The Death of an Irish Consul

by Bartholomew Gill

  The Proscenium was on Broadway, not far from SIS headquarters. The black and canopied marquee was a bit too grand for the squat, granite building. The porter opened the rear door of the police car and said, “Colonel Cummings’s man is awaiting you at the top of the stairs.” Up a long flight of gleaming marble, a man dressed in tails and a stiff white tie was standing. He didn’t appear even to look at Gallup and McGarr as they approached, but simply walked down the hallway which old wood and portraits of past club members made dark.

  They passed reading and billiard rooms, a library, a bar, several offices, a large banquet hall, and were finally escorted into a small dining room which light gray walls and spanking linen tablecloths lit. Napkins were fanned in the water goblets, and tropical plants with wide and rubbery leaves framed French windows that offered a view of a miniature Augustan garden.

  Four men had been conversing in front of one of these windows. Now they turned to Gallup and McGarr, and one of them, a middle-aged man, advanced with his hands clasped behind his back as though about to review troops at a dress parade. “Gallup, I take it, and…ah…”

  “McGarr,” said Gallup.

  The man allowed his eyes, which were slightly glassy from drink, to run down McGarr’s dark raincoat, his charcoal gray suit, and black bluchers. He then looked McGarr in the face and said to Gallup, “Does he have any identification?”

  “Oh.” Gallup pulled his arms out of his raincoat. “No need, no need. I worked for Peter when I was with Interpol. He’s genuine.”

  Again the man considered McGarr briefly. “If you say so.” He took Gallup by the arm and directed him toward the group of men who were still standing near the window. “Meet my associates. Edward Gallup, this is…”

  McGarr asked one of the attendants where a public phone might be, walked out of the dining room and down the hall to the cloakroom, where he deposited his raincoat. He wanted to be able to retrieve it in case present C., this Cummings fellow, should prove even less of a man of goodwill than he had first shown himself to be.

  In the public phone booth, he phoned the Trinity College, Dublin, chemistry department collect. When, at length, Dr. Cole came on the line, he asked, “What have you found, Patricia?”

  “I’m guessing it’s a ketobemidone compound, guessing because there was so very little of it on the top of that cork you sent me. Colorless, odorless, as tasteless as distilled water. It’s very new, incredibly expensive because of a complicated cracking process, and totally unobtainable from any supply house since the price makes it commercially unfeasible as a substitute for any of the common anesthetics. If you want some, you’ve got to make it yourself and had better have a good lab and some skilled assistants. It’s volatile and unstable at high temperatures.”

  “Good job, Pat. Thank you for the fast work.” McGarr was about to hang up, but said, “Hold on, Doctor—would you please call my office and tell them I’m at this number in London. That way I’ll save the citizens a few shillings.” He gave her both numbers and rang off.

  He then called Hugh Madigan, who said, “Hitchcock was on a pension. I estimate that if he was receiving half-pay he got five thousand pounds per year. He had a small inheritance, as well, of about five hundred or so. Her family used to have scads of money around the turn of the century, but lost it through mismanagement and the failure to diversify. They made saddles, tack, and riding boots. Some one of her brothers ran off to Rhodesia with the last of the company funds about five years ago, and the business collapsed. She, however, hasn’t changed her habits, and still keeps a stable of show horses. One of her mares won the Derby last year. All things considered, it began to look like they had a lot of expenses and not much income, except for the Derby win which was a one-shot affair, so I did some further checking.

  “I have a contact at the income tax office who discovered that Hitchcock had a full-time job as director of security for the ENI outfit’s Scotland operation, you know, their exploration for oil off the coast. That’s the Italian concern, I believe. What do the initials stand for, Peter?”

  “Ente Nazionali Idrocarburi.”

  “I often wondered why Italians are so enamored of initials. Now I can well see why. Where was I?

