CHAPTER XX

Timothy Sweeny, J. P., as suited a man of portly figure and civic

dignity, was accustomed to lie long in his bed of a morning. On weekdays

he rose, in a bad temper, at nine o’clock. On Sundays, when he washed

and shaved, he was half an hour later and his temper was worse. An

apprentice took down the shutters of the shop on weekdays at half past

nine. By that time Sweeny, having breakfasted, sworn at his wife and

abused his children, was ready to enter upon the duties of his calling.

On the morning after the thunderstorm he was wakened at the outrageous

hour of half past seven by the rattle of a shower of pebbles against his

window. The room he slept in looked out on the back-yard through which

his Sunday customers were accustomed to make their way to the bar.

Sweeny turned over in his bed and cursed. The window panes rattled

again under another shower of gravel. Sweeny shook his wife into

consciousness. He bade her get up and see who was in the back-yard.

Mrs. Sweeny, a lean harassed woman with grey hair, fastened a dingy pink

nightdress round her throat with a pin and obeyed her master.

“It’s Peter Walsh,” she said, after peering out of the window.

“Tell him to go to hell out of that,” said Sweeny.

Mrs. Sweeny wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, opened the bottom of

the window and translated her husband’s message.

“Himself’s asleep in his bed,” she said, “but if you’ll step into the

shop at ten o’clock he’ll be glad to see you.”

“I’ll be obliged to you, ma’am,” said Peter Walsh, “if you’ll wake him,

for what I’m wanting to say to him is particular and he’ll be sorry

after if there’s any delay about hearing it.”

“Will you shut that window and have done talking,” said Sweeny from

the bed. “There’s a draught coming in this minute that would lift the

feathers from a goose.”

Mrs. Sweeny, though an oppressed woman, was not wanting in spirit. She

gave Peter Walsh’s message in a way calculated to rouse and irritate her

husband.

“He says that if you don’t get up out of that mighty quick there’ll be

them here that will make you.”

“Hell to your soul!” said Sweeny, “what way’s that of talking? Ask him

now is the wind in the southeast or is it not?”

“I can tell you that myself,” said Mrs. Sweeny. “It is not; for if

it was it would be in on this window and my hair would be blew off my

head.”

“Ask him,” said Sweeny, “what boats is in the harbor, and then shut down

the window.”

Mrs. Sweeny put her head and shoulders out of the window.

“Himself wants to know,” she said, “what boats is at the quay. You

needn’t be looking at me like that, Peter Walsh. He’s sober enough. Hard

for him to be anything else for he’s been in his bed the whole of the

night.”

“Will you tell him, ma’am,” said Peter Walsh, “that there’s no boats in

it only the Tortoise, and that one itself won’t be there for long for

the wind’s easterly and it’s a fair run out to Inishbawn.”

Mrs. Sweeny repeated this message. Sweeny, roused to activity at last,

flung off the bedclothes.

“Get out of the room with you,” he said to his wife, “and shut the door.

It’s down to the kitchen you’ll go and let me hear you doing it.”

Mrs. Sweeny was too wise to disobey or argue. She snatched a petticoat

from a chair near the door and left the room hurriedly. Sweeny went to

the window.

“What the hell work’s this, Peter Walsh?” he said. “Can’t you let me

sleep quiet in my bed without raising the devil’s own delight in my

back-yard. If I did right I’d set the police at you.”

“I’ll not be the only one the police will be at,” said Peter, “if that’s

the way of it. So there you have it plain and straight.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is this. The young lady is off in her own boat. She and the

young fellow with the sore leg along with her, and she says the master

and the strange gentleman will be down for the Tortoise as soon, as ever

they have their breakfast ate. That’s what I mean and I hope it’s to

your liking.”

“Can you not go out and knock a hole in the bottom of the damned boat?”

said Sweeny, “or run the blade of a knife through the halyards, or smash

the rudder iron with the wipe of a stone? What good are you if you can’t

do the like of that? Sure there’s fifty ways of stopping a man from

going out in a boat when there’s only one boat for him to go in?”

“There may be fifty ways and there may be more; but I’d be glad if you’d

tell me which of them is any use when there’s a young police constable

sitting on the side of the quay that hasn’t lifted his eye off the boat

since five o’clock this morning?”

“Is there that?”

