A June of Ordinary Murders (53 page)

One of the G-men showed his warrant card.

‘We're detective division … police business here.'

The gentleman looked momentarily bemused. Then he turned his back to resume his cheers for the royal visitors.

The G-men hustled their captives to a closed car that had been waiting at Marine Road. Before the royal train had cleared Kingstown Station, the police vehicle had started towards the city.

The three prisoners were lodged in separate but adjacent cells at Exchange Court. O'Reilly and Locke screamed curses at the G-men. James O'Donnell defiantly sang a couple of verses from a patriotic ballad before falling silent.

Half an hour later, Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow entered the holding area. He registered his presence with a brief visit to O'Reilly and Locke in their cells. Were they ready to make formal statements about what they had been doing in Kingstown, armed with Navy Colts, as Prince Albert Victor stepped ashore?

After predictable torrents of abuse from the two prisoners, he went to James O'Donnell's cell and flung the heavy door open.

‘Come on out, O'Donnell. I'm sorry about the misunderstanding. You did great work there for us,' he called in a voice sufficiently loud to be heard in the adjoining cells occupied by O'Reilly and Locke.

A bewildered James O'Donnell, afflicted with the pains of alcohol withdrawal and approaching sobriety, staggered out of the cell to freedom.

Patrick O'Reilly was surprised an hour later when the duty officer admitted his mother and brother for a brief visit. Shortly afterwards, both men were further surprised to be allowed to consult with a solicitor known to G Division as an active supporter of the Hibernian Brothers.

By nightfall the word was around the city that O'Donnell was an informer, a G-Division spy, a traitor. By the next morning, the Hibernian Brothers let it be known that there was a price of £100 on his head, payable in cash to anyone who would discharge the patriotic duty of ending his life.

Some time over the next 72 hours, G-Division detectives learned, James O'Donnell made his way to Queenstown and purchased a one-way, third-class ticket to New York. A police agent on the voyage reported that he was seldom sober on the crossing to the New World.

*   *   *

At mid-morning, a nervous young woman had presented National Bank of Ireland bonds with a total value of more than £1,200 to a teller at the bank's head office at Dame Street.

Two lines of green ink had been struck through the name of the original bond-holder, which could still be clearly read as ‘Cecilia Downes.' A new name, ‘Mrs Louise Thomas,' now appeared on each bond. The alterations had been witnessed and initialled by Horace (widely known as ‘Fish') McGloin, the principal and sole member of a law firm located at Essex Street. The young woman said she wanted to exchange the bonds for cash.

Although the teller had 10 years of experience in the cashiers' department he had never before been asked to provide such a large sum across the counter to a single customer. Nor was it usual for individuals of the woman's social class, as indicated by her speech and dress, to have business with the bank.

When the teller had examined the bonds he asked the woman for proof of her identity. She became evasive and then upset. The teller noted that although she claimed to be Mrs Louise Thomas, she wore no marriage ring. He asked her to take a seat and to wait. He beckoned to the branch porter and whispered to him. The porter stepped into the street and signalled to a constable.

When the constable questioned the woman she became aggressive at first, then she admitted that she was not Mrs Louise Thomas. She claimed she was a friend of Mrs Thomas and that she was acting on her behalf. When the constable asked her give her own name, she declined. He then told her he would have to take her to the police station at College Street.

An hour later, after questioning in the station, she said she was Henrietta Connors, known as ‘Hetty.' She told the officers she was 18 years of age and that she was employed as a domestic at Sir Patrick Dunn's Hospital.

She insisted that she was a friend of the woman whose name appeared as the new beneficiary on the bonds, Mrs Louise Thomas. But she was unable to say where or how Mrs Thomas might be contacted in order to verify this.

After another hour she changed her story, claiming that she had found the bonds on the street. When it was clear that the police officers did not believe her she gave yet a different version. The bonds had been given to a friend of hers for safe keeping. And the friend, in turn, had given them to her.

The officers wanted the name of this friend. They told Hetty Connors that she had to realise that she was now in mortal danger as far as the law was concerned. Then she gave her friend's name: Sarah Hannin.