  “Pays taxes on fifteen thousand, but with fringe benefits, et cetera, it’s more like twenty. Even so, they live at the utter end of their tether, and their credit rating isn’t much. I was beginning to think that now with the fellow dead she’d be having to cut her expenses drastically—both houses are mortgaged right up to the eaves—when I managed to come upon this interesting fact.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Yes. Let me save the best part for last. He had a Civil Service standard policy which he had already borrowed against up to the eighty percent maximum, so that renders two thousand pounds. He had a private endowment plan of twenty thousand, had paid in about six, but had borrowed it back at five percent interest, so that yields about thirteen. Then there’s a post office policy of under a thousand pounds. And then”—Madigan paused—“there’s a relatively new—five years—straight term policy for one hundred twenty-five thousand pounds. The premium payments, given Hitchcock’s life expectancy and his former occupation, were extraordinary, but the Dutch company that assumed the risk claims that the payments were current.”

  “Who’s the beneficiary?”

  “That’s somewhat strange, that is. Even though he had a son of whom he was quite fond, everything in the big insurance policy goes to her.”

  “Son’s name?”

  “Edward Bernard David and resides in All Souls College, Oxford. Teaches mathematics, I believe. He’s sure to inherit some of this estate.”

  “Well—that’s just fine, Hugh. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. Who’s handling this case? Gallup?”

  “Right.”

  “Is it true he’s going to be the new assistant commissioner of CID?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, then, don’t the two of you meet me at the Carlton for drinks about tea time?”

  “Don’t you know him?”

  “Not as well as I should, considering his new and exalted position.”

  “I’ll try to bring him ’round and will call you if I can’t.”

  “Don’t bother about calling. Just be there yourself. We haven’t hoisted a few jars since—I can’t remember when.”

  McGarr surmised that Madigan, a functionalist, also had some Irish problem beyond his wish, which McGarr did not doubt in the least, to share a few drinks and reminisce about dear, dirty Dublin. “What do you know about the present C., Colonel Cummings?”

  “That he’s very good at his job, but not very well liked by his staff.”

  “Why so?”

  “Runs the place on fear. Sacked a number of old-timers straightaway, put the rest into administrative limbos. Hasn’t really done much field work himself—you know, a couple of years in Budapest where he specialized in blonds, beards, and bars, one year in Istanbul, and then he got a Washington assignment. Lacks humanity, they say, and a feel for what it’s like being out on point all alone and cut off.”

  “Four-thirty?”

  “Five—better, five-thirty.” Madigan hung up.

  Gallup was just completing his secondhand relation of the details pertaining to the Hitchcock murder when McGarr returned to the dining room.

  Since the four men were sitting close to Cummings at the head of the table, which had been set for eight, McGarr had the choice of three seats. He chose the one at the other end of the table. This made a gap of two seats between him and the other men.

  “And what do you know about this affair, McGarr?” asked Cummings. He had just finished a dish of thick oxtail soup and now gently stanched his lips with his napkin. Besides his obvious nastiness, there was something supercilious about his manner, gestures, and appearance. Somehow what little hair that remained on the sides of his head was a bit too neat and his skin seemed too fresh and talced, like that of a baby with an offic
ious nanny. His gray eyes were sparkling now, as he reached for his wine glass.

  “Only what I related to Assistant Commissioner Gallup, and he, no doubt, has conveyed to you.”

  “Assistant Commissioner?”

  In the midst of raising his soup spoon to his lips, Gallup glanced at the other men and blushed.

  “Some congratulations are in order, it seems.” Cummings took the opportunity to taste his wine again.

  Several of the men smiled to Gallup, but nobody said anything. It was quite obvious that Cummings had the floor and that, far from being a pleasant convocation over lunch, the meeting was to be an interrogation of McGarr.

  “But certainly having seen poor C. in his last agony—”

  One of the other men started, his head turned toward the window, and his hand began fumbling in his suit for a packet of cigarettes.

