Trinity: A Novel of Ireland

  "Won't some of the other priests miss Father Kyle?"

  "Those who know him are also my friends. Shove the hat down over your eyes . . . that's better. You make a fine-looking priest, Father Conor." Dary sucked in a deep breath. "I hope I can get through the mass without giving myself away." He opened the sacristy door and entered the chapel from the rear.

  A half mile away Sterling McDade had made through a classical tunnel and emerged in a covering of thicket by a stream. Carberry, Darren, McGovern and Gorman of Sixmilecross were behind him. McAulay and Gilroy had elected to remain.

  They were immediately snatched up into the false bottom of a hay wagon and on the way to a safe house on a farm outside of Abbeyleix.

  At that moment Conor Larkin walked through the front gate of Portlaoise Prison in the middle of twenty priests.

  END OF PART SIX

  PART SEVEN

  A Terrible Beauty

  CHAPTER ONE

  Brigadier Maxwell Swan arrived at Hubble Manor in grim consort with Warren Wellman Herd. After brief amenities they locked up with Lord Roger in the library, arrayed before the great marble fireplace beneath the portrait of King William of Orange, site of a thousand Hubble ponderings and decisions down through their generations.

  W. W. Herd was unimpressively thin and drab, an appearance that belied his mastery of his craft, a silken private investigator. Until lured into the Hubble-Weed combine, he had earned a lucrative income by fixing scandals for scoundrels. Swan had to offer him a small ransom to wean him away, but he had proved he was worth every quid in the past seven years.

  Sir Frederick had often been enraged and humiliated by competitors getting a jump on him either by an invention he should have invented or by some ingenious marketing. It occurred "to Sir Frederick that there should be some manner by which he could obtain advance knowledge of the competition's thinking. W. W. Herd responded to the problem famously. Setting up a small but incredibly efficient unit, he was the founder and forerunner of industrial espionage. Herd's unit had gone undetected for five years and time and again had taken the thunder out of Sir Frederick's fellow ship and rail builders. Lord Roger, likewise, was able to get his hands on a number of patents, particularly for his power looms.

  When Swan assigned Herd to a seemingly simple bit of fluff, Herd knew it carried more importance than appeared on the surface.

  Roger drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chesterfield as W. W. Herd unsnapped his briefcase and withdrew a report several pages thick.

  "You'll find that Mr. Herd has been his usual thorough self," Swan said.

  The investigator set the report on the tea table. "I'm afraid your lordship's suspicions have been fully justified," he said in a raspy sort of whisper.

  Roger allowed himself an awful sigh of resignation and took up the report. It was dated February 15, 1909, and bore a title page that read: ACTIVITIES OF MR. JEREMY HUBBLE. HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL. TWO COPIES ONLY.

  Roger set it back down without opening it. "I think we'd better have Caroline here, straight off," he said, punching the button for a servant and ordering the man to fetch her.

  The atmosphere was apparent to Caroline the instant she set foot into the library.

  "Darling, I'd like you to meet Mr. Herd, Mr. W. W. Herd."

  Caroline nodded as the little man bowed slightly.

  "Mr. Herd has been in our employ for a number of years," Maxwell Swan said.

  "In what capacity?" Caroline asked directly.

  "Some special duties regarding industrial relations," Swan evaded. Caroline knew that could cover a multitude of sins.

  "What duties?" she pressed.

  "Mr. Herd is a private investigator by trade," Roger said.

  "And what have you been investigating that brings you to Hubble Manor?"

  Roger handed his wife the report. She glanced at it, set it down and looked from one to the other. Herd knew from Lady Caroline's reputation it might be a very long afternoon.

  "Just what has Jeremy gone and done? Is he a raving deviate, a flouncy homosexual, taking opium, bribing professors, or has he run up a monumental gambling debt?"

  "No, no, no, no. Nothing of that sort," Swan said.

