To Kingdom Come

13

I sat down beside Barker, hoping to discover what he had been doing while I was off with the younger faction members. I knew if there was anyone who could ask the right questions of Dunleavy and open him up, it would be the Guv. I didn’t want to do anything that might arouse suspicion, not merely because it was dangerous but also because I didn’t want to jeopardize Barker’s plans and thereby endanger the Royal Family.

My nose caught the scent of lilac water, and a small, pale hand settled a teacup in front of me. Something-instinct, if I had it-told me not to say a word to O’Casey’s pretty sister but to concentrate on the meeting. I knew not how she was mixed up in all this. Women and their intuition are a deep subject, and if it were possible that anyone might penetrate my disguise, it could be she. After all, hadn’t I read in the Carleton book that women could be as deeply involved in factions as men?

“Maire,” Eamon O’Casey said, and raised his chin in a dismissive gesture. She finished pouring the tea, and as she passed by Yeats, said something low in his ear. He trotted after her. Lucky beggar, I thought. I would have liked to follow her myself.

Colonel Dunleavy turned easily in his chair and regarded the young men about him like a benevolent father. His dove-gray suit, with its buttons of brass, gave him a military appearance, and with his white teeth and chin beard, he cut a commanding and persuasive figure. I could see how he was able to gather loyal men about him.

“Good afternoon, boys,” he said. “Did we emerge triumphant on the field of battle today?”

“We did,” McKeller piped up.

“Good. I told you these English lads didn’t stand a chance against you. You gentlemen are the tip of the spear that four million people in our homeland are holding. You are the best of the factions. But this shall be as nothing compared to the defeat we will deal the English government three weeks from now.

“London will be knocked off her pins. We will alert the other factions of the I.R.B. afterward, but by the time they arrive, we shall be in charge; if they wish to participate in the New Ireland, they shall have to line up behind us. I need hardly mention that the pacifistic, Queen-courting Mr. Parnell will not be receiving any post higher in our newly formed government than rat catcher.”

That elicited a few chuckles from the young men in the room. Parnell had little to recommend himself among this radical element of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. All the young men were leaning forward in their chairs, listening eagerly to the American colonel’s words.

They looked like soldiers, I thought, or worse, zealots ready to die if their plans did not work. Dunleavy’s impassioned remarks made the quest for Irish freedom seem like a search for the Holy Grail.

“I know you gentlemen have voiced concerns regarding the dynamite we’ve been using,” Dunleavy went on. “That is with good reason. It has failed to go off on several occasions, and Mr. van Rhyn, who is an explosives expert, has warned me that it is most dangerous. He has agreed to rid us of it safely and to provide new infernal devices. He assures us that he has made more nitroglycerin than Mr. Nobel himself. Normally he does not respond to requests to demonstrate his extraordinary abilities, but for once, for our eyes alone, he is willing to bend his rules. He and his assistant, Mr. Penrith, have promised to give us a show of their skills within the week.”

A show within the week? I couldn’t help but shoot a glance at my employer, but he was sitting coolly in his chair, fingers laced across his ample stomach, as immobile and aloof as a statue, save for the smoke rising from his pipe. I wasn’t sure I was proficient enough for some sort of demonstration, and I had no idea what kind of skills Barker possessed. Feverishly, I began going over the various formulas in my mind and what materials were required for each and just how we were going to obtain them. Dunleavy introduced my employer, who addressed the group.

“I am not a public speaker, gentlemen,” Barker said. “I am a simple bomb maker, with a knack for tinkering and a fascination with destructive force as a means of progress. Your country stands on the threshold of the modern world. Great changes will occur before the new century begins, and I have decided to stake my life and future upon Ireland. The age of swords and cavalry charges shall soon be over, and we shall be the ones to usher in a new era. I look forward to meeting each one of you and to working with you for the worthy cause of your country’s freedom. Thank you.”

“Mr. Penrith,” Dunleavy said. “Would you care to say a few words?”

“Me?” I asked. I hadn’t expected to give a speech. “No, sir. I merely wish everyone to know that Mr. van Rhyn’s goals are my goals. If he has thrown in his lot with you, I’ll give all that I have to help you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dunleavy said, flashing a munificent smile upon me. “There you have it, boys. If Her Majesty’s government sees fit to ignore our little warning, as they appear to have done, then we have no choice but to teach them a lesson. Go on with your private lives and continue to train yourselves, but be ready within the week for a demonstration that would make the Prime Minister weak at the knees if he could see it.”

