The Search Party/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
BEFORE any definite action was taken, the public interest was diverted from Miss Blow and her affairs by a new sensation. At about half-past one o'clock Mrs. Patsy Devlin was seen advancing along the street towards the barrack with a crowd of women and children after her. Her appearance suggested that she was suffering from an extremity of grief. Her hair hung loose over her shoulders in picturesque grey wisps. Her bodice had only one fastening, a white pin, driven through it near the neck. Below the pin the garment gaped, down to the point at which, still gaping, it was tucked into a crimson petticoat. Her boots, a pair so large that they might have been, and probably were, her husband's, were unlaced, and clattered on the ground every time she lifted her feet.
"Himself is gone from me," she wailed, when she reached the door of the barrack, "gone and left me, and me sick in my bed with an impression on my chest and a rumbling within in the inside of me as it might be a cart, or two carts, and they with turf in them going along on the street."
"My good woman," said Sergeant Farrelly, "go home out of this, and don't be making a disturbance on the public street."
"Home, is it?" wailed Mrs. Devlin; "and where will I find a home when himself is gone from me?"
"Go to your bed," said the sergeant; "and if so be that you're sick the way you're after telling us, get the doctor to attend you."
Then he recollected that there was no doctor in Clonmore, and suggested as an alternative that she should send one of the children up to Jimmy O'Loughlin's shop to buy "some sort of a bottle that would do her good."
"And what good would a bottle be to me, if I had the money to pay for it itself, and where would I get the money, with himself gone from me? It was a bad head he was to me, and many's the time I've been sorry that ever I married him, but sure it's worse I'll do without him now he's gone."
"And that's true for her, the creature," said old Biddy Halloran from the outskirts of the crowd.
"Where is he gone to?" asked the sergeant.
"Is it where has he gone? If I knew that, would I come to you to find him for me? Where has he gone? Och! but I'd be the thankful woman this day if I could lay my eyes on him."
Mrs. Devlin wept wildly.
"Stop your crying, woman dear," said a sympathizer; "sure the police will have him found for you in two twos. Isn't that what they're here for?"
"When did you miss him?" asked the sergeant.
"Miss him! Amn't I missing him every minute since he went from me, and the children along with me crying for their da, and them with no da left them?"
"When did you see him last?" said the sergeant, varying the form of his question.
"I seen him," said Mrs. Devlin, "e'er last night. He came home, and him after spending the evening at Jimmy O'Loughlin's."
"Had he drink taken?"
Mrs. Devlin hesitated. One of her supporters in the crowd encouraged her to speak out boldly.
"Don't be afeard, Mrs. Devlin, ma'am. Speak up to the sergeant when he asks you the question. It's for your own good that he's trying to get the truth out of you."
"I won't," said Mrs. Devlin at last, "be telling lies to you. He had not. There wasn't a sign of it on him, though I won't deny that he might have had a glass of porter or the like."
"And did he spent the night with you in the house?"
"He did—he did," wailed Mrs. Devlin, overcome afresh by the recollection. "And in the morning, as it might be yesterday morning, when he had his breakfast took, 'I'm off,' says he, 'up to the Castle,' says he, 'to see the old lord that always was a good friend to me and my father before me.' And I never seen him since."
"Did he go to the Castle?" asked the sergeant.
"How would I know whether he did or not? Amn't I after telling you that I was sick in my bed?"
"He did go," said a man from the crowd, "for I seen him getting over the wall into the deer park, and him looking most determined, the same as if he had business to do."
"And why didn't you come up and tell me before?" said the sergeant. "He's gone for twenty-four hours and more, and it's only now you find it out."
"I was expecting him to step into the house every minute," said Mrs. Devlin, "and I wasn't willing to lay my mind down to it that he was gone, till there was no help for it."
"The Lord save us!" said old Biddy Halloran. "It's an afflicted creature you are this day, Mary Devlin."
