The Convictions of John Delahunt

by Andrew Hughes

  ‘Everyone has their weak points, John. It’s up to us to find out what they are.’

  Lynch might live an otherwise blameless life and, if so, the file would simply gather dust. ‘On the other hand, if he ever decided to do the wife in’ – he frowned at a mistake he made, crossed out a letter and continued on – ‘we could use your statement as additional evidence.’

  He finished printing the details on the card in a neat hand and blew on the ink. ‘Since this is your first visit, I’ll show you the stacks.’

  He led me back into the hall and unlocked the metal door, revealing a large chamber spanning the entire width of the house. Mahogany shelves lined each wall, stretching up towards the ceiling. Three double bays stood in the centre of the room. Each shelf bent under the weight of manuscript boxes and loose folders. An alphabetical order was evident as each box was labelled with surnames. It started high on the nearest shelf with the box ‘Abbot – Adair’, then ‘Adam – Ahern’, and continued in that fashion. There was no other furniture, except shuttered cabinets in one corner, which contained the card catalogue.

  The room was cold, and the high bays cast deep shadows, so Farrell lit an oil-lamp. Dust swirled in the light above the bevelled glass chimney. He gestured towards the shelves and said, ‘The most extensive archive of Dublin’s citizens.’

  He went over to the catalogue, pulled up the shutter and opened a small drawer marked ‘L’. Reams of index cards were stacked upright. His two fingers ran along the top, a single card pulled back with each stride. When he found the proper spot among the Lynches he slipped the new card into place.

  Then he went to find the box among the shelves. He told me that other archives held collections of estate papers from the wealthiest families, or the documents produced in governance. ‘But these are records of the most ordinary people. There’s no other repository like it.’

  I scanned the front of the boxes in their haphazard stacks, noting some of the names written. ‘But they only record their misdeeds.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  He found the box marked ‘Lydon – Lysaght’. I took the lamp as he dragged it down and removed the lid. He clamped the box between his chest and the shelves, freeing his hands to delve within and ensure the new file was put in the proper order.

  We were standing in the narrow space between two bays. The opening at the end showed a section of shelving against the far wall which contained the Ds. One label said ‘Delaney – Delmare’. I looked at the box above, but it was cast in shadow. Farrell ceased his rummaging and followed my gaze.

  ‘Now, John,’ he said. ‘You don’t think files on the likes of you are kept in here?’

  ‘Where are they kept?’

  He pushed the box back into its gap. ‘Under Sibthorpe’s bed.’

  Back in his office, Farrell took a cloth-bound tombstone ledger from beneath his desk. It was a register of the information provided by each agent. Initials were written at the top of each page, and three columns on the right-hand side were headed: ‘Information’, ‘Prosecution’ and ‘Other’, with amounts of money recorded in each.

  The book was arranged by alphabetical order, so many of the pages were left blank – to allow for the inclusion of new names. Still, I was surprised at the number of men employed. Some of the pages contained only two or three entries. Others were filled with text and figures, denoting a particularly prolific agent. One such page had the initials ‘NH’, which I guessed was Ned Holt. Though perhaps he would have been ‘E’ for Edward.

  Farrell leafed through the ledger. ‘Here you are.’ The letters ‘JD’ were written at the top. Some items were already inscribed. Farrell lowered his spectacles and traced a finger over the page.

  ‘Let’s see. The case of James O’Neill. No payment – there must be a story there. The case of Captain Craddock.’ The figure of £20 was written in the ‘Prosecution’ column. He looked at me over his glasses. ‘That was you?’

  I confirmed it was. He pursed his lips and nodded in approval.

  He continued, ‘I wrote in the latest entry just a few days ago. “Engaged to assist Sibthorpe for five pounds.”’ He looked around his desk for a pen. ‘Don’t worry, John. None of us mourned Devereaux’s demise. An agent like that undermines the whole Department.’

