The Blood Dimmed Tide

by Anthony Quinn

  For a moment, I was mesmerised by the sight of the young woman sitting serenely in a corner of the cell. She was dressed in a long black cape with a hood. Her appearance had changed since the last time I had seen her. There was a white pallor to her cheeks and dark petals of sleeplessness lay beneath her eyes, an effect produced, I realised, by heavy make-up. It was Clarissa Carty dressed up as a stage ghost.

  ‘Who is she?’ I enquired, afraid to take my eyes off her in case my alarm betrayed me. It occurred to me that the Inspector might already know we were acquainted.

  ‘A Daughter of Erin.’

  ‘Why have you arrested her?’

  ‘Because we believe she is behind the murders of Rosemary O’Grady and Captain Oates.’ He watched me closely. ‘Don’t you recognise her?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘She was the fiancée of Richard Denver. She says the two of you are friends.’

  We both stared at her without speaking.

  ‘Look,’ said Grimes. ‘Look at the way she is smiling.’

  She was motionless, staring at the dank wall before her, smiling as though she approved of everything that was happening to her.

  ‘Does she know we’re watching her?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘She wants us to see her smiling. She wants us to believe that she is afraid of nothing.’

  ‘What evidence do you have against her?’

  ‘We found her with a magic lantern, a device used by charlatans to conjure up the images of ghosts. She confessed to haunting Oates to drive him out of his wits and divert suspicion.’

  ‘That’s plausible, but why would she kill him, or Miss O’Grady, in the first place?’

  ‘Jealousy. The two of them were competing for the attention of Captain Oates.’

  ‘But Captain Oates was the enemy.’

  ‘And Miss O’Grady was the prettier. These women think solely in terms of violence and murder. Her thwarted desire to be loved by Oates was transformed into a desire for revenge.’

  Grimes beckoned me away from the cell door and led me down the dank corridor into a small room that had a haggard, functional look, ready for any purpose its inhabitants saw fit to pursue. I felt unsure of myself. If this were an interview room, I expected something a little more formal, a desk, a flag, a portrait of the King. I wondered what previous unfortunates had been brought through the same door, and what fate had befallen them within those four blank walls. Someone banged on a door in the next room; the noise was raucous, like that of many fists. A shiver crept up my spine.

  The Inspector removed his cap. ‘This is one of our guest rooms,’ he said with a smile that was not at all welcoming. ‘Our visitors seldom complain about the lack of furnishing.’

  In spite of the room’s dank cold, he was perspiring along his forehead. Trickles of sweat curled along his thick sideburns. A pair of fists kept doggedly pummelling the other side of the wall. So far, all I had seen from the Irish Constabulary was normal police work, or at least nothing that necessitated direct medical intervention. However, that was about to change dramatically.

  Grimes stared at me closely, as though he badly wanted something I had, but didn’t know how to ask for it.

  ‘As an Englishman, do you swear to stand against the Irish insurrection and the leprosy of Roman Catholicism?’

  ‘Your oath is phrased a little too strongly for my liking.’

  Grime’s face darkened like a dying lamp. He drew out a baton with a flourish and swung it into my left side, just below my ribs. I slumped against the wall, in gasping acknowledgement of his brute strength.

  ‘This is not the time to play the pedant, Mr Adams.’

  The knocking on the wall stopped and the room went quiet. Grimes stood above me, staring at me attentively. The lack of noise made everything seem far away, like it was a game, or a play I was watching, as though he were only pretending to torture me.

  He hauled me to my feet.

  ‘It’s time to drop the fairy-tale act, Mr Adams. Miss Carty has admitted to everything. There were never any ghosts.’ Another blow landed on my ribs.

  ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ I wheezed.

  Grimes snorted in derision. ‘We know of your secret alliance with Maud Gonne and her bloodthirsty rebels. Who knows how deep your betrayal of your country goes?’

  ‘What do you mean by betrayal?’ I now felt well and truly trapped within the maw of Sligo prison.

  ‘I believe your purpose here is to sow confusion and disrupt the work of the police and His Majesty’s Crown forces. With all these daft rumours flying around about spirits and diabolical possessions, your ploy was to distract us from something much more sinister.’ He strode back and forth. ‘I want you to tell me about the German plot.’

