The Dog It Was That Died

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Then you appreciate my point. He is what we are fighting against. He represents the entrenched evil of the whole establishment.’

  The faint, faint blue eyes looking up at Roger under the spiky crown of pure white hair.

  An assessment. Observation after experiment?

  ‘Is this the first time you’ve come across Bosenwite since you taught him as a boy forty years ago?’ Roger asked.

  A necessary question.

  ‘The first time?’

  Austin Boycott seemed to hesitate. A faint frown appeared across the broad but shallow brow.

  ‘No, not really,’ he went on. ‘I’ve followed his progress, you know. I marked him down all those years ago. A prime example. I’ve watched him.’

  ‘He was over in Dublin this summer,’ Roger said. ‘I happened to see him somewhere or other. Did you meet him again then?’

  The pallid blue eyes innocently wide.

  ‘I’ve not the least idea,’ Austin Boycott boomed. ‘He tries to avoid me, you know. I must be like a conscience to him – an essential item of mental equipment he has hitherto managed to do without.’

  ‘He avoids you, does he?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. I tell you what I think he is utterly afraid of: being caught in my company. He’s afraid of what I might say to the third party.’

  ‘Is he indeed?’

  Roger looked out across the sluggish Liffey.

  ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘are you going to submit to the conformist yoke again at the School? If you are I’ll give myself the pleasure of accompanying you.’

  Austin Boycott glanced again at the tray of tattered books. The outdated urgency of their titles.

  He smiled up at Roger with singular sweetness.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll go along with you, if you don’t mind walking. I avoid public transport as much as possible. I find the open expression of radical opinions is apt to cause resentment in this benighted country of ours.’

  They walked side by side towards the School. Austin Boycott discussed his book on the system whose name he bore. The goriest examples of its use were evidently the most pleasing to him. A boycott that failed to produce a good many deaths by starvation was plainly lacking in romantic appeal.

  Along D’Olier Street his booming voice caused little eddies of consternation among the humdrum morning shoppers. As they continued into Pearse Street his revolutionary opinions battered themselves in wave upon wave against the great faceless side wall of Trinity College. They turned into Westland Row and the severe classical façade of the station frowned grimly at the booming jacobin sentiments that lapped hungrily round it.

  Roger listened. He needed to do no more than occasionally put in a conservative word or two to provoke a further lava flood of progressive eloquence. All too soon they neared the School.

  Roger began darting glances round about him. He missed a question from Austin Boycott and for a few moments the wiry frame beside him was silent. But as they entered the square the booming voice broke out again.

  The Bosun must have heard it at the very moment that Roger saw him. He was standing on the pavement just outside the entrance to the School with his tent-like overcoat keeping out the cold of a long vigil. Near at hand was the big black American car in which he had taken Roger out towards Bray the evening before. The tiny crouching figure of Collins, the stable lad, could be seen at the wheel. The docker was nowhere in sight.

  There was no traffic in the square at the moment of their approach so nothing prevented the booming voice of Austin Boycott reverberating across the thin winter grasspatch, in and out of the iron railings and across to the Bosun.

  It certainly seemed to have the magic effect that Boycott had said it would.

  The Bosun took one look across the square. He saw Boycott and Roger beside him, and quickly got into the big black car. It left the square already travelling much faster than was safe.

  The screech of protesting tyres as it took the corner.

  In the hallway of the School Roger excused himself and left Austin Boycott. He entered the office. This time each of the desks on either side of the imposing door was occupied. Etain Bloom gave him a warm smile.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I mean to see you later about those records.’

  Miss Hogan gave her colleague a severe look.

  Her iron-grey hair set in neat tight curls provided an excellent frame for severe looks. Her striped suit and neat pair of shoes underneath were of the same grey as her hair. Each toe cap protruded by exactly the same amount from under the little desk with its precise arrangement of in-tray and out-tray, calendar and clock, pencil sharpener and india-rubber, pencil and ballpoint, paperclip dish and ashtray. The ashtray, of contemporary Waterford glass, was gleaming and untouched by ash or butt. Instead four drawing pins rested in it. One at each corner.

