The Murderer Inside the Mirror, page 26
‘Ah, you’ve a touch of the poet yourself, haven’t you?’ said Phelan. ‘That describes how I’ve always thought of her. Could you see where the painting had been done?’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Jack. ‘But the lute was with her.’
‘The lute,’ said Phelan, half to himself. ‘Yes, she’d have his lute in the portrait.’
‘It’s Silken Thomas’s lute, isn’t it?’
‘I think it would be. And the music? The Lament?’
‘A fragment was painted in,’ said Jack. ‘But someone had tried to conceal it – long after the portrait was done, I think. My cousin, Byron, managed to scrape some of the paint away, though.’ He glanced at Viola, who was still looking questioningly from one to the other of them, then said, ‘Between us we were able to read what Thomas had written – had asked—’
‘Commanded more like, arrogant rebel that he was,’ said Phelan. ‘“This charge I lay on all who come – Her memory to shroud, her name to forget …” Those were the lines, weren’t they?’
‘They were. And then, “Guard her guilt and enclose her memory …”’ said Jack.
Viola leaned forward. ‘In the play, Tomás and Maran and Catrina find the lute,’ she said. ‘Tomás calls it the Murderer’s Lute – the story is that he had an ancestor who played it on his way to being hanged, isn’t it? But I didn’t know the lute existed outside of the play.’
‘It did exist. And Montague and I found it,’ said Phelan. ‘Not quite as the characters in the play found it, but near enough. Over a century ago, an ancestor – Seamus Rafferty – somehow persuaded or fooled builders or architects into creating a hidden room when Dublin Castle was being restored. I found some of Seamus’s letters – he’d had maps and plans copied by a firm of antiquarian booksellers, Maguire’s in Dublin – and some of the documents were in Westmeath House. Montague brought that old rogue Todworthy Inkling over, and I suspect the two of them had a rare old time in Maguire’s shop. They arrived at Westmeath laden with tattered papers and letters.’
Jack said, ‘And once Uncle Montague had put everything together—?’
‘He was determined to find Seamus’s hidden room,’ said Phelan. ‘And to get at the lute.’ The smile was mischievous and indulgent. ‘I didn’t believe any of it at first, but the sketch plan Seamus had drawn up was clear enough, and Montague was right. We found the room, and when we got it open …’
He broke off, and Viola said, ‘“Lying by itself in the shadows – half covered by layers of dust, as if it’s trying to hide …”’
‘Thomas of Kildare’s lute,’ said Jack, softly. ‘That’s what you and Montague found. It’s what inspired that scene.’ He thought: And Maran is Montague, of course.
‘It did inspire it,’ said Phelan. ‘Seamus had hidden the lute there, and with it the ballad Thomas composed to Catherine Ó Raifeartaigh. We found them both,’ he said, and now his voice was faraway. ‘I read most of the Lament before we were caught. And I never forgot it. But I never knew why Catherine – her memory, her name – had had to be so fiercely suppressed.’
‘The guards caught you, before you could bring the lute and the music out?’ said Viola. ‘That’s what the disguised scene is about, am I right?’
‘Near enough. We fought the guards and somehow we got away. But I was injured.’ One hand went up to brush the dark glasses. ‘I fell against a mirror and the glass shattered, and … And my eyes were destroyed.’ A shudder went through him, and Jack understood that the memory was still vivid and painful – that it always would be.
‘Montague and Ethne thought I was dead, but they carried me out, and brought me here,’ said Phelan. ‘I was probably not far off death, in fact.’
Jack knew he and Viola shared a thought: he doesn’t know Ethne’s dead. He doesn’t know what happened inside the Roscius. But it’s not for us to tell him – not yet.
He said, ‘The nuns nursed you?’
