The Convictions of John Delahunt

by Andrew Hughes

  The back room was darker. Pipe smoke hung in the air and yellow tobacco stains covered the walls. With the last of my money I ordered a drink, and sat on a stool just inside the partition. My attention was caught by a child’s porcelain doll that sat incongruously among the bottles and glasses behind the bar, on a shelf backed by a large mirror. I observed the other customers in the reflection. For the most part they hunched in groups at tables. One old man sat alone and warmed his fingers over a shivering candle. The gloom made it hard to distinguish features as I looked from face to face.

  As I surveyed the room in the mirror, I locked eyes with a man who stood close to me at the bar. He wore a wrinkled yellow cravat beneath a grey flannel shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. His hands rested on the counter, fingers laced protectively around a glass of stout.

  He turned to me and said, ‘I haven’t seen you in here before.’

  ‘No. I’m just passing through.’ I rotated my whiskey so a chip in the rim pointed away.

  ‘You sound as if you’re not from around here all right.’ His glass was a third full, but he finished the stout in one swallow. Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and said, ‘Mine’s a Guinness, if you’re buying.’

  ‘I’m leaving after this one.’

  ‘Who were you looking for just now?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  His lip curled up, and he was about to speak again, but then another man approached. The newcomer was tall and broadly built with cropped fair hair. Streaks of black grime covered his face and forearms. He nudged the man with the yellow cravat and spoke quietly to him in a Belfast accent. ‘Would you leave that lad in peace, for Jesus’ sake. I’ll get you a drink.’

  I kept my head forward. As the Ulsterman called for Nowlan, he placed his right hand on the counter. A blackened bandage covered his palm, wrapped over the webbing of his thumb like a fingerless glove. Spots of blood had seeped to the surface, marking the peaks of his knuckles.

  He paid for the drinks, and I watched in the mirror as the two men went back to a table in the corner. Three others were already seated there. One was small and youthful, with brown hair unevenly cut. He took a pipe from a waistcoat pocket and placed it in his mouth at an odd angle, then struck a match and dipped it in the pipe’s chamber. The flame illuminated his face for a few seconds, and I could see his upper lip was split by a cleft that disappeared into his left nostril. When he smiled at some comment made by a companion, the lip parted like a curtain in the theatre.

  ‘Would you like another?’ The barman Nowlan stood before me, pointing at my glass.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think that should be enough.’

  I glanced again in the mirror. The young man shook the match until it went out. An orange dot gyrated in the gloom.

  I went to the Castle the following morning, but before leaving the house, I checked the letter box as usual. A single envelope addressed to me contained something hard and heavy. Someone must have delivered it personally, for only my name was written on the front in a neat hand. I broke the seal and fished out a dull grey iron key. A note attached said, ‘So you don’t have to sneak into the garden.’ I read the short line three times. Helen had squeezed the apostrophe into ‘don’t’, as if she’d forgotten it at first, which I found endearing. I slipped the key into my front pocket.

  On Little Ship Street, a soldier stood watch at a pedestrian entrance to the Castle beneath a raised portcullis. I walked up to him and said I had some information for Thomas Sibthorpe. He didn’t move for a few seconds, and I began to wonder if the name meant anything to him, but then he called to another man inside the gate. A porter dressed in blue livery emerged from a shelter. After a word with the sentry, he beckoned and said, ‘Come with me.’

  The guard stood aside and I entered the Castle grounds. A long straight road lay before us, which cut through government buildings. We passed the Ship Street barracks and the Georgian state apartments. A white stallion was being led through a circular walled garden to the Viceroy’s crenellated coach house. The porter told me the garden was the site of Dublin’s medieval black pool, where the Vikings first docked, and from which the city took its name. The pathways were busy with court officials and office clerks, civil servants and army officers. Further on, a large Norman tower loomed above us on the left, formerly a prison fortress. The Gothic Chapel Royal was surrounded by scaffolding. My guide said the foundations had to be reinforced because the church was built on the site of the original moat, and had begun to subside.

