‘No brandy for the girl,’ Michael Paterson stated.
Blazes Boylan said, ‘Why not? What harm can it do?’
‘Alcohol and chloral hydrate don’t mix,’ the doctor told him.
‘You have this on good authority, do you?’
‘He’s a doctor,’ Mr Coghlan apologetically pointed out.
‘Is he?’ said Blazes. ‘I thought he was the boyfriend.’ He snapped up a hand and removed the brandy glass from Harry Coghlan’s grasp. ‘Won’t do me any harm, though, will it, Doctor?’
Dr Paterson paused, then, smiling thinly, said, ‘Probably not.’
Blazes crossed one leg over the other and sipped. ‘Much appreciated, Mr Coghlan. Thank you.’
Gratified, Harry retreated.
Tea cup and saucer balanced on the palm of his hand, Dr Paterson said, ‘Are you related to Milly, Mr Boylan?’
‘By blood? No, no. I’m an old friend and colleague of her … of Mrs Bloom. Known Milly since she was a tiddler. Haven’t I, sweetheart?’
Milly sniffed and nodded.
‘Where are you taking her?’ the doctor said.
‘To Dublin, to be close to her father.’
‘He sent you to collect her, did he?’
‘Well, no. How could he? He’s incommunicado, shall we say, for the time being; just for the time being.’ Blazes knocked back the brandy and put the empty glass on the floor behind the leg of the divan from which position, Janey, kneeling, retrieved it. ‘Fact is, as soon as I heard the evil news my first thought was for Milly.’
‘So you haven’t spoken to Mr Bloom?’ Mrs Coghlan said.
‘Not possible,’ Blazes said. ‘Without conceit, however, I might safely claim to be the man Poldy would choose to break the news to Milly. Right, sweetheart?’
Obediently, Milly nodded and sniffed.
Dr Paterson said, ‘How did you hear the news, Mr Boylan?’
‘My profession brings me into contact with newspaper men, reporters and the like, and—’
‘Precisely what is your profession?’ Dr Paterson interrupted.
Blazes raised an eyebrow to indicate surprise that his name wasn’t known in Mullingar. ‘I’ve a finger in a number of pies. I lease out advertising space – hoardings, you know – and I promote things.’
‘Things?’ the doctor said. ‘What sort of things?’
‘I’m an agent for singers and musicians,’ Blazes said, ‘a bit of an impresario. I organise concert tours and do a spot of warbling myself. I also have a stake in the fisticular arts. Boxing, in a word.’
‘And a horse,’ Milly reminded him. ‘Half a horse.’
‘Ah, there you are,’ Blazes said. ‘Are you feeling a little better?’
‘A little. I want to see my daddy.’
‘And so you shall.’ Blazes hopped up, extended a hand and hoisted Milly to her feet. ‘There’s a connection to Dublin at eighteen minutes after four. Why don’t you wash your face, comb your hair and pack your togs, sweetheart. Perhaps Mrs Coghlan would be good enough to help you.’
The men watched Milly gather herself. Her lip trembled and she was shaky on her pins but she stiffened her knees, squared her shoulders and, still clutching Boylan’s handkerchief, bravely followed Biddy Coghlan from the room.
Dr Paterson put his teacup, untouched, on the sideboard.
‘If you want my opinion, Mr Boylan, which I’m rather sure you don’t, Milly is in no fit state to travel. It would be better for the girl to stay here until she’s less distressed.’
‘I’m always open to expert advice,’ Blazes said, ‘but in this instance, Doctor …’
‘Paterson.’
‘Doctor Paterson, I feel Milly would be more comfortable at home in Dublin. No, comfortable isn’t quite what I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’ the doctor said.
‘Look, Bloom’s in jug,’ said Blazes. ‘Chances are he’ll be granted bail. Milly’s the only thing he’s got to hang on to right now.’
‘What if he doesn’t get bail?’ said Mr Coghlan.
‘Then Milly will stay with me,’ Blazes Boylan said.
‘With you?’ Reverend Stephens put in. ‘Well now, sir, that doesn’t sound at all proper.’
‘What sort of fellow do you take me for?’ said Blazes indignantly. Then, tethering his high horse, he went on, ‘Of course, you don’t know me and you’re right to express concern. Too many scoundrels in the world today. It’s the times we live in, I suppose. However, you may rest assured Milly will be safe in my house; a house I happen to share with my spinster sisters, ladies of strict moral principle who will stamp very firmly upon any hint of hanky-panky.’