  ‘What German plot?’ I stared at him blankly, wondering who was the one indulging in fairy stories.

  ‘Where is Madame Gonne, the provocateur and spy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What part does Mr Yeats play in this treacherous fabrication?’

  ‘None.’

  He lost his temper and yelled in my ear, ‘You’re a spy, Mr Adams.’ His hands flexed around his baton. ‘Who are you? What is your role here?’ He poked the baton into my ribs.

  ‘I’m a secretary to the Order of the Golden Dawn.’ I grimaced against the pain.

  He pushed me forcibly to the floor, as though he were about to club a dog.

  ‘I’m an Englishman, not a spy,’ I complained. ‘I don’t belong to any violent organisations and I’m not plotting with the rebels.’ I breathed in tightly. ‘I have a right to be questioned in a fair and appropriate manner.’

  ‘Fair and appropriate’s alright in England. But we’re far from England now. Don’t you know it’s not only ghosts that have a habit of disappearing in this part of the world?’

  I braced myself but the unexpected rustle of a newspaper behind us interrupted the Inspector’s line of direct questioning. I turned and saw Marley rise from a bench in the shadows by the door, and walk casually towards us. He had been watching the entire interrogation.

  ‘That’s enough, Inspector,’ he said and ordered him to leave the room. Grimes pulled his cap low over his sweating forehead and slammed the door behind.

  Marley smiled at me, it seemed, without malice or cruelty.

  ‘I want you to confide in me, Mr Adams. Tell me about this trouble you’ve got yourself into.’

  I sensed that he and Grimes were playing a game, and that his gentler approach was part of a carefully orchestrated plan to break my mental defences.

  ‘If you and Mr Yeats had any common sense you would see how your so-called supernatural investigations seem to everyone else. The self-indulgent antics of two morbid schoolboys. If these weren’t such dangerous times, they’d be the stuff of comedy.’

  ‘Our investigation is guided by the instructions in Rosemary’s letter. Our object is to move beyond the surface of things.’

  ‘You’re still intent on searching for this ghost even though Clarissa Carty was obviously behind the hauntings.’

  ‘If anything, I’m more curious than ever.’

  ‘I’m beginning to suspect you and Mr Yeats are the fanatics, not the Daughters of Erin.’

  ‘Two people have been murdered,’ I declared. ‘Surely, we can’t allow evil to triumph. Even if it is on one small remote beach. It will go on to contaminate the rest of the country.’

  ‘These things are best left in the hands of the police, who are convinced they have arrested the perpetrator.’ His tone remained mellow. ‘Why do you ignore my warnings and keep returning to Blind Sound?’

  ‘When someone dies there is a theory that for a short while their spirit lingers in that place.’

  ‘Rosemary’s murder allows you to prove a theory?’

  ‘And in so doin
g find out how she died.’

  ‘Assuming you make contact with the right ghost.’

  He stared at me for a while. Neither of us spoke.

  ‘I’m still wondering what to do with you,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ve listened to your self-justifications, and I’ve heard what Grimes thinks of your involvement with the Daughters of Erin. Who do you think I should put my faith in?’ He began pacing the room. ‘I didn’t get to be where I am today by believing in the excuses of suspects,’ he warned me.

  For a moment, I felt overwhelmed by the sensation that the room was retreating deeper and deeper into the corridors of the prison. Taking me further and further from freedom and the normal rules of a civilised society.

  Marley watched me with his sceptical eyes, without blinking. I could see that he was indeed a loyal servant to the machine of the Crown forces, unwavering in his cold devotion, standing by while fellow Irishmen were flung into the grinding teeth of the same machine.

  ‘Rosemary’s ghost brought you to this gaol,’ he said. ‘Now that you know there was no ghost, what you do from now on is entirely your own responsibility. Will you allow yourself to be deluded and tricked like Captain Oates, or will you turn back from this dangerous precipice?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’ll be honest,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t care. But I can tell you there is no mystery to be uncovered at Blind Sound. I want you to consider your actions very carefully. I want you to think of what’s best for a man with Mr Yeats’ reputation, to keep going forward, or turn back.’