  ‘Gramophone records,’ Roger explained to Miss Hogan. ‘Not office records.’

  ‘I see,’ said Miss Hogan.

  Roger watched her putting the non-office matter out of her mind. This was no time and place to pass judgment on it.

  ‘Now,’ she said when it had been dealt with, ‘what can I do for Mr Farrar?’

  ‘It’s about Eric Smith,’ said Roger.

  Nothing disturbed the symmetry of her features. Her eyes beneath the neat iron-grey eyebrows looked up at him without the least sign of an evasive side glance.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was wondering about his papers. I mentioned the matter to Miss Bloom yesterday, but she didn’t seem able to help me.’

  ‘What papers?’

  Severe politeness.

  ‘It’s like this,’ Roger went on. ‘I thought he – that is Eric, Mr Smith – might have left some papers which would be worth publishing. I wondered whether … That is, I just thought that you might know something about them.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you at all.’

  Measured coldness.

  Roger swallowed.

  ‘I – I believe, at least I gathered from Miss Bloom yesterday,’ he said, ‘that the papers went up to Professor O Nuallain.’

  ‘If you were told that you had no business to be.’

  Another severe glance shot across to the opposite desk from under the iron-grey frame of hair.

  ‘Oh damn,’ said Etain loudly.

  Roger turned and looked at her.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I nearly bust myself trying to be discreet about it all, and now it turns out that I shouldn’t have even told you the wretched papers had gone up to Professor O Nuallain at all.’

  Roger thought he saw a tear at the edge of her wide-bridged nose.

  He winked at her forcefully and turned back to Miss Hogan.

  ‘The instructions were perfectly clear,’ Miss Hogan said. ‘Nothing whatever was to be told to anybody about the papers. I hope no such thing will happen again, Miss Bloom. You could easily have led the conversation into other channels.’

  ‘It’s all very well being wise after the horse has bolted,’ Etain said. ‘But I couldn’t think of any other channels. Mr Farrar kept on asking me about the damn papers and I didn’t know what to say.’

  Roger watched Miss Hogan.

  He could detect no particular reaction to the disclosure of his keen interest in Eric’s papers.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just chattering on, I’m afraid. As long as the papers are in good hands I’m happy.’

  ‘You can rest assured they are all with Professor O Nuallain,’ Miss Hogan said. ‘I supervised their despatch personally.’

  ‘That was very kind of you,’ Roger said. ‘Tell me, were you able to see from them whether Eric was near the end of his project or not?’

  ‘I don’t understand science,’ said Miss Hogan.

  So much for science.

  ‘All I can say is,’ she added, ‘that the papers were in great disorder. I was quite unable to arrange them before they went up to Palmerston Gardens.’

>   ‘Was Miss Bloom able to give you a hand with the scientific stuff?’ Roger asked.

  Blandly.

  ‘It’s all Grecian to me,’ Etain said.

  She sounded very sulky. Roger did not turn to face her.

  ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘I needn’t worry over that any more.’

  He walked over to the heavy door. With his hand on the smooth china knob he stopped.

  ‘Oh, there was one other thing,’ he said, turning to Miss Hogan. ‘Do you happen to know if Colonel Myles is in today?’

  ‘Colonel Myles? I’m afraid I can’t say. He doesn’t keep very regular hours here.’

  A black mark for Colonel Myles.

  ‘But doesn’t he ever come in here to pass the time of day?’ Roger said.

  ‘Oh yes, he does,’ said Etain.

  ‘No, he does not,’ said Miss Hogan.

  Two voices not as one.

  Roger standing by the door looked across from desk to desk. Miss Hogan and Etain looked at each other. A slow blush spread on Etain’s white skin.

  ‘I mean – What I mean is,’ she said, ‘that Colonel Myles has been in here for a chat. But I don’t think you were here Miss Hogan.’

