Murder at the Queen's Old Castle

by Cora Harrison

  Patrick pretended to give the matter his most earnest consideration. ‘I can see what you mean, sir, but, of course, I am bound by police protocol.’ He spread his hands apologetically. ‘There’s a manual that they give to us. It lays down all the rules, all the procedure, tells us exactly what we need to do when we question witnesses.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Robert Fitzwilliam sounded relieved to be given a way out of it. ‘Well, of course, if that’s the way of it. I wouldn’t like to make you break any rules. I’ll send Dinan in to you.’ He began to back awkwardly out of the room leaving Patrick to raise his eyebrows in silent astonishment. What on earth had been behind that outburst? Was the man on the brink of a nervous breakdown? Or was he, perhaps, apprehensive about what might be said behind his back?

  ‘Just a moment, Mr Fitzwilliam,’ he said as soon as the man had his hand on the doorknob. Robert whirled around as though he had expected this summons, had been on edge waiting for it. ‘I see that the sergeant reports you as being in your father’s office just after we arrived in the shop. I wonder could you tell me what you were doing.’

  ‘Just turning off the gas fire,’ said Robert promptly. ‘My father was an elderly man and he felt the cold, but that little office could get very over-heated.’ The answer came out so readily it sounded as though it had been prepared.

  ‘But apparently you were looking through the drawers. So the sergeant reports.’

  ‘There’s a lot of private stuff there …’ Robert adopted a blustering tone. ‘Confidential matters which should not be exposed to the eyes of strangers.’

  ‘You have no need to worry, sir,’ said Patrick. ‘All that is found in the course of an investigation remains confidential, unless of course, it is found to have a connection with a crime.’

  That word ‘crime’ bothered Robert. He turned very red and then just as suddenly the colour ebbed away leaving his face a pasty white.

  ‘So, may I ask what you were looking for, sir?’ Patrick put the question in a mild, unprovocative manner and Robert seemed taken aback.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure that all the end of the month accounts had been paid. Just in case I forgot about them afterwards with all the stress of my father’s death.’ He eyed Patrick uneasily, as though he were conscious that this was rather a weak explanation.

  It was, thought Patrick, one of the most extraordinary excuses that he had ever received. What on earth did the man mean by it? And did he really expect that to be believed. Even Robert himself seemed conscious of the oddness of his description and after a moment he stumbled into an account of what a terrible shock his father’s death had been.

  ‘I’m sure that you will understand my compulsion to do the right thing and to have all of my father’s affairs sorted out before the police looked through them, inspector.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Patrick. It was a phrase that he had practised, and it meant nothing but soothed the atmosphere. He allowed the man to stand there for a moment in silence, alert for any further confidences. Nothing came, though. Robert cleared his throat, looked out of the window on the small back yard outside and shifted from one foot to the other in the manner of a man who would like to be dismissed, but who did not quite know how to end the interview of his own accord. Compulsion. What did he mean by that? An odd word. Patrick made a quick note in shorthand at the back of his notebook, headed with the word ‘check’.

  ‘Yes, please do use my office, inspector, and now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some things that I must do.’ Robert edged his way out of the office and a moment later Patrick overheard him shouting at an apprentice called Burke. He suddenly sounded in a very bad humour.

  Patrick went on thinking about a possible connection between the death of the father and the obvious anxiety of the son. It would be worth running a check on the man’s bank account. Money, he had found, was often at the root of crime and, even if old Mr Fitzwilliam was in theory keeping money matters in his own hands, in practice his son who was there in the shop for twelve hours a day and six days a week, might well have had the opportunity to put his hand into the till on a few occasions.

  Except that all money matters went through that sky-high office, so no counter on the shop floor even possessed a till. Patrick mused on the matter for a couple of minutes in order to give Robert a chance to move off to another part of the shop and then he went to the door.

  ‘Mr Dinan, sir, would you come in here for a moment, please?’ He made sure that his voice conveyed a request rather than an order. No point in putting anyone’s back up at this stage in the enquiry. It was no good, though. The man was already worked up into a state as he strode through the doorway and slammed the door after him.