“There is. The sergeant was up at the big house late last night. I

saw him go myself. What they said to him I don’t know, but he had the

constable out sitting opposite the boat since five this morning the way

nobody’d go near her.”

“Peter Walsh,” said Sweeny, and this time he spoke in a subdued and

serious tone, “let you go in through the kitchen and ask herself to give

you the bottle of whisky that’s standing on the shelf under the bar.

When you have it, come up here for I want to speak to you.”

“Peter Walsh did as he was told. When he reached the bedroom he found

Sweeny sitting on a chair with a deep frown on his face. He was thinking

profoundly. Without speaking he held out his hand. Peter gave him the

whisky. He swallowed two large gulps, drinking from the bottle. Then

he set it down on the floor beside him. Peter waited. Sweeny’s eyes,

narrowed to mere slits, were fixed on a portrait of a plump ecclesiastic

which hung in a handsome gold frame over the chimney piece. His hands

strayed towards the whisky bottle again. He took another gulp. Then,

looking round at his visitor, he spoke.

“Listen to me now, Peter Walsh. Is there any wind?”

“There is surely, a nice breeze from the east and there’s a look about

it that I wouldn’t be surprised if it went to the southeast before full

tide.”

“Is there what would upset a boat?”

“There’s no wind to upset any boat that’s handled right. And you know

well, Mr. Sweeny, that the master can steer a boat as well as any man

about the bay.”

“Is there wind so that a boat might be upset if so be there happened to

be some kind of mistake and her jibing?”

“There will be that much wind,” said Peter Walsh, “at the top of the

tide. But what’s the use? Don’t I tell you, and don’t you know yourself

that the master isn’t one to be making mistakes in a boat?”

“How would it be now if you was in her, you and the strange gentleman,

and the master on shore, and you steering? Would she upset then, do you

think?”

“It could be done, of course, but----”

“Nigh hand to one of the islands,” said Sweeny, “in about four foot

of water or maybe less. I’d be sorry if anything would happen the

gentleman.”

“I’d be sorry anything would happen myself. But it’s easy talking. How

am I to go in the boat when the master has sent down word that he’s

going himself?”

Sweeny took another gulp of whisky and again thought deeply. At the end

of five minutes he handed the bottle to Peter Walsh.

“Take a sup yourself,” he said.

Peter Walsh took a “sup,” a very large “sup,” with a sigh of

appreciation. It had been very trying for him to watch Sweeny drinking

whisky while he remained dry-lipped.

“Let you go down to the kitchen,” said Sweeny, “and borrow the loan of

my shot gun. There’s cartridges in the drawer of the table beyond in the

room. You can take two of them.”

“If it’s to shoot the master,” said Peter Walsh, “I’ll not do it. I’ve a

respect for him ever since----”

“Talk sense. Do you think I want to have you hanged?”

“Hanged or drowned. The way you’re talking it’ll be both before I’m

through with this work.”

“When you have the gun,” said Sweeny, “and the cartridges in it, you’ll

go round to the back yard where you were this minute and you’ll fire two

shots through this window, and mind what you’re at, Peter Walsh, for

I won’t have every pane of glass in the back of the house broke, and I

won’t have the missus’ hens killed. Do you think now you can hit this

window from where you were standing in the yard?”

“Hit it! Barring the shot scatters terrible I’ll put every grain of it

into some part of you if you stay where you are this minute.”

“I’ll not be in this chair at the time,” said Sweeny. “I’ll be in the

bed, and what shots come into the room will go over me with the way

you’ll be shooting. But any way I’ll have the mattress and the blankets

rolled up between me and harm. It’ll be all the better if there’s a few

grains in the mattress.”

“I don’t know,” said Peter Walsh, “that I’ll be much nearer drowning the

strange gentleman after I’ve shot you. But sure I’ll do it if you like.”

“When you have that done,” said Sweeny, “and you’d better be quick about

it--you’ll go down to the barrack and tell Sergeant Rafferty that he’s

to come round here as quick as he can. The missus’ll meet him at the

door of the shop and she’ll tell him what’s happened.”

“I suppose then you’ll offer bail for me,” said Peter Walsh, “for if you

don’t, no other one will, and it’ll be hard for me to go out upsetting

boats if they have me in gaol for murdering you.”

