by Will Thomas
Were I to blunder and reveal my identity somehow, would they really kill me? These were men about my own age, and they were not without feelings. I could remember McKeller dancing at the ceilidh, the grin on O’Casey’s face as he scored a goal in hurling, and the Bannon brothers scrambling to fill their plates with peas. They seemed just like lads, fellows I would pass on the street without noticing, not hardened killers.
Then, I thought of them in the moonlight, wild figures painted blue, as lean and hungry as a pack of wolves. I remembered the unwelcome pressure of McKeller’s hand crushing mine, the way they had branded me as if I were cattle, and the poor bloodied victims the night of the bombing. Thomas, I said to myself, of course they’d kill you. They’d beat you to death with those heavy sticks and lash you to a post as an example for those who dared oppose the faction. Suddenly, London and safety seemed half a world away.
When I came out of my reverie, I felt the desire to talk to Maire. She, at least, was not involved in this. I had to admit I was glad O’Casey had allowed his sister to go to Paris, but he had no right to keep her here, with the faction involved in such dangerous doings. Surely, there was some aunt she could be sent to live with. Though they had left the house a mess, O’Casey and McKeller had shown they could get along without her to pour tea and do the cooking.
Perhaps if she stayed with an aunt in Ireland, she would be safe until this entire affair was over, for good or ill. Maybe there was some way I could visit her and explain why it was necessary for me to act as I had-presenting myself as someone I was not.
I became aware of voices downstairs. I couldn’t make out who was speaking, but I could tell something was occurring. I went downstairs to find out what it was and blundered right into the inevitable crisis between Maire and Willie Yeats.
“So that’s the way it is to be, then,” Willie stated.
“I fear so,” Maire responded, her chin high. I noticed her eyes were glittering.
Yeats pointedly crumpled a piece of paper in his hand and let it fall to the floor. I had just enough time to throw myself into a chair before he came into the kitchen.
“I’m afraid I shall not be accompanying you to London, gentlemen,” he said. “I am quitting the group.”
“You can’t quit,” McKeller growled. “It ain’t allowed.”
Yeats went up to him and they stood toe to toe. They were both tall, but Yeats was half McKeller’s weight. One swing from the big Irishman would shatter him, but he stood up to him, cool and unafraid.
“Are you going to stop me?” he asked.
McKeller seemed about to say something, but looking at O’Casey out of the corner of his eye, he backed off. “You wouldn’t peach on us, would you?”
“Of course not,” O’Casey stated. “Willie is no traitor.”
“May my tongue be torn out by its roots and my breast opened if I repeat a word of this faction during my lifetime. I swear as an Irishman,” he said with a raised hand, echoing part of what he had made me swear in the initiation ceremony by the sea.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you, Willie,” O’Casey continued.
Yeats turned his head and gave a long, final look into the eyes of Maire O’Casey. He flicked his eyes in my direction, and I saw the anger and resentment there in that brief glance. In the silence of the room, I heard him slowly exhale. “Some things cannot be helped, gentlemen. I wish you luck, and I hope to celebrate your victory. But for now, I must bid you all good day.”
We parted, and he passed between us and out the back door, the very picture of wounded pride.
After a moment, Eamon spoke to his sister. “Maire …”
“Not another word!” she snapped. “Not one. Will you look at this place? Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe the police did all this? I’m nothing but a drab to you boys. Just a washerwoman and cook. And you, Thomas Penrith. You’re as bad as the rest! Maybe worse! I’m going to get changed.”
I couldn’t help noticing the piece of paper Yeats had dropped. So far, there had been several papers in this case: the letter in Dunleavy’s room, the letters in Maire’s box. As casually as possible, I scooped up the ball of paper. Smoothing it out, I read.
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
I shook my head in wonder at the beauty of it, and my heart fell when I read “with love false or true.” It was all my fault, I realized. I had little chance of a relationship with Maire, yet I had insinuated myself between this poet and his muse. Perhaps I had ruined both their lives. Barker was right about my weakness for the fair sex. I’d blundered in and made a hash of everything.
I retreated to my room for the rest of the afternoon, occasionally rereading the verse of the poet I’d wronged. His leave-taking had been a model of decorum in the face of wounded pride. He was more of a man than I had taken him for, to stand up to Fergus McKeller. I regretted every depreciating thought I’d had about him. William Yeats was a better man than I.
24
“What is wrong, Thomas?”
“Nothing,” I answered, but I was still upset after the scene with Yeats the day before.
We were standing at the platform at Lime Street Station, waiting for the London train. Maire was seeing us off.
“You seem so distant. Have I done anything to anger you? I’m sorry you had to come in on my parting with Willie yesterday. There was never much between us … on my side, I mean.”
“You owe me no explanation, I assure you,” I said.
“Make me a promise, Thomas!” she said.
I have not the makings of a Le Caron, I’m afraid. There are elements of the spying life I could never ascribe to, such as making promises I had no intention of keeping. I looked warily at the girl.
“What kind of promise?”
“That you’ll come back when your mission is over. I’m not saying come back for good. I have no right to ask that. But at least, come back and say good-bye.”
“I can make no such promise. I could be arrested or even blown up.”
