Black Welcome

by Nigel Fitzgerald

  Duffy offered a cigarette which the young man accepted automatically and lighted with the same lack of awareness of what he was doing. “You know the people round here better than any policeman ever could,” said Duffy gently. “Who do you think killed her?”

  “I don’t know–a madman, I suppose. Who else?”

  “Not a madman. This murder was carefully and coldly planned and carried out by someone who knew the victim and could influence her, by someone who knew you, your family and your movements and your house intimately. That doesn’t leave you with a very wide choice, does it?”

  The faraway look left Dominick’s eyes as he stared at the detective. “No, it doesn’t,” he muttered. “In fact it leaves such a damned small choice that I can’t believe anyone would be fool enough to concoct a plot that would lead suspicion so directly back to him.”

  “That’s rather what I feel,” Duffy agreed. “It’s one reason why we should not exclude from our considerations people who seem to have a cast-iron alibi.” He glanced at his watch. “No I mustn’t keep you any longer from your lunch.”

  The police activity in the neighbourhood of the house had somewhat abated; only the car that awaited Duffy remained before the door, the others having taken away the technical men together with their trophies and their samples for examination or analysis. Sergeant O’Callaghan had spent a busy morning between the servants’ quarters and the stable yard without finding out anything that in any positive way furthered the investigation; he had, however, later established that it was possible for any active person who knew the way to have entered or left the grounds by land without running the risk of being seen by the road menders. What might be described as a secret pathway, the entrance to which was concealed by shrubbery, led from a mid-point on the avenue to a place where two trees, one growing inside and the other outside of the demesne-wall, mingled their very scalable branches and so enabled the initiated to come or go unsuspected. The thickness of the growth beyond the wall made it a relatively easy matter to cover unobserved the stage of the journey to or from the edge of the wood on the side nearer to Newtown Moore. The pathway showed few signs of use.

  “I’d never have found the way only for the children, sir,” Sergeant O’Callaghan asserted. “They say it’s their secret passage and no one knows of it but them, and ’tis true enough that the path starts from the back of the shrubbery and there’s no way into it at all without going down on your hands and knees. Holy mackerel, what was that?”

  Through the open window of the car, which was proceeding slowly down the avenue, a bright-coloured something had come whizzing past Duffy to stick, quivering, to the woodwork of the farther window-frame in front of the sergeant’s nose. At the same moment the driver brought the car to a halt with a jerk, and a small head crowned with gaudy feathers peered from a bush.

  “How, Sheriff,” called the little boy, Michael. “Crazy Horse sends greeting to paleface.”

  “How! I’m glad my red brother has peaceful intentions,” replied Duffy politely, detaching the rubber-tipped arrow from where it had stuck and handing it back. “My deputy here thought we were heading into Injun trouble.”

  “Sorry, sir. I wouldn’t have fired only I thought your window was up.” Michael grinned engagingly; he had allowed his characterisation to lapse. “Mary says she wants to talk to you.”

  “Then I’m at her service. Where is your sister?”

  “Here I am, Superintendent.” She had stepped into view almost as Duffy asked the question. Like her brother, she carried in her hand a bow and two or three arrows, but her manner suggested that she had been indulging the young rather than taking part in a game of her own choosing; she seemed to have forgotten the gaudy feather stuck haphazardly in her black hair. “I want to know when you’re going to interview me.”

  “I haven’t interviewed anybody yet–not properly.”

  “Oh, I know that–not properly. You’ve just been putting the grown-ups at their ease and watching for the unguarded word.” The adult speech contrasted strangely with the childishness of her appearance. “That technique won’t work with me because I’m on the lookout for it. It would be much better to ask me straight questions. Besides I want to help.”

  “You’ve helped already by telling us about your secret passage. Is there anything else in particular that you want me to know?”

  Mary sighed resignedly. “Of course there are lots of things that I want you to know,” she said, “but I can’t tell which ones are particular till you ferret them out of me. Can’t you be a bit more orthodox?”

  “I don’t want to keep you late for lunch,” Duffy objected.

  “We’ve had our lunch early–by ourselves. The grown-ups want to talk about you-know-what. We’re supposed to be too young. Merry ha ha’s!”

  “All right then.” Duffy climbed out of the car. “You can show me your secret passage, and I shall ask questions as we go. O’Callaghan you can show the driver where to meet us at the other end.”

  Following the children, Duffy crawled under a thick hedge, through or under or between a number of bushes of different varieties, into a tiny clearing in the heart of the shrubbery where it was possible for him to stand almost upright without thrusting his head through the leafy roof. In the dim light he could see the beginnings of a narrow path curving out of sight in the direction of the road. The engine of his car was still audible as it receded down the avenue, but nothing was to be seen of the outside world. Mary’s shadowed face was dark as an Indian’s.

  “We make a point of coming in and out a different way each time, so’s not to leave tracks or holes in the hedge,” she observed.

  “Who else knows about this place, apart from you two?” Duffy asked.