“It’s not that she’ll tell him, but a kind of a distracted story. She’ll

have very little on her at the time. She has no more than an old night

dress and a petticoat this minute. I’m sorry now she has the petticoat

itself. If I’d known what would have to be I’d have kept it from her.

It doesn’t be natural for a woman to be dressed up grand when a lot of

murdering ruffians from behind the bog has been shooting her husband

half the night.”

“Bedam,” said Peter Walsh, “is that the way it is?”

“It is that way. And I wouldn’t wonder but there’ll be questions asked

about it in Parliament after.”

“You’ll be wanting the doctor,” said Peter Walsh, “to be picking the

shot out of you.”

“As soon as ever you’ve got the sergeant,” said Sweeny, “you’ll go round

for the doctor.”

“And what’ll he say when there’s no shot in you?”

“Say! He’ll say what I bid him? Ain’t I Chairman of the Board of

Guardians, and doesn’t he owe me ten pounds and more this minute, shop

debts. What would he say?

“He’s a gentleman that likes a drop of whisky,” said Peter Walsh.

“I’ll waste no whisky on him. Where’s the use when I can get what I want

without?”

Peter Walsh meditated on the situation for a minute or two. Then the

full splendour of the plan began to dawn on him.

“The master,” he said, “will be taking down the depositions that you’ll

be making in the presence of the sergeant.”

“He will,” said Sweeny, “for there’s no other magistrate in the place

only myself and him, and its against the law for a magistrate to take

down his own depositions and him maybe dying at the time.”

“There’ll be only myself then to take the strange gentleman to Inishbawn

in the boat.”

“And who’s better fit to do it? Haven’t you known the bay since you were

a small slip of a boy?”

“I have surely.”

“Is there a rock or a tide in it that isn’t familiar to you?”

“There is not.”

“And is there a man in Rosnacree that’s your equal in the handling of a

small boat?”

“Sorra the one.”

“Then be off with you and get the gun the way I told you.”

At half-past ten Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington drove into the town and

pulled up opposite Brannigan’s shop. The Tortoise lay at her moorings, a

sight which gratified Sir Lucius. After his experience the day before

he was afraid that Peter Walsh might have beached the boat in order to

execute some absolutely necessary repairs. He congratulated himself on

having suggested to Sergeant Rafferty that one of the constables should

keep an eye on her.

“There’s the boat, Torrington,” he said. “She’s small, and there’s a

fresh breeze. But if you don’t mind getting a bit wet she’ll take us

round the islands in the course of the day. If your daughter is anywhere

about we’ll see her.”

Lord Torrington eyed the Tortoise. He would have preferred a larger

boat, but he was a man of determination and courage.

“I don’t care how wet I get,” he said, “so long as I have the chance of

speaking my mind to the scoundrel who has abducted my daughter.”

“We’ll take oilskins with us,” said Sir Lucius, getting out of the trap

as he spoke.

The police sergeant approached him.

“Well, Rafferty,” said Sir Lucius, “what’s the matter with you?”

“Have you any fresh news of my daughter?” said Lord Torrington.

“I have not, my Lord. Barring what Professor Wilder told me I know no

more. There was a lady belonging to his party out on the bay looking out

for sponges and she came across----”

“You told us all that yesterday,” said Sir Lucius. “What’s the matter

with you now?”

“What they say,” said the sergeant cautiously, “is that it’s murder.”

“Murder! Good heavens! Who’s dead?”

“Timothy Sweeny,” said the sergeant

“It might be worse,” said Sir Lucius. “If the people of this district

have had the sense to kill Sweeny I’ll have a higher opinion of them in

the future than I used to have. Who did it?”

“It’s not known yet who did it,” said the sergeant, “but there was two

shots fired into the house last night. There’s eleven panes of glass

broken and the wall at the far side of the room is peppered with shot,

and I picked ten grains of it out of the mattress myself and four out of

the pillow, without counting what might be in Timothy Sweeny, which

the doctor is attending to. Number 5 shot it was and Sweeny is moaning

terrible. You’d hear him now if you was to step up a bit in the

direction of the house.”

It would, of course, have been highly gratifying to Sir Lucius to hear

Timothy Sweeny groan, but, remembering that Lord Torrington was anxious

about his daughter, he denied himself the pleasure.

“If he’s groaning as loud as you say,” he said, “he can’t be quite dead.

I don’t believe half a charge of No. 5 shot would kill a man like Sweeny

anyway.”

