The Eloquence of the Dead (6 page)

The business community would draw little comfort from the newspapers' clichéd accounts of how the police were leaving no stone unturned. They knew the forces of law and order were preoccupied with the activities of extremists like the Fenian Brotherhood and its various splinter groups. Ordinary crime was very much a secondary concern.

In contrast to the shopkeepers and traders, the murder of a pawnbroker and furniture dealer in a poor part of the city did not impinge greatly on the consciousness of the professional classes. These things happened. And indeed, they probably happened with less frequency in Dublin than in other cities.

Although the scene of the murder was less than a quarter of a mile away from the offices of the legal firm Keogh, Sheridan and James, the news scarcely registered with the partners, or indeed with the apprentices or the legal clerks. They were absorbed in their own business.

And business was brisk. The greatest transfer in property ownership since the clearances of the Scottish Highlands was under way across Ireland. Any half competent solicitor willing to do a little work could benefit from it.

Government money was flowing into the country from Her Majesty's Treasury to enable the smallholders to buy out their landlords.

The property owners got their cash, while the farmers got to own the land they had worked for generations. And a whole class of middlemen was set to make their fortunes, drawing off their fees and percentages as the torrent of Treasury money lapped around their doors.

Most of all, the lawyers did well. And the firm of Keogh, Sheridan and James did better than most.

Every transfer of property from landlord to tenant involved legal work. Apart from simple conveyance of ownership, there were boundary issues, challenges over rights of way and queries about title. Solicitors' offices in market towns across the country were crowded each morning with clients and supplicants, anxious to tie down the security of their new holdings.

Firms like Keogh, Sheridan and James were the ‘town agents' for the country solicitors. Every transaction, every stamping, every registration executed in the capital carried a fee, usually calculated on a percentage basis of the property value.

As word of Ambrose Pollock's murder spread across the city, it was business as usual at Keogh, Sheridan and James. A sordid police case across the river, however unfortunate, would not distract the firm's partners and employees from their lucrative trade in deeds and affidavits.

Arthur Clinton was an exception.

Arthur recognised that he had some blessings. He was the senior clerk to the half dozen solicitors who made up the firm. It had been a long, hard road to get to this point. He had started fifteen years earlier as a junior clerk, working his way upward. But there was a world of difference between even a senior clerk and a qualified solicitor who held the parchment of the Law Society. In Arthur's view, he worked harder than any of them for a fraction of the reward.

He firmly believed he would make a suitable solicitor or even a partner, but the call never came. He had raised it with the firm, of course, but the partners were not inclined to the idea. Arthur remained a clerk.

He was reliable and conscientious. In recent months, he had been assigned to work on the conveyancing of a dozen large estates in areas west of the river Shannon. In all, more than 30,000 acres were to be transferred from the ownership of their landlords to almost 1,000 of their former tenants.

The discovery of the murder was reported initially in the afternoon editions of the
Evening Telegraph.

Arthur Clinton saw it when the mid-afternoon edition was dropped on the desk in the general office by one of the office boys. He always had a quick look through it. He liked to check the afternoon figures from the Stock Exchange in London, even though he had no investments of his own.

He was interested in money. In truth, he was more interested in money than in the law, although he recognised that it was a vehicle through which the lucky ones could accumulate some wealth.

When he went home in the evenings to his house on the North Circular Road near Phibsborough, he did not discuss such matters. He provided as well as he could for his wife Grace and their three young children, he reckoned. But what a man did with the money he made by his own exertions was first and foremost his own business.

His heart thumped as he absorbed the three-deck headline.

‘MURDER AT LAMB ALLEY NEAR CORNMARKET'

‘MR POLLOCK'S BODY IS DISCOVERED BY POLICE'

‘Investigation started by Inspector Boyle'

Arthur glanced around him. Nobody in the office seemed to have noticed his reaction. That was good. He folded the newspaper, his stock prices now forgotten, and walked slowly away to the shelter of his small office.

