A little before eight o'clock he went down to the basement, inspected the picnic basket and had it brought up to the hall, then he went upstairs to fetch Maureen Luggala. She was sitting waiting for him with, he was pleased to see, a cowed look on her face, for he had feared that during the night her terror of the witch could have caused her to change her mind and he might have considerable trouble in making her obey him.
‘I have a coach below,' he said. 'Where shall I tell the man to take us?'
'Along the road through County Wicklow, that leads to Tullow,' she replied tonelessly.
'Good. You can tell the servants as we go through the hall that you expect to be back in a few days. In no circumstances are you to mention my name in front of them. Susan stayed here and I do not wish them to connect me with her. I gave them no name, and they know me only as a police agent.'
'How long shall I be away?' she asked anxiously. 'That. . . that is if Katie O'Brien does not keep me with her and enslave me.'
'You need not fear that; for I do not intend that you should even see her. Provided you behave yourself and do as I tell you, you should be home again before very long.'
With a sigh of relief she led the way out of the room. In the hall she spoke a few quick words to her maid. Roger
told the coachman the road to take, then handed her into the coach. The footman put the basket on the opposite seat and closed the door. As they drove off Roger smiled to himself. His blackmail had succeeded.
The way lay almost due south and on leaving Dublin they passed through Donnybrook Fair. In view of their anything but friendly relations, for the two of them to have to travel together for a considerable distance created an awkward situation, and for the first few miles they sat side by side in silence. But as they passed Galloping Green, with its solitary inn and smithy, Roger found his speculations about what might have happened to Susan so worrying that, to divert his mind from them, he decided to break the strain, and asked Maureen if she had found life in Dublin dull after having lived for several years in London.
She readily responded that she missed the magnificent spectacles provided by the great entertainments given by London's wealthiest hostesses, but she had many old friends in Dublin and found the quieter social life there very pleasant.
From that point on they exchanged remarks intermittently, and she told him the names of the Anglo-Irish nobles whose mansions lay behind the long, stone walls they passed, and pointed out to him as they approached, features of interest such as Bray Head and the rushing Dargle river. There were stretches of beautiful, bright green grass, on which small flocks of sheep grazed, but no sign of cultivation.
About twelve miles from Dublin the narrow road became more winding as it entered the upward slopes to the Wicklow mountains, with the Sugar Loaf high above the ivy-covered trees on the right. A little further on a track to their left led toward the monastic settlement of Glendalough to which, Maureen said, the religious came from all over Ireland.
From that point onward the slopes became steeper, with deep, wooded valleys made very picturesque by granite boulders lying among the trees which were now showing their young spring leaves of tender green. Climbing all the time at walking pace, they eventually emerged from the trees on to high, flat moorland where heather grew between clumps of gorse. Then came more patches of woodland from which they came out on to another wide stretch of moorland, known as Featherbed Mountain. Maureen told him that Dublin drew a large part of its peat for fires from there.
As they crossed this area for a mile or so, they, passed through low cloud, but came out of it to see on their left a deep valley in which lay the lochs Tay and Dan and a river where, here and there, white foam cascaded over clumps of rocks. Half a mile further on Roger noticed two stone pillars, evidently a gateway, but from which the gate had disappeared. The road veered off half right from them.
A moment later Maureen called to the coachman to pull up, then she turned to Roger and pointed to the gateway. 'It is here. There is a steep drive down for over a mile. At the bottom of the valley lies the loch, and near its edge, the castle.'
'What is this place called ?' Roger asked.
'Luggala,' she replied. 'The castle was the ancestral home of my late husband's family. He took me to see over it once, shortly after we were married. It is little but a ruin now. Only a few rooms are habitable, but it seemed a good place for Katie to go into hiding, because she was in trouble.'
Roger nodded. 'Yes. I knew about that. And you are right. In the past two miles we haven't passed even a cottage. I've rarely seen a more desolate piece of country.' Poking his head out of the window, he told the coachman to drive past the gate and on.
'Where are we going,' she asked anxiously.
'To find a suitable spot in which to have our meal. It is just on one o'clock, and we've been on the road for nearly five hours, so I am now hungry.'
Evidently glad that he had not decided to have their meal there in front of the gateway, she did not demur; and they drove on for the best part of two miles, until they came to another wood. There Roger halted the coach,, picked up the basket and prepared to get out.
'What are you about to do?' she leaned forward quickly. 'Surely we can eat here in the coach ?'
He shook his head. 'No. As it is a fine day I prefer the woods. There will probably be some wild flowers: dwarf daffodils, anemones and kingcups.'
Reluctantly she allowed him to hand her out, and accompanied him about thirty yards along a path into the wood. There, evidently fearing that he intended to avenge himself on her for having given his daughter into the power of the witch, and anxious to remain in sight of ‘ the coachman, she halted and said, 'This will serve. I do not wish to go any further.'
'You will do as I tell you,' he said sharply. 'I have promised that I will not harm you or prevent your returning to Dublin. Come now, or as an alternative I'll take you with me to visit Katie O'Brien.'
She shuddered, gasped, 'No! No!,' and hurried after him until he had led her deep into the wood, at least a quarter of a mile from the stony, rutted track which was termed a road.
Sitting down on a grassy bank at one side of a small clearing, they ate their meal in silence, and shared one bottle of the wine. Roger then stood up, wrapped a chicken thigh and a large piece of cake in paper, put them in one of his capacious pockets and the second bottle of wine in the other. Smiling at her, he said :
'Here, my lady, we part. The odds are that you will have to walk a good part of the way back to Dublin before you can get a lift. Anyway it is as good as certain that you will have to spend tonight out on the moor.'
As she began to protest, he cut her short. 'For iniquities of which you have been guilty I am letting you off very lightly. And should I learn later that you lost your way in the darkness, fell in a ditch and broke your neck, it would not cause me one moment's loss of sleep.'
Turning his back on her he set off at a gentle run to ensure that, should she follow him, he would reach the coach well ahead of her. When he reached it, he said to the coachman:
'The lady who was with me is spending the night with friends who have a house on the far side of the wood. Take me back now to that gateway where the road bends, and set me down there.'
The man gave him a curious glance, but did as he was bade. On leaving the coach Roger told him that he was also staying the night with friends in the neighbourhood, then paid him off, gave him a lavish tip and sent him back to Dublin.
Roger had grudged the time he had given to getting rid of Maureen Luggala; but he had felt it a precaution he dared not neglect because, had he left her the use of the coach, it was possible that, to make her peace with Katie O'Brien, she might have driven to the castle by some other route and warned the witch that he was on his way there. But, as he stood for a moment in the stone gateway, he realised that he had lost nothing, because he had time on his hands. It was barely three o'clock, so there were several hours of daylight yet in which to reconnoitre the place and, impatient as he was to learn what had happened to Susan and whether Charles was there, it would have been stupidly rash to attempt to enter the castle until he had the full cover of night.