The Death of an Irish Consul

by Bartholomew Gill

  Today, the sky was mottled and the wind brisk. Like the beams of klieg lights, bright rays of sun broke through the cloud cover momentarily and passed up the gray streets, causing office workers in the financial district to doff their heavy coats and stroll after lunch. Still, the air was cold and damp in the shadows, and the city had not fully accepted the advent of spring.

  New Scotland Yard had always seemed a cozy place to McGarr. Maybe it was the air of quiet confidence that its personnel exuded, or its long history of precise police work, but at times, when McGarr could forget the repression which certain agents of Scotland Yard—many of them Irishmen themselves—had imposed upon his homeland, he almost wished he worked there. The diesel engine pinged and shuddered as McGarr paid the cabbie, who then geared off slowly down the cobblestone courtyard.

  McGarr presented his credentials to the porter, but his luck wasn’t holding. No sooner had he and a constable rounded a corner near the lift than McGarr met Ned Gallup, another former Interpol agent who was now chief constable to Assistant Commissioner C., this is to say, second-in-command of the Criminal Investigation Department. Being a friend, Gallup was the last man McGarr wanted to see, since his requests concerning the investigation of the Hitchcock murder would require a certain premeditated withholding of information.

  “McGarr, old man—how do you do?” Gallup pumped McGarr’s arm. Fat, rosy-cheeked, always suffused with energy and bonhomie, Gallup allowed his thick moustache to spread across his face in what McGarr knew to be the most ecstatic of his many smiles. “Gad—Ronny and I were just talking about you at dinner a few nights back, wondering how you were getting on in Dublin and so forth. Remember that little trattoria in Naples? Seafood it specialized in. Sat on the hill overlooking the harbor. Eel, octopus salad, squid, all sorts of unsightly roe dishes. It still amazes me how you could pack all that”—Gallup shuddered—“away. How’s Noreen?”

  “Well, quite well.”

  “Kids?”

  “Not yet. How is Ronny and the rest of your brood?” Gallup had seven children and in jest McGarr had often called him a covert papist.

  “Implacable, relentless, thriving.” Gallup patted his stomach and chuckled. His eyebrows were so bushy one seldom saw his eyes. In all, he put McGarr in mind of a mustachioed Buddha—benign, beatific, blessing with every gesture the continuance of existence in its present form. “What brings you to this gloomy place, other than”—he checked a large, gold pocket watch and replaced it in a vest pocket—“to have lunch with me. I know of a small Armenian restaurant—patlijan moussaka, stuffed grape leaves, shish kabab cured in a marinade that is a family secret worth more than the business itself, curried prawns, stuffed spring lamb spit-roasted over hickory, coffee no different from the cafés of Istanbul, Damascan delights for dessert, and this is no ascetic Ankaran bistro, my man. They’ve got, of all things, a license to sell liquor on the premises!”

  “Then I insist that the Republic of Ireland shall take you, Ronny, and your troops to dinner tonight.”

  “No, no, no—lunch on me, dinner on you—or, er, your government. That’ll make me something of a fixture in the spot, what?” He beamed over McGarr’s head, “You know, special tables, superior service, the pick of their wine cellar, and token aperitifs.”

  McGarr pushed the UP button of the lift. “Lunch is definitely out, Ned. I’ve got to get some business out of the way immediately.”

  “Well, then—how about my club? Escoffier’s illegitimate grandnephew wears the high hat there. British fare, of course, but entirely palatable. Entirely.” He stepped into the elevator with McGarr. “What’s it all about? IRA? Troublesome business that. I sometimes have nightmares the chief will detail me some of that mess, and, what with trying to keep the Mc’s and O’s straight and to understand the gibberish that passes for speech in the Six Counties, I wake in a sweat that requires several stiff whiskeys to quell.” Again Gallup removed his watch and checked the time.

  When the doors slid open on the fifth floor, the executive offices of CID, Gallup said, “Well, so, what luck!” He reached out and stopped McGarr. “Tell me about it.”