Was this the same Sarah Hannin whose body had been taken from the canal a week previously? It was, she agreed. The station sergeant sent for a side-car and told the station orderly to notify Detective Sergeant Swallow that he was bringing a prisoner to Exchange Court.

Later, after questioning by Joe Swallow and Mick Feore, Hetty Connors finally broke down and abandoned her story about being given the bonds for safe keeping by Sarah Hannin.

Swallow told her that she would be charged with the murder of Sarah Hannin and unlawfully receiving the bond. He added that he had seen a woman hang at Tullamore jail for murder a year ago. Hetty Connors reflected for a short while, then she inquired if she might avoid such a fate by telling Swallow the truth.

He said he could not give any assurances until he heard what she had to say. But if it was the case that she was not directly involved in violence, and if she were willing to give evidence against Sarah Hannin's murderer, then it might be possible for her to be dealt with more leniently.

She considered this for a few moments, then she gave her final version of what had happened.

On Wednesday evening of the previous week, Louise Thomas, with her young son, had come to visit Sarah Hannin at 106 Merrion Square.

As Hetty Connors understood it, Louise wanted Sarah to mind some important papers she had been given by her dying mother. She was in fear of the criminals who were her mother's associates.

When Louise and her son had left, Sarah went to her room and looked through the papers. She knew enough to recognise that the bonds were valuable. She kept them in a small bag that Louise had brought to her as a gift from Liverpool.

The next day, when Sarah met Hetty by the canal, she was carrying the bag. She showed Hetty the papers. She was nervous about being given such a responsibility. She said she did not dare leave the papers in her room but that she was equally frightened at having to carry them with her.

Hetty might have been illiterate, but she knew that the bonds represented a lot of money. She arranged to meet Sarah again the following evening. Then she told Tony Hopkins, her criminal mentor and her lover, about the bonds.

Hopkins had concealed himself on the towpath near Baggot Street Bridge. When Hetty and Sarah walked by, Hopkins leaped from his hiding place to grab Sarah's bag. When she struggled he hit her in the face with his fist. Then he hit her again with an iron bar. When she started to scream he hit her a third time, very hard.

Sarah collapsed to the ground. Hopkins opened her bag and took the bonds along with a few coins. Then he pitched the bag into the reeds along the canal bank.

After Hopkins's second blow there was no stir from the injured girl. Hetty said she tried to revive her but realised that she was dead. Hopkins then lifted the body and pushed it over the bank, into the water.

Could she not have prevented Hopkins from using lethal force on Sarah Hannin, Swallow asked. ‘No,' she said. And at any rate, she added, Sarah Hannin had been ‘having relations' with Hopkins. In the circumstances, Hetty was not particularly distressed by Sarah's fate.

An hour after Hetty Connors had made her ‘X' on her statement, two G-men arrested Tony Hopkins at a public house in Hawkins Street.

He was brought to Exchange Court and confronted with the signed statement. He said that he had been in Naughton's public house in Crow Street, drinking with friends who would vouch for him, on the Sunday evening that Sarah Hannin was murdered. When Swallow charged him with her murder he replied, ‘I am not guilty.'

*   *   *

Prince Albert Victor and his entourage had time to spare in the afternoon.

The reception at the City Hall at which a prominent figure was to present him with a loyal address was cancelled without explanation. Dublin City had no official welcome for the grandson of the Monarch on her Jubilee.

Instead, he was escorted directly by a detachment of hussars from the Westland Row railway terminus to the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park. The streets were gaily decorated but the crowds were thin. In the evening the prince dined at King's Inns with the Honourable Benchers. After that he presided at a grand banquet and ball at Dublin Castle.

*   *   *

At about the time that Prince Albert Victor was finishing dinner in St Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle, Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow and Harry Lafeyre, the City Medical Examiner, were emerging from the Dublin City Infirmary at Jervis Street.

The infirmary's surgical team had successfully removed the bullet from Pat Mossop's upper chest. It had not struck the heart or any of the larger arteries. After they had extracted the slug, the surgeons had packed and stitched the wound, successfully staunching the loss of blood.