  ‘I suppose that you think that I done it,’ said Michael Dinan. His tone was very aggressive, but his legs shook and the pupils of his eyes were dilated with fear.

  Patrick sat back onto the chair behind the desk and pulled the inkpot towards him.

  ‘Take a seat, Mr Dinan, won’t you? Now, which counter do you work on?’ What was the matter with this man? He was in a state of terror, a terror that was working its way into aggression.

  ‘Curtains,’ he said and then added, ‘until the end of the week. And then I get kicked out of the door, after all my years of working here for sixpence a week.’

  This was interesting news. Never easy to get a job in Cork. Dismissal from a job meant that the door to any other job was slammed shut too. The only possible choice then was to take the boat to England. ‘May I ask why you have been dismissed?’ Patrick did not look at the man, but kept his eyes on his notebook, carefully noting the details and checking through the address.

  ‘You may ask why, but I can’t tell you. Not won’t tell you, inspector. Can’t! I don’t know what I have done to be dismissed. Except for one thing, of course. Now that I am twenty-one years of age, then I need to be paid the minimum wage for an adult and they don’t get me for half-nothing any longer.’

  ‘Was that the reason given for your dismissal?’ Patrick kept his eyes on the page in front of him but every sense was alert.

  Michael Dinan gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘You’re joking, of course. These things are never said, are they? Oh, they found reasons, of course. They are expert at that. “Not polite to customers” – something that cannot be proved one way or the other. “Slow with your work” – same thing. “Not satisfactory” – well, that’s all in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it, inspector?’ The man’s voice trembled with anger.

  ‘So you would admit that you bear a deep grudge towards the owner of this shop.’ Patrick made the suggestion and then sat back to see the effect.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Dinan’s voice was harsh.

  Patrick kept his own voice low and quiet. ‘You have given me reasons why any man would be bound to feel resentment towards his employer.’

  There was a sudden silence. Patrick looked up after a few moments. Michael Dinan wore the air of someone who was thinking hard.

  ‘If you are looking for motive for this murder, inspector, then you won’t have to look too far. In fact, you need not stir beyond his own family. He treated us like dirt, but he treated them like dirt, as well. What a life they led. These daughters of his are like slaves, and his wife, too, poor woman. All of them terrified of him. And what about that poor spineless Robert, scared to marry the girl that he was in love with. Oh, no, that wouldn’t do for the high and mighty Fitzwilliam family. Marry a shop girl! But what was he but a shop boy, himself? A shop boy with the power to kick those under him, but a shop boy for all of that. Kept her dangling on, nice girl that she is. Too frightened of his father to act the man and take her to church. Lead a normal life. I tell you, inspector, there’s none of them normal. They are not allowed to be. And I’ll tell you another thing, inspector. If you want to make a list in that little notebook of yours, a list of those who might have wanted to kill Mr Fitzwilliam, well, I can tell you now that you haven’t enough paper to write on. And that’s all I a
m saying to you, inspector.’ And with that Michael Dinan got to his feet and marched out of the room.

  Well, well, well, thought Patrick. Have I got a suspect there? Perhaps? But would the man be so bold if he had anything to hide? A double bluff, perhaps. Whatever it was, there was a definite air of threat in his voice. Patrick made a note, added a few question marks and then went to the door to summon Séamus O’Connor.

  Séamus O’Connor was almost a direct opposite to the man who had gone before him. A relaxed, humorous man. A bachelor in a city where the Catholic Church forbade all contraception and marriage was usually followed by yearly births and huge families.

  ‘I understand that you are interested in the change barrels, inspector, but I had nothing to do with one of these. I was not serving that morning. I was down in the basement sorting through the flood-damaged goods and putting them into baskets.’ His tone was perfectly relaxed. He pulled out a chair from under the desk and seated himself upon it. ‘You don’t mind, do you, inspector? In this job we are all on our feet from morning to evening so we take the opportunity of sitting down whenever possible. I’ve got flat feet and varicose veins, like all the rest of the shop workers, so I take the opportunity to sit down whenever I can.’ He did not wait for any affirmation from Patrick but stretched his legs and continued in the same relaxed and unconcerned tone of voice.