  Cummings stared at him until he had the cigarette lit, then continued speaking to McGarr, “—you can tell us more particularly about—how do you people in the police phrase it?—the significant details?” Turning on the man with the cigarette, he said, “I really wish you would learn to quell that filthy habit, Stone. Having to smoke between courses is incontinent, as well as being quite disagreeable to the others of us at this table.”

  McGarr had tasted his soup, which he imagined must have taken a full day to prepare—sweating the thin oxtail slivers over a bed of carrots, leeks, and onions, covering it with an eight-hour bone stock, simmering for ten more hours, clarifying with chopped beef and further leeks, finely chopped, both ingredients whisked with raw egg white, then a brown roux and tomato purée for thickening, and sherry for taste—and found it delicious. He hardly heard Cummings say, “McGarr? Well—McGarr?”

  McGarr took several additional spoonfuls of the soup and blotted his lips with the napkin. “No. I have nothing to add.” He dipped his spoon in the soup once more.

  Gallup had caught on to McGarr’s tactic in dealing with Cummings. Being one of the men sitting closest to McGarr, he asked, “How do you manage to remain so thin, Peter? Your appetite has always been so unbounded.”

  “I concentrate on my comestibles, never rush through a meal, and always try to dine in pleasant company.” McGarr smiled toward Cummings, who said, “Let’s get the facts straight. Hitchcock was shot once in the back of the head. Small-caliber gun. His hands and feet had been trussed behind his…”

  While Cummings catalogued the details of the crime and his associates pretended to listen to him attentively, one waiter removed McGarr’s now empty soup service and another began serving entrecÔte mirabeau, the cut between the bones of the ribs of beef which had been grilled, garnished with anchovy fillets, tarragon leaves, and stoned, blanched olives. It was served with anchovy butter. At the same time, the wine was changed from a pleasant Marsala to a hearty Clos Vougeot. Halfway through the dish, a waiter informed McGarr he had a telephone call in the lobby.

  When McGarr returned to the table he pushed the plate aside and, interrupting Cummings, said, “Are all your operatives issued a ketobemidone knockout potion?”

  “Of course not—those supplies are signed out only for special need and on a high-priority basis.”

  “How many of your agents carry twenty-two-caliber automatic handguns?”

  “None. They’re issued an effective weapon, the Walther nine millimeter. Each weapon is registered, as are the firing pin configurations and barrel markings. Look here——”

  “Would it be possible to obtain a list of present and former SIS agents who had a grudge against Hitchcock and might want to kill him?”

  “Certainly not. I don’t know or care what the esprit may be in Irish organizations, but here in SIS the staff respect their commander. That some former agent, no matter how alienated, might try to murder Hitchcock is unthinkable.” Cummings glanced around at his men. All were busily eating their steaks.

  “Perhaps, then, you’d better begin thinking the unthinkable. The phone call I just received was from Dublin.” McGarr stood. “Another man has been found in the same shed at the same house with a similar bullet hole in the back of his head. His name is C.B.H. Browne. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Two men placed their napkins on their plates. Another slid back his chair and stood.

  “I’d appreciate greatly your checking your records about the ketobemidone compound, the gun preference, and for disgruntled agents who might have threatened either one or both of these men. Also, I’d like to know right now if you have any idea of some foreign power which would benefit by the systematic execution of your former chiefs. Is this some sort of vendetta?”

  Cummings shook his head. He was worried.

  McGarr turned and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Cummings demanded.

  “Dingle, of course.”

  “Hold on—Gallup is going with you?”

  Gallup looked up from his partially consumed steak.

  “Well, aren’t you?”

  Gallup took a swallow of wine. “Well, I don’t think so. I’m running CID now. That’s an administrative assignment.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll take care of all that,” said Cummings. “I want us represented in this investigation.” Cummings eyed McGarr once more.

  As they hustled down the stairs of the Proscenium Club, Gallup said, “Blast his hide. Who the hell does he think he is?”