‘They were wonderful. They were given to understand there had been some kind of fight – a street brawl, I think – and that I had been injured. That was Montague – he could always spin a good story.’ Phelan smiled wryly. ‘The Roman Catholic Church is very accustomed to hiding secrets,’ he said. ‘The nuns would never have condoned theft or violence, though. They’ve always believed that it was losing my sight that caused me to renounce the world – to forsake it and my former life completely. They found that perfectly understandable – they know about renouncing the world. They respected my wishes, and kept my identity from everyone. I’m just another of the residents in their guest house. They look after me as much as I need to be looked after,’ he said. ‘But I’m able to be almost wholly independent, and I thank whatever gods are appropriate that I am. Ethne visits me, although not too often. It would draw attention to the convent if she was for ever coming here. It would draw attention to me – which is exactly what I don’t want. I want the world to believe I really did die five years ago.’
‘I understand,’ said Jack, but he thought: there’s more to this than he’s telling us. He wrote a murder into that play, and he called it The Murderer Inside the Mirror. A murder happened that night in Dublin Castle, that’s almost certain. One of the guards, maybe, as in the play? But the three of them got away. We can’t question him about it, though, and we’ll probably never know the truth.
Phelan was saying, ‘My life here is better than you might think. There’s work I can do and enjoy. Sister Mary has become a good friend – as far as nuns are allowed friendships. She’s currently engaged in compiling a history of St Joseph’s – it’s a very old Order, and she’s disinterring all kinds of ancient documents. She reads them to me – between us we manage to decipher the old Latin and the Gaelic – and she writes at my dictation. It’s a great pleasure to us both.’ He paused, then as if to lighten the mood said, ‘Tell me, now, did Mother Superior invite you to lunch? If she did, I hope you accepted. You’ve time to stay a little longer before you go back?’
Jack looked at Viola, who gave a quick nod. He said, ‘We were invited, and we have as much time as you want, Phelan.’
‘And we’d enjoy having lunch here and talking with you some more,’ said Viola, and Phelan, clearly pleased, felt for a bell rope that hung near his chair.
‘Do the nuns know who we are?’ said Jack.
‘They know you as friends from my theatrical past. I suspect they were sent into something of a flutter at the prospect of a visit from two such distinguished people, and … Ah, Sister Mary, it’s yourself, isn’t it,’ he said, as the door opened. ‘I’d know the footsteps anywhere. Dainty as a dewdrop, and you come most carefully upon your hour.’
‘A fine old flatterer he is, this one,’ said Sister Mary, coming into the room. ‘As I daresay many a lady has known to her cost.’
‘That’s between me and the confessional booth,’ said Phelan, promptly.
‘Is it indeed? Well, as for the hour,’ said Sister Mary, ‘isn’t it everyone gathering in the refectory, and wanting to meet your famous guests.’
TWENTY-NINE
Jack sat next to Mother Superior in the refectory. He liked her, and he enjoyed the lunch, which was plain, but well-cooked and plentiful. Wine was offered – ‘A little wine for the stomach’s sake, so the Bible tells us, Mr Fitzglen,’ said Mother Superior, gravely.
‘A very good maxim,’ said Jack, accepting the wine and finding it excellent.
‘It’s a vintage we reserve for visitors, Mr Fitzglen. We don’t offer our guests the communion wine, you understand.’
‘Ah.’
‘We buy that wholesale from a supplier in Dublin,’ she said, deadpan.
After the meal, they were served coffee in Phelan’s room, and it was then that Viola asked the question Jack had been framing throughout lunch.
‘Phelan,’ she said, ‘the break-in at the castle. You said there was a fight with the guards, and there must have been enquiries – investigations.’
‘And the existence of Seamus’s secret room would certainly have become known,’ said Jack.
Phelan smiled. ‘You’re forgetting,’ he said, ‘what a wily old fox Montague Fitzglen was. He often called himself a master forger, but he could forge other things than paintings and jewellery. And there’s no need to recoil, Jack – yes you did, I felt it. But Viola will be well aware of what Montague always called the Fitzglens’ other profession.’
‘Of course I’m aware of it,’ said Viola, with a gesture as if to brush something unimportant aside. ‘Phelan, how did Montague forge a distance between the two of you and what happened in the castle?’