Sergeant Farrelly buttoned his tunic and took his cap. He summoned Constable Cole and they marched together down the street towards Jimmy O'Loughlin's hotel. The crowd, Mrs. Devlin at the head of it, followed them. Constable Cole turned.
"Go home out of that the lot of you," he said, "and take Mrs. Devlin along with you. The matter is in the hands of the police now, and that ought to content you."
Jimmy O'Loughlin's customers deserted him as soon as the noise of Mrs. Devlin's wailing was heard in the street. He stood alone behind his bar when the police entered the hotel. He greeted the sergeant heartily, for he was a man of good conscience and unaware of any reason why he should dread a visit from the police. He was struck by the solemn severity with which Sergeant Farrelly replied to his greeting, and became vaguely uneasy. The business of a publican is beset with legal snares which only the most fortunate men succeed in avoiding altogether. Jimmy examined himself rapidly, but failed to discover anything in his immediate past which could bring him under the lash of the law. He was quite sure that batch of convivial friends who absorbed a few dozen bottles of porter on the previous Sunday had entered his house unseen. They had certainly entered it cautiously—by the back door, after climbing over a wall into his yard. His mental attitude was that of the people of the town of Bethlehem when the prophet Samuel came unexpectedly among them. They were not conscious of deserving any kind of denunciation, but they were anxious, and said to the great man: "Comest thou peaceably?" Jimmy O'Loughlin might have repeated their exact words, but he had never heard the story, and was therefore unable to quote from it. His face wore an expression of anxious interrogation.
"Did you hear," said Sergeant Farrelly, "what they're after telling me about Patsy Devlin?"
"What about him?" said Jimmy cautiously.
"He's left the town, and deserted his wife and family."
"Do you say that now?"
"It's not me that says it," said the sergeant; "but it's being said."
"I wouldn't wonder," said Jimmy, "but there might be some truth in it."
Neither he nor his public-house could be held in any way responsible for the disappearance of Patsy Devlin. He felt free to discuss the event in a friendly way with the police and to give them any information he could so long as he said nothing likely to lead to the capture of Patsy.
"I'm told," said the sergeant, "that the last night he was in Clonmore he spent the most of it along with yourself."
"He might," said Jimmy.
He did not quite see the point of the sergeant's remark, and felt that he must be cautious.
"Could you give me any information about what he intended doing with himself the next day?"
"He told me," said Jimmy, after thinking the matter over, "and it could be that he was telling me the truth—he told me he was going up to the Castle to try if he could get a pound, or maybe two pounds, out of Lord Manton for the sports. He was collecting the town and the district; and he said to me himself that he'd done well. The money was coming in better than ever it did."
"Ah!" said the sergeant with deep meaning.
"Just so," said Jimmy.
"And was that what you meant this minute when you said that you wouldn't wonder if there might be some truth in what they're saying about him being gone?"
"He's not the first," said Jimmy, "nor he won't be the last. There was Cooney that was treasurer of the League, and nobody ever heard of him after. It was upwards of twenty pounds he had. There was"
"It's larceny," said Constable Cole.
"You're wrong there," said the sergeant. "It's misappropriation of public funds under trust, besides the charge that might be brought by the subscribers of obtaining money under false pretences."
"You'll never get him," said Jimmy.
"It isn't him I'm thinking of," said the sergeant, "but his wife that's left with a long family dependent on her and not knowing where to look for the bit to put into their mouths."
"It's a pity of the creature," said Constable Cole. "It's badly she'll be able to do without him."
"If so be," said Jimmy, "that Patsy's gone the way you say, he'll have left a trifle behind him for the widow, be the same more or less. He always had a good heart, and it wouldn't be like a thing he'd do to leave his children to starve."
"Devil the penny she owned up to anyway," said the sergeant.
"Then he'll send it," said Jimmy; "he'll send it from America."
"He might," said the sergeant.
"The world," said Constable Cole, "is full of trouble, any way you look at it."