  "Worse," Roger interceded. "He's sleeping with a girl, a Catholic. Background: daughter of a tailor, one of eleven children, all street urchins in the Liberties. The girl herself is an illiterate, a seamstress in her father's sweatshop. We are confronted with a potentially disastrous situation. The girl might be pregnant. God knows who did it but Jeremy is taking the responsibility. So, you see, we are about to have a proper earldom now, complete with bastards."

  Roger shot off the chesterfield and fortified himself with a jolt of brandy.

  "How did you find out?" she asked.

  "I became suspicious over a number of things," Roger said, "and certainly Jeremy's past affairs of the heart wouldn't indicate a thing to the contrary. His continued absences over weekends and holidays, the dismissal of the manservant, Donaldson, whom I personally assigned to him, and other reasons led me to conclude some skulduggery was going on behind our backs."

  "I see," Caroline said, "and so you commenced a secret investigation of your son."

  "Our son," Roger corrected.

  "Did it occur to you that you might have spoken to me first?" Caroline said.

  Roger's cheek muscles flexed as he clenched his jaws. Oh, there she goes, he thought, rising to the defense of Jeremy even though he had committed the indefensible. How dare she! But why should this time be different?

  "Lord Roger was extremely upset," Swan interceded. "He didn't want to upset you as well until he was absolutely certain."

  Caroline turned from her husband to the investigator. "Just what did you find out, Mr. Herd?" she said.

  W. W. Herd cleared his throat officiously. Imparting bad news to stunned relatives afforded him his one moment in the center of the stage. "I understand how much of a shock this comes as to your ladyship."

  "No one is shocked, only curious, Mr. Herd," she said, and the investigator knew that neither he nor his profession held any favor with her. "What did you find out and how did you find it out?"

  As an air of discomfort and tension settled in, Herd stood before the portrait of King Billy, eying the guardedly distraught father and the strangely irate Countess.

  "The job itself was rather routine," he began. "As you know, your son has a flat on Merrion Square within walking distance of Trinity College. Being a rather gregarious chap, your son's digs were a social center of sorts for his chums. When he dismissed his manservant, Mr. Donaldson, whose loyalty belonged to Lord Roger, it was a dead giveaway the young gentleman wanted to be . . . well. . ."

  "Away from prying eyes?" Caroline said.

  "One might say that, yes," Herd concurred. "With Mr, Donaldson out of the way, certain activities might be pursued, unencumbered."

  "What sort of activities?" Caroline snapped.

  "Oh, the usual for university lads. Drinking parties. Sexual encounters. Being on the rugby team and otherwise popular, Jeremy generally had a crowd around him. He was generous in letting his friends borrow a room for trysts, et cetera, et, cetera et cetera."

  "Just what do you mean by et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?" Caroline said.

  "Well, er your ladyship, it's all in the report in great detail."

  "You wrote the report, Mr. Herd. I'm sure a man of your skill would remember every word."

  W. W. Herd realized that it was he who was on the carpet. Far from being distraught, the Countess was going at him like a barrister in the throes of cross-examination. He cleared his throat again, this time out of mounting uneasiness.

  "As you know, Countess, it is a large flat containing five bedrooms. His lordship's, a room for his manservant, a room for his two maids, and two spare bedrooms. Over the weekends there were numerous overnight occupancies by his gentlemen friends cohabiting with various ladies. In addition, the premises were used for the purpose of cohabitation on
occasion in the afternoons. Some one dozen times in the past several months."

  "That's interesting," Caroline mused. "How did you arrive at the figure?"

  W. W. Herd licked at dry lips.

  "You appear distressed, Mr. Herd," she said. "Should I ring for some tea or perhaps you'd care for something a bit stronger?"

  He reckoned as he could do with a drop of whiskey, took it fading from stage center and slipped to the edge of a chair and looked for help from Swan, who offered none.

  "Please continue," Caroline said.

  "I arrived at the figure quite simply. Once Mr. Donaldson had been dismissed and returned to Hubble Manor, I befriended Lord Jeremy's new manservant, a Mr. Wordlock, as well as the two live-in maids."