  I feared he planned to give me a tour of the entire grounds. ‘Is Sibthorpe’s office near?’

  ‘Sibthorpe doesn’t have an office.’

  ‘Then where are you taking me?’

  But he didn’t say any more. We reached the police barracks, which consisted of a series of low, grey buildings. He brought me in a side entrance and up an oak staircase to a small room, which contained a desk and a few simple wooden chairs, all well lit by a sash window slightly ajar. The porter took my name and said someone would come to speak with me.

  An elaborate Vienna wall clock sounded the interminable seconds as I watched an hour elapse. At one point I looked into the corridor, but there was no sign of life. I rehearsed my statement. Diversion for a time was provided by a bluebottle that flew through the window, only to alight on a flycatcher sheet and become ensnared. The pest’s wings hummed vainly for a minute. In resignation it ceased, sucked at the sweet resin in which it was fixed, before another futile attempt at escape.

  ‘John Delahunt. I knew it wouldn’t be long before you showed up.’

  Devereaux, the young man with the chinstrap beard who had called to my house some weeks before, had entered the room. He pushed the door closed, harder than was necessary. ‘You have some information for us?’

  ‘I only want to speak with Sibthorpe.’

  With a grin he presumably thought disarming, he said that Sleeky Tom hadn’t the time to grant an audience to every snitch that wandered in. ‘Sibthorpe took a special interest in the O’Neill case, which was the only reason you met him before. From now on you’ll have to make do with the likes of me.’ Devereaux took the seat opposite. ‘But I’ll report whatever it is you have to say. As long as it’s of interest.’

  ‘What’s to stop you passing the information off as your own?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not a thing. But believe me, I have bigger concerns. You can either talk to me, or the first drunk willing to listen to you in the Eagle.’

  I remained silent, and after a moment his tone softened. Surely I could at least identify the case in question.

  He wasn’t to be trusted, but in truth I was eager to tell. ‘I know who carried out the assault on Captain Craddock. I can describe them, tell you where they can be found, and wish to claim the twenty-pound reward as advertised.’ I took a tattered copy of the proclamation from inside my coat, unfolded its yellowed edges and laid it on the desk between us.

  He frowned slightly as he took up the sheet. ‘Twenty pounds; the assault on Craddock,’ he said, as if reading directly from the notice. Then he looked up. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  A shorter wait. Devereaux re-entered with an inkpot, pen and a sheaf of blank pages, each stamped with a Castle seal at the top. Behind him, Thomas Sibthorpe stepped into the doorway. I rose from my seat, but he made no allusion to our previous meeting. He simply wished to allay any mistrust I felt towards my questioner.

  ‘Mr Delahunt, I cannot remain, but please furnish a statement to Mr Devereaux.’ With that he reached in and pulled the door shut.

  Devereaux was tapping the edge of his papers on the tabletop to make them align. He laid them flat, dipped his nib in the inkpot and said, ‘In your own time.’

  I gave a good account of what I knew, embellished some details, and kept others back. Devereaux only interjected once or twice. He wondered why Mrs Skerritt was willing to leave me alone in the house with Captain Craddock.

  I hesitated, then said, ‘She thought I was a police agent.
’

  He nodded in approval, but said for me to have given that impression wasn’t quite legal so we left it out. He was impressed by the level of detail in my description of the attackers. I said Craddock had only managed to describe two of the three, but Devereaux was unconcerned.

  ‘There’s a man here who’s adept at extracting information from suspects once they’re in custody.’ He looked at me across the table. ‘You might meet him someday.’

  As I signed the statement, he commended my work, and I was affected by this rare praise enough that I found him less offensive. He said the particulars would be sent to the station in Bow Street, where the local constables could probably name the men simply by their description. The affidavit in itself was strong enough to bring before a magistrate to issue warrants for arrest, which could happen within a day or two.

  ‘And the reward?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘When will I get it?’

