Whatever Happenened to Molly Bloom? (28 page)

‘Doing what they shouldn’t be doing,’ said Lizzie Fleming.

‘Kissing?’ said Slater. ‘You mean kissing?’

‘It was worse. She had him inside …’ Lizzie Fleming might live with one of the earthiest men in Dublin but candour had its limits. Flushing, she shook her head, at a loss to describe the act she’d witnessed.

‘Am I to understand that what you saw isn’t fit to talk about in public?’ the coroner said.

‘No, sir, it’s not.’

‘It was, however, an act of sexual intercourse?’

‘It was.’

‘Where did this act take place?’

‘In the kitchen. He shouldn’t have been there. He came early.’

Someone in the gallery guffawed. Roland Slater ignored the interruption and went on, ‘Are we to take it, Mrs Fleming, that the man friend of the deceased came at the same appointed hour for every visit?’

‘Four o’clock. I was always gone by then.’

‘Except on that one unfortunate occasion when the gentleman arrived early,’ the coroner said. ‘Did Mrs Bloom see you?’

‘She did.’

‘Did she say anything to you about the incident?’

‘No, sir, not a word.’

‘And you, did you tell Mr Bloom what had occurred?’

‘I did not,’ said Lizzie Fleming.

‘You were dismissed from Mrs Bloom’s service; when?’

‘Next morning – Friday – soon as Mr Bloom went out to work.’

‘Are you in no doubt concerning what you saw in the kitchen?’

‘None, sir.’

Crouched at the table by the coroner’s chair Mr Devereux, the clerk, wrote in a neat, speedy hand, never more than a phrase or two behind. Dr Slater allowed him a moment to catch up. When Devereux gave him the signal by glancing up, however, the coroner did not sustain the obvious line of questioning.

‘Now, Mrs Fleming, let us turn to another matter.’

Mr Conway was on his feet instantly. ‘We have questions, sir.’

‘I expect you have,’ said Roland Slater. ‘I will seek answers on your behalf shortly. Meanwhile, Mrs Fleming, will you be good enough to tell the court where the tea things, including the teapot, were kept.’

Milk jug and sugar bowl, duly labelled, had been placed upon the evidence table, together with two pieces of the broken teapot. Dr Slater, leaning forward, dabbed a forefinger at the objects to draw the woman’s attention to them.

‘Those,’ he said.

‘The jug and bowl were in the dresser in the kitchen. I never saw them used,’ Mrs Fleming said. ‘I’d’ve known if they’d been used ’cause I’d have had to wash them. The teapot was never used for making tea. It was a gift from Mrs Bloom’s man friend.’

‘What
was
the teapot used for?’

‘Watering flowers – filling the vase – in Mrs Bloom’s bedroom. Mr Bloom did it for her whenever there were flowers.’

‘It would not be stretching imagination to conclude that the teapot might well have been left in Mrs Bloom’s bedroom after Mr Bloom had watered the flowers?’

‘No, sir, it wouldn’t.’

‘The friend who gave Mrs Bloom a gift of painted china and the man with whom Mrs Bloom was engaged in sexual dalliance are one and the same, I take it?’

‘He is, one and the same.’

‘Is that person in court today?’

‘Ay, sir.’

‘Do you know his name, Mrs Fleming?’

‘It’s Mr Boylan.’

‘Would you point him out.’

‘There. That’s him.’

Blazes hoisted himself up to display his profile first to the jury and then to the gallery. Shame, he seemed to be saying, was not a virtue to which he would make pretence. If he’d been wearing a hat he might have tipped it to acknowledge the interest his entry into the case aroused in the crowd.

‘Are you absolutely certain that Mr Boylan is the man you saw engaged in intimacy with Mrs Bloom?’

‘Ay, it was him, sir,’ Lizzie Fleming said. ‘I’ll swear it was.’

Being neither a fool nor entirely ignorant of sexual matters, Milly was not surprised by Mrs Fleming’s revelations. Blazes’ reactions to being exposed as a philanderer, however, made her flesh creep. She could not, as yet, bring herself to deal with her mother’s role in the affair or imagine Mummy in Hugh Boylan’s arms or doing that other thing.

Disgust swiftly gave way to anger, anger that she’d been taken in by Hugh Boylan’s concern for her welfare and, in spite of all the harm he’d done, that he still had the gall to pose.

Driven by rage, she shot to her feet and, holding on to her hat, leaned over the gallery rail and screamed,
‘You pig, Hugh Boylan, you filthy pig,’
then sank back into her seat and wept, while Dr Paterson, an arm about her shoulders, comforted her as best he could.

