“We don’t know,” said Devereaux.
“I see.”
“But it’s certain, sir,” began Cashel. “That they haven’t given up on their plan.”
“How certain, Mr. Cashel?”
“We spotted one of them at the church yesterday,” Cashel said. “When your… your daughter’s tutor was buried.”
“Yes,” said Lord Slough. “And you seized him?”
“Not exactly, sir.”
“Really?” said Lord Slough.
“We didn’t know it was him until… until later.”
“And who is he?”
“We’re not exactly sure,” said Cashel. He realized he was sounding foolish. He looked at Devereaux for help but there was none. “I mean, sir, we have discovered certain things about the fella which makes him a suspicious character—”
“Ah,” said Lord Slough.
“He’s from Belfast. He lied t’the villagers about that,” blustered Cashel.
“Ah. From Belfast,” said Lord Slough.
Devereaux interrupted in the same flat voice he had used before. “An agent is dead. He had information about a plot.”
“About the first plot or this second plot you seem to believe in?”
Devereaux shrugged. “None of this is a matter of mere speculation. There are too many indications not to believe the plot on your life is still continuing. I’m not going to argue with you about it. It’s not a game.”
He thought, how odd for me to say that. But it was a game, wasn’t it?
“Assume for the moment that I am in danger. What do you propose I do about it?”
Cashel said, “They may try to get you anywhere. I suggest a guard on you — from Dublin — and contact with British Intelligence when you go to London tomorrow.”
No, thought Devereaux. No contact.
“I see,” said Lord Slough in the same mild tone. “I am forewarned but I am not forearmed. What can I do with your information? Can I make any more use of it than if someone tells me that someday I, too, like all men, shall die?”
Cashel said, “The information is more specific than that.”
Lord Slough went to the window and looked out at the vast lawn. “It is. But I cannot take your suggestion of Irish bodyguards seriously. I’ll not travel in a cocoon like an American president, treated as a portable shrine. I would rather die than have that. Jeffries is sufficient — my secretary knows both shorthand and the use of a .45 automatic, if I may indulge in melodramatic monologue.” He turned from the window. “Why is the IRA so adamant about murdering me?”
Cashel shook his head. “Why did they kill Ross McWhirter? You’re an Englishman, sir. Of the royal English family. And you’re a friend of the Republic at the same time. Almost reason enough in that — they cannot stand peace or a mutual friend.”
Lord Slough made a vague gesture of dismissal with one hand. “It is ironic to be the target of assassins once and then be told one is again the same target. There is almost a sense of unreality about it. I can see the gunman again, coming to kill me in that room. I’m afraid one cannot believe in violence if one is exposed to it too often. It loses its power to shock further; I am afraid I am not afraid.” He smiled.
They were silent for a moment.
Lord Slough said, “I own newspapers, but now I realize what it is to be the object of public scrutiny and pity. The attempt upon my life has made me a public man in a way I do not choose to live. This attempt upon my life might come next week, next month, next year… or never. I will not live in a fishbowl. No, Mr. Devereaux and Mr. Cashel. I will not have an Irish guard assigned to me, though I shall welcome security here at Clare House for the sake of my daughter. But I will not be held hostage to terror and I will not value my life so greatly that in order not to lose it, I should be afraid to live it.”
He shook his head for emphasis. “Nor will I stay here. I may die and I may not die and the IRA may have the say of that; but the IRA will not say how I shall live.”
Devereaux did not move. It was what he wanted; there would be no change and there was still a chance to deal information to British Intelligence. Though Lord Slough spoke eloquently, he was a fool. Life was not posturing and brave speeches; life was mean; it was lived on one’s knees. It was full of betrayals and stolen moments of warmth and love, always clouded by the gray coldness of ordinary human dealings.
“Do you understand, Mr. Devereaux?” Lord Slough said, turning to the frowning man. “Life held too tightly, too dearly, is crushed as certainly as a sparrow held in a foolish child’s hands.”
Devereaux’s mind — his whole being — rebelled against such sentiments. They were only words, the stuff for platforms and politicians.
Lord Slough glanced at him.
Devereaux’s right hand went to his own neck for a moment; his fingers felt the ridge of flesh cut by the wire; he felt the terror again of that moment of darkness on a Belfast street when he was certain he would die.
“Do you understand, Mr. Devereaux?”
But Devereaux did not speak and Lord Slough finally turned away. The interview was over and both Cashel and Devereaux understood that at once; they filed silently out of the room.
Brianna Devon was waiting in the hall. She held the policeman’s bowler hat in her pale, long-fingered hands. “Your hat, Mr. Cashel,” she said and absently handed it to him. Her lovely face was frightened and she looked first at the Irish policeman and then at Devereaux. “What will happen?”
“He’ll be safe,” said Devereaux. He said it so that she would know it was not true.
“What can be done?”
Devereaux looked at her. “I don’t know.”
A butler appeared and opened the front door; beyond, the car waited on the gravel turnaround. Suddenly, the sky had changed and the afternoon seemed without color, bleached like bones left in the dust. Impulsively and without a word, Brianna led them through the front door. The cold plucked at her pale skin and she shivered.
Devereaux made a gesture and then thought better of it. “It’s too cold,” he said.
Was it kindness intended for her? Brianna looked at him, started to speak, and then thought of nothing to say.
Cashel said, “It’ll be all right.” His voice was gruff, unused to comforting.
“Can’t you stop them?” she asked, finally. “Whoever wants to kill my father?”
But Devereaux wouldn’t lie. He opened the car door. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Yes, Miss Devon, of course we will,” said Cashel. “We’ll do everything. We’re puttin’ a guard now on yer house.”
But Brianna was not listening; she stared at the American as he turned the key in the ignition.
She believed Devereaux.
19
Devereaux and Cashel returned to Innisbally and found Durkin at his cottage. Cashel telephoned Dublin and was granted a four-man detail to guard Clare House and its occupants; Durkin was dispatched to Clare House in the meantime, until the guards arrived.
Finally, in the semiprivacy of the kitchen of Durkin’s cottage, while Durkin’s mother sat in the front room knitting, Cashel and Devereaux went over Lord Slough’s schedule of the next few days for a clue as to when the terrorists would strike to kill him.
“There’s the meeting in London tomorrow.…”
“Anything outside Clare House is a possibility,” said Devereaux. “But what is the clearest chance?”
“The meeting in London is private. It was arranged two weeks ago—”
“Then strike it,” said Devereaux.
“Why?”
“It’s not logical to believe that an elaborate plan set up to assassinate Lord Slough would depend on chance.”
“Your President Kennedy was killed in Dallas in such a moment—”
Devereaux glanced up. “The motorcade through Dallas was known about for more than a month before the assassination.”