and ‘S’. ‘SOS’ I spelled out. Save our Souls. The key rattled in the lock as someone frantically tried to work it. The handle turned this way and that, the hinges groaned, and at last the door flew open. To my surprise, in rushed Wolfe Marley accompanied by Denver and a middle-aged policeman with a haggard moustache and a panting red face.

  I stood up immediately. ‘Shouldn’t you knock first?’ I said indignantly.

  ‘We were hoping to catch you by surprise, Mr Adams,’ said Marley, ‘that is if it’s possible to catch a ghost-hunter by surprise.’ He looked around the room as if searching for a hidden spirit. ‘Well,’ he said cynically, ‘are you having any luck?’

  I glanced at the wall behind the bed and was relieved to see the hand-print had faded from view.

  ‘What are you up to?’ asked Denver, staring at the piece of paper in front of me. ‘Learning the alphabet?’

  I explained
that it was a Ouija board, a device invented for ghosts to send signals to the living.

  ‘I didn’t realise it was necessary for ghosts to spell.’ A look of curiosity enlivened Marley’s features. ‘Must they?’

  ‘The ghosts send their messages through the subconscious forces of the medium,’ I explained.

  ‘What language do they communicate in then? Latin, Greek or the mother tongue? I suppose you’re going to say the language of the particular place.’

  ‘They no longer inhabit any particular place, or speak any particular language. The board is simply a means to leave behind patterns for the medium to decipher.’

  Marley renewed his sceptical mien. If anything, he inhabited it more fully than before.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Adams, aren’t all your ghosts anonymous?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean if all they have to communicate with is an alphabet on a piece of paper, how can you be sure of their identity, of who they say they are?’

  I shrugged. ‘Sometimes the message is more important than the ghost.’

  ‘If I were a medium being guided by a ghost, I’d want to be very sure of whom I was dealing with.’

  ‘You’re a cynical man, Mr Marley,’ said Denver. ‘Not even the dead escape your suspicions.’

  ‘I’ve dealt with countless criminals, traitors and spies since the war broke out,’ replied Marley. ‘And I’ve been an Irishman all my life.’

  The policeman coughed. He raised himself onto his toes to assert his presence in the room.

  ‘By the way, Mr Adams,’ said Marley. ‘This is Inspector Derek Grimes, head of Sligo’s Royal Irish Constabulary. Your presence here has aroused his curiosity.’

  I leaned forward and shook his hand.

  The Inspector sniffed, pulled out a handkerchief from his cuff and blew his nose. Through the material, he said, ‘Rosemary’s death was a sad business, make no mistake about that.’ He stuffed the hanky into a pocket of his crumpled-looking uniform and wagged a finger at me. ‘But, whatever the circumstances of her death, Sligo policemen are in charge of the case. No one else.’

  ‘That is as it should be,’ I replied.

  ‘Then what are you doing prying into her affairs?’ he snapped. His expression was both surly and superior.

  I stared at him closely. Something lay slumped at the back of his yellowish eyes. Something hungry and suspicious. Perhaps it was a fear that his incompetence might be exposed by a strange Englishman who believed he could communicate with a dead girl.

  ‘You have to excuse Mr Adams,’ said Marley soothingly. ‘He’s a ghost fanatic who wants to turn a crime scene into a séance. I also fear he’s been reading too many detective books.’

  ‘I was sent to make some inquiries into Rosemary’s death,’ I replied. ‘After I have done so I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘That’s the boy,’ said Marley with mock enthusiasm.

  ‘And what about you, Mr Marley?’ I asked. ‘You’re a real detective, I suppose.’

  Marley grinned. ‘I wear so many uniforms; it’s hard to remember what I am.’ He circled the room. ‘My interest in the case is based purely on my fascination with what you are doing here, stirring up old ghosts, so to speak.’ He lifted the letter from the floor and handed it to the Inspector. ‘Mr Adams has a new lead for you, Inspector.’

  The Inspector read the letter quickly. I got the impression he had already been appraised of its contents.

  ‘Running after ghosts is not a job for His Majesty’s police force,’ he sniffed. ‘We tend to gather evidence we can bring to court.’ He handed the letter back to me with a dismissive gesture. ‘How did this come to be in your possession?’

  ‘It was sent to the office of the Golden Dawn.’

  ‘Then it must have been hand delivered rather than posted.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  A slightly sheepish expression came over him. ‘We had some men following Rosemary for the past few months. Checking her movements and correspondence. None of them reported her posting a letter of that nature.’

  ‘Maybe she knew she was being followed and went to considerable lengths to keep the letter secret.’

  ‘That is possible.’

  A messenger then, I thought. We should be looking for whoever delivered the letter. They might know something of its contents and the nature of Rosemary’s suspicions. Perhaps a fellow member of the Daughters of Erin. The fact that the letter had successfully reached its destination meant that Rosemary had either known she was being watched, or suspected she was, or was naturally cautious.