  Below that he wrote the date, then: ‘Information on Nicholas Lynch’, and ‘2 shillings’ in the appropriate column. He said if the information was ever used in a prosecution, the payment would be increased to a pound, though he thought that unlikely. ‘You won’t get far on a few shillings, but you know yourself. Keep an ear out for any talk that might help convict a murderer, rapist or, worst of all, Repealer.’

  A tally would be kept of all reports I provided, and work I carried out. ‘You have to come here to collect your pay, on the last Friday of each month. It’ll be with the guard down at the desk below.’

  The spine of the ledger creaked as he closed it over. ‘I think you’ll be able to make a decent living at it. Do you have any family?’

  I said I was recently married.

  He screwed the lid on to his fountain pen, then looked at me closely. ‘And your wife, is she very beautiful?’

  I considered. ‘Very beautiful’ would overstate it. There were moments – when her head bent beside a candle and a lock of hair fell; or when she laughed over her shoulder…

  Farrell was looking at me with an amused expression, and I realized I had mulled too long. ‘She’s handsome.’

  He fixed his glasses back on top of his head. ‘That’s what I like,’ he said. ‘An honest informant.’

  6

  Helen swept the floorboards before the hearth. She took some of her manuscript pages and laid them on the ground, then sat with her back to the fire. One leg was folded beneath her dress; the other splayed out, bare below the knee, a blackened sole shown to the room. I poured two whiskeys and went to join her, sitting in a warm spot where the early afternoon sunshine fell upon the floor. Helen dipped her nib in ink, too far as usual, for a couple of black dots splashed upon the pale yellow sheet as the pen hovered.

  ‘Let’s start with mine,’ she said as I placed the drink beside her.

  She began to write out the names of Stokes family members residing in Dublin, the page headed by the name of her paternal grandmother, who was still living bent and incontinent in Ballsbridge. Helen tapped the pen on her chin as she recalled the names of cousins, their spouses, and even some of their children, to fill in the branches of her family tree. In short order, a full Stokes lineage was produced and left aside for the ink to dry.

  My pedigree was more sparse. Since Alex was abroad, only Cecilia lived in the city, married to Captain Dickenson. To supplement my sheet I gave the names of fellows from college, classmates, as well as those I used to drink with in the Eagle. As such, Arthur made it on to both our lists.

  We then set about noting the names of mere acquaintances: old lecturers and college staff; the ladies who attended the Stokes salon every Tuesday afternoon; Mr Stokes’s wide circle of friends. I mentioned her coming-out ball, and she jokingly gasped. She said, ‘Of course,’ and began to list those who’d attended, who so far had escaped our recollection. After writing one name she prodded it with her pen. ‘I’ve something good on him.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we’re done.’

  After an hour we could think of no others. I refilled the glasses, and we regarded the littered pages of smudged namerolls and crooked bloodlines. Helen appeared wistful as she arranged the sheets more neatly.

  ‘This could have been our wedding list.’

  Farrell had taken me aside after my third or fourth visit to Fownes Street. He said it was all very well keeping an eye on our new neighbours in the tenements, and an ear on the loose talk in the pubs on Gardiner Street – which Helen and I had begun to frequent – but we should not forget the social circle to which we once belonged.

  I told him the people we knew when growing up were
loyal for the most part. He said that may be, but Sibthorpe liked to be able to call on influential people for favours. High-ranking surgeons, bankers and lawyers could provide any number of services to the Department. ‘We’ve found that the more a man has to lose, the more he’s willing to help.’

  When I told Helen of the notion, she put down her pen and gazed out of the window. I thought she was considering the ethical dilemma of betraying the trust of former friends and relatives, but she turned back to me and said, ‘A few names spring to mind immediately.’

  I couldn’t blame her. Another month had gone by without word from a family member or former friend. All we had was each other, and our only income came from my interaction with the Castle. Also, the small bit of money that had remained when we sold the house in Fitzwilliam Street, and paid off the bank, was almost gone. We were facing an uncertain winter.

