David Dickinson - Death on the Holy Mountain

Two days later Powerscourt was back in Butler’s Court, reading another letter from the art dealer Michael Hudson. ‘You will be as astonished as I was to hear of the response to our advertisements in the Irish newspapers. So far we have had eighty-seven replies! When Mr Farrell has inspected them I will let you have further details. Unfortunately not one of them is on your lists. It may be that the thieves did not steal them in order to sell them on. It may be that they are biding their time. In my experience thieves are usually anxious to dispose of their booty at the earliest possible opportunity. Yours etc.’

Powerscourt laughed out loud. For all their protestations about their devotion to their ancestors, the Anglo-Irish were queuing up to sell their forebears for American dollars in great numbers. There might, he thought, be more to come when word about the high prices travelled round the thirty-two counties. The answer to his problem did not lie with selling the stolen paintings.

He had met with the land agent in Athlone earlier that day and been given a report very similar to the one he had received in Galway. Some of these Protestant patricians, he had been told, were so happy with the Wyndham bonus that they were even building new houses for themselves, though little thought appeared to have been given to how they were to be maintained. What they ought to have done, the agent from Athlone had informed him, was to invest the proceeds from the sales in sensible stock and maintain their standard of living from the income, but that had little appeal. One single man from Tralee was believed to be working his way through the proceeds of the Wyndham Act at the gambling tables of Monte Carlo. The name Mulcahy produced the same instant frisson of recognition as it had done in Eyre Square but no details of his dealings could be extracted. Powerscourt had also met with Inspector Harkness to co-ordinate the final arrangements of his investigation. ‘If this works,’ he told the Inspector, ‘we’ll be heroes, temporary kings for twenty-four hours. If it fails we’ll be humiliated.’

Powerscourt filled Lady Lucy in with the details in the Butler’s Court gardens late on the Sunday afternoon. ‘At nine o’clock tomorrow morning, my love, Inspector Harkness and a team of eight men, all from areas remote from here in case of leaks, are going to search Mulcahy’s premises. If that fails, they’ll try his house. If that fails they’ll try the priest’s place. I’d love to see Father O’Donovan Brady’s face when they start ripping his house apart.’

‘Is all this legal, Francis? Can you actually raid those places?’

‘Oh, yes, Lucy,’ replied her husband, ‘the Inspector has got search warrants falling out of every pocket in his suit. And, at the same time, exactly the same time so there can be no tip-offs, another party of police, escorted by Johnny Fitzgerald, is going to raid the offices of the solicitor brother Declan Mulcahy in Swinford. His speciality is land and he is believed, Johnny said in his note, to have parcels of land coming out of his ears. Johnny also tells me that there is some mass grave over there from famine times with over five hundred and fifty souls in the ground but our boy Declan isn’t going to starve. Not by any means. There’s property and land and prize cattle in his empire apparently, and it’s growing by the hour.’

‘Are you sure you’re right?’ Lady Lucy looked worried suddenly.

Powerscourt smiled and took her hand. ‘We’ll find out tomorrow. Let’s go and see what’s on the menu this evening, Lucy. But, please, don’t breathe a word of any of this to anybody. If a whisper of a rumour goes down the hill, we’re sunk.’

Lord Francis Powerscourt slept badly that night. In his dreams he watched as grave Anglo-Irish gentlemen walked out of the frames on their walls, sat down at their dining tables and demanded food. He saw another empty beach where the sandcastles were being washed away by the tide. He found himself in an enormous throng of persons walking very slowly through the streets of Dublin. He thought they might be mourners at Parnell’s funeral, but he had lost Lady Lucy and the press of people was so great he could not break out to find her. He was locked again in the red velvet of the Ormonde carriage, Johnny Fitzgerald by his side. They seemed to be hurtling down a hill with no coachman on top to halt their progress. He knew without being able to see them that there were rocks and boulders at the bottom. Just when he felt they were certain to crash into them and perish, he woke up and grabbed hold of Lady Lucy who muttered to him sleepily that they were on the first floor of Butler’s Court and the birds were already singing outside. It promised to be a beautiful day.

