The Convictions of John Delahunt

by Andrew Hughes

  I was greatly relieved when he said I wasn’t suspected of the offence, that he was merely speaking to me as a witness. They had a very good picture of what transpired that night, though they had to ensure all information was collected before warrants were issued. They knew that James O’Neill struck the blow.

  A bead ran down the side of my glass. I used my thumb to smear it before it touched the table. ‘Others saw O’Neill strike the blow?’

  There was no need to concern myself with what others saw. All that mattered was what I saw, and was willing to swear to. This was such a serious incident: one of Her Majesty’s officers maimed for life in the course of his duties. Stokes and I would be in cells at the moment, but for the fact that they knew it was O’Neill. All I had to do was swear to what I saw.

  ‘Have you interviewed Arthur Stokes?’

  He took a sip for the first time. This wasn’t an interview. Witnesses to a crime make statements as they are obliged by civic duty. Stokes had already offered an account which was deplorably vague. For Arthur, yes there would have to be further questioning. He leaned in. ‘It’s always unpleasant when young men of learning are brought for interrogation into the bowels of the Castle, and such an embarrassment when police boots invade the family home.’ And all so unnecessary, for they knew it was O’Neill.

  And what of O’Neill himself?

  ‘Delahunt, I will visit you at your home in two hours’ time. You will be required to make a statement to me regarding the events of Tuesday night, and the extent to which you assist our efforts is entirely up to you. I would consider that point carefully.’ There was no need to give him my address. He threw back his drink, fixed his hat and left me to pay.

  I pondered my position in the Winter Palace for an hour. I knew O’Neill hadn’t struck the telling blow, and I suspected Sibthorpe knew that as well. Still, it appeared that was the narrative the authorities had decided upon. They seemed loath to allow contradiction.

  Stokes, I guessed, had adopted the tack of claiming not to have seen the pertinent punch, which had not gone down too well. What would be my reward if I did the same? A night in a dank cell; interrogated and physically cajoled into saying what I was at liberty to say already.

  I drained the last drop from my glass. O’Neill and I had attended the same college and caroused in the same circle for nearly a year, during which time he never missed an opportunity to humble me in some fashion. My family’s straitened finances, my poor grades, my weak physique; he deftly cut to my every insecurity like a surgeon. Nonetheless, if put in my situation I knew he would not swear against one of his fellows. I brought the empty glasses back to the bar. Maybe that’s why the authorities had picked up on him.

  I made my way home to Fitzwilliam Street and awaited Sibthorpe. At that point the house was almost empty. My father lay bedridden upstairs, subsisting in darkened, gouty squalor in a room from which he had not emerged for over a year. My mother was dead, my brother served abroad, my sister married off. A middle-aged servant lived adjacent to my father’s chamber; his care was her sole responsibility and she and I had no other interaction.

  I took a seat by the parlour window and saw Sibthorpe approach at the appointed hour. I opened the front door so he wouldn’t have to ring and showed him into the front room. He carried a dark leather satchel which he laid upon a writing desk.

  ‘Are you ready to make your statement?’

  I told him I was as he walked towards the closed double doors that separated the parlour from the back dining room. He nodded towards them. ‘Is there anyone in there?’

  ‘No. But you can check yourself if you wish.’

  ‘Oh I will,’ and he folded back the doors to reveal the gloomy, disused room. Those doors were only opened on evenings my parents hosted dinner parties. I can remember the long dining table laden with sparkling crystalware and mother-of-pearl cutlery, the hinged leaves at both ends hitched up like trapdoors in a platform. Alex, Cecilia and I would be shooed upstairs where we listened to the arrival of carriages, the greeting of guests, and then the happy murmur as the evening progressed. My sister and I would steal down below. We peeked in at the gatherings: the gentlemen in tailored black jackets, the women in their finery, the soldiers in dress uniform. Our parents would sit at each end, basking in the conviviality and gentle light. Whenever we were discovered – by a maid carrying decanters of claret or the butler with a broad silver platter – we fled, giggling, to the top of the house and our nursery. Cecilia would find some paper and begin to draw the ladies in their jewelled dresses. I liked to draw the soldiers. For some reason I always imagined them captured and enchained.

