The Eloquence of the Dead

by Conor Brady

He exited Exchange Court and made his way to the Upper Yard, noting that the sentries at the Justice Gate had been issued with their greatcoats. Autumn was tightening its grip.

  The clerk at the Ulster office knew him by sight, but not by name. He bade Swallow a good morning and invited him to take a seat.

  Swallow showed him the sketch of the crest that he had drawn in the basement at Lamb Alley. The clerk considered it for a moment.

  ‘You’ve an eye for detail, Constable … I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘Swallow, Detective Sergeant. And you are?’

  ‘Harrington, Deputy Chief Clerk to the King-at-Arms.’

  Swallow tried not to look impressed. But the man’s demeanour was helpful.

  ‘The sketch is a bit rough, Mr Harrington. But it’s accurate. I assume it’s the arms of a family, or maybe an institution. Do you think you can help me to identify it?’

  Harrington peered again at the notebook. ‘Ordinarily, we ask people to submit any request in writing. And it can take weeks, months maybe, to search the records. They go back a very long way, you know.’

  ‘This isn’t “ordinarily”, Mr Harrington. I’m investigating a murder, and the disappearance of a woman.’

  ‘I understand,’ Harrington said quickly. ‘And of course we’ll do what we can to help. I was simply saying that with the best will in the world it can take time. Tell me, from where did you copy this image?’

  ‘It’s stamped or chased into a set of household silver. Our problem is that we don’t know whose it might be, or how they came to be parted from it.’

  ‘I see. Do you know is it Irish silver? Or English? Or something else? That could save us a lot of time and effort. You could take it to the Assay Office in Great Ship Street and they’d tell you in an instant. But they only operate on certain days of the month when they stamp new manufactures. They’re closed today and tomorrow, I believe.’

  ‘I don’t have that much time to wait for an answer,’ Swallow replied, ‘but I think I know somebody who could tell me.’

  He rose to leave. Harrington raised a hand to stay him.

  ‘Find out what you can. But before you go, show me that drawing again.’

  Harrington took a sheet of tracing paper, and with swift, short pencil strokes started to make a copy of Swallow’s sketch.

  ‘I’ll put someone to work on the records straight away. The arms are very likely English or Irish, possibly Scottish. But you couldn’t rule out something from the Continent.’

  ‘Can you make a guess?’ Swallow asked.

  ‘I could. But I might be wrong. There are thousands of family arms for Ireland, and many tens of thousands for England. To the untrained eye, many of them seem very alike. I could send you on a complete wild goose chase. If we can narrow the search, it’ll certainly make it faster.’

  He finished his tracing.

  ‘There’s a coronet on the shield there. That coronet indicates ennoblement, some sort of titled line. The hallmarks will tell you the maker. They should have records, and that would be easiest way of getting the information you need. On the other hand, if you try to trace it through our records here, and if you can narrow our search, I daresay we might have a result for you in a day or two.’

  Nobody knew more about silver than Ephram Greenberg, Swallow reckoned.

  ‘I think I know where to go next,’ he told Harrington. ‘With luck, I’ll be back in an hour or two with the information you need.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Fifteen minutes later he was at Pollock’s.

  ‘If we can identify the country of origin, they might be able to give us a name to match the crest within the day,’ he told Stephen Doolan.

  Doolan took a small dish from one of the crates. He checked that the engraved coat of arms was clear, and wrapped it in some brown paper from Ambrose Pollock’s office.

  ‘That’s a good sample,’ he grinned, nodding to the package. ‘Very clear detail. I’m becoming something of an expert myself.’

  He hailed a cab on Cornmarket. The driver clattered down Winetavern Street to the river, and turned across Essex Bridge towards Capel Street. It was coming to dinner hour, when most Dubliners would take their main meal of the day. Many of the premises on Capel Street were already rolling in their awnings or drawing down their blinds to herald the shop staffs’ hour of freedom.