Shortly after half past eight Powerscourt set out to walk down to the main square. He told Richard Butler that he would like to see him about half past ten, if that was convenient, nothing important, he assured his host, just a couple of pieces of routine administration for his accounts. Lady Lucy followed him about fifteen minutes later. She did not go all the way to the bottom but seated herself on a bench halfway down the hill. She had brought a book of poetry to keep her company if the wait proved long. At precisely nine o’clock Inspector Harkness and a sergeant from Longford called Murphy marched their men into the main square of Butler’s Cross. At three minutes past they were lined up outside the front entrance to the emporium of Mulcahy and Sons, Grocery and Bar. The rest of the square was empty except for a stray dog who limped along the road by Horkan’s the agricultural supply people. MacSwiggin’s Hotel did not begin to serve breakfast to its clients until ten o’clock except in cases of emergency. There was one customer in the shop already, an old lady preparing to pay for a couple of slices of bacon and half a dozen eggs. Sergeant Murphy escorted her gently to the front door and closed it firmly behind her.

‘Pronsias Mulcahy!’ said Inspector Harkness in his best Ulster accent. ‘I have a licence to search these premises. You are to wait outside in the square. One of my men will accompany you. If you attempt to flee you will be transported immediately to Athlone Jail.’

‘You can’t do this to me, you northern bastard,’ Mulcahy spat, ‘this is my shop! You’ve no rights here!’

‘Oh, but we do, Mr Mulcahy,’ Harkness replied, waving the search warrant in his face. ‘Now I suggest you go outside and wait quietly. I should let you know,’ he added cheerfully, ‘that we have a warrant to search your house as well. Any misbehaviour and we’ll be in there too, tearing up the floorboards and poking about in your attics. Now get out!’

A burly constable escorted Mulcahy out of his premises. A chair was provided for him to sit down by his own front door. Harkness’s men began working their way methodically through the main shop, peering behind the backs of cupboards, tapping regularly on the walls. Powerscourt headed straight for the back office where Mulcahy did his accounts among the hams hanging from the ceiling and the barrels of stout awaiting final delivery to the bar. He picked up the three books where Mulcahy kept note of his business. He discarded the two concerning the grocery and the bar and took the third, the blue one concerning the loans, out into the open air where he could get a better view.

‘That’s private!’ yelled Mulcahy. ‘That’s mine! You can’t steal that, you fecking traitor!’

‘You just shut up, you!’ said the burly constable, giving the grocer a hefty clip round the ear. ‘Any more disturbances and you’re off to jail.’

It was not yet ten past nine. Powerscourt was to tell Lady Lucy afterwards that he had no idea how it was summoned, but a crowd was already gathering outside Mulcahy’s. It could not have been the old lady’s doing for she lived next door and spoke to nobody on her brief return journey. Two Delaney solicitors were there, muttering to the constable about habeas corpus and due process and whatever else they could think of at that hour in the morning. Father O’Donovan Brady had arrived, the buttons on his soutane not all fastened, escorted by a group of young men with hurling sticks. Two bleary-eyed drovers had tottered out of MacSwiggin’s Hotel and were sitting in the sunshine, watching the proceedings with great interest. Father O’Donovan Brady began a prayer for the afflicted one in his hour of need until told to shut up by the constable, this wasn’t his church and it wasn’t bloody Sunday morning either, so it wasn’t. The stray dog too had heard the summons, calling two more of its kind to patrol the periphery of the crowd. Every few minutes another figure would amble into the square to look at Pronsias Mulcahy, who had so much influence in the little community, sitting on a chair, virtually under house arrest, while the constabulary searched his premises. Then a group of women appeared and began shouting insults at the constable until Inspector Harkness poked his head round the door and told them they would all be charged with a breach of the King’s peace if they did not keep quiet.