David Dickinson - Death of a Pilgrim

Powerscourt had been in real fights in real battles that were much worse than this. But he knew that for his own self-respect he could not let these insults pass.

‘You’re perfectly entitled to your opinion, Mr Delaney, of course you are. But let me tell you this. I may not have caught the murderer yet but I am absolutely certain of one thing. If you had told me the truth about your activities in the past and the enemies you have made throughout your long life in business, the careers you have broken, the men you have destroyed, then I am sure the murderer would have been apprehended by now. Your actions, maybe so far back in the past you have almost forgotten them, are what lie behind these terrible deaths, I’m sure of it. Think about it, Mr Delaney. If there is anything you wish to tell me, I shall be in the next carriage. Good morning to you.’

Delaney picked up his cigar and blew a great cloud of smoke at Powerscourt’s retreating back as if it were a flamethrower. He stared moodily out of the window.

Powerscourt found he was shaking slightly as he told Lady Lucy and Johnny what had happened.

‘Bloody man,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘Maybe the murderer will sort him out. Serve him damn well right, being rude to Francis.’

‘That’s a little uncharitable, Johnny,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘We shouldn’t wish anybody dead, I’m sure, not even Mr Delaney. You’ll survive, my love, you’ve survived much worse before.’

‘Well,’ said her husband, ‘it was a lot better than being stuck in that wine vat, I can tell you.’

The Inspector arrived in search of an interpreter. Powerscourt suggested Lady Lucy should accompany him. The pilgrims might open up more with the wife than they would with the husband. Maggie Delaney had been befriended by two young pilgrims, Jack O’Driscoll and Christy Delaney. They had come to feel sorry for her, usually left on her own, with nobody to talk to apart from the interminable rosary beads. They had been teaching her card games, snap and gin rummy and pontoon. The elderly lady showed a remarkable talent for poker, bluffing her way to victory, her suspicious old eyes never giving anything away.

Powerscourt himself returned to Michael Delaney, Robber Baron . He had reached page forty-five without any revelations that might make a victim commit murder. His right hand fiddled with the paper knife as he read on.

Inspector Leger and Lady Lucy realized after two or three conversations that the pilgrims were still not going to cooperate. Jack O’Driscoll muttered that he was going to write all this up in his newspaper when he reached home. Charlie Flanagan was working on another wooden carving as he spoke to them, punctuating his answers with deft strokes of his knife that set alarm bells ringing in the Inspector’s brain. Yes, they had been in the cloisters. Yes, they had been crushed up against the walls when the seminarians came. No, they had not seen anybody leave to go up to the upper chamber. No, they had not seen Girvan Connolly at all. That didn’t mean he wasn’t there, just that that they hadn’t seen him. That was all they could remember. Yes, they had been in the cloisters. Yes, they had been crushed up against the walls when the seminarians came. Pilgrim after pilgrim repeated exactly the same story in the same words, with the same air of prisoners being interrogated by a hostile power. Lady Lucy could see how united they had become, bonds formed in adversity, together against the foe that was depriving them of decent beds and a glass or two of beer in the evening. They were besieged, Lady Lucy felt, huddled together inside the thick walls of the ruined French castles that were so frequent in these parts. They would parley with the enemy heralds but they would not come out and they would not surrender.

Inspector Leger checked his hair again on the way back to the Powerscourt carriage. It was hopeless. Just a couple of days, he said to himself, and he could return home to Lucille and the vegetable patch he tended with such care. Lucille was hopeless with crops, they always went wrong when he wasn’t there.

They found Powerscourt in a state of considerable excitement. He had reached page eighty-six of the book and thought he might be on to something. He explained the complicated history of Michael Delaney, Robber Baron to the Inspector.

‘Now then,’ he put the book in his lap, ‘how about this. I’m not sure how long ago all this was, the author has forgotten to put a date on it, but it must be way back in the past. I won’t read all the relevant passages, we’d be here all day. Michael Delaney owns a small railroad leading out of the city into upstate New York. It’s nothing special. But he realizes that if he could get his hands on another line, they would complement each other and make a great deal of money. This other line belongs to a man called Wharton, James Joseph Wharton. Why don’t we amalgamate the two lines, says Delaney. We’ll both be better off. I think this Wharton may have inherited the business from his father. He was a bookish sort of fellow, apparently, not sharp like Delaney, spent a lot of time in the New York Public Library. Anyway, Delaney says he’ll handle the paperwork, sort everything out for the new company that’s going to own the lines. The only thing is, he puts all the shares in his name. Wharton only finds out after the new company has been floated on the New York Stock Exchange. By then it’s too late.

‘He hires some lawyers, as Americans always do. But they aren’t very good lawyers. Delaney hires better ones. Delaney always does. He swears Wharton agreed to let him put all the shares in his name. Delaney wins. Wharton has lost his livelihood. Listen to what the author says about his fate: “Deprived of his livelihood by the rapacious frauds of one he supposed a friend for life, bereft of funds to support his wife and son, he turned for solace and consolation where so many have turned in times of trouble and tribulation, to the temptations of the demon drink.”’ Powerscourt looked up at Johnny Fitzgerald and shook his head sadly. ‘“Wharton’s health, never strong even in the good times, began to decline. He was banned from the New York Public Library after being sick over a rare volume concerned with the early settlements in Virginia. He began to have hallucinations and blackouts, the punishment sent by nature for alcohol abuse. Had the unfortunate man seen sense and taken the pledge, even at this late stage, as his priest and his wife continually urged him, he might yet have been saved. There was a young son whose early impressions of fathers were of people who fell down the stairs and smelt bad. The house had to be sold to pay for the drinking. The family moved into humbler accommodation where Winifred, the wife, who thought she was marrying upwards into a higher social class, felt ashamed of her position. When she discovered that the money she thought was destined to pay the rent was going to the liquor store instead, she left him and went back to her mother. Three days after that, James Joseph Wharton blew his brains out. Only three people attended the funeral at a pauper’s grave. Michael Delaney was not one of them.”’

‘Does he say what became of the boy, Francis?’ Lady Lucy leaned forward to stare at her husband. ‘Did the mother marry again? Would the boy have a different name now?’

‘The book doesn’t say, Lucy. That’s the end of a chapter. The next one deals with matters a few years later. It may come up further on in the book but I doubt it. What do you think of it as a motive for murder, though?’

‘Well,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘it’d be fine as a motive for killing Delaney, but he’s still here.’

‘Maybe’, said the Inspector, thoughtfully, ‘he nurses a grudge, hatred, not just for Delaney but for all the members of his clan. But without a name it is very difficult.’