He reread the report slowly and carefully. There was nothing more than the barest details, probably gleaned by some reporter just minutes before the newspaper went to press. There was not necessarily any reason to be alarmed, he reasoned.

He went back to his work. When the offices would close later in the evening, he was due to meet a man who had more than a passing interest in the affairs of the late Ambrose Pollock.

 

SEVEN

To Swallow's surprise, ‘Duck' Boyle's investigation into the death of Ambrose Pollock seemed to be running according to the book.

There was still, though, no trace of Phoebe Pollock. It was as if she had vanished into thin air. The constable who spotted her on the quayside was unshakeable in his identification, and the clerk in the hotel confirmed that he had allocated the woman a room, although he was hazy in his description of her.

That there had been some sort of disorder or struggle in the room seemed clear, although nobody had heard anything. One of the two small cases she had with her was gone, but nobody had seen her leave. Logically, she had to be somewhere on the premises.

First, every room in the hotel had been searched. Then they went through the kitchens and the pantries and the storerooms. They searched the staff quarters and the outhouses. There was no trace of Phoebe Pollock.

Perhaps she had managed to make her way unnoticed to
The Maid of Cumberland,
on the quayside. The vessel was searched before it cast off, and all passengers carefully scrutinised. She was not among them.

Swallow could make no sense of it. Had she been abducted? She would surely have taken both of her cases, with her clothing and the money, if she departed voluntarily. And what was to be made of the bottle of what he guessed would be confirmed by Harry Lafeyre as potassium cyanide – prussic acid?

He was back with Mossop at Exchange Court as the first Angelus bells started to toll from the city churches. Boyle had organised a conference for 6 o'clock. Perhaps twenty uniformed constables with a scattering of G-men had assembled. Swallow and Mossop were in time to take chairs by the parade room windows. The air was heavy with tobacco smoke and sweat after the men's exertions of the day.

Boyle had nominated Tony Swann to be his book man. The book man's role in any investigation was crucial. He entered and recorded every detail reported by the men on the ground. He indexed each item of evidence. He timed and dated every statement.

Boyle took the rostrum at the end of the parade room.

‘The essential facts o' these tragic evints seem clear enough,' he intoned.

‘The deceased, Ambrose Pollock, was done to death some days ago, mebbe as long as a week. It seems that his sister, Miss Phoebe Pollock, assaulted him with a heavy, blunt instrument and then tried to give th' appearance that the poor man was alive be tyin' his remains to a chair.'

He paused for effect.

‘The same Miss Pollock this afternoon was traced be officers workin' under me own instructions to the Northern Hotel. It would appear she intended takin' the steamer to Liverpool, thus makin' good her escape. Unhappily, she was nowhere to be found when Sergeant Swalla' and Officer Mossop kem on the scene.'

He glared at Swallow and Mossop.

‘However,' he added, ‘there is reason to believe she may have been in possession of poison, to wit, prussic acid. Sergeant Swallow got the smell of it in the room, recovered a bottle, and this has gone to Dr Lafeyre to be analysed.

‘So the principal business now is to locate the woman, be she alive or dead. Also, we must consider if there are any outstandin' lines of inquiry or action required. Dr Lafeyre will work late and conduct post-mortem examinations on the remains.'

‘What about informing next of kin?' Stephen Doolan asked. ‘The family came from somewhere in the north of England, as I understand it.'

‘We got it out on the telegraph for all the English police forces,' Mossop said. ‘But so far we've had nothing back.'

‘One way or another we'll need an inventory of everything in the pawn shop,' Swallow interjected. ‘We're required to trace the owners of any unclaimed goods.'

Doolan nodded.

‘You're right on that. If there's no beneficiaries the Crown will claim the value of what's there. I think the Chief Commissioner is obliged to furnish a statement to the Solicitor General.'

‘I'd already adverted to that particular requirement meself,' Boyle lied.

The unwelcome prospect of many days of hard, painstaking work at Pollock's loomed up in Boyle's imagination.

‘That'll be a matter for the local division to take care of,' he announced. ‘Sergeant Doolan, can you take a couple of reliable men and start that job tomorrow mornin' if you please?'

