‘That’s right. They persuaded me into it. Tom and I used sing at parties and at a few concerts, as I was telling you. And Robert Beamish, too. He’s one of our set. But, of course, it’s very different singing at parties to getting up on the stage in front of God knows who and in the beginning I was quite worried about the parents in the school. Well, you know what it is like with parents, always ready to criticize, Reverend Mother?’ said Marjorie Gamble as one headmistress to another.
‘Indeed,’ said the Reverend Mother and tucked her hands into her sleeves. There were, she thought, compensations and drawbacks in every job. The parents of the children in her school had many shortcomings. They might neglect their children; allow them to wander the streets at night, exposing them to unspeakable dangers. They might arrive in the middle of the school morning, drunk and maudlin, and insist on seeing the Reverend Mother. They might keep her awake at night with unsolvable problems to do with missing or brutal husbands, unwanted pregnancies, lack of money to pay the rent or to buy food for their children. And, of course, the perennial problem: how to get rid of the rats. They mostly had a touching belief in the Reverend Mother’s ability to solve the rat question.
But, she reflected, to give them their due, she had never known any who thought it was any business of theirs to enquire into what she did in her spare time. She turned an interested face towards Marjorie Gamble, child of a wealthy father and an even wealthier mother, endowed, apparently, at the age of twenty-five, with a large fortune from her maternal grandmother, money that covered the purchase of a girls’ boarding school, and reputedly left her a wealthy woman in her own right. The Gambles had the reputation of being great business people. There was a saying in Cork that if a Gamble put a sovereign under the sod in a potato row one day, there would be a hundred pounds of sterling ready to be dug up in a few weeks’ time.
‘So, you see I got the girls involved …’ Marjorie was still telling the story of the establishment of the Gilbert and Sullivan group. ‘We had always entered them for singing competitions, elocution, that sort of thing, so good for their poise and the parents were delighted to see them on the stage, just in a group, of course, just the chorus, and their music teacher, Miss Morgan, who has a nice soprano, she was keen to join in also.’
‘And Mr O’Reilly from the Savings Bank, and his wife, also.’ James O’Reilly, she thought, was the odd one out. The others were all Protestants. Why had he been invited?
‘That’s right. The two of them. Rose has a lovely soprano.’ Marjorie smiled across at the pretty dark-haired girl who had emerged from behind a set of glass shelves with a silver coffee pot in her hand. ‘I’ve been singing your praises to the Reverend Mother, Rose,’ she said and Rose came across immediately. She had, thought the Reverend Mother, a slightly anxious expression. Undoubtedly she had overheard the question about her husband. A pretty girl with a gentle, sweet expression. Very different from the sensible sharp intelligence of Miss Gamble.
‘I’m looking for a matching sugar bowl for Dr Scher, Marjorie,’ she said and the Reverend Mother craned her head to see the familiar rotund figure bending over a tableful of silver tastefully arranged on a green baize cloth.
‘Good to see you, Dr Scher,’ she said as he approached in answer to her wave. ‘I’ve taken your patient for a little walk. Sister Mary Immaculate has been overworking and she has been suffering from bad headaches,’ she explained to Marjorie Gamble. ‘I shouldn’t have taken her out, but I needed an escort. Our rule, you know …’ she tailed off. She had been talking fast so that Sister Mary Immaculate would refrain from mentioning Eileen and her visits to the convent.
‘I do feel rather weak and giddy,’ said Sister Mary Immaculate, groping behind her for a chair and then feebly sinking into it. ‘I must say that I will be glad to be back in the convent again. There’s a glare from that sun and it has given me a headache. Perhaps Dr Scher …’
‘I can go and fetch my car, if you wish, Reverend Mother,’ said Dr Scher rising nobly to the occasion. He put down the coffee pot that he had been examining. There was an air of mild regret on his chubby face and the Reverend Mother felt rather sorry for him. And annoyed with herself. She should have guessed that Sister Mary Immaculate would have made a great fuss. At least the danger moment about Eileen visiting the convent regularly had passed. Sister Mary Immaculate now was completely focussed upon herself, dropping her head onto her hand and sighing gently.