  McGarr sighed and looked up at the large man. Indeed, if his children were implacable and relentless, they owed the qualities to their father. McGarr smiled and shook his head. “I can’t tell you, Ned. It’s an official matter between me and the assistant commissioner. I’m operating on strict orders from my government to discuss this case with nobody but him. You’ll understand later if he decides to tell you.”

  “There you are wrong.” Gallup winked and bustled into a side room.

  McGarr called after him, “I’ll ring you about tea time.”

  McGarr presented himself at the receptionist’s desk near the assistant commissioner’s office. “Peter McGarr. I’d like to talk to the chief, if I may.” McGarr handed her his card.

  “May I ask the nature of your business?”

  “It concerns the murder of a U.K. citizen in the Republic of Ireland.”

  A trim woman in her sixties, she immediately took the card into a room behind her desk. McGarr could hear her knocking on a door beyond.

  Here again, McGarr noted, the homely, heavy office furniture, the old typewriters, the solid, useful, but stodgy decor of the building seemed to reinforce the undeniable competence of its denizens.

  Moments later, the woman showed McGarr into the assistant commissioner’s office, where a man was seated at the desk, a newspaper that concealed his face and chest fully opened before him. When the secretary had shut the door, a voice from behind the paper said, “What is it you want, MacGregor?”

  “McGarr,” said McGarr. “I’m investigating the murder of a British subject in Ireland. I would like to request permission to interview several British citizens, including the man’s wife, as part of my investigation.”

  “Name of the victim?”

  “Hitchcock, E. L. J.”

  “Address?”

  “Sixty Avenue Road, St. John’s Wood.”

  “Age?”

  “Late sixties.”

  “Retired?” Still the paper had yet to descend.

  McGarr noted something familiar about the voice. “I don’t know as yet.”

  “You realize, of course, that a Yard officer will have to accompany you on these interviews.”

  “My government is prepared to pay all expenses incurred.”

  “Very well. Have Miss Cameron direct you to the office of Chief Constable Gallup. He’ll be happy to accompany you.”

  “But——”

  The man lowered his newspaper. It was Gallup himself. “But what?”

  “But how——?”

  “I’m the new assistant commissioner, Peter. Well—it’s not quite official yet, you know, but I’m doing the job until the Board meets and passes on my nomination.”

  “What happened to Scruggs?”

  Gallup’s face sobered. “A contingency which we all must meet someday. He was a great policeman and one hell of a good fellow too. And while on serious topics, why are you so reluctant to accept my help?”

  McGarr furrowed his brow. “No reason. I just didn’t want to mix business with pleasure.” He hated to withhold information from a friend, especially when that friend had just been named to such a prestigious position, but he decided then that his own investigation of the murder was as important to him as any secrecy the British government would want to impose concerning the murder of a former chief spy. Also, he had given Ned Gallup all that was required. If Gallup didn’t recognize the name, that was his own lookout—seven kids, their friendship, and all else considered. “Shall we go now?”

  “I’ll get my hat, my mysterious friend.” Gallup pulled himself out of the seat and made for the closet.

  “It happened in Dingle,” said McGarr, “at the man’s vacation home. We found him in an outbuilding where…” McGarr began telling him every detail he had discovered in his investigation except for the inscription on the back of the wristwatch, and befo
re they left the office McGarr put in a call to his own office in Ireland.

  Hughie Ward came on the line. “As you surmised, Chief, the bullet did remain whole in Hitchcock’s skull. And you could be right as well about the gun. The impression on the cartridge casing is odd. We’ve narrowed it down to J2S-P Baretta automatics, then certain types of twenty-two Walthers, Colts, three models of Harrington and Richardson stock, and an Iver Johnson kick-shell type. There are over a thousand guns like that registered in Britain and Ireland and that’s probably only the tip of the iceberg.”

  “That’s so satisfying.”

  “What?”

  “Being right.”

  “The cord used to wrap his hands and feet can only be purchased in commercial lengths and is used mostly to strap down cargo in air transports. So much of it is sold that this line of investigation will doubtless prove unavailing, although Bernie is presently pursuing it.”