Doolan nodded in resignation.

‘If Dr Lafeyre confirms the analysis, we'll need to check the poisons registers as well,' Swallow said. ‘She might have got the stuff elsewhere. But if she bought it in any of the local chemists, we'd need to know. I'll circulate all divisions to check any purchases.'

‘I was comin' to that aspect of things, Sergeant,' Boyle lied again. ‘So it'll please me if you'll have that done and return any information here to Officer Swann.'

He turned to Swallow.

‘What can you tell us, Mister Swalla', about what happened at the Northern Hotel? I believe a substantial sum of money was recovered.'

‘We counted just over £300 in that,' Pat Mossop said, holding up Phoebe Pollock's case.

There were whistles and gasps as he lifted the lid to reveal the bundle of banknotes.

‘Ill-gotten gains,' Boyle declared dramatically. ‘Well, she won't have much use for thim now.'

Swallow caught Stephen Doolan's fractionally raised eyebrow.

‘She's still a missing woman at this stage,' Doolan said. ‘She could have been taken against her will. So finding her quickly could make the difference between life and death. I think we need to be a bit cautious before ruling anything in or out.'

‘I didn't get to me present rank through bein' an incautious man, Sergeant,' Doyle answered testily.

Doolan shrugged with suppressed anger. Experience had taught him that ‘Duck' Boyle could not open his mind to the possibility that his first conclusions on any matter might be ill-founded.

Swallow broke the tension.

‘A lot of us know Phoebe Pollock from going in and out of the shop. We know she's a harmless poor creature, whatever trouble she's got herself into now. If she's alive and in the wrong hands she won't do well.'

‘We're all sensitive to that, Swalla', and we're doin' what we can to locate her,' Boyle said impatiently. ‘But there's other things to done as well, startin' with the post-mortem.'

‘I'll attend there if you like,' Swallow offered. ‘I'd take Mossop and Feore with me.'

It would be a relief from following Parnell around the city, he told himself. Or standing in the bloody rain outside his house watching the lights go off.

Boyle had the grace to acknowledge the gesture.

‘That'd be a considherable help. Thank you, Misther Swalla'.'

He stepped down from the rostrum.

‘As for meself, I've had an exhaustin' day. I'm goin' across the road to a certain licensed premises to take some refreshments up on a high stool. I'm that hungry, I could ate th' arse off a low flyin goose.'

 

EIGHT

The three G-men stopped at the Scotch Inn on Temple Bar.

‘A lot of people think this place is named after Scotch whisky,' Mossop said amiably as they took three seats in the snug. ‘But it's not. A fella from Aberdeen used to be head barman so the boys from the Scottish regiments used to drink here. That's why they called it … the Scotch Inn.'

‘That's very useful information,' Swallow retorted. ‘A great help when we're trying to conduct a murder investigation and find a missing woman.'

He ordered a Tullamore for himself, and a pint of Guinness's stout each for Mossop and Feore. Technically, the G-men were off-duty for their meal break. As they finished the first drink, Feore ordered the same again. When that was put away, Mossop bought a third round.

This time, Mossop drank Guinness plain, a halfpenny cheaper than the stout. Swallow had noted the small economy before. It irritated him slightly, but then he reminded himself that Mossop had a wife and four kids to maintain on a G-man's pay.

Once or twice he had been obliged to visit him where the family lived over a draper's shop in Aungier Street. The children always seemed well fed and noisily happy. Mossop's cheerful wife had occasional work as a seamstress, which supplemented the family income. As much as he understood the undoubted fulfilment in Mossop's life, though, he recognised that it had to be a struggle.

Sometimes he wondered how married life, perhaps with kids, might have been for him. There had been a girl he fell for when he was at medical school. A nurse from Tipperary, a doctor's daughter, bright and lively, training at St Vincent's Hospital on St Stephen's Green. Eventually, she gave him an ultimatum: choose her or choose alcohol. He made his decision. Later, he knew, she moved to Edinburgh. He often wondered what had become of her, and hoped that she was happy.