Hardcastle's Obsession (16 page)

It was late that same afternoon when Hardcastle returned to the APM’s office in Horse Guards.

‘Did you get Colonel Millard settled, Colonel?’

Frobisher made a sour face. ‘The commanding officer at Wellington Barracks was not best pleased, Inspector. In fact, he seemed to resent having a Gunner officer mixing with his precious Brigade of Guards. However, about Seamus Riley . . .’

‘You said you’d learned something, Colonel.’

‘All rather negative, Inspector. The records office of the Royal Irish Fusiliers has no record of the Seamus Riley you’re interested in. As I’d anticipated, there are quite a few Seamus Rileys on their roll, but none who joined at about the time you mentioned.’

‘I wonder where he went, then,’ mused Hardcastle aloud.

‘If I might make a suggestion, sir . . .’ said Marriott.

‘Yes,’ said Hardcastle.

‘The date that Mr Underwood, the dairyman, said that Riley left his employment was just before Easter.’

‘What’s that got to do with it, Marriott?’

‘It’s possible that he returned to Ireland to take part in the Easter uprising, sir.’

Hardcastle was on the point of dismissing Marriott’s suggestion as preposterous when the APM spoke.

‘I was about to make the same observation as Sergeant Marriott, Inspector.’

‘I suppose I’ll have to get a message to the Dublin Metropolitan Police, then,’ said Hardcastle gloomily. The prospect did not please him. ‘Thank you for your assistance, Colonel.’

The following day, Hardcastle embarked upon the wearisome task of tracking down the mysterious Seamus Riley.

‘I suppose I’ll have to talk to Superintendent Quinn, Marriott.’

‘Why, sir?’ Marriott was somewhat puzzled by the DDI’s announcement. ‘What does Special Branch have to do with Riley?’ Patrick Quinn was the head of the Yard’s branch that dealt with political extremism, among other matters, and in Marriott’s view, was unlikely to be interested in the murder of a prostitute.

‘If Riley
was
involved in the Easter uprising, Marriott, as Colonel Frobisher suggested, Mr Quinn’s people might know where I can find him. If they don’t, they’ll be able to talk to the SB in Dublin. With a bit of luck they might know something.’ Hardcastle seized his bowler hat and umbrella, but decided that the short walk across to Scotland Yard did not warrant his overcoat. ‘Not that I hold out much hope. In my experience, even if SB knew something, they’d most likely keep it to themselves.’

Superintendent Patrick Quinn was standing behind a huge oak desk set across the corner of his office. He was a tall, austere-looking man with a grey goatee beard, an aquiline nose and black, bushy eyebrows. He looked up from the dossier he was reading, his piercing blue eyes studying the inspector who now stood in front of his desk.

‘Well, Mr Hardcastle, what is it you want to see me about?’ Quinn spoke with a soft Mayo accent.

‘It’s a matter of a murder I’m dealing with, sir.’

‘Explain yourself, man. I don’t have all day.’

‘No, sir.’ Hardcastle went on quickly to outline his interest in Seamus Riley, and the possibility that he had returned to Ireland to take part in the Easter uprising.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘It was a suggestion put forward by the assistant provost marshal, sir.’

‘Really? Well, I can tell you that I don’t regard the army as knowing too much about Irish republicanism, Mr Hardcastle. All their officers were at Fairyhouse races in County Meath, fifty miles from Dublin, when the uprising started. However, I’ll speak to my Special Branch colleagues in Dublin. If I discover anything, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, find out as much as you can about this man. If he’s an Irish rebel and he’s back here, I need to know. Good day to you, Mr Hardcastle.’

‘Any luck, sir?’ asked Marriott, when the DDI returned.

‘Luck don’t enter into it, Marriott,’ snapped Hardcastle. He was not at all happy about his interview with the head of Special Branch, coming away, as he had, without any information. ‘Mr Quinn wants us to find out as much as we can about Riley.’ It seemed to the DDI that he was going to finish up doing SB’s work for them, and that they would contribute nothing to the discovery of Annie Kelly’s murderer.

‘Another trip to Greenwich, then, sir?’

‘Exactly,’ said Hardcastle, glancing at his watch. ‘And there’s no time like the present.’

‘Right, sir.’ Marriott was unconvinced that Seamus Riley was a likely suspect for the murder of Annie Kelly, but at least, Hardcastle had momentarily lost interest in Sir Royston Naylor.