‘There you are then,’ Mr Coghlan said. ‘All above board.’
‘Besides,’ said Blazes, ‘it’s what Milly wants that counts, and what Milly wants is to return to Dublin.’
‘For how long?’ Michael Paterson asked.
‘I have honestly no idea,’ Blazes answered.
‘Presumably until Mr Bloom is bailed,’ Reverend Stephens said.
‘He will get out, won’t he?’ Harry Coghlan asked.
‘For sure, for sure he will,’ Blazes answered.
‘He didn’t …’ Mr Coghlan hesitated. ‘I mean, you don’t suppose he actually …’
‘Did it? No, no, no,’ Blazes said. ‘What possible reason could he have for doing it?’
‘In short, he’s innocent?’
‘As a new-born babe,’ said Boylan.
SIX
The bar of the Belleville Hotel, with its marble table-tops, mahogany panels and gilded mirrors, was a far cry from the sour, smoky, piss-smelling dens where loud-mouthed bigots were wildly cheered for their tawdry eloquence. Here, in the Belleville’s relative peace and quiet, a few of the gentlemen of Dublin’s fourth estate assembled to discuss matters of national import and exchange racing tips. Horse flesh was not top of the agenda that afternoon, though, for, with first copy duly posted and the story gone cold, there was precious little for the boys to do but sit tight, sup porter and theorise on who might have done the dirty deed if justice miscarried and Leopold Bloom was released.
The short odds were on Blazes Boylan, but Mr Flanagan, a hack from the Journal’s stable of reporters, professed to have heard from a reliable source that Molly Bloom was not the first mutilated female to be found in recent months and that the DMP had been instructed by the Home Secretary to hush up the crimes to avoid panic. Spurred by the gravity with which his peers appeared to be treating his blathers, Flanagan predicted that before the year was far advanced the gutters of Dublin would run red with the blood of more slaughtered whores and virgins.
Jack Delaney nodded solemnly. ‘An Irish Ripper? Now why didn’t I think of that? God, man, but I wish I had your imagination. There is, however, one small flaw in your premise, Arthur.’
‘And what,’ said Arthur Flanagan loftily, ‘might that be?’
‘Bloom’s wife was neither whore nor virgin.’
Robbie Randall, general dogsbody for the famously inaccurate Advertiser, chipped in. ‘Well, you know what they say: in the dark all whores are virgins. Even murderers can’t be right all the time.’
‘If we discover there’s been a sudden run on painted teapots then, by jingo, Flanagan, I’d say you’re on to something,’ said Mr Palfry of the Sun
‘How did you find out about the teapot?’ Flanagan said. ‘I thought I had that on the q.t.’
‘What did you fork out for the inside dope, Arthur?’
‘Three bob.’
‘Bargain. I paid five,’ said Charlie Palfry. ‘You, Jack?’
Delaney shrugged. ‘Same: five.’
‘Do you know, if we pooled together and put Gandy on salary we could save our proprietors a fortune,’ Palfry said. ‘Jack, the truth now, have you sprung the leak about the teapot in your evening edition?’
Jack Delaney snorted. ‘Sure and it’s a gift wrapped in silver for all of us but I’m not risking the spike for a fact so outlandish it
may not be true at all.’
‘Gandy’s usually reliable,’ said Charlie Palfry.
‘About as reliable as Arthur here,’ Delaney said and the men, all bar Flanagan, laughed. ‘Besides, when you boil it down – if you’ll pardon the phrase – there’s nothing particularly comical about having your head stove in. Teapot, baton or billy club you’re still dead and it’s still a crime against nature.’
‘That’s true,’ Palfry conceded. ‘But isn’t there something in Hebrew scripture that says taking a life with a teapot keeps the victim’s ghost at bay?’
‘Butter, that was,’ Flanagan said. ‘Butter in a lordly dish. Jezebel, I think, did in her hubby with a butter dish.’
‘No,’ Jack Delaney corrected him. ‘It was Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite and, if memory serves, she did the actual deed with a hammer and a nail: Judges, chapter five.’
‘Hark at the scholar,’ said Robbie Randall. ‘Judgement it’ll be for Bloom whether it was a teapot or a butter dish he did it with. He’ll swing like as not.’
