‘I see,’ said Powerscourt. ‘What did she do in the afternoon? Prayers in the cathedral? Confession with one of the younger clergy?’
‘Not so,’ said Lady Lucy triumphantly. ‘She spent the afternoon in her room, reading works of religious devotion.’
‘God help us all,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Next?’
‘Father Patrick Kennedy, aged about fifty, parish priest to Michael Delaney, accompanied him, he told the Sergeant, in the dark days of the son’s illness. He spent the morning going round the cathedral. He climbed the Rocher Corneille and the St Michel. He went back to the hotel for lunch. He rested in the afternoon.’
‘Not surprised he took a rest if he did all that lot in the morning. The good Father must have been exhausted. Anything else we know about him?’
‘Great weakness for food, especially puddings, I’ve watched him at the table.’
Powerscourt put that in too. You never knew what might be relevant.
‘Alex Bentley, aged twenty-four. New England family. Educated Princeton and Yale Law School. Secretary and general factotum to Michael Delaney. Went out once in the morning to take a coffee in the Rue des Mourgues. Otherwise worked in his room on the details of the pilgrimage.’
Powerscourt looked up from his writing. ‘Related to Delaney in any way? Or just a hired hand?’
‘Hired hand,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Rather charming sort of hired hand, I should say.’
‘Next?’
‘Wee Jimmy Delaney, aged about twenty-five, steelworker from Pittsburgh. Unspecified cousin of Michael Delaney, distance of ancestry unknown. Went first to St Michel Rock with Charlie Flanagan, then they went to the cathedral. After lunch they went to the Rocher Corneille and took a walk round the upper town. They returned to the hotel around four thirty.’
Outside they could hear a heated exchange between one of the kitchen staff and a butcher’s boy delivering meat from an enormous pannier on his bicycle. It appeared that the wrong cut of beef had been delivered to the Hotel St Jacques. The shouting match went on for about five minutes. The butcher’s boy seemed to have lost the battle.
‘Charlie Flanagan, aged early twenties again, carpenter from Baltimore, cousin of Michael Delaney on his mother’s side. His version of events is identical, almost word for word with Wee Jimmy’s. Do you think that is suspicious, Francis?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Alex Bentley was writing this down. He may have made their versions word for word because he remembered the other one. Anything else we know about this Charlie?’
‘He makes models out of wood,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘They say he did a beautiful one of the ship they crossed the Atlantic in.’
‘Next?’ said Powerscourt.
‘Waldo Mulligan,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Works for a senator in Washington. Looks slightly haunted some of the time. I saw him one afternoon drinking whisky in the bar all by himself. Like Father Kennedy he went to the two Rochers and the cathedral in the morning but in the reverse order. He stayed in the hotel in the afternoon. Possibly in the bar, but he didn’t say.
‘Our last American is Patrick MacLoughlin, aged twenty-two, training for the priesthood in Boston. He went to the cathedral in the morning and the Rocher Corneille in the afternoon. He didn’t go to St Michel at all.’
‘Didn’t he now,’ said Powerscourt thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why. I’d have thought that St Michel would have a greater appeal than the Rocher Corneille, Lucy, wouldn’t you?’
‘Maybe he’s scared of heights, Francis. I’ve met one or two people round here who aren’t overfond of tall rock pinnacles.’
Powerscourt laughed. ‘Next, my love?’
‘We’ve got the Irish now, but the first one lives in Swindon. Maybe he’s just moved there recently. Shane Delaney, early forties, works on the railways. On pilgrimage for his wife who’s dying of some frightful disease and isn’t well enough to travel. Spent the morning praying in front of the Black Madonna. Spent the afternoon on pilgrimage to various bars in the town with Girvan Connolly. Back at the hotel about half past four.’
Powerscourt remembered his conversation with Shane Delaney about his letter home.
‘Willie John Delaney, the man who is dying from an incurable disease. Didn’t feel well after the travelling, he says. Spent the day in his room, most of it asleep.’
‘I’ve always thought it could be a great advantage for a murderer to be dying of some frightful disease,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You could kill off all your enemies one by one. With any luck you’d be dead before they brought you to trial.’
‘Francis! What a horrible thought!’
‘It’s a fairly horrible way to go, being pushed off that damned rock out there,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Who else has ventured forth from the Emerald Isle, Lucy?’
‘Christopher or Christy Delaney. Aged eighteen. Going up to Cambridge in October. He went to the cathedral and the two rocks in the morning. He spent the afternoon reading a book set by his tutor at the university, Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion.’
‘God help him,’ said Powerscourt. He too had had to read Clarendon before going up to Cambridge. Perhaps the syllabus hadn’t changed at all.
‘One last Irishman, Francis, Jack O’Driscoll, aged about twenty-five, related on his mother’s side. Newspaperman. He wandered round the town in the morning, stopping for one or two beers, and took in the sights in the afternoon. He says he left St Michel about half past four in the evening but he’s not sure. It could have been five.’
‘Isn’t that the last time we have for anybody leaving there, Lucy?’
‘I think so,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Only four to go now, Francis. Three really if you take away John Delaney.’
The marching pilgrims had made good progress. They had reached the village of St-Christophe-sur-Dolaison, some five miles from Le Puy, with a bakery, a bar and an ancient church in red stone topped by an open belfry with four bells on top. A horse with a very large cart was tethered right outside the bar. It looked as if the horse knew the place well. The barman, a cheerful soul with a bright blue apron on his front and a black beret on his head, waved happily at the pilgrims. The religious element pressed on towards their goal, unwilling to be diverted. Indeed Brother White, who had read widely before coming on pilgrimage, detected in the barman none other than Mr Worldly Wiseman from the town of Carnal Policy, determined to make Christian give up his pack and stray from the path to the Wicket Gate. Father Kennedy had felt very tempted by the eclairs in the bakery window but did not wish to draw attention to himself by stopping. Patrick MacLoughlin followed the others as they walked straight out of the little square with the bar and headed for St-Privat-d’Allier.
But the other pilgrims needed no encouragement to sit down outside the bar. Jack O’Driscoll ordered eight beers. All of them stretched their legs as far in front of them as they could.
‘Will you look at these boots of mine, for Christ’s sake,’ said Girvan Connolly. ‘I bought them for a song from a man in a market stall in Kentish Town. They’ve more or less fallen apart.’
Sure enough, as the pilgrims peered at the boots, they could see that the outside sections had become detached from the soles. In a few more miles they would have disintegrated completely. Charlie Flanagan, carpenter by trade, whipped a strange-looking instrument from his pack and some stringlike material from his pocket and carried out instant repairs.
‘There, Girvan,’ he said doubtfully, ‘those should take you to journey’s end today. I wouldn’t count on it, mind you. That sole isn’t strong at all.’
‘Does anybody know how much farther we’ve got to go today?’ asked Wee Jimmy Delaney. All the pilgrims had been given maps. All had looked at them carefully in the early stages of the march. Some had turned them upside down for better appreciation of the route. Some had peered at their map from the side, or the bottom, or the top. One or two had got down on the ground and tried to make sense of them that way. Shane Delaney had thrown his away. Only Waldo Mulligan and Christy Delaney were able to read them properly, and this gave them great prestige in the group. Neither of them had been asked to pay for the first or the second or the third beer consumed so far in St-Christophe-sur-Dolaison’s bar.