  ‘To the best of my knowledge and memory, inspector, I think that I only went up to the main shop twice during the morning. The first time, soon after nine o’clock in the morning, was to see what had become of my apprentice, and then when I found that Mr Fitzwilliam had assigned him to Reverend Mother Aquinas in order to carry her basket for her, well, then I went back downstairs again.’

  ‘Were you annoyed about that?’ asked Patrick. It was, he thought, a fairly stupid question. This matter of the apprentice was hardly going to prove a reason for murder, but then he had often found that an easily answered first question was often enough to set the interviewee at ease before asking more difficult questions.

  ‘Not for me to be annoyed, inspector.’ Séamus O’Connor had a slight smile on his face. ‘To be honest, I was just as glad to be without him. The boy is a terrible chatterbox and really there wasn’t much fetching and carrying to be done. The main business was in marking down the prices according to how damaged the shoes and boots were and young Maloney was not going to be much help with that.’

  ‘I see.’ Patrick made a note. He had placed Séamus O’Connor now. The eldest boy in a family of twelve. Patrick had been in school with the youngest member of the large family. His father had a job on the docks when Séamus had been placed as an apprentice. Patrick remembered his mother exclaiming at how much money the apprenticeship had cost the O’Connor family and he also remembered her wishing that she could do the same for him when he was fourteen years old. Well, I’ve done better for myself without taking a single penny from my mother, he thought with an edge of satisfaction as he looked at the tired man with his flat feet and varicose veins.

  ‘And the second occasion for going upstairs, when was that, Mr O’Connor?’

  ‘Just when everything was happening, inspector.’ The man’s voice was still quite relaxed. ‘I could be said to have arrived at the dramatic moment. I went across to the Ladies’ Shoes counter to ask Miss Mulcahy whether there had been any enquiries for men’s shoes and I found her looking up. She was waiting for change, of course. I don’t believe that I even said anything to her and it’s possible that she didn’t even notice me. Because, of course, it was at that moment that old Mr Fitzwilliam came out from his office and tumbled down over the railing.’

  ‘I see.’ Patrick wrote all of this down. It had come out very fluently. But what if this plausible-sounding man had come upstairs earlier, slipped behind his own counter, not attracting any interest or any queries, and had sent aloft the change barrel with its deadly contents.

  But what had been the motive for him to murder Mr Joseph Fitzwilliam?

  Not a pleasant old man to work for; Patrick was sure about that. But would the younger Mr Fitzwilliam, Mr Robert Fitzwilliam, have been any better? Patrick rose to his feet and accompanied the man to the door. While he was murmuring a few words of thanks, his keen eyes were searching the shop. He spotted Miss Maria Mulcahy and made a beeline towards her. No point in letting the two of them exchange notes before he had a chance to interview the girlfriend.

  That’s if she were a girlfriend.

  Judging by the look of her, they were leaving it very late if they proposed to start a family, but perhaps that was Séamus O’Connor’s plan. The arrival of eleven more children as he was growing up on Barrack Street might have disillusioned him with the idea of rearing a family of his own.

  Miss Maria Mulcahy was chatting with the Reverend Mother. Late thirties, thought Patrick as he made his way across the room. She had looked up at O’Connor’s approach and had smiled at him, but there was no secret interchange of glances with the man who was supposed to have been courting her for the last fifteen years or so. In fact, Séamus O’Connor, after a cheerful farewell to the inspector, had turned and gone back downstairs to resume sorting out the water-stained stock that remained.

  Robert Fitzwilliam, however, moved across the room and stood beside the two women in an almost protective fashion. The Reverend Mother, noticed Patrick, looked from him to Maria Mulcahy with one quick glance before she spoke.

  ‘Would it be all right if I were to leave now, inspector? I know you wish to speak with Miss Mulcahy now and you have so many other people to see. Perhaps you might be able to take my statement on your way to see your mother this evening?’ The Reverend Mother was on her feet now. ‘I wouldn’t ask,’ she continued, ‘but I have the bishop’s secretary coming this morning.’ Her tone implied the semi-sacred status of the bishop’s secretary and those around looked impressed.