That was our introduction to the desperate men who had bombed London. They all stood and shook our hands, full of confidence in their leader and his plans. The two men O’Casey and McKeller had brought with them, Padraig and Colin Bannon, shook my hand before leaving. They were thin, tough-looking fellows in tweed caps, twins who smoked short clay pipes and spoke little.

“Glad you happened along when you did,” Fergus McKeller said, grasping my hand. His hand was like a vise, clamping down and beginning to crush mine. It was the sort of trick one saw in the school yard, but effective for all that. If I didn’t put an end to it, he would attempt it every time I met him. Luckily, Barker had shown me a trick or two. I reached across and casually pulled back on his little finger. It is the weakest part of the hand, with the tensile strength of a carrot. Evidently, McKeller agreed. He let go, gave me an evil grin and a wink, and went over to confer with his friend O’Casey.

“I’ll show you to your room, gentlemen,” Miss O’Casey murmured behind us, and my employer and I gathered our belongings and followed her up the stairs. She seemed a demure, proper young woman, but having led a bachelor’s existence in Barker’s household, I couldn’t help but notice the rustle of her dress and the gentle sway of her form as she climbed the staircase. I heard the Guv clear his throat behind me. It was a none-too-subtle reminder to keep my thoughts on the case.

Our room wasn’t Claridge’s, or even the Midland Hotel, but it was serviceable. It was a long room with two narrow beds, two chairs, a wardrobe, and a large bureau. There were feminine touches in the room, such as an embroidered coverlet. I hazarded a guess that the girl had made them all.

“You have no objection to my leaving the window open a little, Miss O’Casey?” Barker asked. “I prefer fresh air in the evenings.”

“Of course,” she said. It was my first chance to get a proper look at her. She was a beauty, with fair skin, lightly freckled across the nose, fine blue eyes, and a head of thick auburn curls. She wore a plain black dress with an apron tied around her waist, but even in severe clothing, she was still quite charming. In this somewhat shabby house, she had the kind of beauty society girls in London struggled hard for and paid fortunes to attain, and very rarely succeeded.

“And tobacco?” Barker continued. “May I smoke in this room?”

“Provided you’re not in the habit of falling asleep while doing so. I shall leave you to settle in.”

After she left, the Guv looked after her, and favored me with a cold smile. “I would say she is not the sort of woman to be trifled with,” he pronounced. “In her own way, she is part of the faction. There is a desk downstairs which is too dainty to belong to anyone else. On it is a Gaelic grammar book. She is part of the movement to return Ireland to its native language.”

“Why have we moved here, sir, if I may ask? I would have thought that you’d wish to stay close to the faction’s leader.”

Barker sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs, and put a foot up. He spoke in a low tone so he wouldn’t be overheard. “You have to understand the situation, lad. We have to remain adaptable and react quickly to any new information. Dunleavy was grafted onto this faction, but McKeller, O’Casey, and the Bannon brothers have likely been friends since childhood. They function as a team. Perhaps they were fortunate to find such a well-known spokesman as the colonel, but he, too, was fortunate to come across a group of such earnest, radical-thinking young men. I need to get as close to the inner workings of the faction as possible.

“The last two hours with Colonel Dunleavy have been very informative. As I previously mentioned, he fought for the Confederacy. I would say that he possesses bravery, spirit, and a natural ability to influence others. I do not think, however, that he is a very intelligent man, and that worries me. Either his threat was made on the spur of the moment, and he is attempting to deliver what he has promised, or the plan to bomb London was calculated by someone else. I don’t care for either of the choices. I wish I could convince myself that this was solely his doing.”

“What makes you think him incapable?” I asked.

“I suspect that through much of his youth he got by on family money. I would hazard a guess that he is the youngest son of the Dunleavy family and hence was relegated to the military. Alfred Dunleavy appears to be a very spoiled man. I imagine he started debauching himself in military college and hasn’t stopped since. The loss of his side in the war was a deep blow to him, and was followed by his family’s financial losses. He was trained for nothing but war and drinking, and being of Irish descent, he naturally drifted to the radical fringe, where he joined in a mad attempt they made to hold Toronto for ransom in 1868. It was a failure, as well, and serving on losing sides must haunt him. Note his fondness for Confederate gray. Dunleavy was imprisoned four years for his part in the affair, and he is very proud of it. It is his continuing entree into Irish-American politics and the coffers that go with it. He spoke of a book he is writing, his memoirs, but if he were an astute man, he’d have finished it long before now and used it to his advantage.”

“You’ve formed an opinion of him quickly,” I noted.