  Some of the tailors had already closed. Swallow smiled at the sight of three or four young apprentices making their way from one of the tailoring shops to the welcoming doors of Jack Feehan’s pub. He speculated mentally on the numbers of pints they would put down before resuming their places at the cutting tables at 2 o’clock.

  The street was busy, and the traffic slowed the cab. Swallow nudged the driver when they were within stopping distance of Greenberg’s. He paid him his fare and stepped to the footpath.

  A constable patrolling towards the river passed the shop’s double windows and nodded discreetly in recognition. As a security precaution, G-men were never saluted in public.

  A moment earlier Swallow had noticed two men on the pavement outside Greenberg’s. Now they were nowhere to be seen, and the shop door was shut. That was not quite right. It was still a couple of minutes to the hour, and Swallow knew that Ephram Greenberg would close at 1 p.m. on the dot, not a second before or later.

  He shielded his eyes with his hand to look through the glass. Inside, he could see one of the men, a squat, moustachioed fellow, turn to draw down the blind.

  He peered through the slit between the blind and the door jamb.

  He could see a glint of blue steel from a revolver in the first man’s hand. Ephram Greenberg was coming from behind the counter towards the gunman, his right fist raised. Behind him, he saw Katherine, her features fixed in alarm as the second man came towards her.

  He yanked the Bulldog from his shoulder-holster and banged hard on the door with the other hand. The patrolling constable on the street swung around at the noise and started to sprint back.

  ‘Gun!’ Swallow snapped. ‘Two fellas in there. They have the old man and the daughter.’

  The constable took a step back, raised a nailed boot and kicked hard at the lock with his heel. The frame splintered and the door swung inward.

  Swallow saw the barrel of the gun impact against Ephram Greenberg’s face. The old man dropped to his knees, hands clawing at his attacker’s coat. Blood spurted from where the skin had been split along the cheekbone.

  Now the second man had his arm around Katherine’s neck, dragging her towards the counter. There was a double-bladed knife in his right hand.

  Swallow knew that the man with the gun posed the greater threat. But for the split second that he used it to club Ephram, that threat was in abeyance. He swung the Bulldog towards the knifeman and fired twice.

  The first of the big .44-calibre slugs took the man in the upper chest under the right shoulder, the impact hurling him against the counter as the knife dropped from his hand. The second shot grazed his face as he went down. Freed from the knifeman’s grip, Katherine threw herself forward through the gunsmoke to her father on the floor.

  Swallow swung the Bulldog back to the gunman to find that the constable had closed with him, grasping the Colt revolver with one hand while he sought to force the man’s head backwards with the other. They reeled across the shop floor, cursing and scrabbling at each other’s faces.

  The policeman’s helmet came off. He appeared to be getting the better of his opponent, but the gunman succeeded in getting his feet against the policeman’s stomach. He kicked, sending him staggering backwards against Swallow.

  The attacker was on his feet before either of them could recover. Then he was out the door, gun in hand. Swallow saw him turn towards the end of the street in the direction of the river.

  ‘Let him go,’ Swallow shouted. ‘We have this bastard.…’

  But the constable was already gone.

  Swallow turned to the knifeman on the floor. There was bloo
d seeping through his jacket, darkening his front.

  He checked that the man was not carrying another weapon, then he clicked a handcuff around the man’s left wrist and attached the other part of it to the brass kick-rail on the shop counter.

  The double boom of Swallow’s shots had echoed out into the narrow confines of the street. People had started crowding through the shop door, heads strained in curiosity and shock, noses wrinkling at the pungent smell of cordite.

  ‘Get a doctor … whoever’s nearest!’ he called. ‘There’s a man shot and another injured. If there isn’t a doctor nearby, get over to Jervis Street to the infirmary and bring one here.’

  A man wearing a shopkeeper’s apron was tending to Ephram. He raised him into a kneeling position, and then got him to his feet. The old dealer swayed, examining the bloodstained sleeve of his coat in puzzlement.

  Swallow saw shock in his eyes. There was blood running down to his collar and shirt. He knew from his own medical training that it was a wound that would stitch. The greater danger, he reckoned, was that Ephram would suffer a seizure and collapse.