  The room Sibthorpe stepped into was shabby and decayed. The table had been pushed to one side and chairs were stacked beneath dust sheets. He locked the far dining-room door leading to the hallway, closed the double doors again and also locked the parlour door. He took a sheaf of paper from his satchel and found a nib and inkpot on the writing desk.

  ‘If you dictate your statement I will transcribe.’ He said I had to speak slowly anyway so I should consider my words. When I saw the top of his pen fall still I could continue. ‘Begin at the point you left the Eagle tavern.’

  For several pages my testimony came easily, for it was the truth. Stokes, O’Neill and I left the pub with two others that O’Neill had known. Stokes and I were not particularly inebriated, the other three very much so, and we meandered towards the river. There was a quarrel. O’Neill and one of the others began to exchange blows in Essex Street. I had seen nights end like this several times so simply continued on. After a minute the shout of an unfamiliar voice made me look back. A policeman had come upon the scene. Only Stokes seemed aware of his arrival. O’Neill landed a punch on his original opponent, who went down. The other friend took up the fight, and the policeman laid him low with a baton to the shoulder blade. He then grabbed O’Neill in a headlock to make the arrest. Stokes chose this moment to remonstrate with the officer to go easy. Fearing another attack, he caught Stokes with a backhand blow. All the while O’Neill flailed at the man who had him restrained.

  It was at this point my story diverged from fact, but I continued seamlessly. I said O’Neill managed to free himself of the grip for an instant, enough to swing a wild punch at the constable’s head. I warmed to the task and used words like ‘gasped’ and ‘recoiled’ and ‘shuddered’ to describe my reaction to the blow.

  Sibthorpe met my eye. ‘Let’s not over-egg it.’

  He was quite right. When the statement was complete I read it over. He had been editing what I said while transcribing, and it was an impressive piece of writing: so efficient, so plausible. Nonetheless, I was afraid to affix my signature.

  But I knew my dilemma was nothing compared to that faced by Stokes. Of course he had been the guilty one. The backhanded blow dealt by the officer had not felled him. I can still see the change that came over Arthur’s face, usually so genial. He approached the constable from behind, closed his fist by clumsily gripping his own thumb, and struck it against the man’s ear. The two lads unfamiliar to me couldn’t have seen; they were barely getting to their feet. O’Neill was so drunk and oblivious he continued to flail for a second after he was released from the policeman’s grip. When he saw the officer slump to the ground he let out a triumphant yelp. Stokes bent over the injured man, then raised his head and saw me watching from the corner. The rolling truncheon clicked against the kerb. A whistle sounded some streets away, and each protagonist stumbled into the dark.

  It was Arthur who had to worry. He could get O’Neill off the hook if he had a crumb of honour; my involvement was by the by. If Arthur confessed, he would contradict my statement, but then I could claim I took it upon myself to save the Stokes family’s reputation for his and Helen’s sake. I was surely in the clear, so took the proffered pen and wrote out my name with a flourish. Sibthorpe folded the statement carefully into his satchel and sized me up. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d do it.’

  ‘It wasn’t a
s difficult as I thought.’

  Without saying anything more, he unlocked the parlour door and let himself out.

  A few hours later, I grew uneasy as I considered the consequences of the affidavit. I took a handful of candles and an armful of books and ensconced myself in my chamber for three days. It was still cold during the night so I slept in my overcoat. I would hear my father’s helper, old Miss Joyce, pass through the house, going from the bedrooms above to the kitchen in the basement, occasionally leaving the house on errands. Late one evening her footfall was accompanied by the light from a candle, which glowed against my doorjamb from without. She paused, and we both listened to each other stay perfectly still, until she continued on, and the door’s outline dimmed once more.

