Chapter 31
Christmas came and went without incident, and on Monday Sidney and I set out again for Finglas, northwest of Dublin.
We parked the Pierce-Arrow a few streets away from the former nursemaid’s home this time and walked the rest of the way.
We were debating strategies to convince the granddaughter to allow us to visit Mrs. Brennan when, as luck would have it, we spied the granddaughter just stepping out of the house as we came striding down the street.
We swiftly diverted our path, waiting for her to pass us, and then retraced our steps to her door.
We had to wait sometime after knocking, but eventually we heard the shuffle of feet across the floor. “Can I help ye?” a soft voice asked us as the door cracked open and an elderly woman peered out.
I wasn’t entirely sure how old she was, but she’d definitely led a hard life.
Wrinkles wreathed her face, and what teeth she’d once possessed were now all lost, making her lips sink in around her mouth.
This affected her pronunciations, but the musical lilt of her voice still remained.
I imagined what a soothing sound it must have been to Ardmore as a child.
“Are you Mrs. Brennan?” I offered her a warm smile.
“We’re friends of Lord Ardmore.” I was gambling that her granddaughter hadn’t informed her of our earlier visit or that Ardmore had paid her to keep us away.
I suspected her granddaughter wouldn’t have wished to worry her—or have her argue to the contrary—and Mrs. Brennan’s answering smile seemed to suggest I was correct.
“Oh, come in, come in,” she urged, pushing the door wider. “You’ll have to excuse me. I don’t get around as well as I used to.”
“Can I take your arm?” I offered.
“Oh, what a dear! Thank ye. And how is Eddy? Oh, but he doesn’t like me callin’ him that now that he’s all grown.”
“Well, he’s not here right now, so you call him what you like,” I replied impishly.
She laughed, patting my hand as she guided us into the next room with her shuffling steps. “I can see why you’re friends. Did he tell me ye were comin’?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Sidney. “Not unless he’s visited you in the last week.”
“Naw, I don’t think so.” She seemed confused, and I began to fear her recollection might not be trustworthy enough to tell us what we needed to know.
However, we soon discovered it was only her recent memory that caused her difficulty, while she seemed able to recall events from forty and fifty years ago with perfect clarity.
We had reached her chair, and I helped her to settle into it. She sighed. “Now, what brings ye to old Nanny Bridget’s door?”
Here came the tricky part. “We’re hosting a party in Eddy’s honor.
You know his fiftieth birthday is fast approaching?
And we hoped to include some memories from his childhood, but he’s rather reticent to talk about it.
You’re just about the only person he’s mentioned.
” I was lying through my teeth at this point, but Mrs. Brennan didn’t appear to notice.
Instead, she shook her head sadly. “Aye. I’m afraid his childhood was not a very happy one.
Though his grandparents did the best by him they could.
” She leaned forward as if to impart a secret.
“His mother was wild, ye see. Always goin’ to dinners and parties and such.
’Twasn’t much of a mother, if ye ask me, though I know I’m not supposed to say it.
But no one is around anymore to scold me for it.
” Her defiance softened to grief. “I’m the last of us left. ”
“And Ardmore’s father?” I asked.
Her face screwed up in a scowl. “A terrible man.” She leaned forward again. “He hated us, ye know. The Irish.” She paused as if just remembering we were obviously English from our accents. “You don’t, do you?”
I smiled. “No.”
She nodded, accepting my word. “Well, Lord Ardmore did. And he wanted his son to hate us, too. Though he left him here most of the year with nary a word.” She shook her head in disapproval.
“And when he did visit, all he did was ramble on and on about the greatness of the British Empire. Used every insult any of us had ever heard about us and then some. Tom and Will, the footmen, would repeat to us everythin’ they’d heard him utter at the dinner table.
” The lines at the corners of her eyes crinkled.
“But that’s all right. We used to spit in his soup. ”
I didn’t know quite how to respond to this, and apparently neither did Sidney, but she didn’t seem to need one, resuming her story as soon as she’d finished cackling.
“Where was I? Oh, aye.” She shook her head.
“Eddy, the poor lad, used to beg me not to make him go on his father’s educational outings to all the great British institutions.
The Custom House, and the military barracks, and, oh, the Castle.
