P.S. Am feeling remarkably unwell. Met Mary Rose, that woman I wanted to marry, walking up the street in Macroom. Fled the field. Have not felt so strange since I won all that money at the Derby years ago. Usual solace being applied. JF.
Cable from Lord Francis Powerscourt to Franklin Bentley:
Earlier message most helpful. Many thanks. Am anxious to discover more about Delaney’s first wife. Did they meet and marry in New York? Or did he come to NY from some coalfield or oil-rich place where he made first fortune? Suggest newspaper cuttings library might have article about Delaney having arrived from Pittsburgh or Ohio or some other industrial place. Long shot. If it works suggest seek details of earlier Delaney life. Catholic church in wherever he came from? Also any more details of the man Delaney robbed in New York with his fraudulent share dealings? Man alive or dead? Children?
Life looking up here in southern France. No new murders for forty-eight hours. Regards, Powerscourt.
Cable from Lord Francis Powerscourt to Johnny Fitzgerald.
Cable most welcome. Sorry to hear of meeting with Love’s Labour’s Lost female. Trust medicine will aid recovery. Need information on book written about Delaney’s past. It was called Michael Delaney, Robber Baron. Originally published in New York 1894. Contained juicy details about manifold sins and wickednesses of Delaney past life. When Delaney heard of it, he bought up entire stock and pulped them. But four escaped the pyre. Sent to London dealers, presumably for potential sale to rich Americans engaged in finance. Name of dealers unknown. Suggest you approach my financier brother-in-law William Burke in City of London for advice on which bookshop might have ordered such a thing. Chances of them having records very remote. You could try Hatchard’s in Piccadilly as rich Americans might have lived in those parts. If all else fails maybe antiquarian bookshop like Beggs in the Strand. Book may hold key to solving entire mystery. Regards, Powerscourt.
Cable from Johnny Fitzgerald to Lord Francis Powerscourt:
Bad news from William Burke. Says most unlikely book would have been sent to City district. City men read balance sheets, bills of exchange, promissory notes, share offer documents, annual reports, bulletins from Lloyd’s of London. Not books. Not books about obscure Americans years ago. Any reading financiers would have bought in West End. Setting out on voyage of discovery to Piccadilly. News to follow. Regards, Fitzgerald.
As he inspected his messages Powerscourt knew there was one avenue he had to explore, an avenue he had been dreading. The man who knew most about Michael Delaney’s past was here, Michael Delaney himself. He had, after all, organized the pilgrimage. But Powerscourt doubted if he would tell him the truth. He found Delaney inspecting a pile of cables of his own.
‘Steel stock going up, Powerscourt, oil too. I’ve got big interests in both. I’m a lot richer today than I was yesterday!’ He looked up from his armchair in the private sitting room. ‘Can I be of assistance? Is there any news about the French pow-wow? Might we be able to leave soon?’
Powerscourt assured him that there was no news on that front yet. ‘I wanted to ask you a few questions about your past, Mr Delaney.’
Even as he spoke Powerscourt could see the brows tightening, a slight look of menace crossing the Delaney countenance.
‘Can’t see what my past has to do with anything,’ he said. ‘You’re here to find out about what’s happening now, for God’s sake.’
‘Mr Delaney, before you were married to the late Mrs Delaney, mother of James, were you married to anybody else?’
Delaney laughed. Powerscourt had always thought of laughter in this kind of questioning as a tactic, a means to gain time for the brain to work out the most appropriate lie.
‘No, I was not!’ he said, and Powerscourt wondered if the tycoon was going to hit him.
‘And are there any business dealings in your past that might have left somebody with a grudge against you and members of your family? Forgive me, sir, but I have to eliminate all possible lines of inquiry.’
‘The answer is no, again, no.’ Powerscourt thought that the tornado might have abated into a severe storm. ‘Of course I have made enemies. You must have made enemies, Powerscourt. It’s inevitable in a cut-throat world. But I do not believe any of them would be so stupid as to take time out to order a series of murders on a family party on pilgrimage in the south of France. The whole thing’s ridiculous.’
Johnny Fitzgerald had made inquiries in Hatchard’s. They had been going for a couple of hundred years, after all. No, they could not help him. Their records did not go back that far. And with an order of only four books it was unlikely that any booksellers in London, however carefully their transactions were logged, would be able to help him. They directed him, first, to The Antiquarian Booksellers in the Charing Cross Road and, if that failed, to Beggs Brothers in the Strand. Johnny was beginning to think that the proverbial needle might be easier to find. He had drawn a blank in the Charing Cross Road and was walking into Beggs with a heavy heart. A charming young man greeted him at reception. There was only one person in the firm who might be able to help, Mr Macdonald. If Johnny would care to wait for a moment? Johnny Fitzgerald sat down under a painting of the Rising of Lazarus in very melodramatic colours. It was as if the miracle had to be shouted from the rooftops. He expected Mr Macdonald to be an ancient greybeard who had served the firm all his days. The young man led him down two flights of steps into an enormous basement, lined with bookshelves, and there, seated at a large desk at the far end, was a very thin middle-aged man with fading black hair and spots of dandruff littered all over what had once been a fashionable suit on the streets of London about 1885.
‘Welcome, you are welcome indeed!’ said Macdonald ‘I believe the youth said your name is Fitzgerald. You’re not related by any chance to the Fitzgerald who translated The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam? Any first editions of that work would be most valuable.’
‘Alas, no,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald with a smile.
‘Pity,’ said Macdonald, brushing a wandering piece of dandruff from his shirtsleeve. ‘Let me tell you about my area of competence here. I love books, Mr Fitzgerald, I always have. I’ve always preferred them to people as a matter of fact. Perhaps that’s why I never married. I don’t like daylight much either. That’s why I am content down here. My late father, God rest his soul, left me a large collection of books and I’ve been adding to them ever since. I believe I own first editions of most of the major English novelists since the middle of the eighteenth century. But I digress. Here, I am the record keeper. I keep details of all the major sales and purchases we make. I file the obituary notices of the rich in case they have valuable libraries which may have to be sold for tax reasons. I recommend to our young men the auctions they ought to attend and the works they should obtain for us and at what price. I am the memory of Beggs Brothers, here in my basement, a living archive! How can I help you?’
‘I am interested in an American book that came out about twelve years ago, in 1894 I think, Mr Macdonald. Only four copies of the book were sent over to London by the New York publishers. I do not know where in London they were sent. Coming here is a long shot, a very long shot indeed.’