‘Montague could conjure up diversions,’ said Phelan. ‘Smoke-screens. You might not remember, but four or five years ago – around the time my death was reported – there were accounts in the newspapers of what was believed to be an attempt to steal the Irish Crown Jewels from Dublin Castle. The accounts were somewhat vague – Montague read them to me; in fact he left a couple of the cuttings here. There was a faint air of puzzlement in most of them. There was also,’ he said, ‘an air of glee in Montague’s voice when he read them out.’
Jack looked at Viola, and a frown creased her brow. For a moment neither of them spoke, then Jack said, slowly, ‘You’re saying my Uncle Montague sent false information to newspapers? That he created a story that the castle had been broken into and an attempt made to steal the Irish Crown Jewels? Purely to cover up what had really happened?’
‘That’s precisely what he did. If you will look in my desk – it’s just by the window, Sister Mary often sits there – you should find a folder of newspaper cuttings. And if my memory serves right, there’s at least one that describes what it was believed happened.’
Jack was already at the desk, sliding open drawers. In the top one was a card folder.
‘I’ve got it,’ he said, opening the folder. ‘The cutting is from the Morning Post.’
‘Yes, but you needn’t hold that against it. Read it out,’ said Phelan.
Readers will recall how this newspaper recently reported that the collection known as the Crown Jewels or State Jewels of Ireland had been transferred to a newly constructed strongroom in the Bedford or Clock Tower. Security was stringent; seven latch keys were created, all in the keeping of Sir Arthur Vicars, the Ulster King of Arms.
It is a splendid and historic collection, and includes the collars of five Knights of the Order, and also the heavily jewelled star and badge regalia created in 1831 for the Sovereign and Grand Master or the Order of St Patrick (see page 6 for a more detailed description).
The Garda (Irish police force) say an attempt was made to enter the Clock Tower, and staff were injured in the process. However, no one was apprehended. Happily, though, the strongroom with the jewels was not breached, although, regrettably, Sir Arthur woke after a stint of night duty to find the jewels had been taken from the strongroom, and several pieces were draped around his neck.
The Garda issued a statement to say they do not yet know who was responsible.
‘Did people believe that?’ said Jack, putting the cutting down. ‘That it was a … a bungled attempt to reach the Irish Crown Jewels?’
‘Of course they believed it. Your Uncle Montague wove some splendid rumours – they kept the newspapers busy for weeks. And everyone said Vicars would have been drunk at the time – a shocking old soak, Arthur Vicars.’
Jack said, ‘But weren’t the jewels – or some of them – really stolen a few years afterwards? As recently as last year, wasn’t it?’
‘They were. I should have known you’d stay aware of any major filches,’ said Phelan. ‘And, of course, the real theft was huge news, and it strengthened Montague’s story. He wrote to me about it – a very guarded letter it was, since Sister Mary reads all my letters to me. Montague simply described it as an item of interest – how it was being speculated as to whether the earlier break-in might have been some kind of rehearsal for the main theft. You understand I couldn’t say whether Montague started that line of speculation,’ said Phelan, virtuously. ‘But I wouldn’t put it past him.’
‘Neither would I,’ said Jack, replacing the cutting in the desk.
‘And you do see how it covered up the truth about that night when the three of us got into the Clock Tower? And,’ said Phelan, ‘how it led the trail of suspicion away from Westmeath – from myself and Montague, and also from Ethne. My main concern, of course, was to protect Ethne.’
There was the sense of evasion again, and Jack thought, as he had earlier, that there was more to Ethne Rafferty’s part in all this than Phelan was disclosing. But whatever it had been, it could not matter now.
He said, ‘And out of all of that, you created Tomás and Catrina and Maran.’
‘I did. When I recovered,’ said Phelan, ‘I had the writer’s compulsion to set down the story of what had happened that night. Montague was still here, and I dictated it to him – most of it in this room – in the form of a play.’ There was a brief gesture with his hands. ‘I know of no other form of writing,’ he said. ‘I suspect it was a Herculean task for Montague, because I dictated at white-hot speed. All the bitterness and the anger poured out of me like a scalding torrent. I used the Rebel Earl’s story at the heart – and his lute, with it.’
‘The Murderer’s Lute,’ said Viola, softly.
