The Red Hand of Ulster Part 18

"You'd maybe better read the letter I've given you, my lord," said Crossan.

"If I'd been there," said McNeice, "your nephew would probably be dead now. In my opinion he ought to be."

"The letter I've just given your lordship," said Crossan, "is an important one."

"I'm sure it is," I said. "But I haven't time to read it now."

"What's in it, my lord, is this. I'm resigning the management of your business here, and the sooner you're suited with a new man the better."

"If my nephew G.o.dfrey has been worrying you, Crossan," I said, "I'll take steps--"

"It's not that, my lord. For all the harm his talk ever did me I'd stay on. But--"

He looked at McNeice as if asking permission to say more.

"Political business," said McNeice.

"Of course," I said, "if it's a matter of politics, everything must give way to politics. But I'm very sorry to lose you, Crossan. My business affairs--"

"You'll have no business affairs left, my lord, if the Home Rule Bill pa.s.ses."

"But you're going to stop it," I said.

"We are," said Crossan.

He certainly believed that he was. At the present moment he believes that he did stop it.

I found G.o.dfrey propped up in bed. His face had a curiously unbalanced appearance owing to the way in which one side of his jaw was swollen.

Bob Power's original blow must have been a hard one. I noticed when he spoke that one of his eye teeth was broken off short. He began to pour out his complaint the moment I entered the room.

"A murderous a.s.sault was made on me last night," he said. "After I left your house I walked down--"

"Don't talk if it hurts you, G.o.dfrey," I said.

He was speaking in a m.u.f.fled way which led me to think that the inside of his mouth must be nearly as much swollen as the outside.

"That fellow Power had a band of ruffians with him. If he had fought fair I shouldn't have minded, but--"

"What were you doing," I said, "to make him attack you? He must have had some reason."

"I wasn't doing anything. I was simply looking on."

"That may have been the most objectionable thing possible," I said. "I don't say that his violence was justified; but it may have been quite excusable if you insisted on looking on at something which he didn't want you to see."

G.o.dfrey actually tried to smile. He could not do so, of course, on account of the condition of his mouth, but I judged by the expression of his eyes that he was trying to. G.o.dfrey's smiles are always either malicious or idiotic. This one, if it had come off, would have been malicious.

"I saw all I wanted to," he said, "before they attacked me. In fact, I was just going for the police--"

"I suppose you sent for the police this morning?" I said.

"No, I didn't. I don't trust the police. I wouldn't trust the magistrates here, except you, of course, Excellency. What I'm going to do is write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer."

"Good gracious, G.o.dfrey! Why the Chancellor of the Exchequer? What interest can you expect him to take in your fights? If you are going to make a political matter of it at all, you'd far better try the Secretary of State for War. It's much more in his line."

"But the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the man who's responsible for the revenue, isn't he?"

"You can't expect him to give you a pension simply because Power knocked out your teeth."

"He'll stop Power smuggling," said G.o.dfrey.

"I suppose," I said, "that it's no use my telling you that he was not smuggling?"

"I saw him at it," said G.o.dfrey, "and I'm going to write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer."

"What on earth do you expect to gain by that?" I asked.

"He ought to be grateful to me for putting him on the track of the smuggling," said G.o.dfrey. "I should think he'd want to do something for me afterwards. He might--"

"Give you a job," I said.

"Yes," said G.o.dfrey. "I always heard that fellows in the Treasury got good salaries."

I was greatly relieved when I left G.o.dfrey. I expected that he would want to take some sort of legal proceedings against Bob Power which would have involved us all in a great deal of unpleasantness. I should not have been surprised if he had tried to blackmail Bob or Conroy, or both, and I should have disliked that very much. But his letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be merely foolish. In the first place Bob Power was not smuggling. In the next place the Chancellor of the Exchequer would never see G.o.dfrey's letter. It would be opened, I supposed, by some kind of clerk or secretary. He would giggle over it and show it to a friend. He would also giggle. Then unless the spelling was unusually eccentric the letter would go into the waste-paper basket. Nothing whatever would happen.

I was, I own, entirely wrong. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did see the letter. I take that for granted, because the Prime Minister saw it, and I cannot see how it could have got to him except through the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The spelling may have been as bad as G.o.dfrey's spelling usually is, but the letter evidently gave a detailed account of what had happened, the kind of account which impresses people as being true. The letter was, in fact, the first direct evidence the Government got about what Conroy and McNeice and Bob were doing. I dare say there were suspicions abroad before. The offer of a peerage to Conroy showed that there was good reason to placate him. But it was G.o.dfrey's absurd letter which first suggested to the minds of the Cabinet that Conroy was using his yacht, the _Finola_, for importing arms into Ulster. Even then I do not think that anybody in authority suspected how thoroughly Conroy and Bob were doing the work. They may have thought of a cargo of rifles, and a few thousand cartridges. The existence of the Ulster artillery was a surprise to them at the very moment when the guns first opened fire.

So far from having no consequences at all, G.o.dfrey's ridiculous letter actually precipitated the conflict which took place. I do not think that it made any difference to the result of the fighting. That would have been the same whether the fighting came a little sooner or a little later. But the letter and the action of the Government which followed it certainly disorganized Conroy's plans and hustled McNeice.

I found McNeice in my study when I got home. I told him, by way of a joke, about the letter which G.o.dfrey intended to write. To my surprise he did not treat it as a joke. I suppose he realized at once what the consequences of such a letter might be.

"They ought to have put him past writing letters," he growled, "when they had him."

Then, without even saying good-bye to me, he got up and left the room.

In less than an hour he and Crossan were rushing off somewhere in their motor car. They may have gone to hold a consultation with Conroy. He was in Belfast at the time.

I found Bob Power and Marion in the garden, but not, as I expected, eating gooseberries. They were sitting together on a seat opposite a small artificial pond in which I try to keep gold fish. When I came upon them they were sitting up straight, and both of them were gazing intently into the pond. This surprised me, because all the last consignment of gold fish had died, and there was nothing in the pond to look at.

I told Bob about G.o.dfrey and the letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His reception of the news was even more disappointing than McNeice's was. He neither laughed, as I hoped, nor even scowled. In fact, if I had not spoken quite distinctly, I should have thought that he did not hear what I said.

"Lord Kilmore," he said, "I think I ought to tell you at once--"

Then he stopped and looked at Marion. She became very red in the face.

"Father," she said, "Bob and I--"

Then she stopped too. I waited for a long time. Neither of them did more than begin a sentence; but Bob took Marion's hand and held it tight. I thought it better to try to help them out.

"I don't know," I said, "whether I've guessed rightly--"