‘He won’t swing,’ Palfry said. ‘He’ll do a stretch of hard time and be back among us before you know it. Justification.’
Elbow on the bar, Jack Delaney lifted steadily his half full glass and gazed into the dark depths. ‘Is it, though, the manifest destiny of women to be punished for adultery while men get off scot free? Now there’s a subject for your next column, Palfry. Did Molly Bloom really think she could get away with putting the horns on her Poldy without ever paying the price?’
‘Or did he relish it?’ said Flanagan.
‘Relish it? Relish what?’ said Mr Randall.
‘Nibbling nightly on a buttered bun.’
‘Now that,’ said Palfry, ‘is a step too far even for you, Arthur.’
‘Following in Boylan’s wake,’ Flanagan pressed his point, ‘might not be so bad. At least Bloom didn’t have to oil the lock before he fumbled for the key.’
Jack Delaney thumped his glass on the bar counter and, swinging round, squared up to the three at the table behind him.
‘There,’ he said, ‘see what a joke you’re making of it. It isn’t a joke at all. How can we hope to strike a reasonable balance between tragedy and farce if you go on like that? There’s a daughter – think of her – and a man betrayed who’s now in peril of his life, and a woman cut down in the prime of her life lying dead on a slab in the mortuary. How can you sit here and make fun of their sufferings?’
‘Because that’s what our readers will do,’ said Palfry.
‘What our readers will shovel up,’ Robbie Randall added. ‘Adultery, a good-looking woman with a reputation for sharing her favours, a cucky …’
‘And a Jew,’ Flanagan intruded.
‘To make no mention of a teapot,’ Randall concluded. ‘It’s the teapot you can’t get away from, Jack.’
‘Stuffed her with a teapot.’ Arthur Flanagan snickered. ‘Puts a whole new slant on having one up the spout, eh?’
‘I just don’t find it funny,’ Jack Delaney declared.
‘No more do I,’ said Jim Kinsella who, for the past couple of minutes, had been eavesdropping from a niche by the doorway. ‘I’ve never found the sight of a mutilated corpse in the least amusing.’
The somnolent air stirred as the reporters pushed back their chairs and eagerly welcomed the inspector to the fold.
‘What’ll it be?’ Hearty Mr Randall was first to offer.
‘No, no, allow me to do the honours,’ Mr Palfry insisted.
‘All right,’ Jim Kinsella said, ‘I’ll have a mineral water.’
‘One mineral water, Meg,’ said Mr Palfry and, cornered by his own generosity, was forced to add, ‘and a top up for those in need.’
Jack Delaney rolled round the rim of the bar. ‘Are you not an afternoon drinker, Inspector Kinsella, or are you still on duty?’
‘On duty,’ Kinsella said, ‘I’m looking for Boylan.’
‘Still looking for Boylan,’ Delaney said. ‘Has he not returned to his office yet?’
‘No,’ Kinsella said. ‘Have any of you gentlemen seen him?’
‘Meg,’ said Palfry, ‘has Hugh Boylan been in at all today?’
The barmaid poured mineral water into a slender glass and placed the glass on the counter. ‘Haven’t seen him and I’ve been on since ten.’
‘Perhaps he’s jogged off to Foxrock to feed his horse,’ Flanagan said. ‘Did you know he’d bought a half share in a filly?’
‘Which half?’ said Mr Randall.
‘For sure it’ll be back half, given Blazes’ partiality for rumps,’ said Flanagan. ‘That’s where he’ll likely be, Inspector, at the stables in Foxrock.’
‘Now we’ve solved your problem, Mr Kinsella,’ Robbie Randall said, ‘do you not have a tit bit or two for us?’
The Inspector studied the bubbles in his glass then, putting the glass to his lips, drank the contents in three swallows, barely pausing for breath. He put down the empty glass and said, ‘My thanks for the refreshment, gentlemen. If Boylan does show up tell him I want a word with him. I’ll be at the Castle offices until six or thereabouts.’
‘Nothing,’ Flanagan cried plaintively. ‘Not a hint even?’
‘It’s a cruel world, Arthur,’ Kinsella said, ‘a very cruel world, indeed,’ and headed for the door.
