I went to the front desk to retrieve, from safekeeping, what we were calling the Master List, and added the Boar's Head clue to it, then studied it for a while. I took a fresh piece of paper, drew a line down the middle, and marked one column Amairgen 's Song and the other Ogham clues, and looked at what we had.
AMAIRGEN'S SONG
OGHAM CLUES
It was all rather baffling. The ogham clues didn't seem to have anything in common with the lines of the poem, other than that the clues in the poem had led to their discovery. Was there supposed to be a direct relationship? I didn't know. It seemed to me that it was possible that the first ogham clue referred to a real place. What of the rest? Almu's white to Maeve's red sounded like a board game to me, White Queen or something to Red whatever. I assumed that Maeve wasn't Garda Maeve Minogue, although I had absolutely no basis for thinking that. Maeve, I knew, had been an ancient Celtic queen.
Three of the ogham clues had a something-to-something-else pattern, again perhaps directions, but the trouble was I didn't know what, or where, any of these things were. Stones were big, that was certain. The clues irritated me: they were either coy or the product of someone who thought he knew a whole lot more than the rest of us. I felt I was being toyed with and by a dead man at that. But I did acknowledge, reluctantly, that had the circumstances been different, that is, had the family and the rest of us been working together amicably, this might have been fun. But whose fault was it they didn't?
A curse be on Eamon Byrne, I thought, rather uncharitably, which led me right back to what Deirdre had said and to the other hints about something bad in the past that no one would tell me. I understood their reticence. Really, why should they tell a total stranger, and one from far away, their worst secrets? This was the Dingle, after all, a wild and relatively remote place with its own ways. Even in Ireland, I suspected, it would be regarded as someplace different: the Gael-tacht, the Gaelic-speaking part of Ireland, a throwback in an ail-too modern world. But it was frustrating nonetheless.
I decided that maybe we really would have to come at this several different ways. Malachy, Kevin, and Jennifer could search for more clues. Alex I'd send on another research project, to the local library, or wherever, to begin to identify the names in the ogham clues. Myself, I thought I'd do a little poking around in Eamon Byrne's past. After all, we had the time. We were stuck here for a while as the murder investigation marked its stately course. Currently, we were awaiting the possible exhumation of John Heriihy to check for poison in his system, an outcome I didn't doubt for a minute.
Rob, I thought, was perfectly happy to stay indefinitely. He'd managed to convince his superiors on the force back home to lend him to the local authorities for a while, a stroke of good fortune, according to Rob, as it meant he'd be paid while he was here. I rather thought he would consider it a stroke of good fortune for other reasons, but held my tongue. Jennifer was only too happy to be able to stay a little longer. While Rob had initially objected to her taking sailing lessons from Padraig Gilhooly, who he reasoned was part of a murder investigation, I'd persuaded him to lighten up a little, there being no evidence whatsoever to implicate Padraig. Several of Paddy's chums had attested to his presence at their favorite watering hole the afternoon the Will was being read and the evening Michael had died. His landlady-he had a flat in town-claimed to have heard him come in shortly after closing time, not to leave again till morning. In any event, Jennifer loved her sailing lessons, was beginning to make some friends in town, and had really blossomed, not nearly the shy and rather immature person I'd arrived with. Alex was his normal calm self.
The only problem for me was the shop, and I was starting to fret about it. Sarah didn't seem terribly perturbed when I told her my return had been delayed, saying that Clive was being very helpful. This development I found disturbing. What exactly was Clive, the rat, up to, I wondered. I decided I'd go up to the room before the others came back so I could phone my friend, and Clive's new partner, Moira, to assess the situation without having to admit I was worried. I hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, then turned back to put the Master List under lock and key once again at the front desk. I felt sort of silly doing this: carrying around my cash and credit cards, but locking up a piece of paper, but right from the start, I'd decided to be safe rather than sorry.
A good thing it was too. I opened the door to Jennifer's and my room, and my jaw dropped. If I needed confirmation that we weren't the only ones in this treasure hunt, I had it. The place was a shambles. The room had been thoroughly searched. The mattresses had been lifted and pushed against a wall, the carpet tossed in a heap in a corner; the drawers were all open and contents dumped; our suitcases had been lifted down from the shelf in the cupboard, opened and dropped as well. Even the bathroom had been searched. It looked as if every packet in my cosmetic bag had been opened.
Conail again, I wondered, or worse yet, Breeta? As much as I didn't like to think it, I had told her that very afternoon that we had several clues back at the Inn. At peak time in the bar, the residential part of the Inn was pretty much left untended. The front door of that part of the Inn was kept locked, but to someone who knew their way around the place, it would be easy enough to get in, through the kitchen, or the entrance off the bar. I'd given her plenty of time while I'd moped around the bar, licking my wounds after her accusations.
Shocked, I just stood there staring at the mess. Eventually I became conscious of footsteps coming up the stairs and two familiar voices.
"It's my money," Jennifer said. "You said so. You said I could do whatever I wanted with it."
"No daughter of mine," Rob began as they rounded the corner and stopped dead at the open door. Jennifer gasped.
Two thoughts came into my mind at that moment. One was that Rob was just being an old poop where Jennifer was concerned, and I was going to tell him so. The second was that it was time I saw a little more of Ireland.
We stood silently in the doorway for a moment or two.
"Ffuts ym gnihcuot mucs etah I," Jennifer said at last.
"Oot em," I agreed.
Chapter Nine. A SALMON IN A POOL
DEIRDRE almost dropped the tea tray when she saw me. And a shame it would have been too, as it would have fallen on an exquisite antique Aubusson carpet, and dashed to pieces some very fine porcelain cups. I suppose it might actually have cost her her job, the obsession of her new employer being what it was.
While nobody in these parts talks about it much, there was a period of time when Dublin was the second city of the British Empire, rivalling, and in some ways surpassing, London in grandeur and conspicuous consumption. London had its Thames, Dublin its Liffey, both cities taking advantage of strategic maritime positions to ensure a vibrant trade in goods from the far-flung reaches of the Empire, and in Dublin's case, a corresponding outflow of its magnificent craftsmanship, silver, porcelain, glass, and textiles, to grace stately English homes across the Irish sea.