  On the second night I left my den to forage. Miss Joyce had brought in provisions, and I returned to my room well stocked with food, firewood and a bottle of wine. I set the fire, hunkered beside its glow with a book, and finished the bottle as rain drummed against the leaden return roof below my window. Such comfort. When I woke beside the cold ashes, shivering with cramp and a splitting head, my stomach knotted as I remembered my dilemma. I was tempted to go abroad in the city to discover what was happening. Had magistrates executed warrants against O’Neill and dispatched enforcers? Perhaps I was already identified as an informer, and my name was spat in the public houses around Trinity. Even if that was not yet the case, it would certainly be my fate when the testimony was read at trial, and I would be called upon to denounce my supposed friend, this time in public.

  My agitation forced me from my room on the morning of the third day. I waited in the hall below for Miss Joyce to pass on her way to the kitchen. I must have looked frightful: unshaven, having slept two nights in my clothes. She stopped on the first-floor return when she saw me. Her thin hands were clasped together. From her vantage she couldn’t help but appear superior. I was unsure how to broach the subject, but there was no need.

  ‘Your friend has been arrested.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  She regarded me for a moment, as if surprised I had more than one. ‘The O’Neill boy. The police came for him early yesterday morning.’

  I asked if she had heard anything of Arthur Stokes. She said there was a rumour he was also arrested, but he had returned to his home last evening. She began to descend the stairs again. ‘You picked a curious time to retreat into your studies. Who came to the door last Friday?’

  I told her not to mind. ‘Just see to my father.’ As I pushed past her mid-flight she leaned to one side so our clothes wouldn’t brush.

  He had let O’Neill take the blame after all. I waited for evening to fall, intending to visit Arthur in the Stokes family home on Merrion Square. I imagined him there in abashed conference with his father and old legal advisers. But a few thoughts stopped me. For one, it would not do to appear as if Arthur and I were somehow in cahoots, meeting to get our stories straight while a friend languished. Also, I took some pleasure in knowing that he was surely fearful of me and what I might reveal. I pictured again his face looking into mine as he stood over the prostrate policeman a week ago that night. I could let that uncertainty undermine him.

  Late that night, someone knocked on the front door and I went to answer. A young man stood outside, with one thumb hooked in a waistcoat, and his head tilted so only half his face caught the street light. He had a cast of countenance that seemed Italianate, and a beard trimmed to resemble a chinstrap.

  ‘John Delahunt?’

  There was no use denying it.

  ‘I’ve a message from Tom Sibthorpe,’ he said. ‘Better heard indoors.’

  I brought him up to the study, placed a lamp on the green baize of the writing desk and sat behind it. The young man introduced himself as Devereaux, and went to look at some books on the shelves.

  ‘You study anatomy?’

  I told him they were my father’s books. I was a student of natural and experimental philosophy. He gave a low whistle and my patience ended. ‘You said you had a message for me.’

  He pulled a volume down and opened it. ‘That’s right. You’ve made quite an impression on Tom.’ He glanced up. ‘And he’s not exactly the impressionable type.’

  He leafed through a few pages, paused, and held the book open towards me. It was a plate showing surgery performed on the abdomen of a woman. An incision below her breast revealed bone and muscle tissue. He shook his head and chuckled, then snapped the book closed and came to sit at the desk.

  ‘Sibthorpe appreciates the statement you gave. It greatly assisted our efforts. He also likes that you went to ground for a few days while loose ends were tied up.’

  Devereaux picked up a framed silhouette of my mother in her youth.

  He said they were mindful of the delicate position I was in. When someone had demonstrated admirable willingness to assist the Castle authorities, it didn’t seem fair to allow his reputation to be tarnished with any kind of stigma. ‘The case against O’Neill will be strong enough without your testimony.’

  I asked how so?

  ‘Any number of the injured man’s colleagues in the DMP are willing to swear against O’Neill. And their word is believed above any other in the kingdom.’ All they had to guard against was contradiction. Stokes had already sworn that he had not seen the incident, and they were sure he would not backtrack in court.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘We’re sure. Your position is easier, as on the night you had already walked away from the scuffle. But it’s inevitable you’ll be called as a witness.’ I need simply say that I turned a corner and was wholly unaware of what transpired. ‘Maintain that, no matter the jibes, or sarcasms or disbelief of defence counsel.’ He waved a hand. ‘It’ll be child’s play. You’re a natural.’