  “No one–not a soul. It’s our private property, Michael’s and mine.”

  “It belongs to the tribe, which is the same thing,” the little boy confirmed. He had taken off his feathered head-dress and tucked it under his arm to save it from the overhanging branches. “Only us and the dogs come here.”

  Duffy found himself doubting this assertion. “Somebody must keep the way clear,” he said. “Look! Here’s a branch that’s been clipped.”

  “Ah, that’s better! Good for you.” Mary was apparently referring to Duffy’s belated proof that he could conform with detective tradition. “As a matter of fact I cut it myself. If the way gets choked up, I have a go with the shears. Besides, the place was planted so as to leave a hidden path. Very useful in the old days. Pop says it was even used in the Black-and-Tan time.”

  “So your father knows about it, too?”

  “Well, naturally; he was born here–but he doesn’t count.” The little girl twisted her thin body round to look up into Duffy’s face. “Does he?”

  “Of course not–except that he might have told other people.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t do that. The people he played with when he was young would probably know about it though–and Uncle Peregrine, because he’s always exploring, and––” Eventually she admitted that every member of the family, with the exception of Hector, must know about the existence of the path, though the knowledge was probably tucked away at the backs of their minds, more or less forgotten. Martin Clohessy, too, because of his hereditary association with Moore Court, must at some time have been told of the path, and it would certainly not be strange if the gardener and his assistants had become aware of it. “But, of course, none of them count either,” Mary pronounced. “And it’s always been understood that it belongs to us. At least––” Her voice faded away, as if she had suddenly become unsure; she plodded on in silence.

  They had come to the neck of the peninsula, the point where the tide reached almost up to the demesne-wall, against which the path was squeezed so tightly that–to a viewer in a boat–it must seem impossible that there could be any space behind the irregular growth of bushes which clung precariously to the narrow strip of solid ground between wall and water. Michael, who had begun to walk on tiptoe, gave
a sudden dramatic gesture demanding stillness and silence, went down on one knee, fitted an arrow to his bow and fired it with a musical twang of his bow-string through a gap in the branches.

  “Got him,” he announced with satisfaction. “No more fish for him.”

  “What was it?” asked Duffy, who had seen nothing at all and heard only the swish of the arrow. “A cormorant?”

  Michael gave him a glance of withering scorn. “No cormorants here,” he said. “It’s too muddy. That was a crocodile.”

  Mary had been walking so swiftly along the narrow path that Duffy, whose height and breadth were greater than the available space, had been hard put to it to keep up with her; it was obvious, too, that the girl’s first reaction to the halt had been impatience. Now, however, a new idea seemed to strike her; she gave her brother a wearily patronising glance, as if from a height of infinite experience, then smiled at Duffy.

  “What it is to have a vivid imagination,” she observed. “Michael, darling, I’m taking Mr. Duffy on to show him the way over the wall. Will you stay here and cover our back trail?”

  “O.K., O.K.” The little boy’s voice sounded preoccupied. He was watching his arrow and willing it to drift within his reach.

  “He won’t fall in, will he?” asked Duffy anxiously, for Mary’s ears only.

  “That would be too much to hope. He has a well-developed sense of self-preservation. Anyhow it’s only a few yards more.” She padded on a little way in silence before adding–“He can’t climb the wall by himself and he thinks it’s undignified to have to admit it. That’s not the only reason why I left him behind, though.”

  “I didn’t think it was.”

  She stopped and turned to him; her face was grave. They were within sight of the end of the path and of a great chestnut tree which mingled its branches with those of another on the farther side of the wall. So far everything had been as the sergeant had described it.

  “Two people––” Mary seemed to find it an effort to speak. “Two strangers know about our path–and used it–last year, I think it was.”

  “Strangers! You mean that you didn’t know who they were?”

  “No, I don’t mean that–just that they weren’t family or friends. They were people from the town who had no business to be here.”

  “I see.” Duffy would have been more interested in proof that some of the older members of the family remembered the existence of the path. “Did you tell your father about it?”

  “No. No, I couldn’t.” Just for a moment her childish serenity deserted her, and she stared up at the detective with fear and horror in her eyes, then she turned away and began to pull at the leaves of an inoffensive bay tree. “It’s not the sort of thing I could say to him.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Well, you see, Superintendent, it was last summer. I was young then.” She had a single leaf between her fingers now and was shredding it into tiny pieces, her back still turned to Duffy. “I was only ten.” Her voice sounded apologetic. “I hardly understood anything at all then about men being unfaithful to their wives.”

  “Oh!” The detective anathemised himself for having been so slow on the up-take.

  “It’s all so–so beastly.” The words came jerkily with a suggestion of tears. “It makes everyone unhappy and–and it’s a mortal sin, though, of course, Mr. Flynn isn’t a Catholic so it doesn’t matter so much–at least I don’t think it does. And he’s got a very nice wife–her face is nice anyhow, even if she’s too fat–and being too fat’s no reason any more than–oh!” She gave up all attempt at coherence and sobbed–“So ugly–so ugly.”

