Warlord

TWENTY-NINE

JOHN BULLINGTON DRUMMOND WAS KNOWN throughout England, Scotland, and Wales as the author of one of the most beloved books ever published between two covers. It was called The Care and Feeding of the Proper English Rose Garden. Jack Drummond had spent most of his life writing his somewhat flowery masterpiece, although he was neither a writer nor a gardener by trade. He was, until recently, a policeman.

Drummond had retired, after a long, honorable career of dedicated service, to the bonnie banks of a fabled river. Retired in style, you might say; he lived in a right fairy-tale castle now, one of the loveliest in all Ireland. Glin Castle, a gleaming white edifice, had a charming toy-fortress quality about it. It was built in the late eighteenth century and overlooked the wide and gently flowing Shannon, now black dotted with coots and tufted ducks.

Well, Drummond lived near the castle to be honest, in the Gardener's Cottage, which rubbed shoulders with the stables. Still, it was a lovely little stone house, covered to the rooftop with roses. It was one of three battlemented Gothic folly lodges set about the five-hundred-acre wooded demesne, fiercely defended by the FitzGerald family for more than seven hundred years.

Jack found he awoke each morning filled with the simple love of life. The much-heralded golden years finally had meaning for him.

Prior to retirement, his home had been in the battle-scarred north of Ireland, a tiny council flat in a small town called Sligo. He'd been chief constable in Sligo Town for nearly four decades and had helped solve many crimes, including one of Ireland's most horrific assassinations, that of Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Drummond, having had his fill of enforcing the laws by day, then scribbling his masterpiece madly by night, had now retired to more or less permanent obscurity. He had become head gardener for the Knight of Glin. Which, he thought, had quite a nice ring to it.

The Knight, a most amiable fellow widely known by his proper name, Desmond FitzGerald, had hired Drummond based on the strong recommendation of his wife, a passionate gardener herself. Like everyone else, she'd read Care and Feeding, and immediately joined the countless legions of gardeners who proclaimed Jack Drummond a genius. She'd invited him for tea and a book signing at Glin Castle one afternoon and offered him the job on the spot.

For his part, he was delighted to now find himself in the employ of one of Ireland's oldest and most distinguished families. The current Knight was the twenty-ninth to hold that noble title, a fact that Drummond found quite remarkable.

The Knights of Glin were a branch of the great Norman family the FitzGeralds, Earls of Desmond. The family had been granted vast lands in County Limerick in the early fourteenth century by their Desmond overlords. The whole family were from the Norman Maurice FitzGerald, a companion-in-arms to the legendary warrior Strongbow, who'd acquired his fierce moniker in the twelfth century or thereabouts for his skill and use of the long bow.

Drummond was busy whacking away at floribunda and surgically pruning "Double Delights" in one of the Knight's countless hybrid tea rose beds that morning when he heard a familiar voice calling his name.

"Bulldog! I say, Bulldog, where the dickens are you? I can't see a thing for all these bloody roses!"

Ambrose Congreve, and someone named Hawke, were expected, of course; Congreve had called ahead. He'd never arrive unannounced, too proper for that by half. And he was the only man on earth Drummond allowed to call him "Bulldog."

There was a story behind that. There was always a story. One rather late and liquorish pub evening, Congreve had gotten to his feet, pulled a black spiral notebook from the inside of his stylish Norfolk jacket, and opened it with a flourish and a clearing of the throat. He then started in to reading aloud a "tribute" to his new colleague in the Mountbatten murder investigation.

"Ahem…'Drummond…has the appearance of an English gentleman: a man who fights hard, plays hard, and lives clean…His best friend would not call him good looking but he possesses that cheerful type of ugliness which inspires immediate confidence…Only his eyes redeem his face. Deep-set and steady, with eyelashes that many women envy, they show him to be a sportsman and an adventurer. Drummond goes outside the law only when he feels the ends justify the means.'"

"Rubbish," Drummond said.

"Sound like anyone we know?" Congreve had asked, when Drummond stared at him in stony silence.

"Where the hell'd you find that nonsense?"

"I copied it. From a book. By Sapper. I'm rereading it now, having none of my beloved Sherlockian volumes at my disposal."

"Pulp fiction."

"Pulp truth, Bulldog," Congreve had replied. And he'd called him by that name ever since. Drummond, snipping away at his roses, was snapped out of this reverie by a loud wail, once again calling his name.

"Bulldog! I say, where the hell are you, you little leprechaun? Have you fallen down a rabbit hole?"

"Over here!"

"Over where?"

"Here, you damn fool," he said, and flung an empty wicker basket high into the air so the world's most brilliant detective might accurately deduce his whereabouts.

"Oh. Over there. Why didn't you say so?"

A moment later Drummond could hear his old friend's heavy footsteps approaching on the gravel walkway. He was not alone. Someone with a more athletic gait was following in his wake. This man Hawke, or whomever.

"Oh. Hullo, Bulldog."

