From what Mr. Knight had told him, it was quite certain that Maureen Luggala was intimate with Katie O'Brien, and he felt convinced that she could tell him where to find the witch. With her, he had little doubt, were Susan and Charles. There was also good reason to believe that Maureen had furnished information to the spy Quelp; but he had no proof of that. He had a warrant for her arrest in his pocket, but he could not use it. By confronting her, as he meant to do, he was taking a great gamble. If she called his bluff, gone would be the only lead he had to tracing and rescuing from the devil's clutches the two young people he loved.
24
Blackmail
Roger walked down the area steps and pulled the beli chain. A few minutes later the door was opened by a footman in a striped waistcoat and shirt sleeves.
In a gruff voice Roger said to him, ‘I am one of the Viceroy's police agents from up at the castle. Are all the servants in?'
'Yes,' replied the man, with a scared look. 'It is having our bite of supper we are.'
Having judged the time of his call carefully, that was what Roger had hoped for, and he said, 'Good. Take me to them and I'll see you all together.'
The footman led him down a smelly passage, past the open door of a kitchen and into a room beyond it at the back of the house. Only one other man and three females were seated at a table, confirming Mr. Knight's statement that Lady Luggala was by no means well off, or she would have had a bigger staff. It transpired that the footman also acted as butler; the other man, an uncouth-looking lout, did the chores, the eldest woman was the cook, a pretty girl in her twenties combined the duties of lady's maid and housemaid, and a teenaged drab did the scubbing.
The three senior servants all had lilting Irish accents, the other two could speak only Erse. It was from the footman and the lady's maid that Roger got the information he wanted, and without their even asking to see his papers, as his manner of speaking told them that he was English, and his having said he came from the castle filled them with awe.
They confirmed that Lady Luggala and Jemima had arrived from England with Susan in mid-February. In mid-March all three had left Dublin in a hired coach, as her ladyship did not keep one of her own, but she had not said where they were going. Two days later Lady Luggala had returned alone. Then, one afternoon toward the end of March, a young English milord had called and spent over two hours with her ladyship. Two evenings later she had entertained both the young lord and a tall, lean priest to dinner. After the meal the priest and the young lord had driven off together in the priest's coach, but the servants had no idea where. Since then they had not seen either of the young ladies nor the English milord, and her ladyship had had no other guests to stay.
Roger then asked if any of them knew a woman named Katie O'Brien and, if so, when they had last seen her.
All of them shook their heads, with the exception of the middle-aged cook, who had been in Lady Luggala's service much longer than the others. She replied that in the old days, before her ladyship went to live in London, she had a friend of that name, who came frequently to see her; but since her return they had neither seen nor heard anything of Mrs. O'Brien.
Convinced that he could learn no more from them, Roger enquired if her ladyship was alone upstairs. When they said that she was, he bade the footman put on his jacket and take him up to her. But, before leaving the room, as a precaution against the cook having lied and perhaps leaving as soon as his back was turned, to warn the witch that Lady Luggala was being questioned by the police, he said sternly:
'All of you will remain here until I come downstairs. If any of you leave the house you will be charged with aiding and abetting a very serious crime.'
They could not know it to be an empty threat, and cowed into silence they resumed their supper of potatoes, bread and pickles.
Upstairs, outside the door of the drawing room, the footman asked whom he should announce, but Roger ignored him, pushed him aside, walked into the room and shut the door behind him.
Maureen Luggala was lying on a chaise longue, wearing a negligee and reading a French paper-back novel. At Roger's entrance she dropped the book, stared up in surprise and demanded:
'Who... who are you ?'
Roger made a leg and replied with deceptive courtesy. 'May it please Your Ladyship, I am a government agent from London, and it is my duty to question you on a very serious matter.'
'I... I don't understand,' she faltered.
'The name Katie O'Brien will not be unknown to Your Ladyship?'
'I... yes. I knew her when I lived in Dublin some years ago.'
'And more recently when you both lived in London.'
Maureen Luggala came to her feet, pulled her negligee round her and said angrily, 'With whom I am acquainted has nothing to do with you, and I have committed no crime to be questioned in this manner.'
'My superiors are of a different opinion, milady,' Roger smiled a little grimly. 'A regular visitor to Mrs. O'Brien's house in Islington was a Dutchman, named Cornelius
Quelp. You, too, were a regular visitor, and you met him there.'
The blood drained from Maureen's face, so that the patches of rouge on her cheeks stood out and she pressed one hand over her wildly beating heart.
'Quelp was arrested as an enemy agent, tried, convicted and is now in prison,' Roger went on inexorably. 'We have recently come upon evidence, milady, that you supplied him with information to the detriment of the safety of the realm.'
‘I... no,' she gasped. 'I told him nothing of importance. Perhaps I talked foolishly, but I had no idea that he was an enemy agent.'
Roger had no evidence, but his bluff had succeeded. 'Quelp will testify that you did know,’ he declared harshly. 'And your assertion that the information was of no importance is untrue. Otherwise you would not have been paid for it, as you were through Coutts Bank by Mrs. O'Brien.'
His stricken victim collapsed on to the chaise longue and covered her face with her hands. Then after a moment she withdrew them and panted, "Tis not true. The money was not for that. I am far from rich and was taking a daughter out in fashionable London society. Katie O'Brien is the girl's god-mother, and she helped to finance me.'
Drawing a paper from his pocket, Roger told her sternly, 'At your trial you will have the opportunity of trying to persuade the jury of your innocence, but I'd wager big odds on it that you will fail. And I have here a warrant for your arrest.'
'No!' Her voice quavered and tears began to run down her cheeks. 'No, please! I've done no real harm. I'm certain of it. And the war is over. I'd be ruined, ruined!'
'That would be only justice, since you have been responsible for the ruin of others,' Roger snapped. Then, abandoning his role of a government official, he sat down in an armchair, crossed his legs and went on in a quieter tone, 'And now we will talk of that. I am wearing these clothes only because they are better suited for questioning your servants than my usual attire, which might have made them doubt my being a police agent.'
She looked up quickly, with new hope in her pale blue eyes. 'Then you are not... All this...'
'Oh, yes I am,' he asserted quickly. 'I will show you the papers I carry if you wish. But I have assumed the role only temporarily. Although we have never met, my name is not unknown to you. It is Roger Brook.'
She stared at him aghast. 'Then ... then you are Susan's father.'
He nodded. 'And god-father to the Earl of St. Ermins. My primary purpose in coming here is to find out what has become of them. I am convinced that you know and could take me to them.'