Powerscourt found himself praying that Richard Butler would keep his mouth shut. His prayers were answered. ‘I need time to think about that suggestion, Powerscourt. It has merit, I can certainly see that. I thank you for it. What do you think are the chances of the intelligence people finding the thieves? Evens? Three to one against? Worse?’
‘Difficult to say, Ormonde,’ Powerscourt replied, remembering a commanding officer’s advice that when the time came to blow your own trumpet you didn’t pussyfoot around but gave it as big a blast as you could manage. ‘I have been involved in intelligence work in India and I was sent out by the Prime Minister in person to reorganize the supply of military intelligence for the British forces in the early stages of the Boer War. And I had dealings with the gentlemen from Dublin Castle in an affair at the time of the Queen’s Jubilee which must remain secret to this day. I have a great deal of respect for the Dublin Castle men. If anybody can locate these thieves, they can.’
‘Didn’t realize you had all that military experience, Powerscourt,’ Ormonde said, rising from his seat and beginning to pace up and down his dining room as the remains of the pudding were cleared away. Up and down he went, Powerscourt and Richard Butler sitting as stiff as they could, like children playing a game of statues. At last he spoke.
‘I’ll do it, Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it with one condition. Can we set a time limit for the intelligence people? Can’t stand hanging about waiting for other people to do things myself, makes me nervous. If they haven’t solved it in a given time limit, I bring in my Orangemen. What do you say?’
‘What do you say,’ Powerscourt replied quickly, ‘to the time limit?’
‘A week,’ said Ormonde, ‘would a week be satisfactory, from your experience of military intelligence?’
‘A week would be splendid,’ said Powerscourt, relieved that the man hadn’t asked for forty-eight hours.
‘Done,’ said Ormonde, his mood lightening. ‘Now then, what do you say to a walk in the grounds? Or we could take one of my boats out for a sail round the bay? Would you like to stay the night?’
‘I would be delighted to stay the night,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but I have left my wife behind at Butler’s Court and she has only just arrived in the country.’
‘You should have brought her with you,’ Ormonde was the genial host now, ‘she could have kept my wife company. Always keeps well out of my way, the wife, when I’m in a mood. She calls them my Attila the Hun days. But you will bring her with you when you come back to confer with the intelligence people, won’t you?’
Nothing, Powerscourt assured him, would give him greater pleasure. At Westport railway station he eluded Richard Butler for a moment and had a brief conversation with the stationmaster. Westport and the neighbouring parishes, the railway man assured him, were part of the Archbishopric of Tuam whose current incumbent was His Grace the Most Reverend Dr John Healy, resident in the Archbishop’s Palace, Cathedral Street, Tuam, County Galway.
7
Lord Francis Powerscourt was sitting in the Butler library, staring intently at a sheet of writing paper. In ten minutes’ time Lady Lucy and Johnny Fitzgerald were coming for tea and barm brack and a conversation about the way forward. It was difficult, he thought, to write a letter when you couldn’t say what you meant. It was a contradiction in terms. Maybe he should have learnt Morse Code.
‘Your Grace,’ he began, for his correspondent was none other than the mighty prelate Dr John Healy, Archbishop of Tuam, ‘I am writing to you on a matter of the gravest importance which could have dire consequences for your flock and for the politics of this country. I am reluctant to divulge any of the details in this letter.’ Powerscourt was sure the man would know what he meant. ‘I am an investigator, currently working on a case here in Ireland. In the past I have given service to the household of the Prince of Wales and to the previous Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. I fear I must emphasize not only the gravity but the urgency of this matter. I believe the situation could turn very serious very soon. I would be most grateful if you could grant me an audience’ – did one ask for an audience or an interview with an archbishop? Just have to take a chance – ‘at your earliest convenience where I could lay the matter before you with all the details. I do hope you will be able to help, for your help, I firmly believe, could be pivotal. My apologies for such an importunate request, Yours, Powerscourt.’ He wondered if there was some special formula you had to insert at the end of ecclesiastical correspondence as if you were writing letters in the French language, but there was no time to find out.
‘I’ve been taking the lie of the land, as you might say.’ Johnny Fitzgerald was munching his way happily through his third slice of barm brack and butter. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy smiled at each other. Taking the lie of the land for Johnny usually meant spending a lot of time in the local pubs. ‘It’s not bad, MacSwiggin’s down in the square, though they start singing very early in the evening if you ask me. Anyway, the power in the land is that grocer man Mulcahy with his shop very near the hotel. It’s not the bread and ham that make his fortune, it’s the loans. Fall behind with your rent, Mulcahy’s your man. Need some ready cash to marry off a daughter and give her a dowry, the Grocer’s Bank has the answer. I don’t think he’d lend you money to bet on the horses but I wouldn’t be surprised. One fellow said Mulcahy had more money circulating, as he put it, than the Bank of Ireland.’
‘Are you allowed to set yourself up as a moneylender like that, Johnny?’ Lady Lucy asked.
‘This is Ireland,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald. ‘Ask no questions, hear no lies.’
‘Any word about the paintings at all?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘I’m coming to that,’ said Johnny. ‘I’ve absolutely no doubt that they all know something is going on, but the rumour factory has been working well. It’s the stout, I’ve always believed that stout makes people exaggerate things. One old boy, sitting under the Blessed Virgin Mary all evening and not moving an inch, claimed it was the furniture that had gone. All of it. There’s not a chair to sit on or a table to eat your bread off in the whole of Butler’s Court. He was certain of it. Another fellow maintained it was just the table in the dining room and the big mirrors that had been taken. Said it had been lifted to order for some coal merchant in Dublin who wanted antique stuff to furnish his new house. This theory didn’t take any account of the other robberies – maybe they went for the drawing-room furniture at Connolly’s and the beds from Moore Castle. Word of Ormonde House hasn’t reached them yet, which is surprising seeing that news usually travels faster than the railways round here.’
‘And the Orangemen? Any word of the Orangemen?’ Powerscourt wondered what they would make of that in the snug in MacSwiggin’s Hotel and Bar.