"Hullo, Congreve. Who's this?"

"May I present my dear friend Lord Alexander Hawke?"

Hawke shook the man's rough red hand. "Alex will do, Mr. Drummond." But Drummond wasn't listening to him. He was eyeing Congreve through narrowed eyes. Ambrose had told Hawke the man was difficult and the less he said, the better. Alex was happy to let Congreve do the talking.

They stared at each other in stony silence.

"Haven't changed much, have you?" Ambrose finally allowed.

"Nor you."

"Ugly as ever."

"Still fat as a Yorkshire pig."

"Drink?"

"Not too early?"

"Never too early."

And so they all three traipsed along winding garden pathways through endless acres of multicolored roses to Drummond's cottage. Entering the tiny kitchen, they sat opposite each other at the round wooden table. Drummond put a decanter of Irish whiskey on the table, the strong sunlight gleaming on the facets of the carved Waterford glass, a retirement gift.

"Help yourself, gentlemen," Drummond said, and slid two small glasses across the table. After they'd both downed one and replenished supplies, Congreve plastered his most serious expression on his face and looked at his old colleague.

"This is police business."

"I'm retired. I'm in the rose business."

"Involves the Mountbatten case."

"Case closed."

"Case reopened."

"What the blazes are ye talkin' about?"

"I think our 'third man' has surfaced."

"And what makes ye think so?"

"The Prince of Wales found a death threat in one of Mountbatten's books. It was signed 'The Pawn.'"

"So?"

"Prince Charles recently received yet another threat from the Pawn. 'Death to Kings.' Clearly a reference to His Royal Highness and his two boys."

"Same signature? Same hand?"

"Identical."

"Fresh?"

"As a hen's egg."

"Anythin' else?"

"Alex and I spoke to McMahon the other evening. He's out of prison, I'm sure you know. Freed by some lunatic in the Good Friday pardons. Two days ago, over in Mullaghmore, we had a nice little chat with him."

"Say anything new, did he?"

"I asked him about the missing girls. Did he know anything about that."

"Did he?"

"More than he was telling, I think."

"He have a name for the third man?"

"Same name we've always had. Smith."

"And how, pray tell, is any of this new information?"

"Be patient, will you? He said he'd heard rumors this Smith was living on an island just off the coast. Place called Mutton Island. I went out there with Alex. Amid the ruins of an ancient settlement, we found evidence of this mysterious Mr. Smith. We also found evidence of murder, by God. And we found human remains."

"Jesus Lord."

"We've got fresh DNA evidence, Bulldog. We're back in the game. We'll finally get to the truth of this thirty-year-old crime!"

"We? What is it you want from me?"

"Help. Despite your many unpleasant qualities, you're still the best copper I ever worked with. You were the one who first quoted Sherlock Holmes to me, and I shall be eternally grateful for that alone."

"Did I? What was the quote?"

"'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'"

"Ah, The Sign of the Four. One of my favorites. What exactly do you want of me? I'm quite busy as you can see."

"I want a look at your old files, first of all. Get the names and addresses of all the female victims. Get the M.E. to run a cross-check of their samples with the new DNA we found. If we get a match, everything else opens up. With this fresh evidence in hand, we're bound to turn something over. With your help, we just might crack it, Bulldog. Only if you're willing, of course. All these gorgeous roses."

Drummond cast his eyes out the window at the sun beaming down on his beautiful roses. Was any place on earth lovelier than this castle and its gardens? Could he bear to be away, even for a short time? He looked at Congreve, remembering what a great team they'd made, each complementing the other's strengths, and weaknesses. Their failure to find and prosecute the "third man" had been the one blemish on an otherwise sterling career of some forty years.

He looked at Ambrose and said, "We find this bloody Smith, we solve both cases. For good. Forever."

"That's correct. The murderer of the girls. And Lord Mountbatten."

Drummond turned his eyes on Alex.

"You met our McMahon, Mr. Hawke, did ye trust him? I never did. A drunken, lyin' cur, my estimation."

Hawke, startled out of his reverie, said, "We don't need him anymore, Mr. Drummond. We've got physical evidence of murder. Serial murder, in fact."

"Hmm. I do have a week's holiday coming up. But I've already told my employer I wouldn't be taking it."

"We need a cover story. Tell me. Is your dear mother still alive?" Congreve asked.

"Ah, no, she's not. She passed in Dublin, just last year she did, bless her sainted soul. Ninety-seven years old. She's at her final resting place in St. Stephen's cemetery."

"She's back, Bulldog."

"She's back?"

"Yes, back. But, sad to say, she's not doing all that well, I'm afraid. Fading fast, in fact. We could lose her any day now."

"You're talking about me blessed mother."

"I am indeed."

"You're a right bastard, aren't you?"

"In matters like this I am."

"Life and death."

"Precisely."

"Unfinished business."

"Quite."

"I'm in, damn you," Bulldog barked.