  I felt reprieved, enough to allow the snide compliment to go unanswered. Devereaux sensed the lifting of my mood and flashed an engaging smile. ‘You should remember that you now have Tom’s ear in the Castle, and can call in to the commissioners at any time with information.’

  I doubted I would know anything else that would be of interest to the authorities.

  He shook his head. ‘You’d be surprised, if you just remain vigilant. Especially now O’Connell is agitating again. Students always have loose tongues after a few drinks.’

  Such matters didn’t interest me. Besides, what motive would I have to inform on my fellows if there was no peril to myself?

  He made a show of looking at my drab clothes, and around at the faded grandeur of the room.

  ‘Lucre, of course.’ The devil drips from the word.

  James O’Neill got a few months’ hard labour for his trouble. The authorities never cared about the officer with the shattered eardrum. O’Neill’s father, a close associate of Daniel O’Connell, chaired the first meetings of the Repeal Association. The embarrassment of his son’s arrest and conviction meant he had to resign that position, and it put the new association immediately on the back foot. Newspaper editors and pamphleteers had much sport with the idea that Repealers were already attacking policemen. It was intriguing to think that faceless men in a Dublin Castle office had played with O’Neill’s life and reputation merely to create some unflattering headlines.

  The main benefit of the whole episode was the power it gave me over Arthur Stokes. I was able to play up my silence on the affair as an act of loyalty, to save him from the cells, and though we never spoke of the matter directly, he considered our friendship very much strengthened. I’m also sure that was how he described my involvement to Helen, with whom he confided everything, and who subsequently looked upon me with great favour.

  One thing I recall from the trial was the testimony of two policemen who swore that they came upon the scene in time to witness O’Neill throw the punch. The story they told was exactly the one I had recounted to Sibthorpe. Here were words I picked on the spur of the moment being related by officers of the Crown, taken down by clerks of the court, noted by judges on the ben
ch, entering the public record as irrefutable fact. History would show that James O’Neill struck officer D32 on the side of the head in a drunken melee, and the man suffered permanent deafness in his left ear. It seemed I had been telling the truth all along.

  In the month following O’Neill’s conviction there was a return to routine. After a few weeks of temperance, Arthur and I began to frequent the Eagle once more, where our reputations were much enhanced. Students everywhere like to brag of japes and the hazards of mild criminality, but ours was a different story. Not only had Stokes and I been involved in the skirmish, we had maintained honourable silence in the courtroom. Arthur could not meet my eye as he accepted these plaudits. No one doubted O’Neill’s guilt, and his overbearing presence was not particularly missed. It was all rather agreeable. My usual aloofness, seen before as antisocial, was now taken as a mark of deeper character. My well-timed sardonic interjections were now met with appreciative mirth. I knew O’Neill’s date of release weighed upon Arthur, and he made every effort to cement our friendship.

  It happened that his sister Helen was first presented at court that month, at a levee hosted by the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle. I’ve seen those carriages converging on Castle Street, backed up in congestion, allowing the lower orders to gather and gawk and mock the fluttering girls folded within. I would imagine the Viceroy and Vicereine graciously hosting their subjects in the Castle’s resplendent rooms of state, while Sibthorpe and his agents scuttled in the shadows below. The Stokes family hosted a gathering in their home to celebrate Helen’s coming-out. Arthur invited me along.

  That night in Merrion Square, the folding doors between the front and back drawing rooms were open. Fires blazed beneath both marble chimney pieces, while the rooms were lit from above by glinting chandeliers. The floor was thick with revellers, who stood in groups or sat on couches that lined the walls. Many of the young men wore uniforms, the others wore finely pressed suits, and even the servants were better dressed than I. The women were like unwholesome confections: a blur of satin and gauze, lappets and ostrich feathers, lace trims and silk trains in an array of colours. Upon my arrival I spied Arthur speaking with one of his college tutors, so thought to find a glass of wine and rescue him. I stalked a servant who meandered with a tray of drinks.