Priscilla's Spies
across Finilaun; so you see poetry is some use after all. I used to
think it wasn’t; but it is. It’s frightfully silly to make up your mind
that anything in the world is no use. You never can tell until you’ve
tried and that may not be for years.”
“The spies,” said Miss Rutherford, “are, I suppose, encamped somewhere
on the far side of Finilaun harbour.”
“On Curraunbeg,” said Priscilla. “I saw the tents.”
“I may be going in that direction myself tomorrow,” said Miss
Rutherford.
Priscilla got up and stepped across to the place where Frank was
sitting. She stooped down and whispered to him. Then she returned to her
own seat and winked at him, keeping her left eye closed for nearly half
a minute, and screwing up the corresponding corner of her mouth.
“We hope,” said Frank, “that you’ll join us at luncheon tomorrow
wherever we may meet. It’s our turn to bring the grub.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” said Miss Rutherford. “Shall I bring the
stove?”
“I didn’t like to invite you,” said Priscilla, “until I found out
whether Frank had any money to buy things with. As it turns out he has
lots. I haven’t. That’s the reason I whispered to him, although I know
it’s rude to whisper when there’s any one else there. Of course, I may
be able to collar a few things out of the house; but I may not. With
that Secretary of War staying in the house there is bound to be a lot of
food lying about which nobody would notice much if it was gone. But
then it’s not easy to get it unless you happen not to be allowed in to
dinner, which may be the case. If I’m not--Frank, I’m afraid, is sure to
be on account of his having a dress coat--but if I’m not, which is what
may happen if Aunt Juliet thinks it would score off me not to, then
I can get lots of things without difficulty because the cook can’t
possibly tell whether they’ve been finished up in the dining-room or
not.”
“We’ll hope for the best,” said Miss Rutherford. “A jelly now or a few
meringues would certainly be a pleasant variety after the tinned and
dried provisions of the last two days.”
The peppermint creams were finished before the second brew of soup came
to the boil on the Primus stove. Priscilla poured it out. It was hot, of
about the consistency usual in soup, and it smelt savoury. Nevertheless
Miss Rutherford, after watching for an opportunity to do so unseen,
poured hers out on the ground. Frank fingered his mug irresolutely and
once took a sip. Priscilla, after looking at her share intently, carried
it off and gave it to Jimmy Kinsella.
“It’s curious,” she said when she came back, “but I don’t feel nearly
so keen on soup as I did. I daresay it’s the peaches and the peppermint
creams. I used to think it was rather rot putting off the sweets at
dinner until after the meaty things. Now, I know it isn’t. Sometimes
there’s really a lot of sense in an arrangement which seems silly at
first, which is one of the things which always makes me say that grownup
people aren’t such fools as you might suppose if you didn’t really
know.”
“We’ll remember that at lunch tomorrow,” said Miss Rutherford.
No one mentioned worms.
For the second time the weather, generally malign and irresponsible,
favoured Priscilla. With the rising tide a light westerly breeze sprang
up. She hoisted the sails and sat in the stern of the boat with an oar.
She tucked the middle of it under her armpit, pressed her side tight
against the gunwale, and with the blade trailing in the water steadied
the Tortoise on her course. There is a short cut back to Rosnacree quay
from the bay in which Miss Rutherford was left. It winds among a perfect
maze of rocks, half covered or bare at low water, gradually becoming
invisible as the tide rises. Priscilla, whose self-confidence was
unshaken by her disaster in Craggeen passage, took this short cut in
spite of a half-hearted protest from Frank. “I don’t exactly know the
way,” she said, “but now that we’ve lost the rudder there’s nothing very
much can happen to us. We can keep the centreboard up as we’re running,
and if we do go on a rock, the tide will lift us off again. It’s rising
now. Besides, it saves us miles to go this way, and it really won’t do
for you to be late for dinner.”
CHAPTER XIV
Thomas Antony Kinsella sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the
quay. Beneath him lay his boat. The tide was flowing, but it had not yet
floated her. She was supported on an even keel by the mooring ropes made
fast from her bow and stern to bollards on the quay. Her sails and
gear lay in confusion on her thwarts. She was still half full of gravel
although some of her cargo had been shovelled out and lay in a heap
behind Kinsella. He was apparently disinclined to shovel out the rest,
an excusable laziness, for the day was very hot.
With the point of a knife Kinsella scraped the charred ash from the bowl
of his pipe. Then he cut several thin slices from a plug of black twist
tobacco, rolled them slowly between the palm of one hand and the thumb
of the other; spat thoughtfully over the side of the quay into his boat,
charged his pipe and put it into his mouth. There he held it for some
minutes while he stared glassily at the top of his boat’s mast. He spat
again and then drew a match from his waistcoat pocket.
Sergeant Rafferty of the Royal Irish Constabulary strolled quietly along
the quay. It was his duty to stroll somewhere every day in order
to intimidate malefactors. He found the quay on the whole a more
interesting place than any of the country roads round the town, so he
often chose it for the scene of what his official regulations described
as a “patrol.” When he reached Kinsella he stopped.
“Good day to you,” he said.
Kinsella, without looking round, struck his match on a stone beside him
and lit his pipe. He sucked in three draughts of smoke, spat again and
then acknowledged the sergeant’s greeting.
