Priscilla's Spies Part 24

"It is," said Kinsella, "as fine an evening as you'd see, thanks be to G.o.d."

Peter Walsh sat down beside his friend and spat into the boat beneath him.

"I seen the sergeant talking to you," he said.

"That same sergeant has mighty little to do," said Kinsella.

"It'll be as well for us if he hasn't more one of these days."

"What do you mean by that, Peter Walsh?"

"What might he have been talking to you about?"

"Gravel, no less."

"Asking who it might be for or the like? Would you say, now, Joseph Antony, that he was anyways uneasy in his mind?"

"He was uneasy," said Kinsella, "but he's easy now."

"Did you tell him who the gravel was for?"

"Is it likely I'd tell him when I didn't know myself? What I told him was that Timothy Sweeny had the gravel bought off me at five shillings a load and that it was likely he'd be sending it by rail to some gentleman up the country that would have it ordered from him."

"And what did he say to that?"

"What he as good as said was that Timothy Sweeny and myself would have the gentleman cheated out of half the gravel he'd paid for by the time he'd got the other half. There was a smile on his face like there might be on a man, and him after a long drink, when he found out the way we were getting the better of the gentleman up the country. Believe you me, Peter Walsh, he wouldn't have rested easy in his bed until he did find out, either that or some other thing."

"That sergeant is as cute as a pet fox," said Peter Walsh. "You'd be hard set to keep anything from him that he wanted to know."

Kinsella sat for some minutes without speaking. Then he took a match from his pocket and lit his pipe for the third time.

"I'd be glad," he said, "if you'd tell me what it was you had in your mind when you said a minute ago that the sergeant might maybe have more to do than he'd care for one of these days."

Peter Walsh looked carefully round him in every direction and satisfied himself that there was no one within earshot.

"Was I telling you," he said, "about the gentleman, and the lady along with him that came in on the train today?"

"You were not."

"Well, he came, and I'm thinking that he's a high-up man."

"What about him?"

"The sergeant was sent for up to the big house," said Peter Walsh, "soon after the strange gentleman came. I don't know rightly what they wanted with him. Sweeny was asking Constable Maloney after; but sure the boy knew no more than I did myself."

"It's a curious thing," said Kinsella, "so it is, d.a.m.ned curious."

"d.a.m.ned," said Peter Walsh.

"I wouldn't be sorry if the whole lot of them was drownded one of these days."

"I wouldn't like anything would happen to the young lady."

"Is it Priscilla? I wasn't meaning her. But any way, Peter Walsh, you know well the sea wouldn't drown that one."

"It would not, surely. Why would it?"

"What I had in my mind," said Kinsella, "was the rest of them."

He looked sadly at the sky and then out across the sea, which was perfectly calm.

"But there'll be no drowning," he added with a sigh, "while the weather holds the way it is."

"There's a feel in the air," said Peter Walsh hopefully, "like as if there might be thunder."

A small boat, rowed by a boy, stole past them up the harbour. Neither of the two men spoke until she reached the slip at the end of the quay.

"I'd be sorry," said Kinsella, "if anything would happen to them two that does be going about in Flanagan's old boat. There's no harm in them barring the want of sense."

"It would be as well for them to be kept off Inishbawn for all that."

"They never offered to set foot on the island," said Kinsella, "since the day I told them that herself and the childer had the fever. The way it is with them, they wouldn't care where they'd be, one place being the same to them as another, if they'd be let alone."

"That's what they will not be, then."

"On account of Priscilla?"

"Her and the young fellow she has with her. They're out hunting them two that has Flanagan's old boat the same as it might be some of the boys at a coursing match and the hare in front of them. Such chasing you never seen! It was up out of their beds they were this morning at six o'clock, when you'd think the likes of them would be asleep."

"I seen them," said Kinsella.

"And the one of them is as bad as the other. You'd be hard put to it to say whether it was Priscilla has put the comether on the young fellow or him that had her druv' on to be doing what it would be better for her to leave alone."

"Tell me this now, Peter Walsh, that young fellow is by the way of having a sore leg on him, so they tell me. Would you say now but that might be a trick the way it would put us off from suspecting any mischief he might be up to?"

"I was thinking myself," said Peter, "that he might be imposing on us; but it's my opinion now that the leg's genuine. I followed them up last night, unbeknown to them, to see would he get out of the perambulator when he was clear of the town and n.o.body to notice him. But he kept in it and she wheeled him up to the big house every step of the way."

The evidence was conclusive and carried complete conviction to Kinsella's mind.

"What would be your own opinion," said Peter Walsh, "about that one that does be going about the bay in your own boat along with Jimmy?"

"I wouldn't say there'd be much harm in her. Jimmy says it's hard to tell what she'd be after. He did think at the first go off that it might be c.o.c.kles; but it's not, for he took her to Carribee strand, where there's plenty of them, and the devil a one she'd pick up. Nor it's not periwinkles. Nor dilishk, though they do say that the dilishk is reckoned to be a cure for consumption, and you'd think it might be that.

But Jimmy says it's not, for he offered her a bit yesterday and she wouldn't look at it."

"I don't know what else it could be," said Peter Walsh.

"Nor I don't know. But Jimmy says she doesn't speak like one that would be any ways in with the police."