‘Yes. In that hidden room I had seen, and read, part of Thomas’s ballad to Catherine. Whatever the reason for his request to guard her memory, I honoured it,’ said Phelan. ‘Seamus had honoured it, as well. He was a raffish care-for-nobody, that Seamus, but I believe it was because of what Thomas wrote in that ballad that he hid the lute so far from Westmeath House – somewhere he thought it would never be found and there could never be any link to our family. To Catherine. I wish,’ he said, ‘that it could be discovered what happened to Catherine. And why Thomas laid that charge on her descendants.’
‘I wish so, too,’ said Jack.
Viola said, ‘Phelan, you created extraordinary characters in that play. It’s a deeply moving piece – full of emotion and atmosphere. I once told Jack I didn’t think he could ever play King Lear – I didn’t believe he could conjure up darkness. But I was wrong. Seeing him in rehearsal as Tomás, it’s as if he can hear him at some level the rest of us can’t. He will give a remarkable portrayal. A memorable portrayal.’
‘I’m glad. Your father would have been proud of you, Jack,’ said Phelan. ‘I met him once, many years ago, did you know that? A very gifted man. A great loss to the theatre.’
Jack managed to say, ‘Thank you,’ and then, in a more level voice, ‘I greatly like the little light touches you’ve woven into the piece.’
‘The gossipy sisters and the policeman and the lamplighters,’ said Phelan, and smiled. ‘I enjoyed writing those. You have to have the lightness to emphasize darkness, of course. You can’t feed your audience unremitting angst and agony. But you’re both people of the theatre – you understand about that.’
‘We do. And I think,’ said Viola, ‘that The Murderer Inside the Mirror is probably your finest work. I’m immensely proud to be playing Catrina.’
The smile came again. ‘Your voice is exactly how I wanted Catrina’s to be,’ said Phelan. ‘But you do see that when the script was finished, I didn’t dare keep it here. I trusted the nuns completely, but I couldn’t risk it being found. There were too many parallels, too many similarities to what Montague and I had done that night. We could so easily have been identified as Tomás and Maran. So Montague took the script back to England, giving me his word he would never allow it to be staged until it seemed safe.’
‘And when Montague died,’ said Jack, ‘you thought the safe time had come?’
‘I did.’
‘Phelan, who stole the script from Montague’s house?’
The question dropped into the room, and for a moment Jack thought Phelan was not going to answer. But then he said, ‘It was Tod Inkling, of course.’ He smiled. ‘Tod was the only other person who knew about my deception,’ he said. ‘He’s as close as an oyster when he cares to be, and Montague convinced me it would be safe to admit him to the secret. Taking the script would have been easy enough for Tod,’ he said. ‘I daresay he’s picked up a few tricks from the Fitzglens over the years, anyway. I telephoned him when I heard about Montague’s death. The telephone rather flusters the nuns, but secretly they’re proud of being in touch with the modern world. As for Tod – you wouldn’t think he would be sufficiently in tune with the twentieth century to even possess a telephone, but he does.’
‘I know he does,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve seen it on his desk.’
‘I told him to retrieve the play, and try to get it staged.’
‘You wanted to give the world one last Rafferty play,’ said Viola.
‘Well, I did, but I’m afraid there was a stronger reason.’ Phelan made the classic gesture of rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. ‘The sordid subject of coinage, my dears,’ he said. ‘“If money go before, all ways do lie open”. St Joseph’s charge a relatively modest sum for guests, but my funds were starting to dip alarmingly. I couldn’t ask Ethne to sell Westmeath House, of course – she has never known any other home, and it would have been too cruel. She lives a very quiet, very retired existence; I don’t think she even takes a newspaper, so I wasn’t worried that news of the play’s performance would reach her. But if it did, I intended to dismiss it by saying someone was trying to cash in on my name.’ Then, in a tone that was suddenly sharper, he said, ‘Tod told you the truth, didn’t he, Viola. He told you the play really was my work – and that I was here. Still alive. He must have done – how else could you have known to travel out here? Come now, we’re tumbling all the secrets out today – let’s have this one with them.’