“Don’t say that!” she said, looking terrified. “You’re more important to me than this mission. If you ask me, it’s a mere fool’s errand. Promise me this, then. Come back to me if it is within your power.”
“Very well. I shall come back, if it is within my power.”
She kissed me then, one final time, and she put all of herself into that kiss. It was a kiss of virgin chastity and the promise of passionate nights, a kiss of graceful youth, middle years spent side by side, and of old age together, with grandchildren around us. It was everything a kiss could be, pure and powerful. I could not help but fear it might be our last.
We parted. I watched her walk away through the crowd until she was gone. The whistle gave a plaintive cry that matched my mood exactly, and I was alone with a crushing weight I couldn’t describe. I made my way to the carriage and sat down beside O’Casey and the faction members, who were making jokes among themselves at getting another chance at London. I must have been dull company for the entire journey.
It was the most welcome sight in the world when I saw Barker’s stern, impassive figure on the platform at Euston Station. I hadn’t expected to see him awaiting us.
“Welcome to London again, lad,” he murmured, shaking my hand. I felt as if all my emotional burdens were falling off me. I’d give them all to Barker and let him sort them out. We collected my luggage and soon were in a hansom bound for the Crook and Harp. The rest of the faction would split up and arrive singly in a roundabout fashion, so as not to attract the attention of the Special Irish Branch.
“So, how was Paris?” my employer asked, as we watched O’Casey and his men separate and slip through the crowd.
“I got everything we needed for the work, sir. We got in a little sightseeing at the Louvre and the Tuileries. Oh, and
we visited the opera one evening.”
“I don’t care about the itinerary, Thomas. Did you discover anything of interest?”
“Willie Yeats quit the faction, after a break with Maire.”
“Did he, by Jove?” Barker asked, taking the pipe out of his mouth.
“McKeller was inclined to be belligerent, but O’Casey let him go.”
“Faction members have been murdered for trying to resign. O’Casey must have exhibited great control and been very sure that Mr. Yeats wouldn’t inform on the cell. It’s good he got out when he could. I don’t believe these rascals shall come to a good end.”
“So, how are things progressing in London?” I asked.
“Famously. Harm is fine, though I believe he has pined a bit from missing us. He seems to have lost some weight. The garden is coming along well, but I discovered some blight on the Japanese maple.”
We were about to blow up half London, and the Guv was going on about his dog and his garden. I listened patiently while he went over his garden in detail, rattling off Latin names as if I knew a bluebell from a buttercup. Finally, he got around to the part I was interested in, the part about Inspector Poole and Scotland Yard.
“Poole assures me the Special Irish Branch can be in position all around the Crook and Harp at a moment’s notice. He paid an informant to tell him where the various tunnels under the area led. Dunleavy is ensconced at Claridge’s in high style, on a floor higher than Parnell. The hotel now boasts two pretenders to the Irish throne. He has had a setback, however. Apparently, the Pope has answered Parnell’s enquiries and is moderately favorable to a bid for Irish independence. In a way, he has cemented Parnell’s position of authority. It has dampened the colonel’s enthusiasm and resulted in another bout of drinking.”
“So, what are our plans, exactly?”
“We have rooms reserved at the Crook and Harp. It is a shambles of a place, with walls knocked out, steps going up and down, and odd turnings, not to mention the tunnels and bolt-holes. We shall collect the materials from Victoria Station and set them up in a makeshift laboratory on the premises. You and I shall prepare the bombs.”
“You do mean inert bombs, don’t you, sir?” I asked.
“We don’t want to cause an actual explosion, but I suspect they shall want a demonstration that our dynamite works. We might set off a single stick in one of the tunnels. I suggest connecting one stick to a cap and fuse. The difficult part will be bundling each of the inert bombs into the satchels, under the very eyes of the faction. Luckily, the one who really knows explosives is Garrity, who is in Paris.”
It felt very good to be back in London again, but I must state that I didn’t care for the Seven Dials, the area which, along with St. Giles, formed that part of town facetiously called the “Holy Land.” “Unholy” would have been more appropriate. Prostitutes and thieves had staked out their territories along the streets, idly waiting like spiders for flies to fall into their traps. When I saw the faded and sooty sign for the Crook and Harp, my spirits flagged. This would be where I lived and worked for the next few days. If I wasn’t careful, they might be my last.
The cabman charged us extra for having to come into this area, and we had to spring from the moving cab, for he wouldn’t stop. As he passed us, we saw a couple of street arabs already clinging to the cab under the driver’s very seat. We too kept moving, rather than risk standing in our drawers, though I’d like to see them dare try it if Barker were in his regular clothes.
The Dials were where seven streets all came together. It looked as if a three-layer cake had been cut into slices and separated; but if so, it was a most unwholesome one, reminding me of Mrs. Havisham’s wedding cake in Great Expectations, and yet the Dials were within a dozen streets of our respectable offices in Whitehall. It was all one with Barker, who would walk into the vilest warren in Whitechapel the same as into Buckingham Palace.