  In the background McGarr could hear somebody grumbling.

  “Now, then—we turned up no fingerprints but Hitchcock’s, the cleaning woman’s, some other female latents which are probably his wife’s. Whoever ate with him and drugged the wine must have worn gloves or kept in mind absolutely everything he touched and later wiped it down.

  “The autopsy of the body shows nothing much new. The killer had, as we suspected, let the drug wear off so that the trace in Hitchcock’s blood would be too slight to permit a complete analysis. Using those traces, however, Al McAndrew at the lab says it’s some chemical he’s sure he’s never encountered before, and so, rather than ruin whatever amounts the cork contains, he’s sent his preliminary disclosures over to Professor Cole of the Trinity College chemistry department. If she can’t determine what the substance is, nobody can.

  “How is it going over there, Chief? Have you questioned his wife yet?”

  “Not yet. The Scotland Yard number is eight-seven-three-nine-two and I’ll be at Hitchcock’s Avenue Road address. I don’t know the phone number but you can find it in the registry, if you need me.”

  After discussing the details of a pending court case and some routine office business, McGarr rang off.

  A constable then drove Gallup and McGarr toward St. John’s Wood.

  The house of at least a dozen rooms sat, like its neighbors, right on the street. Its old brick had been painted white. A brass door knocker, door handle, kick, and nameplates gleamed with fresh polish. Window sashes, shutters, and wrought-iron street guards were black.

  An elderly butler answered the door and, taking Gallup’s card, directed them into a small sitting room furnished with comfortable wing-back chairs and a sofa. Leather-bound books lined two walls and a pale blue oriental rug, into which a green-and-yellow design had been worked, covered the floor. The butler lit the gas fire in the hearth.

  Ten minutes later, a woman appeared in the door. Mrs. Hitchcock’s facial features were what McGarr always imagined when upper-class English ladies were mentioned. Perhaps it was her slight smile, as though her thin lips were unable to cover fully her protrusive teeth, or her bent nose, high cheekbones, or the broad reach of her forehead, but the impression remained quite strong for McGarr. A woman past fifty who was wearing a high-necked, aquamarine dress, her hair neatly coiffured and tinted a delicate blond, she was the mistress of the mansion to McGarr, the vacationer in the Rolls speeding down to her holdings in Killarney, the lady under the parasol holding the fifty-pound ticket stubs in the grandstand at the Leopardstown race course. To admit that the face was somewhat equine would be to say she resembled a very pretty horse indeed. Her ankles were thin and she crossed them as she sat. “Would you care for some refreshment, gentlemen?”

  “No, thank you, ma’am,” said Gallup. “Our visit is official and a matter of some delicacy.” He firmed his upper lip so that his moustache spread in a somber curl across his face. He was unable to look at her directly; his eyes searched the pattern of the carpet.

  After a few moments, Gallup suddenly glanced up at her and said, “It is my sad duty to tell you that your husband is dead.”

  She neither blinked nor in any way altered her expression. “Where is he now?”

  “In Dublin. We have to ask you to go there to make a positive identification.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He was murdered with a gun.”

  Still, she hadn’t blinked. She turned her head to McGarr. “Who is this man?”

  “Peter McGarr, ma’am. Chief Inspector of Detectives, Special Branch, Dublin Castle Garda. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may.”

  She stood. “I must make a phone call first, if you’ll excuse me please.” On her first step, she faltered slightly, steadied herself on the doorjamb, and walked resolutely out into the foyer.

  “She’s a cool one, what?” Gallup said. “I wonder who she’s calling, her barrister? Could she have done it herself?”

  McGarr shook his head. The possibility that a woman might have killed Hitchcock had never really occurred to him, since the crime was most remarkable for its utter lack of passion, attention to detail, and swift execution once the incriminating evidence had been eliminated. McGarr did feel, however, very uncomfortable indeed, since he knew very well whom she was phoning—whoever was presently C. of SIS.