  So we made our lists. I pointed to a name of one of O’Neill’s classmates, and told Helen how we had spoken once in the pub. He had drunkenly confided that he wrote articles for an underground newspaper, which operated from a basement in Temple Lane. Its title escaped me, some word in the Gaelic tongue. But he told me his pen-name was ‘Penchant’. Helen giggled at its silliness. He was now studying in King’s Inns, and was due to be called to the bar in a couple of years.

  I asked Helen about the man she had noted earlier. She said he was a friend of her father, an accountant called Graves. He was Protestant, but he was married to a Catholic heiress, the only daughter of Paschal O’Brien, merchant of College Green. Mr O’Brien had insisted that any issue from the marriage would be raised in the Catholic faith, and inserted a stipulation to that effect in their marriage settlement.

  They had a child named Christine, who was Helen’s age, and a good friend when they were both young. Christine revealed to Helen that she was secretly being raised and tutored by Protestant governesses, all with the consent of her mother. If that was known, the marriage settlement would be void, and Graves would lose any claim he had to the O’Brien estate.

  Helen took another sip of whiskey. ‘Christine swore me to secrecy.’ She began to write a note beside the man’s name. ‘But she hasn’t answered a single letter I’ve written in the past three months.’

  In the end we only came up with five or six stories that would be worth telling the Castle. The sun had dipped below the terrace opposite on Grenville Street. Helen stood up and stretched, then went to sit on the end of the bed. ‘When you tell Farrell these things, does he just take your word for it?’

  He did, as far as I knew.

  ‘Then you could always make some things up.’

  I looked to see if she was joking. She didn’t seem to be. ‘I’d get in trouble.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘But most of the information you bring isn’t acted upon anyway. It sits in an archive gathering dust.’

  ‘I’m sure agents who provide false information aren’t employed for very long.’

  ‘But they wouldn’t know it’s false.’

  That was true. At least not until it was too late. The cheap whiskey was making my head ache, so I said I’d think about it.

  On the last Friday of each month I went to Farrell’s building to collect my earnings. I was given a specific time – three hours after midday – presumably so agents were spared awkward encounters at the pay desk. In my year and a half of bringing information to Fownes Street, I never bumped into a fellow agent in the hall, or passed one in the doorway.

  Chance meetings between agents must happen from time to time. I wonder if they tip hats, exchange a brief conspiratorial grin or friendly word. Maybe they avoid eye-contact and shuffle past each other, as if they’d met in a shop that sells erotic prints – like the one on Earl Street that Helen and I once visited.

  When I collected the money that November, the guard at the desk said Farrell wanted to see me.

  I said, ‘What about?’

  He didn’t reply, just reached across and pulled the cord.

  I climbed the stairs to the archivist’s office. Farrell looked up as I entered and gestured to an empty chair. When I pulled it from the desk, a hidden stack of files almost toppled off the seat.

  He lifted his spectacles for a moment and squinted at them. ‘Just throw those on the floor,’ he said. ‘Sibthorpe has a little job for you. Actually it’s more of a demonstration.’

  I grew uneasy, for I had seen one of Sibthorpe’s demonstrations before.

  Farrell began to search through folders strewn on his desk. ‘He’s interviewing someone in the Castle as we speak, and wants his file brought over.’ He found the item he was looking for, a thin brown folder with ‘Matthew Gibson’ printed on the front. I recognized the name.

  ‘The barrister?’

  ‘The very same.’

  Gibson QC had been making headlines for some time. He was a young Catholic lawyer who had gained a reputation by successfully defending several radicals in recent trials. He was about to take on the brief in another high-profile case, that of the head of the Rockites, who had been captured in Dublin over the summer. I knew about it because members of the oath-bound society had carried out reprisal attacks. They had smashed windows in government buildings, and a young police officer had been killed when the Brunswick Street station was set ablaze.

  Farrell said, ‘Don’t dawdle.’

  Sibthorpe interviewed Gibson on the third floor of the barracks in Lower Castle Yard. The office was about as big as our room in Grenville Street, with a few filing cabinets in one corner, a bookshelf opposite the cold fireplace, and his desk beneath a large window. Gibson sat with his back to the door. He didn’t turn at the sound of my approach, or when I held out the folder to Sibthorpe and said, ‘I was told to bring you this.’