Barker brushed past a brutish-looking clerk with a splinter of wood stuck in his teeth, and went up some dilapidated stairs. He led me down a hall, and I saw what he meant by the Crooked Harp being made from several buildings. There was a hall going twenty feet, then a step and a floor leaning toward the right, then two steps down and another hall with a leftish slant.
My employer retrieved a key from his pocket and unlocked a door on our left. Inside was an antique cabinet bed, the kind that was all the rage in about 1811. There was a circular table decorated with knife marks and water rings, with a quartet of mismatched and spindly chairs around it, and another bed that had last been aired when Nelson drew breath.
“Couldn’t you have gotten a better room?” I asked.
“This is the best room in the house,” Barker stated. “Would you prefer a garret in Islington?” The latter was a reference to the room I’d been living in when he’d hired me-or, rather, not living, since I’d stolen out without paying the rent. In his tactful way, Barker was telling me not to be so particular.
“It’s fine, sir.” I’d seen worse. Or at least just as bad.
There was a knock at the door, and O’Casey and McKeller came strolling in, as if we were still back at the O’Casey house. The fact that we would soon be blowing up whole sections of London seemed to have affected them not at all. Fergus McKeller even had his hands in his pockets, and he sat down and put his feet up on another chair.
“Good day to you, Mr. van Rhyn,” O’Casey said. “When did you last hear from Mr. Dunleavy?”
“Yesterday. We shared some schnapps at Claridge’s.”
I marveled at the way he could slip into a German accent so easily.
“Cart’s downstairs, to get the parcels from Victoria,” McKeller said, a trifle bored. “We’d better leave soon before everything’s stolen but the shadow.”
“I’d like to show Mr. Penrith the laboratory first,” Barker stated.
“Wouldn’t want to mix the wrong chemicals and surprise St. Peter a few decades early,” O’Casey said. “Lead the way, Mr. van Rhyn.”
The room was in the very highest and farthest corner of the inn, a garret room, empty except for a few tables. It had a large skylight and several west-facing windows which someone had even gone to the trouble of wiping down. It was better than I would have expected.
“This is very satisfactory,” Barker said. “A man could definitely build bombs here. Penrith, why don’t you go along with these gentlemen to the station and collect the packages. We have a lot of work ahead, and I’m sure you are as anxious to get started as I. Later, we shall all go to the public house below and have a meal and drink, if you gentlemen are agreeable.”
“Oh, we’re very agreeable,” McKeller put in. “You’re in luck, Penrith. They have Guinness!”
I’d had enough of trying to keep up with McKeller where drinking is concerned. By then, I was beginning to feel as if my entire circulatory system had been emptied of blood and replaced with the national drink of Ireland. At best, I offered a halfhearted reply.
We rode in the cart to Victoria Station, with McKeller driving. I wondered how my London friends, Ira and Israel, would react if they saw me in the back of a dogcart with a group of Irish ne’erdo-wells. In Liverpool I’d somehow felt I’d be safer once I was in London again. Now, I felt less safe than ever.
The parcels were all waiting to be claimed in the goods shed. I presented my identity papers, all fake from top to bottom, and signed the stack of forms that formally exchanged the responsibility for the parcels from the railway company to me. I wondered if a keen fellow in the railway’s employ could have looked on the cumulative list of materials and figured out what we were up to. If there was such a one, apparently he wasn’t working there that day. The two Irishmen helped me load up the cart and we left without incident.
“You know what I’m thinking, boys?” McKeller asked as we were returning.
“You’re thinking you’ve worked too hard, and you’d like a drink right about now,” O’Casey said with an air of disapproval.
“That’s
the problem with having friends,” McKeller said. “Takes all the mystery out of everything.”
“You can have a drink when we get back.”
“I’ll perish by then,” the big Irishman complained. “First pub I find, I’m stopping.”
“But we have a cart full of supplies,” I pointed out.
“This is Charing bleedin’ Cross. Nobody’ll steal nothin’ here. There’s one right now, on our right. Whoa!” He pulled the cart up in front of a pub called the Admiralty Arms.
“We really shouldn’t stop, McKeller,” I urged.
“Just a pint. I’ll drink it fast. Eamon, we’re near the Thames if you’re thirsty.”
O’Casey gave me a look which said I can do nothing with him, and we reluctantly followed him through the blue-and-gold doors. It was mid-afternoon, and the owner was setting out a side of beef on the bar. The smell made me hungry. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have a sandwich and a pint of bitters.
“Two pints, publican,” McKeller ordered, as we set our feet on the rail, and our elbows on the polished mahogany. “And bring my teetotal friend some whather.”
The proprietor leaned forward and spoke to us in low tones. “Here, now, clear off, you lot. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Trouble” Mckeller asked. “We don’t want trouble. We only wanted beer. We have money.”
“I don’t want your damned money, Paddy. I want you out of here.
I don’t serve Irish vermin here.”
“Perhaps we’d better leave,” O’Casey said, being the most coolheaded.
“Let’s go, McKeller,” I said, taking his arm, but he shook it off and uttered a string of obscenities. The Irish have a natural poetic gift for obscenities, and in a few dozen words, McKeller had insulted the publican, his bar, and most of his ancestors. The heavily mustached proprietor reached under the bar and hefted a large axe.