Eddy hated the Castle more than anythin’ else because his father used to boast about it so. The battles and the torture …”
But I was no longer listening, my gaze having shifted to Sidney beside me. So the target was Dublin Castle. It had to be.
I know it seemed an impossible proposition, but we had to remember that this was Ardmore.
He’d been granted access to places others would never have been allowed to step foot inside.
And Lieutenant Harlow had also worked at the Castle.
For all we knew, the explosives might have already been hidden somewhere within its walls, waiting for the moment Ardmore deemed right.
The bit about an informer claiming the rebels meant to blow up City Hall was merely meant to mislead us, and to plant the seeds in the administration’s heads that the culprits must be the republicans.
We thanked Mrs. Brennan and excused ourselves before the granddaughter could return. Sidney waited until we’d reached his motorcar to voice the new conviction we were both harboring. “Dublin Castle.”
“Yes,” I replied, echoing his astonishment.
We sat silently for the space of at least half a minute, both struggling to reconcile this information. Then a curse burst from Sidney’s lips. “How on earth are we supposed to stop him?”
It would not be easy. Not when Ardmore held most of the cards.
If we went to O or the Castle administration with this information, we would almost certainly be disbelieved.
The notion was too preposterous. We also couldn’t go to Collins and the republicans.
They couldn’t help us inside the bulwark of Dublin Castle. Security was much too tight.
No, we only had ourselves to rely on in this. And our few key allies.
“Let’s contact Captain Maxwell,” I told Sidney. “Invite him to tea or dinner. Perhaps he knows something.” At least, he’d been willing to help us—to help me—before.
Sidney nodded. “We should also inform Willoughby.”
I agreed. “But warn him not to go off half-cocked.”
That was the last thing we needed. To tip Ardmore off to what we knew and watch him blow up the Castle before we could prevent him. My heart galloped in my chest at the thought.
Because of his duties at the Castle, Captain Maxwell was unable to get away until two days later.
By then, I’d nearly worn a hole in the rug pacing and trying to figure out whether I’d missed a clue that might fill in the details we were missing.
Where in the Castle was the gelignite going to be ignited? And when? What was Ardmore waiting for?
In the meantime, I received a letter from Mark Sturgis in London.
He and his wife had wanted to wish us a Happy Christmas, and he’d wanted to inform me, since we’d asked his opinion on the matter, that the peace balloon Archbishop Clune had been the emissary for had definitively burst. He confessed he was quite discouraged about the entire situation and in rather a black fit.
Not so much because there’s an atmosphere of war but
because there’s an atmosphere of complete contentment
with our methods of waging it. One hates to feel we’re
doing things to which we dare not admit. The price in
dignity seems to be grievously heavy.
I could only agree with Sturgis and be glad that someone within the Castle administration was taking a larger view of the issue. I was sure there were others, but at the moment those who favored the use of the stick over the carrot to sway the Irish appeared to be winning.
Maxwell showed up on our doorstep in civvies.
A wise decision considering the state of Dublin, though no one had been assassinated in recent days.
We sat down to a dinner of partridges cooked in vine leaves and wasted little time with small talk.
Maxwell seemed to understand he’d not been invited just for the pleasure of his company, as congenial as it was.
I regretted that our news was not the type conducive to good digestion.
“You think the gelignite is hidden somewhere at the Castle?” he repeated in alarm, setting his silverware aside.
“Yes,” Sidney replied. “Do you have any idea where?”
He sat back in his chair, blowing out a long breath through his pursed lips.
“I haven’t the foggiest. The place is a labyrinth of rooms and corridors—some old, some new, some underground, some extending behind the castle block proper.
” He shook his head. “It might take days to search it properly from top to bottom.” He paused.
“But wait. He would need blasting caps filled with fulminate of mercury.”
“He’s got those, too.”
“Well, damn.” His eyes flicked to me. “Apologies.”
I waved it off. “Were you familiar at all with Lieutenant Harlow? Is there any place in particular he might have hidden them?”
“He’s involved, as well?” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw as he considered the question. “Nowhere comes to mind. Nowhere that people don’t walk through a hundred times a day, that is.”
“Then if not where, do you have any idea when?” Sidney pressed. “Ardmore would want to make it look as if the republicans are to blame.”