  “A most important man in your government.”

  “But besides that.”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “I can’t go traipsing all over the Irish outback like some rookie leg man. I’ve got supervisory duties to attend to. I’ve planned a reorganization. And then there’s the new man I shall have to break into my old job!”

  “But what if we crack the case and put a lid on the messy business right off?”

  Gallup only looked out the window of the speeding police car at the busy London street.

  “Anyhow, feel lucky that you won’t have to work for Cummings but just this once.”

  “Only the idea that this killer, whoever he is, is working on a pattern cheers me at the moment.”

  At Heathrow, a Shannon-bound jet had been held up and was awaiting them. On the way down the aisle toward first class, McGarr ordered double whiskeys from a passing stewardess.

  THREE

  MIDAFTERNOON in late spring, the sprawling runways of poured concrete were bare. From above they looked like intersecting shuffleboards built for a giant. McGarr noted the clusters of buildings—light manufacturing and assembly plants, warehouses, and worker residence units—which now dotted the area near the terminus. As ever, the grass below was very green, the Shannon River silver, the ocean beyond a blue that merged to black offshore.

  At the airport Garda post, McGarr and Gallup were unable to arrange for the use of a police car, since, as the lieutenant on duty told McGarr, “Of the three, two are in use, and one must remain at base in the event of an emergency.”

  McGarr looked the man straight in the eye and began smiling. He knew that the Shannon airport duty was considered to be among the softest in the country, since during the late fall, winter, and early spring very few problems arose. He wondered what sort of police business the other two automobiles could possibly be engaged in on a day like this. “This is an emergency of sorts. Ned Gallup, here,” he gestured to the Englishman, although they had introduced themselves to the lieutenant a few minutes before, “is the assistant commissioner of CID, Scotland Yard. He has flown all the way over here to investigate a matter in Dingle. He’s a busy man and must get back to his duties as soon as possible.”

  “That’s no concern of mine,” said the lieutenant. He was a wide man, young for an officer, with protrusive cheekbones that made his eyes seem sunken. His thick shock of black hair had been combed down but still bristled. “Orders are orders. The car stays put.”

  “I want the keys,” said McGarr. He looked the man straight in the eye.

  The prominent knobs on
the lieutenant’s cheeks flushed. “Well, you can’t have them and that’s that.”

  Both of the Garda patrolmen who were in the small office turned to them. One was reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. His feet were on a desk. The other was pecking out a report on a typewriter.

  McGarr turned to Gallup, “Would you wait in the car, please, Ned? I’d like to have a word with the lieutenant in private.” The Cortina patrol car was visible through the window at the rear of the office.

  “Well, goddammit!” the lieutenant shouted. “You so much as move and I’ll place you under arrest!”

  Gallup gave him a pained look and walked straight through the office and out to the car.

  The two patrolmen were standing now, and one had walked toward McGarr, who turned to them and said, “My name is Peter McGarr and I’m chief inspector of detectives, Dublin Castle. Now, obviously your lieutenant doesn’t believe me, but don’t you make that mistake too.” He pointed to one of the men. “Where are the other two police cars?”

  The man looked at the lieutenant.

  “Never mind about him,” said McGarr. “Just tell me.”

  “Well,” the man stammered, “one’s at—at home with one of the boys. His wife has a doctor’s appointment in Limerick. And the other is—”

  “Son of a—” The lieutenant spun on his heels and took two large strides to the desk. He picked up the receiver of a phone and dialed O.

  McGarr was still looking at the Garda patrolman. His small blue eyes demanded an answer.

  “Well, the truth is only the lieutenant ever uses that one. It’s new. It hasn’t yet been run in.”

  “Where is it?” McGarr turned to the window. He could only see one car out there.

  “Over in hangar B. We keep it there whenever the weather looks like it might be soft. One of the Aer Lingus boys gives her a touch with his polishing cloth now and again.”