He’d gone no more than a few steps along the street before Delaney caught up with him. He wasn’t in the least surprised to find the Star reporter hot on his heels. Blue eyes, fair curly hair, a broad grin: Delaney’s trick was to disguise a conniving intelligence behind boyish candour. ‘I know you’re pressed for time, Inspector, so I won’t beat about the bush,’ he said. ‘I’ve a fair idea where Boylan might be found and it certainly isn’t Foxrock.’
‘I didn’t think it would be somehow,’ Kinsella said.
‘I’m not after money.’
‘No, you’re after – how do you lot put it? – the inside track.’
Delaney took his arm and steered him around the corner out of sight of the hotel’s side door. ‘If you’ll answer me a couple questions, Inspector, I’ll give you more than you think you need right now.’
‘What questions?’
‘Was the woman really murdered with a teapot?’
‘Go on,’ Kinsella said.
‘Is Bloom the only suspect?’
‘What do I get in exchange?’
‘I can tell you where Hugh Boylan was last night and where he might be right now.’
Kinsella hesitated. ‘Yes, it was a teapot,’ he said at length, ‘and Bloom is currently our only suspect. He’ll appear before the stipendiary tomorrow morning. Now it’s your turn.’
‘Boylan was down in the Monto until close to midnight.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Because I saw him there.’
‘Where precisely?’
‘In the street outside Nancy O’Rourke’s,’ Delaney said. ‘What’s more he wasn’t alone.’
‘Really? Who was with him?’
‘Leopold Bloom.’
‘Really?’ Kinsella said, sharply this time. ‘What were Bloom and Boylan doing together?’
‘Arguing, by the look of it.’
‘Were blows exchanged?’
‘Not that I saw. I had no reason to linger,’ Delaney said. ‘I bumped into him again by chance this morning.’
‘Boylan?’
‘Yes, Boylan. He was on the way to his office.’
‘What were you doing across the river in D’Olier Street?’
Delaney grinned. ‘Looking for Boylan. There, I’ll admit it.’
‘Time?’
‘Coming up for eleven,’ Delaney said. ‘I wanted to ask him if he knew Mrs Bloom had been found dead. He said he didn’t.’
‘How did he react to the news?’
‘He gave every appearance of being shocked, more so when I told him Bloom had been charged with her murder. He turned white as a sheet and put a hand against the wall to stop himself f
alling down. Then he said, “I’d better go and fetch Milly,” and, looking flustered, hurried off. Milly’s Bloom’s daughter, isn’t she?’
Kinsella nodded.
‘Flanagan says she has a job in Mullingar. Is that true?’
Kinsella nodded again.
‘Then that’s where you’ll find Boylan,’ Delaney said. ‘I’ll lay odds he’s on his way to Mullingar to fetch the girl.’ He cocked his head and squinted up at the G-man. ‘Now why do you think he would do such a thing?’
‘Search me,’ Kinsella said.
Even late on a weekday afternoon the trains that ran through the junction at Mullingar were crowded. They were loading cattle into wagons in one siding and a squad of militia, weary and travel-stained, were crammed into the carriages of the eighteen minutes past four train to Dublin.
Blazes had had the foresight to spring for first-class tickets for himself and Milly and they shared a compartment with a prosperous-looking old farmer and a young, whey-faced woman who, by her sober garb, might well be on her way to or from a convent and who, after a swift disapproving glance at Blazes, went back to reading her Testament.
Blazes put Milly’s suitcase on the rack and settled the girl into a corner seat. She seemed dazed, numbed perhaps by the stuff the quack had ladled into her while peeking down the front of her blouse, for which breach of Hippocratic etiquette Blazes could hardly blame him. If there was one thing you could say about Milly Bloom – and there were many things you could say about Milly Bloom – she was very much her mother’s daughter in face and figure if not, thank God, in temperament.
He hadn’t known Molly back in her Gibraltar days but he didn’t doubt that she’d driven the garrison’s subalterns mad. In one fit of post-coital nostalgia she’d told him how she’d once shaken the peg of a bashful young naval lieutenant and pulled him off into her handkerchief. It didn’t take much imagination to envisage Molly at Milly’s age in the heat of a Mediterranean summer tugging away on the tools of blushing adolescents in white ducks or, for that matter, pressing her bubs against any man she wanted to take a rise out of. Why she’d ever fallen for a man like Bloom was beyond him, and beyond her too if her reticence was anything to go by.
Whatever Happenened to Molly Bloom? Page 6