“It is important in our work, lad, to be able to evaluate men quickly, and to make a few constructive inferences. The most important thing right now is that I believe that this plan is brilliant, and I do not think him a brilliant man. Therefore, it is possible someone else is doing the thinking for him.”

“Could it be one of the faction members, like Garrity or O’Casey?” I asked. “It would be a good combination of their brains and his name.”

“You could very possibly be right,” he admitted. “If everything goes according to what Dunleavy said, he could find himself the first official leader of Ireland, with both the younger men standing in the wings. Between the three of them, they could have Irish politics sewn up for the next twenty years, at least.”

“If it isn’t them, then who could it be?”

“First of all, it could be one of the men we spoke of earlier: Rossa, Davitt, Cusack, or O’Muircheartaigh. The latter, I’ve said before, is a master strategist, but I cannot picture him sharing his plans with another faction when he’s got one of his own.”

“I see.”

“What do you think of the Bannon brothers as candidates?” he asked.

“Them? I hardly think so,” I said. “They seemed rather slow, and those clay pipes of theirs …”

“Not necessarily, lad. Pipe smokers are often strategists, and the more silent they are, the more I wonder what they are thinking.”

“Well,” I said bitterly, “you’ve narrowed it down to just about everyone in this business but Dunleavy.”

“Yes, but there is still time yet. Not plenty of time, but time enough. If it makes you feel better, by all means, include the colonel as a suspect. It’s still conceivable that the old fellow had a rare stroke of genius.”

For now, we had more immediate things to worry about. We had one week to dispose of the unstable dynamite and somehow provide new explosives in exchange. I wondered if Barker was really planning to give them better and deadlier bombs. It was just the sort of thing he would do, confident that he could get them away from the terrorists again when the time came.

Barker slept in his spectacles and snored through the night on his back. The next morning, he was rested and refreshed, which was more than I could say of myself. I began to unpack my old pasteboard suitcase, opening a bureau drawer in the room.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Barker said. “We shall be moving again tomorrow.”

“Again? Where to?” I asked, my hands full of shirts.

“Across the Mersey and into a northern corner of your native Wales. Dunleavy says the dynamite is hidden in a barn near an abandoned lighthouse at Colwyn Bay. It is very remote. I believe we can stage our demonstration there.”

“But if we know where the dynamite is, why don’t we simply inform Scotland Yard? They can’t very well attack London with nothing but those sticks they carry.”

“True, but if these Fenian terrorists are thwarted once, they shall merely come again later and more prepared. I’d have them arrested on the spot if I thought a good barrister couldn’t help them wriggle out of it. They must be caught red-handed.”

I must admit my face fell. I do not have Barker’s manner, and all too often I show what I am feeling.

“Buck up, lad,” my employer said. “I shall insist that we have complete privacy while preparing the explosives. You look as if you could do with a day or two in the country.”

I suspected that meant that when we blew ourselves up, we wouldn’t even have the opportunity to take a few terrorists with us, but I kept my opinion to myself.

“First, we have work to do in Liverpool,” he went on. “We must see what kind of supplies we can gather. We shall be purchasing these items, though Dunleavy promises to reimburse us when the funds arrive from America.”

For the most part, London is a conservative, Anglican city, with dissent saved for unionist organizations, and the Speaker’s Corner of Hyde Park. On the other side of the Irish Sea, Catholic Dublin is a single dissenting voice, unified against England. Liverpool is both at once, oil and water that will never mix. One street has signs imploring one to vote for the most recent Fenian candidate, while the next bristles with Orangist ribands and placards. Liverpool is London’s spinster sister, querulous over issues, passionate but changeable, willing to go whatever way the wind may blow.

Dunleavy had returned to his hotel room, intent upon soliciting aid from one of the local city councilmen. Much of his time seemed to be spent looking for money. I would have thought in such case he might have moved to a less expensive hotel than the Midland, but I supposed in order to secure such funds, one must not look as if one were in need of them.

Miss O’Casey was intent upon ensuring that Cyrus Barker didn’t starve while in Liverpool. She fed us a breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon, sausage, black and white pudding, tomatoes, and toast. Dummolard couldn’t have done any better.

With O’Casey’s aid, my employer had compiled a list of places for us to go. At an ironmonger’s in Hanover Street, we filled several baskets, purchasing spools of wire, a dynamite plunger, buckets and paddles for mixing chemicals, and sundry other equipment. We collected more than was necessary to blow up Dunleavy’s old dynamite.

Before the day was out, we had visited a whitesmith, a chemist’s shop, and a chemical warehouse. I couldn’t help but wonder at how easy it was to purchase such terrible things when one has the means to do so.