  "By befriending them, you mean you put them on your payroll."

  Again Herd looked to Swan for respite.

  "That's right," the Brigadier answered.

  "And in that manner you were able to get an accurate count, or should I say, body count," Caroline said.

  The investigator nodded.

  "And Jeremy's friends were more or less lads from good families. Ascendancy people."

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Whose families might be a bit upset if they knew their sons were being watched."

  Herd held up his hand quickly to piously defend his professional honor. "I can assure you that everything, but everything, is entirely secret and only two reports exist."

  "And you're equally certain the maids will never discuss any of this . . . body counting."

  "They are sworn to secrecy," he said, but crimsoned as he did.

  "What about the girls doing the how do you put it, cohabiting?"

  "Therein lies the problem," Herd said.

  "Whores?"

  "Uh, no, m'lady, not exactly. You see, a number of them were Catholics."

  "Does that alarm you or surprise you in any way, Mr. Herd?" Caroline asked.

  "I have no opinions," Herd answered. "I merely investigate and report my findings."

  "What were your findings?"

  "Well, some of the girls lived about Trinity or worked in places college students would frequent."

  "Loose?"

  "Yes, some of them."

  "And perhaps other girls were having their first affair or were deeply in love. And perhaps, Mr. Herd, some of the couples were secretly married?"

  The tic which W. W. Herd had mastered suddenly began to act up after a decade of silence, and his left eye twitched out of control. "Your ladyship, I must protest. I have no personal interest and no quarrel with anyone."

  "Aren't you going a bit hard on Mr. Herd?" Swan said.

  "I'm sorry," Caroline said. "Of course you were only doing your job, isn't that right?"

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Let me get it all straight. In the past few years Jeremy has become popular with his mates at Trinity, has had drinking parties in his flat and has allowed some lesser endowed chums to use the place to have an occasional romp in the sheets."

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Sort of the normal thing one might expect from a normal healthy college boy in his circumstances," Caroline said.

  "Although I don't give opinions, I would agree to that," Herd said.

  "You wouldn't call it a sporting house?"

  "Nothing of that sort, m'lady."

  "And being a thorough chap, you investigated Jeremy's studies, I presume, and you found that he applied himself rather diligently and did not go to bribing teachers or seek to cheat by getting his work done by honor students."

  "I found nothing of that sort."

  Roger watched the performance with growing but contained fury. At a number of points he was about to break in and call it off but decided to let Caroline complete her game and not create one scene on top of another. Yet he wished she would show a bit more anger over what Jeremy had done and get a little less pleasure out of tormenting Mr. Herd.

  "Now then, Mr. Herd," Caroline continued, "I should like to know about this girl Jeremy is mixed up with."

  At this point Herd wanted to hold the report in his hand but he knew the Countess was not going to permit it. Resigned that he'd have to go through it step by step, he withdrew a small notebook from an inner pocket and worked on a pair of eyeglasses.

  "The girl's name is Molly O'Rafferty. She is one of seven daughters and eleven children of one Bernard O'Rafferty, proprietor of a tailoring establishment on Duke Street, about two blocks away from Trinity College."

  "Did I understand you to say the man owns his own business?"

  "Yes, m'lady. The establishment has been in business over twenty years and is extremely popular for attiring the young gentlemen at Trinity."

  "Is it a profitable business?"

  "Quite," Herd said, flipping the pages of his notebook to support his statement.

  Maxwell Swan had his icy eyes fixed on Caroline. He had known her since she was a young girl and watched with fascination as she built a case in behalf of her son. He wondered what her private scene with Roger would be like when she had polished Herd off. Roger and Sir Frederick might well win the fight against the girl but if they earned Caroline's wrath in the process it could be a costly victory.

  "Ah, here it is," Herd said, clearing his throat one more time. "O'Rafferty is netting well over three thousand a year. He's trained all of his children as tailors and seamstresses. The business is run as a family enterprise. A high-class cottage industry, one might say. The work is creditable by Irish standards. Seems that he takes them into the trade once they finish their schooling."