  ‘Go across to Feehan’s. Get some brandy for him and bring it over here,’ he told another man. ‘And get him sitting down. There’s a chair behind the counter there.’

  Katherine helped her father to the seat, dabbing at his wound with a linen towel that someone had handed to her.

  The young constable came through the door, gasping for breath, his baton dangling from its leather thong.

  ‘Bastard got away…’ he wheezed. ‘He was ahead o’ me at the bridge. Turned and put the bloody gun straight on to me. I couldn’t get in close to tackle the fucker. I had … had to let him go.’

  ‘You did right,’ Swallow said. ‘You’d be a corpse for sure. We’ll find out who he is when we get this other character patched up and back in the Castle.’

  He squatted to look into the wounded man’s face.

  ‘What’s your name, fella?’

  The prisoner grimaced in pain and clanked the handcuffs against the brass bar.

  ‘You fuckin’ shot me … you fuckin’ shot me. I’m dyin’.’

  The accent was English. Cockney.

  ‘You bloody will die if you don’t lie still until the doctor gets here,’ Swallow told him. ‘I’m asking you again, what’s your name? And who’s your pal that’s legged it away off down the street?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Swallow reached down and grasped him roughly by the ears, twisting his face upward to the circle of onlookers.

  ‘Anyone know who this hero is? Anyone get a name for him?’

  Nobody did. Heads shook.

  The constable had retrieved his helmet. Swallow made a mental note of his number for mention in his report. He saw that he was trembling.

  ‘Take a couple of deep breaths,’ he told him. ‘I want you to go across to Exchange Court. Tell them what’s happened here, and say that Detective Sergeant Swallow wants armed support to hold a dangerous prisoner. Then give them as good a description as you can of the fellow with the gun that you chased down to the bridge.’

  A young doctor and a nurse came hurrying across Capel Street from the direction of the infirmary. The wounded man’s eyes had half closed, and small, frothy bubbles were forming at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘He needs to get to hospital,’ the doctor said after a quick examination. ‘He’s losing blood and he’s in shock. He’ll be in serious trouble if we don’t stop the bleeding.’

  He pointed to the handcuffs holding the man’s wrist to the bar. ‘Get those things off him. There’s a stretcher on the way.’

  Swallow handed his Bulldog to one of the constables.

  ‘Do you know how to use it?’

  ‘I do, Sir.’

  ‘Take it. Go with them to the hospital. Shoot him if he tries to escape and shoot anybody else who tries to help him.’

  He started to open the wounded man’s handcuffs. The young doctor got to his feet.

  ‘You can’t come into the hospital with a gun.’

  ‘Suit yourself. In that case, the handcuffs stay on and he stays here. This fellow has at least one armed accomplice out there on the street. So the constable here is going to have my weapon to protect himself, the prisoner and you, Doctor and your nurse.’

  The young doctor blinked, unsure how to respond to the challenge to his authority. It was the more experienced nurse who broke the impasse.

  ‘I’m sure it’s all right, Doctor. We’ve had the police in the infirmary before in situations like this. They’re very civil and discreet.’

  Swallow leaned down to open the handcuffs.

  ‘What the nurse says is true, Doctor.’ He tried to keep the sarcasm from his tone. ‘That’s what we’re noted for in G-Division when we come across bastards like this: civility and discretion.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ephram Greenberg insisted that he would not go to his bed.

  The doctor had examined the gash on his head. He said that it would need stitching that would be better done at the infirmary. Swallow and Katherine had walked the old man slowly the short distance to Jervis Street, where his wound was washed, disinfected and stitched.

  When they got back to the shop on Capel Street, though, he insisted that it was time to open for the afternoon’s business.

  ‘Look … look at the hour,’ he gestured impatiently to the clock over Feehan’s. ‘It is almost 3 o’clock. Greenberg’s should be open by now.’