"Does Father Moroney know he's gone?" asked Jimmy.
"I'm thinking, he must," said the sergeant; "he could hardly miss hearing the way the creature was going on in the street, crying all sorts."
"He'll be apt to be raising a subscription for her," said Jimmy, "to put her over until such time as Patsy sends home the trifle he has for her."
"I'll give something towards it myself," said the sergeant, "and I'll see that the men in the barrack contributes."
Jimmy O'Loughlin was not to be outdone in generosity by the members of the constabulary.
"I have the pound by me," he said, "that I'd promised Patsy Devlin, the poor boy, for the sports I hadn't it paid over to him, thanks be to God. I'd be thankful to you, sergeant, if you'd take it and hand it on to Father Moroney. It's no more than due to the woman, seeing that her husband could have had it if he'd thought of taking it, and I'll add another five shillings to it from myself."
He handed the whole sum over to Sergeant Farrelly, who put it in his pocket.
"He was always a bit of a lad, that Patsy Devlin," said Constable Cole.
"He might be a bit foolish at times," said Jimmy; "but there was no harm in him."
"It's as good for you," said the sergeant, "that you didn't make him the inspector of sheep dipping that time."
"It was that preyed on his mind," said Jimmy. "He never rightly got over it. I don't say he'd have been elected—there was better men up for the job than him—but he destroyed himself altogether when he went getting a testimonial to his character from Lord Manton. The League wouldn't stand the like of that, and small blame to them. It couldn't be expected that they would."
"We'll go up to the Castle," said the sergeant to Constable Cole, "and find out whether Patsy went there before he left, if so be that his lordship has come home."
"I didn't hear any talk of his being away," said Jimmy.
"Well, he was away. Yesterday and to-day."
"That's queer now," said Jimmy, "for it was only this morning I was talking to Byrne the steward, and he told me that his lordship was walking round yesterday afternoon looking into the new drain he's thinking of making across the top of the deer park, and that he went in for his tea the same as usual. What's more, he was speaking to Byrne this morning about the disgraceful way the roads is kept by the County Council, and the rates being so high and such-like."
"It couldn't be," said the sergeant, "for I was up there three times yesterday, and I wasn't able to see him."
"Take care but he didn't want to see you."
"And I had a letter from him this morning telling me that he'd be away from home all the day."
"Take care," said Jimmy again, "but he mightn't have wanted to see you."
"And why wouldn't he?"
"I'm not saying it is, mind you," said Jimmy; "but it might be that he knows more about Patsy Devlin than he'd care to tell. Him and Patsy was mighty thick."
"Talk sense, can't you?" said the sergeant. "Is it likely now that a man like his lordship would be conniving at the escape of a criminal from justice?"
"I said no such thing," said Jimmy; "and I'll thank you, Sergeant Farrelly, not to be putting it out that I did. What I said was that he might know more than he'd care to tell. Would you think now that a gentleman like him—and I'll say this for him, that he always was a gentleman—do you think now that, if so be he did know where Patsy was gone, he'd be wanting to tell you and maybe get a poor man into trouble that he had a liking for? Didn't you tell me this minute that he had himself hid away from you when you were up at the Castle looking for him? Why would he do the like? Tell me that now. Why would he do it?"
"Come along out of this," said the sergeant to Constable Cole. "We've no business standing here listening to such talk. I'm going up to the Castle now, Mr. O'Loughlin, and if I hear so much as another word of that nonsense out of your head I'll tell his lordship what you're after saying."
"You may tell him," said Jimmy, "when you get a hold of him to tell; but it's my belief that if he hid on you yesterday, he'll hide on you again to-day."
It turned out that Jimmy O'Loughlin was perfectly right. Constable Cole said that he was prepared to swear, if necessary, that he saw Lord Manton looking out of one of the windows of the Castle. But Wilkins was as impenetrably suave as he had been the day before.
"His lordship left word," he said, "in case you called, that he was away from home and couldn't say precisely when he might return."