It took the court officers several minutes to quell the furore that Miss Bloom’s outburst caused. In an atmosphere of restless speculation, the coroner asked the jury, ‘Are there any further questions you wish me to put to this witness?’

Mr Conway was too discreet to press Mrs Fleming for details as to what precisely she had seen Marion Bloom doing with Mr Boylan. He said, ‘It might be useful to learn how often the gentleman visited Mrs Bloom and when the visits began.’

‘Mrs Fleming?’ the coroner said. ‘You may answer?’

‘It would be once a week or twice,’ Lizzie Fleming said.

‘When was the first time Mr Boylan visited Eccles Street?’

‘June of last year, just before Mrs Bloom went off on a singing tour with him … with Mr Boylan, I mean.’

Mr Conway said, ‘Did Mr Bloom accompany his wife on any of these engagements?’

‘Mr Bloom stayed at home in Eccles Street, though he might have gone to concerts in Dublin,’ said Lizzie Fleming. ‘I can’t speak about those.’

‘Mr Sullivan, do you have anything to say,’ Roland Slater asked, ‘bearing in mind that you have no
locus standi
in this court.’

Neville got to his feet and, with a hand on his client’s shoulder, presumably to hold him down, said, ‘I’m mindful of the coroner’s courtesy. With permission, may I put a question to the witness as to the deceased’s state of mind.’

‘State of mind, Mr Sullivan?’

‘I’m curious as to how the deceased coped with what appears to be a deception of several months standing and to establish, for the jury’s benefit, if Mrs Bloom’s manner was furtive or did she flaunt …’

‘Flaunt?’ Slater interrupted. ‘Have a care, Mr Sullivan.’

‘I bow to your discretion, sir,’ Neville said, then, changing tack, ‘Would it be permissible to ask the witness where the flowers in the vase in the bedroom came from?’

Conscious of the jury’s interest, Roland Slater relayed the lawyer’s question to the woman in the witness box.

Lizzie Fleming said, ‘Mr Boylan brought them.’

‘How does the witness know that?’ Neville asked.

‘Mrs Bloom boasted about it,’ Lizzie Fleming said. ‘She had Mr Bloom put the flowers in a vase as soon as he came home. She refused to let me do it. She insisted Mr Bloom fetch water in the teapot from the kitchen to fill the vase while she watched.’

Mr Devereux’s hand moved swiftly over the foolscap. Neville waited until the clerk had finished writing before he put his next question. ‘Would the witness be permitted to tell us how Mr Bloom reacted to being allocated this task?’

‘He never complained, not to me at any rate,’ Mrs Fleming said. ‘Mr Bloom was not the complaining sort.’

‘In your opinion,’ Neville said, ‘was Mr Bloom aware of his wife’s infidelity?’

‘I’m sure he must have been,’ said Mrs Fleming. ‘I don’t see in honesty how he couldn’t have been.’

‘Yet, in the months before Christmas,’ Neville said, ‘you observed no fits of temper, no angry words on Mr Bloom’s part.’

‘No, sir, I did not.’

‘Would it be accurate to say, in your opinion, that Mr Bloom lived in awe of his wife?’ Neville said.

‘No, Mr Sullivan,’ Slater intervened. ‘That is a step too far.’

‘In that case, I have no further questions to put before the court at this time,’ Neville Sullivan said, and promptly sat down.

TWENTY FOUR

T
he pews reserved for members of the DMP were crowded that Monday morning. Constable Jarvis and Sergeant Gandy rubbed shoulders with Inspectors Kinsella and Machin. A row behind, Superintendents Driscoll and Smout and Assistant Commissioner A.H.M. O’Byrne followed the progress of the inquiry with interest.

After being sworn in, Constable Jarvis described his role in the events of the morning of March 9th. At the conclusion of the constable’s account several questions on behalf of the jury were put to him by Mr Conway but Neville Sullivan was content to point out for the record that the division’s medical examiner had not been present.

Spruce, imposing and sober, Sergeant Gandy, no stranger to a witness box, delivered his testimony in a voice of such authority that the jury were almost intimidated.

If Mr Conway and his crew were happy to accept the bluff sergeant’s word for what had happened that fateful morning in Eccles Street, Neville Sullivan most certainly was not.

‘No trace of an intruder was found in the upstairs rooms?’

‘No, sir,’ Gandy rumbled.

‘You were, I’ve no doubt, thorough in your search.’

‘I was.’

‘The garden, the lavatory, the wall at the rear of the house?’

‘Searched personal, sir.’

‘The door of the cellar and the basement steps?’

‘Mr Sullivan, we’ve been through all this,’ the coroner put in. ‘The sergeant’s answers are already a matter of record. I trust it isn’t your intention to impugn the officer’s honesty.’