‘Ah, the gentlemen from the police.’ Cyril Underwood looked up as the two detectives entered his dairy. ‘And how can I help you today, Inspector?’

‘Seamus Riley,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Are you sure you’ve no idea where he was living prior to his departure?’

‘As I said before, all I can tell you is that he left here to join the Royal Irish Fusiliers.’

‘Well, he didn’t,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I’ve had a check made with the military and he definitely did not join the RIF.’ With some misgiving, he thought that Riley might have joined some other regiment. But it would be impossible to search the records of the entire British Army, standing now at almost two million men under arms.

‘Oh, well, that’s what he said he was going to do.’

‘And you’ve no idea where he was living when he was working for you, Mr Underwood?’

‘The only thing I can tell you is that he sometimes mentioned his landlady, a Mrs Eales.’

‘D’you know of this woman, Mr Underwood?’ asked Marriott. ‘Or where she might live?’

‘No, I’m afraid not, sir. She’s certainly not a customer of mine.’

‘How did Riley get to work? Did he come by tram, or walk, or ride a bicycle?’

Underwood thought about that for a while. ‘Now you come to mention it, Inspector, he walked. I remember he came in here one morning looking like a drowned rat. He said that he’d been walking in the rain for about ten minutes. Does that help?’

‘It might,’ said Hardcastle, angry that Underwood had not seen fit to tell him this on his last visit.

‘That’s something, I suppose, sir,’ said Marriott as he and the DDI left the dairy.

‘All we have to do now, Marriott,’ muttered Hardcastle, ‘is to find a Mrs Eales who lives within ten minutes’ walk of Underwood’s dairy. Well, I’m not traipsing round the streets of Greenwich trying to find her. That’s a job for one of the DCs.’

On his return to Cannon Row, Hardcastle promptly instructed Detective Constable Herbert Wilmot to find Mrs Eales without delay.

At ten o’clock on the Thursday morning, Wilmot reported that a Mrs Agnes Eales lived at an address in Plumstead Road, Woolwich, and that she let out rooms.

‘Come, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, ‘we’ll see if we can lay this wretched enquiry to rest once and for all.’

‘Mrs Agnes Eales?’ Hardcastle raised his hat to the middle-aged woman who opened the door of the house in Woolwich.

‘Yes, I’m Mrs Eales.’ The woman gazed at the two men, wondering what they were doing on her doorstep, and what they wanted.

‘We’re police officers, madam.’ Hardcastle produced his warrant card, and introduced himself and Marriott.

Mrs Eales looked alarmed. ‘It’s not my boy Fred, is it?’

‘Fred?’

‘He’s in the army in France, the last I heard. Has he been wounded?’

‘Not to my knowledge, madam,’ said Hardcastle. ‘We want to talk to you about a dairy roundsman by the name of Seamus Riley.’

‘Oh, that’s a relief. You’d better come in.’ Mrs Eales led the two policemen into her parlour, and immediately offered them tea.

‘Very kind, Mrs Eales,’ murmured Hardcastle.

While Agnes Eales was in the kitchen making a pot of tea, Hardcastle gazed around the room. Scrupulously clean, it was, nonetheless gloomily furnished. Net curtains covered the windows, and a quantity of bric-a-brac seemed to cover every available surface.

‘What regiment is that fellow in, Marriott?’ asked Hardcastle, pointing at a framed photograph of a soldier, prominently displayed on the mantelshelf.

Marriott stepped across to the fireplace and studied the print of a young man, little more than a boy, in army uniform standing in a stiff pose beside a torchère. ‘The Irish Guards, sir. That’s the Star of St Patrick on his cap.’

‘I thought I recognized it,’ said Hardcastle. ‘So, what d’you gather from that, eh, Marriott?’

‘That Seamus Riley might be in the Irish Guards and not the Riffs, sir?’

‘Exactly. If Riley was keen to join up, he might have taken Mrs Eales’s son as an example. And Riley might be a sympathizer to the Republican cause.’

‘With respect, I doubt it, sir,’ said Marriott, appalled at yet another of Hardcastle’s bizarre assumptions. ‘The Irish Guards were raised in 1900 as a compliment to the way Irish regiments acquitted themselves in the Boer War. I think you’ll find that they’re true to King and Country.’

Further discussion on the matter was stemmed by the arrival of Mrs Eales with a tray of tea. ‘D’you take milk and sugar, gentlemen?’ she enquired.

‘Both, thank you,’ said Hardcastle, ‘and so does Sergeant Marriott the last time I asked him. Now, about Seamus Riley,’ he added, accepting a cup of tea.