  ‘Surely, that’s up to Mr Yeats?’

  ‘Of course, but the point is Mr Yeats does not always know when to turn back. Like every Irishman he’s haunted by his own ghosts.’

  ‘Really? What ghosts are haunting you?’

  He never answered my question. To demonstrate that he was in control, he led me briskly out of the room and back down the corridor. However, something told me that not even he was fully in command of what was happening.

  I told him that I had heard rumours of a Republican spy within the British forces in Sligo. He showed little sign of surprise at my claims.

  ‘Do you have any names?, he asked.

  ‘None whatsoever. I only know that the source is highly placed.’

  ‘That is indeed very interesting, Mr Adams.’

  However, he seemed unconcerned, which suggested to me that he wasn’t the informant.

  ‘It would be a good idea for you to mention this to Inspector Grimes,’ added Marley, and then he left me at the prison gates.

  ‘That was your final warning, Mr Adams,’ he shouted after me.

  A cold sea breeze swept through the town, scattering the abandoned placards of the women protesters. A silvery moon caught glinting reflections in the wet cobbles as I crisscrossed the empty streets hoping to find some breathing space for my confused thoughts.

  The jealousy of a love rival seemed too simple an explanation for Rosemary’s death. Nor did it explain why her body was washed ashore in a coffin. I wondered had Clarissa been acting alone in her plot to haunt Oates, or had she the support of the Daughters of Erin and Maud Gonne? Ghostly tricks usually required the efforts of more than one person. Were they part of a political campaign to frighten Oates out of his wits and render him so powerless he could be manipulated like a puppet? A feeling of unease welled within me. There was something about the picture I could not see clearly. My head burning with questions, I left the grim coldness of Sligo gaol behind and headed straight for Yeats’ hotel.

  When I went up to their rooms, I was alarmed to discover that Yeats’ condition had worsened. He lay in his wife’s arms, his breathing fast and rasping. I examined him quickly, feeling a feverish temperature, but every time he awoke, he complained of the cold. The doctor arrived before midnight, and after taking his temperature and pulse, assured us that the patient would survive. However, he made us promise that Yeats would receive no visitors or experience any form of disagreeable emotion or excitement for at least three days.

  21

  Three of Swords

  THE next Sunday morning, Sligo was all church bells and shuttered windows, men doffing their hats and retreating out of the rain into the darkness of doorways. Even the winding streets that dissolved into the pouring griminess seemed redolent of a particularly Irish form of self-effacement, designed to misdirect the visitor, suggesting there was nothing here worth investigating or bothering about.

  The cobbles were wet and my squelching footsteps echoed in the quiet streets. I turned round several times imagining the echo of my feet might be the footsteps of a pursuer, a shadowy agent or a policeman in black gumboots. I ran across an empty square. Seagulls flapped their wings and flew high over the roofs. I waited breathlessly in a doorway, surveying the soaked square and only emerged again when I was sure no one was following me. I stayed close to the walls and leaking drainpipes until I arrived outside Yeats’ hotel.

  I ordered a pot of tea in an eating-house across the street, through whose rain-swept windows I could watch the entrance to the hotel. I sat in a dark alcove while a waitress moved a greasy cloth back and forth across black tables, and watched me with melancholy eyes. When she had finished wiping the tables, she took down the pictures of boats hanging on the walls and began cleaning them. The paintings were by a local artist, and depicted sailing vessels that frequented Sligo’s famous harbour. I was distracted by one of the names of the boats, Cheerful Charlie, inscribed upon its sleek stern. It was one of the codenames in Rosemary’s journal.

  Shortly after two o’clock, a young woman dashed out of the hotel. She was dressed in a dark raincoat beneath which the flannel of her dressing gown flapped as she ran. She paused before crossing the street, and seemed to stare straight at me. At first, I did not recognise her. I had not seen Georgie for a few days. She looked different. There was no longer anything calm or soft about the expression on her face. Her cheekbones were sharp and her eyes hollowed like that of a prisoner unused to daylight. Her face carried an expression of panic, a desperation that had probably been rising all morning. She ducked under a few shop awnings and, without a backward glance, disappeared into a public house.