‘Why don’t I make you a nice cup of tea, sister; you do look very pale. She would be better off sitting quietly in the back office for five minutes, Reverend Mother, wouldn’t she? What do you think?’ Rose came to the rescue and Marjorie Gamble beamed approval at her. No doubt she felt that it would be a shame for Jonathon if Dr Scher didn’t buy the coffee pot that he was handling so lovingly.
‘Great idea,’ said Robert Beamish heartily. ‘Take my arm, sister. Lean on me as much as you like. I’m a strong fellow, you know.’
‘He swims down to the outside of Cork harbour every morning before breakfast,’ said Marjorie ‘Don’t you, Bobby? And then climbs a few mountains before he has his dinner.’ She got on well with all of those young men, thought the Reverend Mother, noting the affectionate use of a nickname, unusual between young men and women unless there was a close relationship. Perhaps she treated her younger brother’s friends like that, took on a motherly role with them. Eileen had said something about that. The Reverend Mother found herself feeling rather sorry for Marjorie Gamble. She wondered whether her money brought much satisfaction. Still, the fees of Rochelle School were high and its reputation had grown. Someone, probably her cousin Lucy, had told her that girls came there from all over the country. Its headmistress would be a well-to-do woman if the school continued to prosper. Nevertheless, it may not have been the life that Marjorie Gamble had envisaged for herself when she was twenty-one years old. Not pretty, of course, that goitre had left its traces, and she was thin, with no figure to speak of, a wide mouth and heavy chin, but very intelligent, if slightly protruding eyes. And the Gamble family’s dark hair, cut fashionably short, suited her face. The brother was more regularly featured; far better looking than his sister. He took after his mother; she thought, remembering Lucy’s account of the society wedding of the present Judge Gamble and his rich and beautiful Protestant bride.
‘That’s it, sister, you lean on me.’ Robert Beamish was holding out an arm. He was in his shirtsleeves and his musculature was impressive. Sister Mary Immaculate started back, staring in horror at the very idea of touching a man’s bare arm.
‘She’ll be all right with me, Robert,’ said Rose quietly, taking the nun’s forearm in a firm, professional grip. ‘Don’t worry, Sister, you’ll feel much better once you are sitting down. Just mind the step there, that’s right. We have a lovely comfortable armchair over here and you can have a good rest. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea and then you’ll feel better.’
‘You’re very good,’ whispered Sister Mary Immaculate. She leaned heavily on the slight figure supporting her and tottered off towards the back of the shop.
‘Good, good,’ said Dr Scher. ‘Nothing like a nice cup of tea. Better than all the medicine in the world.’ He had a relieved look on his face as he wandered back to a well-furnished table displaying the silver pots.
‘I’ll tell you what, Reverend Mother,’ said Marjorie Gamble with a look at Dr Scher. ‘I have to go out on an errand in about five minutes. I’ll take the sister in my car and drop her off at the convent. Would that be a help? Or would you like to come with us also?’
‘That’s very good of you,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘I must confess that I was looking forward to a walk. I get very few opportunities. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll entrust Sister Mary Immaculate to your care and walk back with Dr Scher.’ And then she said impulsively, ‘How wonderful to have a car!’
‘My father was a little shocked, but I was determined. When Tom and I were on a holiday in London we saw lots of women driving and tha
t did it! I gave myself a birthday present of a new car.’ There was a certain bleakness about her smile and the Reverend Mother felt rather sorry for her. It would have been her thirtieth birthday and perhaps on that landmark she had given up all hope of being married.
‘Well, I do envy you, Miss Gamble,’ she said. ‘I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be to have a car. Did your brother teach you to drive?’ She looked across to where Tom Gamble was busy showing a woman the secret drawer on the desk that Jonathon Power had been polishing on the last occasion when she had visited the shop. So virtually all of the musical society were here. What very faithful friends, she thought. The Merrymen group must have very strong links. Everyone had rallied around to help Jonathon.
‘Certainly not,’ said Marjorie Gamble crisply. ‘Have you ever seen my brother drive, Reverend Mother? I wouldn’t advise you to accept a lift in his car. No, I hired a professional chauffeur for a week in order to teach me to drive properly. I had promised one of my aunts a little holiday so we drove along the west coast, staying at hotels and by the end of the holiday I knew everything about driving, double-declutching, what to do to the engine when it won’t start. I’ve even taught Rose O’Reilly. I’m an expert, now.’