‘Oh, absolutely not,’ said Neville, demonstrating surprise that such a thought would even cross the coroner’s mind. ‘On the contrary. The sergeant’s honesty and experience are irreproachable. For that reason, if I may, I’d like to clarify one or two minor details for the enlightenment of the jury.’

‘You may
not
cross-examine, Mr Sullivan,’ Slater said. ‘I will not allow it. This is an inquiry not a criminal trial.’

‘I’m well aware of that, sir,’ said Neville humbly. ‘I’m merely curious – as I’m sure the jury are too – as to just how long the sergeant’s “thorough” search of the premises lasted.’

Sergeant Gandy’s eyeballs rolled leftwards but Tom Machin and Jim Kinsella were looking the other way.

Bushy brows knitted in perplexity, the old warrior of C Division almost gave the game away by staring at the coroner whose hesitation did not go unremarked by the jury.

‘I think we might like to hear an answer to that, sir,’ Mr Conway said.

The coroner drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and took what seemed like an age to reach a decision as to the legality, if not the pertinence, of the lawyer’s question.

At length, he said, ‘You may answer, Sergeant.’

In Sergeant Gandy’s ethical canon truth was ever flexible. He thought about stretching it one way and then the other, an oath being no deterrent, while the jury and the court waited.

At length, he said, ‘A half hour.’

‘A half hour,’ Neville Sullivan said. ‘A half hour before Inspector Machin sent you to the Orphan School to telephone for assistance.’

‘Ay, about half an hour.’

‘How long until assistance arrived?’

Coroner Slater said, ‘If you’re suggesting that the police acted improperly then I must ask you to justify your insinuations, Mr Sullivan, or withdraw them.’

‘I’ve nothing but admiration for the Dublin Metropolitan Police, sir. However, the conditions of arrest must be addressed.’

Jim Kinsella shifted his weight on to his knees and raised an arm in the air. He waited patiently for Slater to acknowledge him, which, after five or ten seconds, the coroner did.

‘Do you have something to say, Inspector Kinsella?’

‘If Mr Bloom’s counsel is concerned about the time scale I can clarify it for him,’ Jim Kinsella said.

‘Then do,’ said Slater.

‘Inspector Machin, of Store Street, requested the assistance of a detective by means of a telephone call. I received the telephone call from Sergeant Gandy at twenty minutes to nine o’clock at G Division headquarters in Lower Castle Yard. I travelled by tramcar to Eccles Street and reached the scene at two or three minutes after nine. The times are recorded in my notebook and also in G Division’s log for the day in question.’

‘There we have it,’ the coroner said. ‘Now may we move on?’

‘One hour and ten minutes, Mr Bloom in custody but not charged. Where was Mr Bloom held in that …’ Neville began.

‘No, Mr Sullivan. We’ve wasted enough time on this issue as it is. Sergeant Gandy, you may stand down.’

The sergeant could not get out of the witness box fast enough. The sound of his boots thumping on the wooden steps echoed through the court room and, bent over like a man with a stomach cramp, he returned to the witness benches and, crouching, hid himself away behind young Jarvis.

However anxious he might be to save face, Roland Slater was duty bound to see fair play. It was a bold move on his part to summon Tom Machin next to the witness box.

Inspector Machin crisply recounted how he had been called to Number 7 Eccles Street and what he had found there. When asked by Mr Conway why he’d felt it necessary to enlist the assistance of a detective from G Division, Tom Machin answered, ‘It was murder. Plainly murder. I felt that the ends of justice would best be served by sending for an expert investigator.’

Mr Conway said, ‘To assist in questioning Mr Bloom?’

‘No, Mr Bloom had not been placed under arrest when Inspector Kinsella arrived,’ Tom Machin replied.

Mr Conway said, ‘When was Mr Bloom charged?’

‘Detained on a warrant of suspicion, you mean.’

Mr Conway said, ‘Yes, that.’

‘Only after the fact of death had been confirmed.’

Roland Slater sighed and said, ‘In fact, I issued the warrant.’

Mr Conway said, ‘Will Mr Bloom return to the witness box?’

Slater said, ‘There’s no obligation upon Mr Bloom to subject himself to further questioning. He cannot be forced to give evidence that might be detrimental to him in a court of Assize. However, a considerable amount of fresh evidence has come to light during the past week and will be laid out for you as the inquiry progresses. If you’ve finished with Inspector Machin, I propose to call Detective Inspector Kinsella to throw some light on the matter. It is the jury’s responsibility to decide only if there is a case to answer, not to prove the case. That will be the lot of judges and jury in a higher court. Are we clear on that, Mr Conway?’