Выбрать главу

He was extremely puzzled. Were it not for the survival of that bedroom lamp, the reasonable inference would have been that the family had been obliged to fall back on its reserves by robbing the electricity meter. But the power clearly was still on. In any case, the O’Shaunessys were great improvisers: they would have set light to the staircase sooner than sit drinking in the dark.

Constable Burke was by now just outside the house, close by the front gate. And, perhaps because he was so puzzled, he committed the very error against which the inspector had carefully given warning.

He stared up at the lighted window.

What he saw would have immobilized much less susceptible men.

Just beyond the undraped glass, yet as splendidly indifferent as if it had been solid brick, a young woman was hurriedly removing her clothes.

The constable did not call out. He did not blow his whistle. He made no preparations to note down a name and address with a view to proceedings being taken. He did not even try and think of what Section of what Act was being contravened. He simply froze into grateful contemplation.

Time, for him, ceased to exist, save perhaps as a season between jumper and skirt, an interval of hair-rumpling, a span from suspender to suspender. Minutes or years could have been going by, for all he could tell. Certainly the girl was in no haste; a less enraptured observer might have suspected that she had in mind a limit to her performance, that she was following some sort of schedule.

No such misgivings clouded the trance of Constable Burke. He continued to stand motionless, deaf, blind to all but the occupant of the shining rectangle in the black sky.

Her remaining garments were now at the count of two. Which next? Oh, delicious speculation. She was facing into the room. Her hand was behind her. It strayed to a point in the middle of her back. No, down now. It lingered at her waist. Ah...

“Right! NOW!”

The sound was like that of an exploding boiler.

Immediately in front of Constable Burke there rose up what seemed to his confused senses to be a great column of black smoke shot with scarlet flame.

“I’ve got him, lads!” boomed the smoke. It swooped and engulfed him with a smell of fish and whiskey. Other shapes crowded in from each side. He was on the ground, flat on his back. Objects of great weight and excruciating hardness bore down his arms and legs, apparently with the purpose of embedding them permanently in the pavement. On to his stomach descended a monument.

The voice again roared out in command. This time, it was directed upward.

“Right y’are, Bernadine—ye’d best be gettin’ yerself daicent now and downstairs wid ye!”

The girl in the bedroom snatched one of her discarded garments from the floor, shielded herself behind it and drew the curtains. In other rooms of the house lights sprang on.

They enabled Constable Burke to identify the great red face of the man who sat on his stomach and gazed in ferocious triumph from one to another of the rest of the ambuscades. He was Joseph O’Shaunessy, père—Old Dogfish himself—and those who knelt on Burke’s limbs were a muster of such sons and sons-in-law as happened currently to be out of prison.

The constable used what breath remained in him to acquaint the O’Shaunessies of his profession and of the heinous nature of the assault they had just committed.

The old man found this recital immensely amusing. He, he responded, was the Pope—as his sons would confirm. The sons did so.

There followed from their father a brief but zestful account of what was proposed to be done with the man who had lurked, night after night, to spy (God forgive him) upon the modesty of good Catholic girls. At tide-time, in two hours, he would be taken aboard the family shrimping boat as far as Cat’s Head Middle, or maybe Yorking Passage, and there unladen to peep at mermaids.

“And now,” called the old man, clambering at last from the policeman’s midriff, “let’s be havin’ ’im inside so’s yer mother can stitch some nice big stones into his pockets.”

In possession once more of the gift of speech, Constable Burke declared again who and what he was. This time, there was more light and his face was no longer overshadowed by the anatomy of Old Dogfish. One of the sons clutched his father’s arm.

“Holy Mother o’ God! He’s tellin’ the truth, Da. It’s a rozzer, all right, and from the station house itself!”

Several of the others relinquished their hold on Burke and peered at him anxiously. One turned to his father and nodded. He looked disappointed, like a sportsman on learning his bird to be out of season.

“Jaisus!” muttered the old man. He cuffed those of his retinue that were within reach, then whipped from beneath his jersey a handkerchief the size and colour of a ketch sail and with it began brushing down the constable’s jacket and trousers.

“No harm done, sor! No harm at all. We can all make a little mistake sometimes, now can’t we, sor?”

He gave one of his sons an affectionate kick. “And what are yous all standin’ there for, ye great gawps? Get inside wid ye and tell yer mother to have a nice cup o’ lay ready for the gentleman.”

And so amends were made—not only with draughts of tea like concentrated wood preservative, but with lacings of ‘the hard stuff’ and genial pledges to the Boys in Blue, and smiles and dimplings from a now dressed and demure Bernadine and, as a finale, a newspaper-enwrapped lobster with compliments to the guest’s Good Lady.

In so jolly an atmosphere, it was hardly to be expected that anybody would notice the rising of a figure from concealment near the front gate and its rapid yet curiously clumsy departure into the darkness.

Chapter Five

At ten o’clock the next morning, while inspector Purbright was hearing details of the first and fruitless watch for the Flaxborough Crab, a bus drew up outside the Trent Street Darby and Joan Club. Thirty-five of the members were waiting to be taken on their annual outing.

This year’s venue was to be the old reservoir at Gosby Vale, a half-hour’s drive distant. There would be a picnic lunch, games, and a competition based on the naming of wild flowers. Lemonade a-plenty (in the terminology of the organizers) was to be available and an optimistic rumour had persisted in the club for some weeks that a crate of light ale for the gentlemen had been donated by the Flaxborough Brewery Company.

This, indeed, was true, but the organizers had thought it politic to hide the crate in the back of the luggage compartment of the bus as a reserve benefaction. It would be withheld if circumstances suggested that undue frivolity might result.

At the moment, no such eventuality seemed likely or even possible. There was an air of sober resignation about the party of old men and women assembled in one corner of the club concert room. Despite the warmth of the day, they were in thick outdoor clothing. All wore hats. Some, with suitcases or parcels at their feet, looked like emigrants awaiting passage to Hudson Bay.

The chief organizer of the treat bustled into the room, rubbing his hands and saying “Fine! Fine!” over and over again. He hosed the Darbys and Joans down with his smile and inflicted a vigorous handshake upon as many as lacked the presence of mind to feign earnest search for something on the floor.