‘He'll be damned sore for a couple of weeks and he'll need a regime of laudanum to keep the pain at bay,' Lafeyre told Swallow as they emerged out onto Jervis Street. ‘But he should be well as long as he's given plenty of time to recover and kept in a place where the wound won't be infected. That means here in hospital.'

Mossop had lapsed in and out of consciousness during the day. But with the bleeding stopped he began to settle and gain strength. Around noon, he had come to wakefulness. His eyes focused on Swallow at the bedside.

‘Did the bastard get away, Boss?' he asked.

‘No, Pat. He didn't get away at all,' Swallow said, ‘don't worry about that now. Just get plenty of rest and you'll be well.'

‘Sorry about the bloody gun, Boss,' Mossop muttered. ‘From now on, I'll put the handcuffs on from behind.'

*   *   *

Swallow and Lafeyre went to Lavery's, the public house frequented by the medical staff from the Jervis Street Infirmary.

The awaited rain had not come and the night was muggy. Swallow ordered two cooling pints of MacArdle's Dundalk ale at the counter.

Lafeyre had just returned from Merrion Square, where he had conducted a preliminary examination of what appeared to be infant remains, exhumed by searching constables from the garden at the rear of the Fitzpatrick house.

The tiny, skeletal fragments offered the City Medical Examiner no clues as to the gender of the infant or the cause of death. He could only estimate that it had been in the ground for years rather than months or weeks.

Swallow took Lafeyre through the interviews with McDaniel and Thomas Fitzpatrick.

The morning and the evening newspapers had variously detailed accounts of the late-night arrest of a man at a house at Lower Ormond Quay, the shooting of Detective Officer Mossop of G Division and the final, desperate jump by the suspect into the river.

Lafeyre took a sizeable draught of his MacArdles. The ale was energising and refreshing.

‘I suppose there's a possibility he swam out of it,' he said. ‘From what you tell me, he could have made it to the quay wall in the darkness and hauled himself up at one of the mooring steps.'

‘It's possible but I'd say it's unlikely,' Swallow answered. ‘Not with the handcuffs and a full tide flowing down to the bay. I saw his face as he went off the bridge. It was the look of a man in despair. You'd probably do the same yourself. The alternative was the rope.'

‘What will happen to Fitzpatrick?' Lafeyre asked.

‘Do you mean in terms of what the law will do?'

‘Of course. His political career is over.'

‘He'll be a while in Kilmainham Jail, but he mightn't even go to trial. There isn't a case you could build from the few scraps of bones you saw out there today. Even if you could show that the infant died violently, Fitzpatrick would very likely say that it was Ces that did the deed. And she probably did.'

‘But he concealed his suspicions – his knowledge – that Sweeney had murdered his own sister and her child at the Chapelizod Gate.'

‘I threatened him with misprision of felony – essentially withholding knowledge of a crime on that. But it's damned hard to prove.'

‘So what about Hetty Connors and her fellow – Hopkins?'

‘She's no fool. She knows her only way out is to swear informations against him. I expect he'll hang on her evidence. He saw a big prize and he was willing to use whatever violence might be necessary to secure it. Personally, I think she's as bad as he is. She mightn't have expected that Hopkins would kill Sarah Hannin. But I suspect she didn't try very hard to stop him.'

Lafeyre called for two more pints. Swallow drained his own glass. He eyed Lafeyre carefully.

‘Will you be all right with the fellows in the Upper Yard over the fact that you issued that warrant to search the Fitzpatrick house? They know that you went against them. They're not likely to forgive and forget. They could try to challenge your contract as medical examiner.'

Lafeyre smiled. ‘Ah, we'll see. But, you know, nothing succeeds like success. The Chapelizod Gate murders are more or less cleared up because of that warrant. And Thomas Fitzpatrick is a busted flush now. They won't have any interest in protecting him any further. Why would they want to pick a fight with me? I've got a few connections in high places myself and I wouldn't be slow to use them, I promise you.'