  Swallow wondered at his resilience. And his daughter seemed to be cut from the same cloth. She had been manhandled, threatened at knife point and seen her father pistol-whipped. Swallow’s two shots, taking down the knifeman, had come within inches of her head. Strong men would be quaking after less.

  Her concern was for the old man.

  ‘You’ve had a bad shock. If you won’t go to your bed, then at least go to the parlour and lie on the sofa.’

  ‘Do as Katherine says,’ Swallow told him. ‘I need to ask both of you some questions.’

  With Ephram settled reluctantly on the parlour sofa, the young maid with the Eastern-European accent brought them coffee.

  ‘Something stronger would better,’ Swallow said.

  Ephram raised a hand. ‘No, not at this time. I want a clear head.’

  ‘I’m sorry I had to do what I did,’ Swallow said. ‘They could have killed both of you.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that they would have,’ Katherine said angrily. Swallow saw her shudder.

  ‘I’ve never seen such hard eyes as the man with the gun. He didn’t have to do that to my father. He’s not young or strong. He could have just pushed him away.’

  ‘Do you know who they are, Joseph, these fellas?’ Ephram asked.

  ‘From the accents I’d say they’re English. The fellow I shot certainly is.’

  ‘English?’ Katherine said. ‘Have you any idea of who they are?’

  ‘We’ll find out about the character with the knife when the doctors are finished with him. The other managed to get away. But we’ll locate him in time.’

  ‘The man you shot … will he survive?’ she asked sharply.

  Swallow guessed that the question was pragmatic rather than humanitarian.

  ‘He’ll have lost blood, but the bullet didn’t hit anything vital. Will you tell me what happened?’

  She poured the coffee.

  ‘It was all very sudden. I was arranging some trays in the display cabinet and my father was behind the counter on the other side of the shop. The first I heard was the door opening and closing. One of them pulled the blind down, and the one with the gun pointed it at my father.’

  ‘I saw him,’ Ephram interjected. ‘I saw the lousy harah take the gun from his pocket and I knew it was trouble. So I didn’t wait. I started out at him. I nearly had him by the throat when he hit me.’

  ‘That was brave,’ Swallow said, ‘but it was also foolish. An unarmed man is no match for somebody with a gun.’

  Kat
herine sighed with exasperation.

  ‘So many times … so many times we spoke of this and we agreed, if there was a robbery, we had a plan.’

  She waved her hand for emphasis.

  ‘We have a box of trinkets behind the counter. They look expensive, but they’re just baubles. We agreed that we’d just hand these over and hope that they’d take them and run.’

  She looked back at her father. ‘But this foolish man forgets the plan. He just rushes out and nearly gets us both killed.’

  Ephram pushed himself up on his elbow.

  ‘That plan would not have worked. These fellows weren’t going to be fobbed off with a few paste brooches.’

  He reached for his coffee.

  ‘They said they wanted the Greek silver.’ He cackled. ‘I don’t suppose they didn’t know how to pronounce tetradrachms. They said, “Give us the Greek coins and tell us who sold them.” Lousy harahs.’

  ‘Are you sure of this?’ Swallow looked to Katherine for corroboration.

  ‘That’s true. What my father says is correct. I … I hadn’t had time to think about it until now.’

  She raised a hand to her forehead, recalling what had happened.

  ‘Yes, I heard the man with the gun say “We want the silver coins.” He said to me, “Where did you get the coins … give us the name or we’ll cut you.” It was something like that.’

  ‘I need to get this clear,’ Swallow said. ‘They didn’t just want to take the coins. They wanted to know where they had come from.’

  Ephram nodded from the sofa.

  ‘Yes … yes they did.’

  ‘That raises the question: how did they know that you had them here?’

  The old dealer shrugged.

  ‘There is talk around the city dealers. We all keep in touch, you understand. They tell me what they have taken in … I tell them what we have bought. It has been known that certain shops had been approached and had bought the coins. As you know, Katherine got them from a young woman who did not identify herself. You remember, we gave you a name but it was not a full name and we have no address.’

  He paused.

  ‘This was why we had thought it best to tell the police. Did you discover who the young woman is?’