  "Did I understand you to say schooling?"

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Not meaning to contradict my husband, but they are educated then?"

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "How much education?"

  "Well, the girls have received from a minimum of four up to eight years of schooling."

  "Private?"

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Convent?"

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "And the boys?"

  "One graduated from Maynooth. He's a priest now in Kilkenny. Of the other three . . . let me see . . . yes, they've all completed schooling up to college."

  "Are they all in the business?"

  "No, m'lady. In addition to the priest, one owns an establishment in London and another has emigrated to Chicago. He also owns his own business. The remaining son, Bernard, Jr., acts as manager and heir apparent to the business here in Dublin."

  "And the seven girls?"

  "Five are married and two have brought their husbands into the business. Molly and the younger girl, who is still in school, are unmarried."

  "All told, then, the O'Rafferty family is a responsible, educated, prosperous and respectable family."

  "I don't give opinions but one would conclude that."

  "Then Bernard O'Rafferty is not a typical feckless, lazy Irishman, not one who drinks or gambles his money away."

  "No, m'lady, he doesn't even have a bookmaker."

  "Or a wretched home in the Liberties?" Caroline said like a well-fired shot.

  "No, m'lady, they've quite a proper address in Harold's Cross."

  Roger burst out of his seat. "We appreciate your thoroughness, Caroline, but I fail to see what this has to do with the problem."

  "But, darling," she answered softly, "it was you who initiated this investigation and up to now I'm not quite sure what the problem is. Please go on, Mr. Herd."

  Roger sank back to the chair ashen-faced as a telling silence turned on him. Could it be possible, imaginable, that Caroline was going to approve of this disaster?

  "Please go on, Mr. Herd," Caroline repeated. "Tell me about the girl."

  At that instant she softened visibly, staring out past the long high stacks of books to the great stained glass at the far end of the library as the sun empowered its colors.

  Herd played with his notebook, scanning a handwriting so small as to be nearly unreadable. "Here we go. She stands five feet
and two and a half inches in height. Her weight is . . ."

  "No, no," Caroline interrupted. "Just tell me what your impression of her would be if she walked into the library this moment."

  For the first time W. W. Herd seemed humanized and without his burden of office. "I would say she is quite beautiful. Yes, ravishingly so."

  "When did Jeremy meet her?"

  "Seventeen months ago. There's a students' pub on the banks of the Liffey called the Lord Sarsfield. Molly O'Rafferty sings ballads there in the evenings. She is extremely popular."

  "Nice voice?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I'd go into the Sarsfield myself now and again just to listen to her," he said, speaking with touches of intimacy.

  "How old was she when she met Jeremy?"

  "Sixteen."

  "With a reputation for sleeping around?"

  "No."

  "You investigated that thoroughly, did you not? Was she a virgin when my son took her?"

  "As far as I can ascertain."

  "And in the months they've been living together has she slept with any other men?"

  Herd balked. He knew where his duties lay but he knew as well he'd better not play the Countess for a fool. "No, m'lady, she has not," he said, turning his eyes down from Swan and Lord Roger.

  "I know you don't like to venture opinions, Mr. Herd, but would you say that Jeremy and Molly O'Rafferty are truly in love?"

  "Just a moment," Roger interrupted. "That sort of thing is entirely out of Mr. Herd's domain. I have been extremely patient, Caroline, and I know exactly what you have been getting at I think these things had best be discussed between you and me privately. Is there really anything further you need ask that you can't find in the report?"

  "Just one more thing," Caroline said. "There is a suspicion that this girl is pregnant. How do you know?"

  Herd paled.

  "Can I find it in the report?" Caroline asked.

  "No," he rasped.

  "I'm waiting for an answer."

  "I prefer not to divulge this information. Brigadier Swan will attest to my loyalty to your family, Countess, but as a private investigator there are means of ascertaining information that must remain strictly confidential."