  ‘These things take time, Delahunt.’ He placed the statement in a folder. ‘But don’t worry. Here in the Castle, each man gets what he deserves.’

  Two days later, I was leaving a lecture hall in Trinity when a don came up to me and asked if I was Delahunt. I nodded and he handed me a note. I thought perhaps my father had died. When I was younger, I used to daydream that lessons in my school might be interrupted by news of the death of one of my parents. The master, usually so stern, would have to treat me kindly, and the other boys would solemnly shake my hand in an attempt to appear grown up. It actually happened one year to a boy called Lennon. But he wept when he heard the news, which rather spoiled it.

  The message simply told me to go to a certain coffee shop in Baggot Street at midday. It was signed ‘Dx’.

  When I entered, I saw Devereaux reading a newspaper at a table near the far wall. As I joined him, he turned over a cup that lay rim-down in a saucer, and poured some coffee from a pewter pot.

  He said, ‘Arrests have been made.’

  Devereaux reached into his coat to retrieve a brown envelope, which he slid across the marble tabletop with the tip of his index finger. ‘Usually you’d have to wait for a conviction. But Tom seems to think you deserve it.’

  I opened the envelope enough to glance inside at two pristine ten-pound notes. After weeks of scraping by with pennies, it was such a luxury to hold them.

  Devereaux folded his newspaper open on a certain page. His easy smile had returned. ‘Have you begun to see the attraction in this line of work?’

  I had to admit my perceptions of it were changing.

  He leaned forward with his fingers in a steeple. ‘I know there’s some stigma attached to the Castle’s methods, but it’s undeserved. As if we live to skulk in the shadows and pry into the business of honest men.’ He picked up his cup and gestured with it. No one could find fault with my actions of the previous week. Through wit, and some daring, I had helped bring those thugs to justice.

  He took a sip, then returned his cup to the saucer with a clink. ‘There is something I have to tell you, though.’ He passed me the newspaper. ‘Did you see this?’ he said, pointing to a column in the corner.

  It was that morning’s Dublin Gazette. The article announced the death of Captain Craddock from his injuries in the early hours two days ago. It said the case was now a murder investigation. The main thrust of the article was to denounce the despicable electoral tactics of the Repealers, but it ended by saying the police were on the cusp of making arrests.

  Two mornings ago. I looked at Devereaux. ‘You knew he was dead when I spoke to you.’

  ‘If you’d only waited another day, the reward would have been increased to fifty pounds. You’d been too eager. You couldn’t wait to tell, and it should be a lesson. The information you collect is precious.’

  ‘Why didn’t you let me know?’

  It had been Sibthorpe’s decision. That was why he had gone to fetch him early in the interview. ‘If it had been up to me, I’d have filled you in, arranged to split the extra thirty.’ He took the newspaper back and wedged it beneath his saucer. ‘But you don’t cross Sibthorpe.’

  A waiter came over and asked me if I wanted anything. I shook my head without looking at him.

  ‘We’d been preparing to announce Craddock’s murder on the morning you arrived.’ He said the Castle had a printing press in the basement of the barracks for its own proclamations, confiscated from some underground newspaper back in the twenties. ‘After you left I had to rush down and tell the operator. He had already cranked out a hundred bills announcing the new reward.’ The printer was sorely disappointed because he had acquired a new typeface to spell out ‘Murder’ in huge Gothic capitals, and was looking forward to seeing the results posted in the city.

  Devereaux seemed to think I’d find this amusing, and he chuckled into his cup, but the laugh died in the silence between us. After a moment, he began a slow thoughtful nod.

  ‘Murder,’ he said. ‘That’s where the money is.’