  When she returned, she said from the doorway, “Chief Constable Gallup is wanted on the phone.” She still held Gallup’s card in her hand, and she didn’t move when he squeezed by her. As the butler directed Gallup down the foyer to the telephone, she merely stared at McGarr. Her features were expressionless, completely devoid of feeling, as though she had long prepared herself for this eventuality, that this was a final working out of a scene she had played over and over in her mind.

  “Peter!” Gallup said even before he got to the sitting room. “Pardon me, ma’am.” He squeezed past her, taking one long stride onto the carpet and plunging his fists into his suitcoat pocket. “Why didn’t you tell me who Mr. Hitchcock is, er—” he glanced at Mrs. Hitchcock.

  “Was,” she supplied.

  McGarr decided then that he would have to feign innocence, if only to preserve his friendship with Gallup. “Well, who was he?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “A retired civil servant with the Coal Board, I believe, although I must admit that this house and the one in Dingle seem rather pretentious for even the most enviable Civil Service appointment.”

  “Edward had an inheritance,” she supplied somewhat too readily. “My family has money.”

  “Is that why you didn’t want me involved in this case?” Gallup demanded once more. “Because you knew you’d have to lie to me?”

  McGarr sighed and looked at the gas fire in the grate. “I didn’t lie to you. I told you the facts I discovered in my investigation. I’m sure Mrs. Hitchcock isn’t interested in hearing us squabble.”

  She said, “Indeed I am not.”

  “Then perhaps I might ask you a very few questions concerning your husband, his reason for being at the house in Ireland, and the nature of his present involvements.”

  “No, you may not. Frankly, I don’t know why he would have been in Ireland. For all I knew he was still in Great Britain. I had good reason never to question my husband about his activities. Constable Gallup will explain the situation to you in the police car. Good day.” She turned and walked up the foyer.

  “Ned—this is a murder investigation, not a house-breaking.” McGarr thought it wise to act like the hurt party now. “I didn’t come all the way over here to be brushed off by some”—he waved his hand—“self-important widow. I want the facts and, damn it, I’m going to get them. If not, then your department will see how quickly cooperation on the IRA and the troubles in the North will cease.” This was a bluff. McGarr was a policeman, not a politician. He could only recommend noncooperation and would never consider doing so just because of one murder investigation that London chose to quash.

  The butler cleared his throat. He was standing in the fo
yer, holding both of their hats.

  In the police car, Ned Gallup told McGarr who Hitchcock had been and then directed the driver to take them to the Proscenium, the men’s club at which, rumor had it, most of the important SIS business was worked out over pink gins. Present C. wanted to meet them.

  Gallup was now in a foul mood. “Two days on the job,” he kept saying. “Two days and what? A world-darkening blunder. How did I not recognize the name?”

  “We’ve worked with these people before on the Continent, Ned, remember? They change procedures, contacts, controls, drops, et cetera, monthly. All this is smoke and shadow, secrecy for the sake of secrecy. You’re hungry. If they feed us, you’ll feel better.” But McGarr had begun to wonder why the old boys of SIS wanted to see them. Present C. had only to call the commissioner of Scotland Yard to get the whole thing kicked under the rug. And Dublin was sure to honor a request for secrecy as well.

  Thus, as the car weaved through noon-hour traffic along the esplanade of Hyde Park, McGarr devised several explanations for SIS curiosity: for some reason as yet unknown to McGarr, SIS had sponsored the assassination of Hitchcock and now wanted to know how much McGarr had uncovered; SIS had an inkling who might have killed Hitchcock and wanted the facts to confirm this suspicion; SIS had no idea of who had done this thing or why, and the murder shocked and surprised them too. In spite of all the rumors he had heard about the sullen manipulation of agents in the field, how the section chiefs sat back in the Proscenium and wrote off operatives when their usefulness had passed, he was certain, again, that these were men of goodwill who would respond, after some prodding, to his need to know the truth. McGarr thought fleetingly of the inscription on the back of Hitchcock’s watch. Certainly intelligence-gathering operations were, in some ways, important to the maintenance of world peace.