“If he’s not dead,” said the sergeant, “he’s mighty near it, according

to what the doctor is just after telling me. It’s likely enough that

shot would prey on a man that’s as stout as Sweeny more than it might on

a spare man like you honour or me. The way the shot must have been fired

to get Sweeny after the fashion they did is from the top of the wall in

the back yard opposite the bedroom window. By the grace of God there’s

footmarks on the far side of it and a stone loosened like as if some one

had climbed up it.”

“Well,” said Sir Lucius, “I’m sorry for Sweeny, but I don’t see that I

can do anything to help you now. If you make out a case against any one

come up to me in the evening and I’ll sign a warrant for his arrest.”

“I was thinking,” said the sergeant, “that if it was pleasing to your

honour, you might take Sweeny’s depositions before you go out in the

boat; just for fear he might take it into his head to die on us before

evening; which would be a pity.”

“Is he able to make a deposition?” said Sir Lucius.

“He’s willing to try,” said the sergeant, “but it’s badly able to talk

he is this minute.”

Sir Lucius turned to Lord Torrington.

“This is a confounded nuisance, Torrington,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll

have to ask you to wait till I’ve taken down whatever lies this fellow

Sweeny chooses to swear to. I won’t be long.”

But Lord Torrington had a proper respect for the forms of law.

“You can’t hurry over a job of that sort,” he said.

“If the man’s been shot at---- Can’t I go by myself? I know something

about boats. You’ll be here for hours.”

“You may know boats,” said Sir Lucius, “but you don’t know this bay.”

“Couldn’t I work it with a chart? You have a chart, I suppose?”

“No man living could work it with a chart. The rocks in the bay are as

thick as currants in a pudding and half of them aren’t charted. Besides

the tides are----”

“Isn’t there some man about the place I could take with me?” said Lord

Torrington.

Peter Walsh was hovering in the background with his eyes fixed anxiously

on Sir Lucius and the police sergeant. Sir Lucius looking around caught

sight of him.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do if you like,” said Sir Lucius. “I’ll send

Peter Walsh with you. He’s an unmitigated blackguard, but he knows

the bay like the palm of his hand and he can sail the boat. Come here,

Peter.”

Peter Walsh stepped forward, touching his hat and smiling respectfully.

“Peter,” said Sir Lucius, “Lord Torrington wants to take a sail round

the islands in the bay. I can’t go with him myself, so you must. Have

you taken any drink this morning?”

“I have not,” said Peter. “Is it likely I would with Sweeny’s shop shut

on account of the accident that’s after happening to him?”

“Don’t you give him a drop, Torrington, while you’re on the sea with

him. You can fill him up with whisky when you get home if you like.”

“I wouldn’t be for going very far today,” said Peter Walsh. “It looks to

me as if it might come on to blow from the southeast.”

“You’ll go out to Inishbawn first of all,” said Sir Lucius. “After that

you can work home in and out, visiting every island that’s big enough to

have people on it. The weather won’t hurt you.”

“Sure if his lordship’s contented,” said Peter, “it isn’t for me to be

making objections.”

“Very well,” said Sir Lucius. “Get the sails on the boat. You can tie

down a reef if you like.”

“There’s no need,” said Peter. “She’ll go better under the whole sail.”

“Now, sergeant,” said Sir Lucius, “I’ll just see them start, and then

I’ll go back and listen to whatever story Sweeny wants to tell.”

Peter Walsh huddled himself into an ancient oilskin coat, ferried out to

the Tortoise and hoisted the sails. He laid her long side the slip with

a neatness and precision which proved his ability to sail a small boat.

Lord Torrington stepped carefully on board and settled himself crouched

into a position undignified for a member of the Cabinet, on the side of

the centreboard case recommended by Peter Walsh.

“Got your sandwiches all right?” said Sir Lucius, “and the flask? Good.

Then off you go. Now, Peter, Inishbawn first and after that wherever

you’re told to go. If you get wet, Torrington, don’t blame me. Now,

sergeant, I’m ready.”

The Tortoise, a stiff breeze filling her sails, darted out to

mid-channel. Peter Walsh paid out his main sheet and set her running

dead before the wind.

“It’ll come round to the southeast,” he said, “before we’re half an hour

out.”

Sir Lucius waved his hand. Then he turned and followed the sergeant into

Sweeny’s house.