‘What a wonderful thing for you,’ said the Reverend Mother sedately. ‘But now I must leave you to get on. I can see that you are very busy. I’ll go and join Dr Scher and allow him to tell me all about Cork silver.’
‘I can’t make up my mind between the coffee pot and the tea pot,’ said Dr Scher when she arrived at his side. Jonathon Power, she noticed, appeared to be busy, polishing a butter dish on an adjoining shelf, but he had an eye on this potential customer. ‘Look at them, Reverend Mother. Both a gorgeous shape. Which should I have, what do you think?’
‘The teapot,’ she said promptly. ‘You don’t drink coffee.’
‘As if I would pollute either of them! They’re not for common use. They are to be admired. You’re being no help, Reverend Mother.’
‘I’d be inclined to take the one that you feel you cannot live without,’ suggested Jonathon Power with a pleasant smile. He was a nicer man than his late partner was, thought the Reverend Mother. Peter Doyle would have tried to push the doctor toward the more expensive purchase. Or was Jonathon a partner? There seemed to be varying views on that. She had heard from Lucy that Peter Doyle had been the sole owner.
‘The coffee pot.’ Dr Scher had closed his eyes and now suddenly he opened them very widely. He had a smile on his face. ‘I can just see the spot on the shelf of my little roomful of silver,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I tried them both in my mind’s eye. And the coffee pot is the one that I can’t live without.’
‘You’ll have to give him a good discount on that, Jonathon. He’s a fellow enthusiast.’ Marjorie was smiling with amusement as Dr Scher fondly scrutinized the hallmark with a medical eyeglass.
‘I’ll give you two pounds off it, Dr Scher,’ said Jonathon. ‘How about that?’
‘Great,’ said Dr Scher absent-mindedly. He seemed hesitant to allow the coffee pot from his hands, but once Jonathon had begun to wrap it, he went briskly back to the table.
‘Two pounds,’ he said. ‘I have two pounds to spend. Let’s have a look at those spoons, Reverend Mother. What would you advise?’
‘Perhaps get the coffee pot on its place on your shelf and then see what else you require,’ she suggested. Dr Scher would end up buying the whole shop if someone did not drag him out. In any case, she wanted time to talk to him. ‘I’ll walk back with you and admire it on your shelf, if you like.’
‘No sign of your intriguing potato rings, or of the cake server with the lift mechanism, either,’ he said as they walked across Parliament Bridge. ‘Nor, as far as I could tell, any of the other things you mentioned. I looked carefully for the Beleek china, but they have none of that. Oddly enough, and I only just noticed this – they have no china. And that bears out your suspicions. Much easier to shove silver in a bag than to take delicate china without breaking or cracking it, don’t you think. But I’m absolutely certain that they don’t have that silver you saw.’
‘Perhaps they have a hidden storeroom,’ she said. ‘It would, after all, be dangerous to display items that had been recently stolen. Memories could be jogged. It seems very likely to me that there is a store room. And that would solve the problem of how Peter Doyle left the premises on the night when he was killed.’
‘Pity not to have found it,’ he said. ‘I’d like to have seen those potato rings. Anyway, I’ve got a great bargain!’
‘Was it cheap, your coffee pot?’ she asked then. It had looked to be an immense sum when he had written out the cheque. Imagine spending so much money on a coffee pot that you would not even use. Still that was Dr Scher’s affair. She was interested, though, to think upon the enormous profit from the selling of antiques.
‘Very!’ Dr Scher had a small smile of triumph on his face. ‘I’d never get it for that price anywhere else. Did you see how I bargained with him? And then he handed me back two pounds. Unbelievable! Of course, you have to know how to barter with these fellows. I’ve got that ability in my bones.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she said indulgently. She did not like to say that her observation of the excited faces on the crowd of people there led her to believe that everything was going very cheaply indeed. Why? If Jonathon Power was the owner now, why was he leaving Cork? Why not stay and carry on with such a profitable business? Had it perhaps become too dangerous? Was there a fear that outsiders had cracked the secret of Morrison’s Island Antiques?