  Duffy put out a hand to comfort her but he stopped it short of her thin shoulders. In his mind were crude pictures of what she might have seen in this very wood that she had looked on as her inviolable sanctuary, and he felt that physical contact with the adult world was not what she wanted now. He let the hand drop back to his side.

  “I’m sorry for being a silly little cry-baby,” she said suddenly.

  “I don’t blame you at all. Life makes us all want to cry sometimes. Now that you’ve told me about it you can forget it, and I’ll put it out of my head, too, if it hasn’t got anything to do with the case–and it probably hasn’t. One question first, though.” He hated himself for having to ask it, but he felt that he must get the matter over and done with while it was still in her mind. “Who was with Mr. Flynn?”

  “I didn’t know who she was then, but I’ve seen her since.” Mary had regained control of her voice and spoke without the least trace of emotion. “It was his wife’s niece. The woman who got the knife stuck in her.”

  Looking back on the conversation afterwards, Duffy had little recollection of the way in which he had changed the subject and led Mary to talk and to think of other things. With the child’s final answer the matter had assumed a nightmare quality. Nevertheless Duffy had succeeded in starting both of the children on their way back to the house in their normal good humour. He had, furthermore, promised to return during the afternoon and go out in a boat with them–it seemed to be the best way of learning the lie of the land and the water–and he had still been able to hear their happy voices long after the trees had hidden them from his sight. It seemed on the whole that the day so far had not been unfruitful; but he had found no satisfaction in his labours. It was, indeed, a very shaken superintendent who climbed over the wall to rejoin Sergeant O’Callaghan in the police car.

  “All right?” The sergeant had a discerning eye.

  “Uhuh.” Irritably Duffy rubbed at a green stain on his trousers. “If our man came over that way he’ll have the marks on his clothes.”

  O’Callaghan nodded. “I caught the technical boys before they went away to their dinner and showed them the place. They know what to look out for. Even if there isn’t a stain, itself, there’d be traces.”

  “That’s nice.” Duffy threw away his cigarette and lighted another. “First catch your hare,” he added unkindly.

  The drive to Newtown Moore was accomplished in silence, and the luncheon table which the two detectives shared at the hotel was not enlivened by conversation; such verbal exchanges as took place touched on no more inspiring topics than the food and the weather. Sergeant O’Callaghan was not unduly disturbed, however, by the reticence of his superior; he knew that Duffy was merely arranging his thoughts so as to be able to present his findings for discussion without bias. When the hasty meal was over the two men repaired to the room that had been set aside for them at the Civic Guard Station and sat down to review the case and to get their notes in order with the help of an official stenographer from the County Headquarters at Moycarrick. The dictation was at an end and the stenographer had departed to his typewriter when a report was brought in from the technical squad.

  “They’ve been quick,” said Duffy approvingly. “This confirms that the blood on the dressing-gown is human and of the same group as the dead girl’s; ditto for the blood at the side of the steps by the hall door. No luck with the hanger the dressing-gown was on, though–only one set of prints on it, and they belonged to Hannah, the maid who reported the bloodstains to Mrs. O’Brien Moore. And no prints at all on the wardrobe door, but that’s understandable; maids who have to polish doors often open them duster in hand. I suppose it’s asking too much of a murderer to leave identifiable dabs these days, all the same we can build up quite a reasonable picture of him already–or of her.”

  “There’s one point, sir, that’s been worrying me,” O’Callaghan observed. “It seems that the man from The States, Hector, really only decided to land at Shannon at the last moment, so no one could have known in advance that he intended to get off there instead of Dublin. It’ be a reasonable guess, but no one could be sure.”

  “I don’t think that was necessary. All that the murderer needed to do was to persuade his intended victim that such was the case; the truth of the story was beside the point. In fact, you might say that the story had to be untrue because if He
ctor had gone straight from Shannon Airport to Moore Court he might have interrupted the crime.”

  “That’s clear enough, but who could have persuaded the girl of such a thing? That the Yank was going to land at Shannon, I mean. The story would have to be plausible. If one of the family claimed to know that Hector was going to land in the west, he’d find it hard to explain why he was letting arrangements go ahead for meeting the man at Dublin Airport. On the other hand any outsider would have a job to explain why he knew more about the O’Brien Moores’ business than they did themselves. After all, the girl worked on a London daily, she wouldn’t be all that gullible.”

  “That’s true,” Duffy agreed. “It’s a point that I can’t account for yet, but I’m not going to be discouraged about it. It’s possible, for instance, that Dominick told the girl that he had heard from his cousin but that for love of the girl and to let her have her interview in peace he was going to keep the information to himself. It’s the sort of thing a man might do for a woman. You don’t like the idea?”

  The sergeant, who had been frowning heavily, shook his head. “I hate it,” he said. “It’s not nice to think that a man whose ancestors fought beside Owen Roe, and Sarsfield, and Mountcashell could commit a sordid murder the like of that on his mother’s doorstep–though I know it could happen.”