  I rose and made my way into the hotel and upstairs to Yeats’ rooms. I told myself there was no cause for alarm or secrecy. The building was sunk in the afternoon calm of a provincial hotel, and the Yeatses were its only guests. The previous day, I had gleaned from the porter that Georgie would leave the hotel every afternoon while Yeats slept. Her excursions usually took her to the nearest pub, he told me, where she would order three gins with orange juice, one straight after the other.

  The door to their rooms was unlocked. Slowly, I pushed it open. Beyond the columns of books, I made out the gaunt shape of Yeats, fast asleep on a reclining chair in what seemed like a strange cross between a fur suit and a bathrobe. His velvet blue sleeping cap matched perfectly the padded slipper on his left foot, but on the other he wore a black gum boot. I wondered had he injured his foot, or had Georgie misplaced the other slipper. A strong odour of sweet perfume, antiseptic and oddly, of cats, wafted from the room.

  A specialist had travelled up from Dublin the previous day and dismissed my diagnosis of concussion in favour of Malta fever, an exotic illness transmitted through contaminated milk. He had recommended that Yeats should have bed-rest for seven days after his temperature returned to normal. During that time, he was only allowed custard, jellied consommé and three spoonfuls of brandy a day. Even by the standards of romantic poets, Yeats was a determined hypochondriac and wholeheartedly embraced the role of convalescent. However, the idea of anyone other than his young wife tending to his fevered body reduced him to tears. Hence the absence of a nurse and the desperation on Georgie’s face as she escaped to the pub during his afternoon nap.

  Careful not to disturb the slumbering poet, I made my way down a narrow corridor towards the
bedroom door. A pale, fox-like face flashed in a mirror within the room and stared at me. I stepped back, heart racing. Dishes clattered in the kitchen below. On the street, a lamp man was busy illuminating the gas globes, casting a waxy glow through the windows. A coach drove past, its iron wheels ringing on the cobbles. When I looked again the face had disappeared. Perhaps it had been paranoia, an hallucination of some kind, or the reflection had been mine all along, startling me with its look of haunted unease.

  I entered the bedroom and walked to a bedside cabinet upon which lay some drawings of Yeats’ ancestors, a set of tarot cards and a collection of detective novels. Beneath the table, I found a heavy trunk with a lock but no key, which a search of the rest of the bedroom failed to uncover. I crept back to the study. I surveyed the contents of the room and my eyes alighted on a cuckoo clock on the wall that had stopped working. The hands were frozen at nine o’clock, the time Yeats and Georgie usually finished their evening interrogation of the spirit world. I crept over to the clock and opened the door to its cogs and wheels. Jammed against the winding mechanism was a silver key. I crept back to the bedroom with the key and opened the trunk.

  From my perusal, I concluded that the reams of notes within were either the most extensive supernatural researches ever recorded by a creative mind, or the misguided product of a grand folie à deux. Georgie’s script was thickly packed into a collection of folders which would have created an ocean of paper had I spread it on the floor. Fortunately, it had been catalogued with the poet’s customary scientific zeal into the different voices or avatars, as Yeats called them. In some ways, it was a futile attempt to bring order to a thousand lines of madness. Out of this shifting ground of childish complaints, recycled dreams and philosophical gibberish, he had identified at least a dozen different spiritual ‘instructors’, as well as an untold number of ‘frustrators’, whose sole intention seemed to be to prevent Yeats from mastering the complex symbols and concepts relayed by the ‘instructors’.

  I opened the folder belonging to Leo, the spirit whose writing I had earlier noted very closely resembled that of Rosemary O’Grady’s letter. The most conspicuous feature of his messages were the repeated reminders of secrecy, and the conspicuous manner in which they followed Georgie’s personal agenda, frequently taking her side, praising her, while criticising Yeats. The spirit often drew attention to Georgie’s physical needs, when she felt lonely, tired or hungry, or when she needed more attention or physical fulfilment in the marital bed.