  ‘Then you’ve no business to detain members of the academic staff while you gossip,’ Miss Hogan said. ‘Working hours are working hours.’

  ‘I – Well, I –’ said Etain.

  A pure stream of indignation.

  ‘I assure you the boot was on the other shoe,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think that was very likely,’ Miss Hogan said. ‘I scarcely think a member of the academic staff would detain you from your work.’

  The colour came and went on Etain’s pale face.

  ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘it so happens that Colonel Myles –’

  The heavy door opened an inch or two behind Roger’s back.

  ‘Did I hear my name?’ said a soft-spoken voice.

  Roger stepped away from the door. Colonel Courtney Myles opened it a little farther and put his head into the room.

  ‘Hello, Etain, my dear,’ he said, ‘and how is your father?’

  ‘He’s very well, thank you, Colonel,’ Etain answered.

  Primly.

  Colonel Myles stepped right into the room.

  He was a man of about medium height but looked tall because he held himself so erectly and showed no sign of any middle-age spread, although to judge by his weather-beaten complexion and clipped grey hair he must have been well into the sixties. He fingered the spruce strip of moustache on his upper lip and said diffidently:

  ‘I did hear my name, didn’t I?’

  ‘Mr Farrar was asking for you, Colonel,’ Miss Hogan said.

  Roger was ready for this.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting, sir,’ he said.

  ‘No, I think not,’ answered the colonel.

  He gave Roger a quick glance of inspection. Sergeant-major have this man put on a charge, hair needs cutting, boots unpolished, letting himself go to seed.

  Roger pulled in his stomach a little.

  ‘I research into Irish varieties of spoken English,’ he said, ‘and I happened to hear the other day that you were an authority on Cromwell. I wondered if you would be able to give me some background material on the Cromwellian settlement.’

  ‘I’m by no means an authority,’ Colonel Myles said.

  His bright eyes twinkled with pleasure.

  ‘No,’ he went on, ‘Oliver Cromwell happens to be a bit of a hobby of mine, and so when I retired finally and came over here I thought I’d see if I couldn’t go into the Irish episodes a bit more thoroughly. They were a bad business, a bad business.’

  ‘I see,’ said Roger, ‘and are you finding Cromwell not as black as he’s been painted? Have you been working long over here?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the colonel, ‘you mustn’t call it working. Just playing, I’m afraid. I’ve been at it six months now, and I suppose I’m just beginning to realize the immensity of the task.’

  ‘Did you come over here because you specially wanted to clear Cromwell’s name over Ireland then?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Ah, no, no. You make me out to be a fanatic,’ Colonel Myles said.

  He looked pleased.

  ‘No, no,’ he went on. ‘I came back to the family home. I’m no sudden arrival. I scarcely set foot in Ireland once I joined the Army more years ago than I care to think, but I’ve finished with all that now and I’ve come back to the family estate. It’s an unpleasant business, you know, renting your home to other people for close on forty years, but I’m back there now.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Roger, ‘and where is this?’

  ‘It’s called Brownstown House, in Wicklow not far from Baltinglass.’

  ‘It must be wonderful to be back. Was it your boyhood home?’

  ‘It was as a matter of fact.’

  Again the swift glance of inspection. Sergeant-major, put this man on a charge, dumb insolence.

  ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you,’ Roger said. ‘I can’t manage today for our talk about Cromwell – but perhaps you are on your way home in any case?’

  ‘No,’ said the colonel, ‘I intend to spend the whole day here, tackling some manuscripts. That’s what I looked in here for, by the way. Has there been a letter for me?’

  ‘Yes, Colonel,’ said Miss Hogan. ‘I put it in your file.’

  She got up and went across to one of the green filing cabinets standing against the fine plasterwork walls. She pulled it open, extracted without the least hesitation a bulky envelope and handed it to the colonel.

  ‘Ah, just the ticket. Thank you, dear lady.’