“It’s a fine day,” said the sergeant
“It is,” said Kinsella, “thanks be to God.”
The sergeant stirred the pile of gravel on the quay thoughtfully with
his foot. Then, peering over Kinsella’s shoulder, he took a look at the
gravel which still remained in the boat.
“Tell me this, now, Joseph Antony,” he said. “Who might that gravel
be for? It’s the third day you’re after bringing in a load and there’s
ne’er a cart’s been down for it yet?”
“I couldn’t say who it might be for.”
“Do you tell me that now? And who’s to pay you for it?”
“Sweeny ‘ll pay for it,” said Kinsella. “It was him ordered it.”
The sergeant stirred the gravel again with his foot Timothy Sweeny was a
publican who kept a small shop in one of the back streets of Rosnacree.
He was known to the sergeant, but was not regarded with favour. There
is a way into Sweeny’s house through a back-yard which is reached by
climbing a wall. Sweeny’s front door was always shut on Sundays and
his shutters were put up during those hours when the law regards the
consumption of alcohol as undesirable. But the sergeant had good reason
to suppose that many thirsty people found their way to the refreshment
they craved through the back-yard. Sweeny was an object of suspicion
and dislike to the sergeant. Therefore he stirred the gravel on the
quay again and again looked at the gravel in the boat. There is no law
against buying gravel; but it seemed to the sergeant very difficult
to believe that Sweeny had bought four boatloads of it. Joseph Antony
Kinsella felt that some explanation was due to the sergeant.
“It’s a gentleman up the country,” he said, “that Sweeny’s buying the
gravel for. I did hear that he’s to send it by rail when I have the
whole of it landed.”
He watched the sergeant out of the corners of his eyes to see how he
would receive this statement. The sergeant did not seem to be altogether
satisfied.
“What are you getting for it?” he asked.
“Five shillings a load.”
“You’re doing well,” said the sergeant.
“It’s good gravel, so it is, the best.”
“It may be good gravel,” said the sergeant, “but the gentleman that’s
buying it will buy it dear if you take the half of every load you bring
in home in the evening and fetch it here again the next morning along
with a little more.”
The sergeant stared at the gravel in the boat as he spoke. His face had
cleared, and the look of suspicion had left his eyes. Sweeny, so his
instinct told him, must be engaged in some kind of wrongdoing.
Now he understood what it was. The gentleman up the country was to be
defrauded of half the gravel he paid for. Curiously enough, considering
that his wrongdoing had been detected, the look of anxiety left
Kinsella’s face. He sucked at his pipe, found that it had gone out, and
slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.
“If neither Sweeny nor the gentleman is making any complaint,” he said,
“it would suit you to keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m not blaming you,” said the sergeant “Sure, anybody’d do the same if
they got the chance.”
“If there’s people in the world,” said Kinsella, “that hasn’t sense
enough to see that they get what they pay for, oughtn’t we to be
thankful for it?”
“You’re right there,” said the sergeant
Kinsella took out his pipe and lit it again. Sergeant Rafferty after
examining the sea with attentive scrutiny for some minutes, strolled
back towards his barracks.
Peter Walsh slid off the window sill of Brannigan’s shop and took a long
look at the sky. Having satisfied himself that its appearance was
very much what he expected he walked down the quay to the place where
Kinsella was sitting.
“It’s a fine evening,” he said.
“It is,” said Kinsella, “as fine an evening as you’d see, thanks be to
God.”
Peter Walsh sat down beside his friend and spat into the boat beneath
him.
“I seen the sergeant talking to you,” he said.
“That same sergeant has mighty little to do,” said Kinsella.
“It’ll be as well for us if he hasn’t more one of these days.”
“What do you mean by that, Peter Walsh?”
“What might he have been talking to you about?”
“Gravel, no less.”
“Asking who it might be for or the like? Would you say, now, Joseph
Antony, that he was anyways uneasy in his mind?”
“He was uneasy,” said Kinsella, “but he’s easy now.”
“Did you tell him who the gravel was for?”
“Is it likely I’d tell him when I didn’t know myself? What I told him
was that Timothy Sweeny had the gravel bought off me at five shillings a
load and that it was likely he’d be sending it by rail to some gentleman
up the country that would have it ordered from him.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“What he as good as said was that Timothy Sweeny and myself would have
the gentleman cheated out of half the gravel he’d paid for by the time
he’d got the other half. There was a smile on his face like there might
be on a man, and him after a long drink, when he found out the way we
were getting the better of the gentleman up the country. Believe you me,
Peter Walsh, he wouldn’t have rested easy in his bed until he did find
out, either that or some other thing.”
“That sergeant is as cute as a pet fox,” said Peter Walsh. “You’d be
hard set to keep anything from him that he wanted to know.”
Kinsella sat for some minutes without speaking. Then he took a match
from his pocket and lit his pipe for the third time.
“I’d be glad,” he said, “if you’d tell me what it was you had in your
mind when you said a minute ago that the sergeant might maybe have more
to do than he’d care for one of these days.”
Peter Walsh looked carefully round him in every direction and satisfied
himself that there was no one within earshot.
“Was I telling you,” he said, “about the gentleman, and the lady along
with him that came in on the train today?”
“You were not.”
“Well, he came, and I’m thinking that he’s a high-up man.”
“What about him?”