  3

  The key Helen gave me was poorly cut, and tended to jam in the wrought-iron gates of Merrion Park. Muttered oaths and whitened knuckles were of no avail. It required some finesse, gradually increasing pressure with a faint waggling until the bolt released with a satisfying thud. For some reason it was always much easier to relock. I would spot Helen walking alone and fall into step beside her, tipping my hat as if I had stumbled across an old acquaintance. The start of May was warm, as it always seems to be in the weeks before examinations, and the cut of Helen’s dresses loosened and the necklines lowered. She no longer wore headgear, and her mousy hair shone lustrous or lank, depending on when she last bathed.

  The enclosed paths were well trod, and not suitable for open conversation or displays of affection. When a path cleared, Helen was emboldened, closing the space between us to take my hand, which I would shake off at the sound of voices or footfall.

  One afternoon she spotted a gap in the undergrowth, which barely concealed a disused trail. Without a word she disappeared along it, and I had little option but to follow. After a few yards it emerged into a grove, unkempt and overgrown. The main paths of the garden skirted close by, but were hidden by trees and thickets. The small space was wreathed by the limbs of elms and willows, its floor covered in uncut grass, not too tall because of the shade, all dotted with wildflowers. An old bench with black iron legs and green wooden slats sat beneath the awning.

  Helen was delighted at the discovery. She walked into its centre and playfully twirled once with her arms outstretched. She looked towards me with a smile so open that I knew: if ever there was a moment to march over, cup her face in my hands, lean in and let her lift her chin to seal the kiss, it was now.

  ‘I don’t think we’re allowed in here.’

  Her shoulders sank and she said I worried too much.

  Over a number of weeks we would meet at that spot. Its seclusion meant we could arrive and depart separately, converse freely. Helen always spoke at length, and I wondered how she thought of so much to say. I believe what she valued in me most was my acceptance of ideas others thought eccentric or improper. She would describe to me her dread at the life that had been set out for her – the monotony of afternoons in the salons of respectable women, all creativity and spontaneity withering in restrictive dress and stifling air. She was adamant that she wouldn’t be married off against her will, to some ageing rector with creeping fingers, or some preening soldier with thick fists. She admitted she had no intention of ever bearing children; she could not abide their clinging and mewling. Perhaps others tried to dissuade her from these notions, but to me they seemed perfectly reasonable. I think she mistook my indifference for approval, or at least understanding, and it seemed to give her comfort.

  When she spoke, her thoughts would play on her face, and I’d note each detail: the way her eyelids would widen or narrow or languidly blink, the small quaver in her throat, and the motion of her lips as the words were formed – they hardly required any movement a
t all. Once, I was so absorbed that I failed to notice she had stopped speaking, and was regarding me coolly.

  She said, ‘Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do completely.’

  I wasn’t put off by her taste in literature, which tended towards the Gothic and fantastic; I even read some titles she recommended – though I didn’t finish them. She in turn was intrigued by what I studied, so I lent her some volumes on natural philosophy. I remember she asked for them tentatively, as if scared I would refuse or scorn her request. It never occurred to me that she might not understand the contents, or that the knowledge would be wasted on her.

  Whenever I spoke, it was about Cecilia’s marriage, or my father’s health, or my prospects after college. While caressing my hand, she noticed my little finger wouldn’t bend at the middle knuckle, and I told her of the time it was injured, when I fell from the banister of our nursery in Fitzwilliam Street.

  One afternoon, thick clouds darkened the grove, squalls shook drops loose from the canopy, which fell through the leaves in an arrhythmic patter, and Helen confessed that she loved me. I considered my response. I had never before had a companion like her, but still I remained reticent. During our next few meetings she repeated her declaration. The fact that I had not yet said I loved her in return didn’t escape her notice, and she pointed it out.

  I said I’d soon rectify that.

  We had been leaning back on the bench, her head in the hollow of my shoulder. She sat up and turned to look at me.

  ‘Say it now.’

  I regarded her face: an anxious pout and eyes serious like a scolded child. It wasn’t particularly becoming. ‘I love you. Helen.’

  She considered for a moment, then her eyes softened and she leaned back against me. If she’d but given me a moment I would have artfully worked it into the conversation.