  ‘Why were your men following her?’

  ‘She had some brushes with the law.’

  ‘What sort of brushes?’

  ‘She was a member of the Daughters of Erin. The organisation behind the vandalism and arson on local estates. Moreover, we believe its members are hatching a plot to bring German weapons to Ireland. One of their leaders is Maud Gonne, a fanatical woman who preaches violence and is intent on raising hell.’

  I felt Marley’s eyes watch me closely. I was acutely aware of the notebook in my pocket with the picture of Gonne dressed as Mother Ireland. I began to wish the room were a little less claustrophobic. I tried to change the tack of the conversation.

  ‘Out of curiosity, Inspector, have you interviewed Captain Oates?’

  ‘The captain is difficult to reach.’

  ‘I hear that after the body was found, he deserted his post and went into hiding. Does that not arouse your suspicions?’

  ‘Captain Oates appears to have suffered some sort of mental breakdown,’ said Denver. ‘According to the locals he is away.’

  ‘Away?’

  ‘Away with the faeries. The sight of apparitions has him frightened out of his wits.’

  ‘Madness does not necessarily infer guilt,’ warned Marley.

  ‘But it should at least encourage the police to interview him. Especially since Miss O’Grady vowed to haunt her killer.’

  ‘I have to warn you,’ said the Inspector, ‘that you are fouling the name of a better man.’

  ‘What have the RIC done so far? Have you found the murder scene?’

  ‘We’ve yet to locate evidence that a murder was committed, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘What about an autopsy?’

  ‘We examined the corpse,’ he grimaced. ‘We were satisfied she died by drowning.’

  ‘But what were the circumstances of her drowning?’

  ‘Perhaps it was an accident, or some sort of ghoulish game that went wrong,’ he suggested.

  It struck me why Grimes might be at pains to explain away Rosemary’s death as an apparent suicide or an accident. Suicides and accidents did not demand patient investigation or attract a lot of political attention. On the other hand, a murder might expose shoddy police work and stir up sectarian tensions.

  ‘I’d like to know what made her so careless that she climbed into the coffin and allowed herself to be pushed into the sea in the first place.’

  ‘What do you propose we do, Mr Adams?’ The Inspector’s eyes were cool and patient but his mouth was twisted into a sneer. ‘Dig up her corpse and shake it by its ankles to see what falls out.’

  ‘I gather that the body was soaked through with sea water,’ said Marley. ‘Cleansed of all its clues. The ocean is renowned for its superhuman purity. Perhaps her killers were counting on it.’

  ‘If there was a murderer, the only mistake he made was placing the body in the coffin.’ Grimes’ voice carried a note of professional disapproval. ‘He should have dumped her corpse in the sea and passed it off as an accidental drowning.’

  ‘I suspect the murderer had no intention of passing it off as an accident,’ I said.

  ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘He was sending a message. A w
arning to others.’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘Her comrades in Daughters of Erin.’

  ‘Why use a coffin?’

  I was unable to make a rational reply. The silence was broken by Marley.

  ‘I happen to have a theory to explain precisely that. Mr Adams, how familiar are you with initiation rites to secret societies?’

  I gave him a puzzled look.

  His eyes taunted me back. ‘My understanding is that initiates of the Golden Dawn are placed in a coffin with a hood over their head. A ritual known as the ceremony of re-birth. The belief is that the participant is born again into the Order, and that his or her life is transformed thereafter.’

  I struggled to keep my face a blank.

  ‘I have a theory that Rosemary’s death was just such an initiation ceremony,’ he continued. ‘One that went horribly wrong.’

  I stayed silent, but alert. I could see what Marley was hinting at. With such a theory, Rosemary’s death might place the entire Order of the Golden Dawn under a cloud of suspicion.

  ‘Any reason why you appear to have lost your tongue?’ pressed Marley. ‘Perhaps you are bound by a code of silence? The Golden Dawn is rumoured to punish severely any member who betrays its secrets. Did the society wreak such a vengeance upon Rosemary?’

  I had the impression of a razor-sharp inquisitor pushing for a confession. He was correct about the order’s oath of secrecy. The Golden Dawn threatened those who divulged its secrets with what it called a deadly and hostile Current of Will by which the oath-breaker would fall slain or paralysed without visible weapon.

  ‘Admit it, Mr Adams. The handprints of the Golden Dawn are all over her death.’

  I kept my silence.

  ‘The Order has already drawn unwanted publicity from a rape scandal. If memory serves correct, it involved a teenage girl and just such a botched initiation rite.’

  ‘That was a splinter group masquerading in the Golden Dawn’s name,’ I muttered.

  ‘Perhaps this was a splinter of that splinter.’

  Grimes cut in aggressively. ‘Mr Adams, are you a Satanist or a Christian?’ He leaned so close I could smell his sweat. I backed away and held my tongue. His lips and eyes grew agitated in his overheated face.