‘Should I go and have a word with Patrick about the price of antique silver?’ he asked and she shook her head.
‘No, you go home and admire your new coffee pot,’ she said. Patrick, she thought, had more important matters on his plate just now.
FOURTEEN
W.B. Yeats:
‘But who can talk of give and take,
What should be and what not,
While those dead men are loitering there,
To stir the boiling pot?’
‘The hands on the body were quite warm, almost hot, when we found it, Reverend Mother,’ said Eileen. She tossed her wet hair out of her eyes. The day that had promised so well had now ended in yet another downpour. ‘And that means that the man was only just dead. Eamonn told me that. He remembers learning that at university. The hands and the feet are the first parts of a dead body to cool.’
‘I hope that he keeps up his studies. I’m sure that he will make a fine doctor,’ said the Reverend Mother absent-mindedly. She was staring straight ahead of her, staring at the confessional stall at the back of the little convent chapel.
‘But, you see, that means that that it wasn’t any one of the Merrymen, Reverend Mother,’ said Eileen earnestly. ‘We don’t think that it could be. We looked through the window and they were all there: Jonathon, James and his wife, Rose, Robert Beamish, Anne Morgan, Tom Gamble and Miss Gamble. None of them could have passed us on the street.’
‘Dressed in their costumes?’ asked the Reverend Mother.
‘No, we leave those in the Father Matthew Hall. No, they were all in dinner jackets and black tie, the men, anyway. Miss Gamble had her usual black dress with the choker of pearls around her neck that she always wears, and Rose had a low-cut pink dress with straps over the shoulders. And Anne Morgan was wearing her blue dress with a string of white beads, knotted in the middle of the chest and hanging down to her waist, you know that’s the style these days, Reverend Mother. I saw each of them quite distinctly. I counted them one by one. I did notice that Peter Doyle wasn’t there, but I thought that he had probably gone for more wine or something. And after we found the body, Eamonn checked again. We could hear them, anyway, all the time that we were there, we could hear them laughing and shouting remarks and they started singing, “My brain teams with endless schemes”. I could definitely hear Jonathon’s voice. He’s got a lovely baritone.’
‘How far away
was the body from the shop?’ asked the Reverend Mother.
Eileen thought about that carefully. Estimating distances was an important part of Republican work and Tom Hurley had made them practise this again and again in the fields of Ballinhassig when they had first set up the safe house there.
‘About hundred and fifty yards,’ she said eventually. ‘And we passed the shop before we found the body. They were all there then, and I’m pretty sure that they were all there when we went back towards the South Mall. I just glanced in as we passed. I was a bit shaken, but Eamonn went back instantly after I had crossed over to the Imperial Hotel, and he counted them. Three women and four men, he said. And that means they were all there: Jonathon, Tom Gamble, James O’Reilly, Robert Beamish, and then there was Anne and Rose O’Reilly and Miss Gamble.’
‘And there was nobody around in the streets or the lanes when you were going towards the South Mall?’ The Reverend Mother, thought Eileen, looked as though she were thinking of something else. Some idea had occurred to her. Still, she dare not ask so she continued to give the requested information.
‘No one,’ she said. ‘We even looked down that little laneway; you know the one that runs along the backs of those posh houses that front onto the South Mall. There was no one around. I don’t think that we could be mistaken, not the two of us.’
‘No, I’m sure that you are both very alert,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘And I do appreciate, Eileen, that you came to tell me this.’
‘Eamonn is very upset about the card saying that it was the Republicans. He thinks that the police will just sit back now and blame it all on us.’
‘So you still think of yourself as a Republican, in spite of your quarrel with Tom Hurley.’ The Reverend Mother didn’t sound surprised. She had a half smile on her face for a few seconds before she continued, saying very seriously, ‘But, Eileen, I don’t think that Inspector Cashman will take any easy route, will be content to lay blame without finding evidence. He has the reputation of being a hardworking and scrupulous policeman. And I am sure that all you could tell him about this second murder will be of help to him in solving both cases.’
Beyond Absolution Page 20