  ‘Well, Colonel, good luck with the work,’ Roger said.

  He turned to Etain.

  ‘I wonder if you would ring for a taxi for me, Miss Bloom?’ he said. ‘I have to see a friend out in the country.’

  Another desperate wink.

  Etain picked up the telephone.

  Roger watched from behind the tall window beside the School front door until a car that looked like a taxi drew up outside. Quickly he opened the door and ran down the steps.

  He bundled into the taxi. The driver leant back across the front seat.

  ‘Where to, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘A place out near Baltinglass,’ Roger said. ‘It’s called Brownstown House. Will you be able to find it?’

  ‘I will so.’

  The taxi moved off.

  Roger looked out of the back window. As he feared, the big black American car he was beginning to know so well was following at a discreet distance.

  He leant forward.

  ‘How long will it take?’ he asked the taxi man.

  ‘Ah, it depends on how hard this place is to find when we get to Baltinglass. It shouldn’t be above an hour and a half.’

  ‘An hour and a half.’

  Roger listened to his voice. The right note of flurried dismay.

  ‘You couldn’t do it in an hour, could you?’

  ‘I might. It’s a good straight road we have.’

  The car gathered speed as soon as it began to leave the city. Roger looked back again. The Bosun’s car was still behind.

  He looked again. Now there was less traffic he could see that the figure at the wheel of the big black car was not the diminutive Collins. It was the inflated form of the Bosun himself.

  ‘Can you go a bit faster?’ he asked the driver.

  ‘We’re not doing so bad,’ the man said.

  But he put his foot down harder on the accelerator. The taxi groaned a bit at the high speed, but Roger had the satisfaction of seeing the big American car slowly falling behind.

  The road was fairly straight and it was a long time before the swaying taxi got enough of a lead on the American car for it to drop out of sight. But at last it vanished.

  Roger reflected that it was a good thing the Bosun had chosen to drive himself. The little stable lad, Collins, to judge from the previous evening, woul
d have been much harder to throw off.

  He did not see the all-white Mark X Jaguar with the sharp-nosed radiator grille dart past the Bosun’s black car just as it lost sight of the taxi. He could not have heard the sharp toot of its horn as Collins with the docker beside him took up the chase.

  Chapter Eleven

  The taxi driver had no difficulty in finding Brownstown House. A prominent signpost pointed to it not far off the main road a couple of miles on the Dublin side of Baltinglass. The house stood in the middle of small dark green fields laced together with grey stone tumbledown walls. It looked as if it had been put down arbitrarily by some giant at play.

  Roger let the taxi go at the gates. He had looked in his wallet during the journey and found that he had a reasonable amount of money. He gave the driver a handsome tip. They had reached the house inside the hour. The Bosun’s big black American car had probably gone tamely back to Dublin.

  Roger walked up the rutted stony drive between great clumps of dripping shrubs, swinging his arms and feeling better than he had done for days. The house stood in front of a small oval patch of stony gravel broken here and there by a tuft of grass. It was a square building in dark brownish stone with a litter of outhouses running away to the far side of it. It gave off an air of dampness.

  At the top of the fan-shaped flight of steps leading up to the front door Roger pulled at the bell. After a few moments of silence a clanking sound could be heard deep inside the building. Roger waited. At last he heard muffled footsteps through the door.

  It was opened by a tall stooping man of sixty or more wearing a green baize apron. He had a long thin face and mild eyes.

  ‘Ah, good afternoon,’ Roger said.

  Heartily.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said the man.

  His mild eyes gradually increased in brilliance. He looked hopefully at Roger. An event at last.

  ‘Is Colonel Myles at home?’ Roger asked.

  The man’s face dropped.

  ‘Ah, he’s not,’ he said. ‘He’s over down in Dublin.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Roger. ‘I’m a friend of his and I happened to be passing by on a walking tour and I thought I’d look in.’

  ‘Sure, you only missed him by a couple of hours,’ the man in the green baize apron said. ‘He went into Dublin …’