‘Such a nice young man,’ said Mrs Eales, as she sat in an armchair facing the two detectives. ‘He left here just before Easter.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’

‘Only that he was going to enlist. Some Irish fusilier regiment, so he said.’

‘Did he ever say anything about home rule for Ireland, Mrs Eales?’ asked Marriott.

Agnes Eales laughed. ‘He’d occasionally spout off about it, but I never took him seriously. The Irish are always going on about that, particularly them from the south. He was from Dublin, so he told me.’

‘Did your son Fred have any particular reason for joining the Irish Guards?’ asked Hardcastle.

‘Not really, but apparently the recruiting sergeant was in the Irish Guards, and he convinced Fred that it was the best regiment in the army. Fred didn’t really care which regiment he joined, so he was quite happy to sign up with them.’

‘Did Mr Riley leave anything behind when he went?’ asked Marriott, trying to steer Mrs Eales back to the enquiry.

‘Yes, he did leave a suitcase with a few things in it. He said he’d come back and collect it, but he never did. I hope he’s all right.’

‘Did he ever mention a young lady called Annie Kelly, Mrs Eales?’ asked Hardcastle.

Agnes Eales did not answer immediately, but spent the next few moments pouring more tea.

‘I think he was sweet on a young girl at one time,’ she said eventually. ‘I think she was called Annie, and he told me that she lived in Nelson Street. That’s not far from here.’

Hardcastle knew that that was where Annie had lived with her parents. ‘And was he seeing her up until he joined the army?’ he asked.

‘I don’t really know, Inspector.’

‘I wonder if we might have a look at this suitcase that Mr Riley left behind.’

Mrs Eales hesitated. ‘Well, it is rather private. Is there something wrong?’

Hardcastle decided that he had to tell Riley’s former landlady why the police were interested in him. ‘Annie Kelly has been murdered, Mrs Eales.’

‘Oh, good heavens. When was this?’

‘The end of last month,’ said Marriott.

‘But you surely can’t think that young Seamus had anything to do with it. I mean he was in the army by then.’

‘Did he come back after he joined up?’ asked Hardcastle. ‘Did you ever see him in uniform?’

‘Well, no, now you come to mention it, but I thought . . .’

‘The suitcase, Mrs Eales,’ prompted Hardcastle.

‘It’s in the cupboard under the stairs,’ said Agnes Eales, clearly distressed that she might have harboured a murderer.

Marriott dragged the suitcase into the hall and opened it. There were a few items of worn clothing, a half-used writing pad and a diary. But the diary had no entries in it.

‘There’s this, sir.’ Marriott held up a small dog-eared piece of pasteboard. ‘It’s a membership card that says Seamus Riley is a member of Sinn Fein, sir.’

‘What’s Sinn Fein, Marriott?’

‘It’s Gaelic for “We ourselves”, sir. It’s a political party in Ireland that seeks independence.’

‘I thought as much. We’ll take it with us.’ Hardcastle turned to the landlady. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Eales,’ he said, ‘but we’ll not bother you any further.’

ELEVEN

O
n Friday morning, Hardcastle arrived at work at his usual time of eight o’clock. At the top of the stairs leading to his office, DC Catto was waiting.

‘What are you hovering there for, Catto?’ demanded Hardcastle without pausing. He took off his hat and coat, sat down behind his desk, and began to fill his pipe. ‘Well, come in, man.’

Catto approached. ‘There’s a message from Special Branch, sir.’

‘Spit it out, Catto.’

‘Superintendent Quinn wishes to see you at half past nine promptly, sir.’

‘Very well.’ Irritated at this peremptory command, Hardcastle dismissed Catto, lit his pipe, and began dealing with the reports and expenses claims that his clerk had placed in a pile on the corner of his desk.

At twenty-five past nine, Hardcastle donned his hat, seized his umbrella, and made his way downstairs and across the roadway that separated Cannon Row police station from New Scotland Yard’s central building.

To add to his frustration, he was kept waiting until Quinn deigned to see him.

‘Do you have any information for me, Mr Hardcastle?’ asked Quinn, when eventually the DDI was admitted to the superintendent’s office at a quarter to ten.

Hardcastle recounted the conversation that he and Marriott had conducted with Mrs Eales, and finally produced the Sinn Fein membership card. ‘And we found this among Riley’s belongings, sir,’ he said, handing Quinn the small piece of pasteboard that had been in the Irishman’s abandoned suitcase.