  ‘And Brian should go with you to carry the basket,’ said Maria Mulcahy. ‘That would be all right, wouldn’t it, Mr Robert?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Robert Fitzwilliam seemed almost embarrassed as he gave permission and covered it by several harsh admonitions to Brian to come straight back to the shop and not to dawdle around the quays.

  Interesting, thought Patrick. Miss Maria Mulcahy definitely had influence over the floor manager. Perhaps Michael Dinan’s story about them going to the cinema together was a true one.

  The Reverend Mother, who had probably planned to go back by taxi, thought Patrick, immediately and cheerfully jettisoned the idea. By now her sharp brain was probably working on this mysterious death of the shop owner and Brian’s chatty companionship down the north and the south main streets and across the bridge to St Mary’s Isle would be quite enlightening.

  ‘So if I could have a quick word with you, Miss Mulcahy?’ Patrick uttered his request in very tentative tones, after saying goodbye to the Reverend Mother. But he was not surprised when Robert accompanied the two of them back into the room and personally pulled out a chair for Miss Mulcahy. She thanked him with a smile. Not a bad-looking girl in her youth, probably, thought Patrick, but definitely dropping into middle age now. There were a few grey hairs mixed in with the light brown, her skin had begun to line beside the mouth and by the eyes and her neck and hands showed definite signs of aging, he decided.

  Thank you, sir,’ he said to Robert and waited until the floor manager had backed his way out of the room, before continuing. She didn’t look at all nervous, so Patrick plunged into the interview. ‘Just tell me as well as you can recollect what actually happened this morning, Miss Mulcahy,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it was quite a dark morning,’ she said immediately. ‘Some of the gas lamps had been switched off and the shop was absolutely crowded with people, more than I’ve ever seen. The aisles were jammed. It was a really good sale, you know, inspector. I had pairs of shoes at half price that were really no worse than if you had been out in rain for a couple of hours.’

  ‘A typical Cork day, in fact,’ said Patrick
and was rather flattered when she laughed so appreciatively at his little joke. A pleasant woman, he thought. The sort of woman that a lonely man would have liked to come home to. And then he thought of Mr Robert and wondered whether she had laughed at his jokes and whether that was the secret of her attraction for him. An intelligent woman, also. She had painted a scene that showed how someone with ill intentions towards the shop owner could have moved secretly to substitute the gas canister for the change canister. It would have been an easy matter, once that had been done, to have twanged the wire and sent the little barrel flying up to roof height, there to await being unloaded. Any one of them could have done it, he thought. Any one of the five: Maria Mulcahy, herself; Miss Monica Fitzwilliam; Miss Kitty Fitzwilliam; Mrs Agnes Fitzwilliam; Mr Michael Dinan; and then, of course, came the joker in the pack. The sixth barrel, the change barrel that went up from the Men’s Shoes department could have been sent from anyone in the shop.

  ‘And who would be normally in charge of switching on or off the gas lamps, Miss Mulcahy?’

  ‘Oh, that is always Mr Robert,’ she said readily. ‘If anyone finds that it is too dark in their part of the shop they have to go and see Mr Robert, or else send him a message by one of the boys.’

  ‘I see,’ said Patrick. That, he thought, was a very interesting thought. Robert Fitzwilliam could have arranged for the murder of his father by choosing a dark moment – and Cork was a city where some rain fell in two out of every three days and where fog was almost permanent.

  But did he have a motive?

  He finished up with Miss Mulcahy as quickly as he could and began to plan his visit to the Reverend Mother that afternoon. By then Dr Scher may have concluded his autopsy and several pieces of the jigsaw would begin to fall into place.

  EIGHT

  ‘But he made a packet out of it! A great businessman, you know. He’d buy cheap and sell just that bit dearer, goods flooding out of the shop and all the time his bank account was building up.’ The Reverend Mother’s cousin, Lucy, could be relied upon to know the ins-and-outs of every wealthy Cork family.