  Tom took it and thanked me. ‘Take a seat over there, John.’

  Two chairs stood against the wall, from where I could see both men in profile. Gibson was a striking figure, tall and broad-shouldered. He was clean-shaven, with a straight nose and thick brown curls. He caught me looking at him, regarded me coolly for a second, then returned his attention to Sibthorpe.

  I had interrupted a conversation. Gibson said he had come here because of an expectation that a proposal would be put to him regarding his client. So far nothing concrete had been discussed, and he had begun to suspect his time was wasted. ‘I’ve a mind to quit this meeting and take my chances in the courtroom.’

  Sibthorpe leafed through some documents in the folder. He said, ‘But we’re only getting started.’

  The door opened without a knock and another man entered. He was of medium height, with a wiry frame and sunken cheeks. His most remarkable feature was his hair, for when shaving, he had brought the razor above his sideburns and ears, completely baring the sides of his head up to the level of his bald pate, so only a clump of dirty blond hair hung from the back of his head.

  The man began to walk towards me, and I straightened in my seat, expecting an exchange. But he took hold of the other chair to drag to the desk. He positioned it at the narrow side of the table, facing towards Gibson. Before sitting, he extended his hand to the young lawyer and introduced himself.

  ‘I’m Lyster.’

  Gibson hesitated before gripping the hand.

  Sibthorpe waited for Lyster to be seated. ‘You said you expected to hear a proposal, Mr Gibson. Well, here’s one. I want you to resign your position as advocate in the trial due to start next week, and further swear never to defend another radical in the course of your career.’

  Everyone in the room was still. After a few seconds, a smile crept on to Gibson’s face. He shook his head, took a pair of gloves from his coat pocket, and began to put them on. ‘I don’t have time for this. Gentlemen, meeting you has been quite instructive.’ He shifted forward, causing his chair to scrape on the floor.

  Sibthorpe looked down. ‘I have before me two unsigned letters to a man called Simon Purcell of Holles Street, dated in the spring of this year.’

 
; Gibson made a point of continuing to don his gloves, his fingers undulating as he pulled one tight. But a colour had come into his cheeks.

  Sibthorpe held up one of the letters, its envelope attached to the top left corner by a metal pin. He read some of it aloud, his voice so drained of sentiment that it made the contents sound particularly ridiculous.

  ‘ “My dearest S. My beloved and beautiful friend. What words can I use to answer your charming lines received this morning? In the month we have been separated all has seemed lost.” ’ Sibthorpe cleared his throat. ‘ “I can’t help but wonder: do you still sleep in your shirt-tails; do you still wake before dawn and stare at the ceiling; could you have found yourself another bedfellow?” ’

  He stopped reading and looked up. ‘It’s signed “MG”. Did you write this, Matthew?’

  Gibson remained silent.

  Lyster said, ‘I might be able to help.’ He opened a folder on the desk. ‘A few weeks ago, I wrote to Mr Gibson looking for a legal opinion.’ He withdrew a document consisting of several pages. ‘I must say his reply was very prompt.’

  Sibthorpe said, ‘Excellent. Let me quickly read from the second letter.’ He scanned through the missive. ‘Let’s see, Matthew asks why Simon hasn’t written back: “Could it be the letter was lost?” – not a bad guess. He wonders if Simon would be willing to move to London, as they had discussed several times, to embark upon a life together. “If you still wish it, meet me at our table in the Hibernian Hotel on the thirteenth at nine.” And he finishes, “My one friend, I love you more than any living thing, and time nor chance nor age can ever lessen this love.”’

  Lyster said, ‘Hold on.’ His index finger traced over a page. ‘Look what’s written in this. “To do so would lessen your exposure to a fall in the stock price.” Let’s compare the word.’

  They placed the love letter and legal opinion side by side and bent their heads to examine. Gibson took no notice of their charade. He turned his head to gaze out of the window.

  Lyster said, ‘Mr Gibson has very distinctive esses.’