Priscilla's Spies Part 40

"Timothy Sweeny," said the sergeant

"It might be worse," said Sir Lucius. "If the people of this district have had the sense to kill Sweeny I'll have a higher opinion of them in the future than I used to have. Who did it?"

"It's not known yet who did it," said the sergeant, "but there was two shots fired into the house last night. There's eleven panes of gla.s.s broken and the wall at the far side of the room is peppered with shot, and I picked ten grains of it out of the mattress myself and four out of the pillow, without counting what might be in Timothy Sweeny, which the doctor is attending to. Number 5 shot it was and Sweeny is moaning terrible. You'd hear him now if you was to step up a bit in the direction of the house."

It would, of course, have been highly gratifying to Sir Lucius to hear Timothy Sweeny groan, but, remembering that Lord Torrington was anxious about his daughter, he denied himself the pleasure.

"If he's groaning as loud as you say," he said, "he can't be quite dead.

I don't believe half a charge of No. 5 shot would kill a man like Sweeny anyway."

"If he's not dead," said the sergeant, "he's mighty near it, according to what the doctor is just after telling me. It's likely enough that shot would prey on a man that's as stout as Sweeny more than it might on a spare man like you honour or me. The way the shot must have been fired to get Sweeny after the fas.h.i.+on they did is from the top of the wall in the back yard opposite the bedroom window. By the grace of G.o.d there's footmarks on the far side of it and a stone loosened like as if some one had climbed up it."

"Well," said Sir Lucius, "I'm sorry for Sweeny, but I don't see that I can do anything to help you now. If you make out a case against any one come up to me in the evening and I'll sign a warrant for his arrest."

"I was thinking," said the sergeant, "that if it was pleasing to your honour, you might take Sweeny's depositions before you go out in the boat; just for fear he might take it into his head to die on us before evening; which would be a pity."

"Is he able to make a deposition?" said Sir Lucius.

"He's willing to try," said the sergeant, "but it's badly able to talk he is this minute."

Sir Lucius turned to Lord Torrington.

"This is a confounded nuisance, Torrington," he said. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to wait till I've taken down whatever lies this fellow Sweeny chooses to swear to. I won't be long."

But Lord Torrington had a proper respect for the forms of law.

"You can't hurry over a job of that sort," he said.

"If the man's been shot at?? Can't I go by myself? I know something about boats. You'll be here for hours."

"You may know boats," said Sir Lucius, "but you don't know this bay."

"Couldn't I work it with a chart? You have a chart, I suppose?"

"No man living could work it with a chart. The rocks in the bay are as thick as currants in a pudding and half of them aren't charted. Besides the tides are??"

"Isn't there some man about the place I could take with me?" said Lord Torrington.

Peter Walsh was hovering in the background with his eyes fixed anxiously on Sir Lucius and the police sergeant. Sir Lucius looking around caught sight of him.

"I'll tell you what I'll do if you like," said Sir Lucius. "I'll send Peter Walsh with you. He's an unmitigated blackguard, but he knows the bay like the palm of his hand and he can sail the boat Come here, Peter."

Peter Walsh stepped forward, touching his hat and smiling respectfully.

"Peter," said Sir Lucius, "Lord Torrington wants to take a sail round the islands in the bay. I can't go with him myself, so you must. Have you taken any drink this morning?"

"I have not," said Peter. "Is it likely I would with Sweeny's shop shut on account of the accident that's after happening to him?"

"Don't you give him a drop, Torrington, while you're on the sea with him. You can fill him up with whisky when you get home if you like."

"I wouldn't be for going very far today," said Peter Walsh. "It looks to me as if it might come on to blow from the southeast."

"You'll go out to Inishbawn first of all," said Sir Lucius. "After that you can work home in and out, visiting every island that's big enough to have people on it. The weather won't hurt you."

"Sure if his lords.h.i.+p's contented," said Peter, "it isn't for me to be making objections."

"Very well," said Sir Lucius. "Get the sails on the boat You can tie down a reef if you like."

"There's no need," said Peter. "She'll go better under the whole sail."

"Now, sergeant," said Sir Lucius, "I'll just see them start, and then I'll go back and listen to whatever story Sweeny wants to tell."

Peter Walsh huddled himself into an ancient oilskin coat, ferried out to the _Tortoise_ and hoisted the sails. He laid her long side the slip with a neatness and precision which proved his ability to sail a small boat. Lord Torrington stepped carefully on board and settled himself crouched into a position undignified for a member of the Cabinet, on the side of the centreboard case recommended by Peter Walsh.

"Got your sandwiches all right?" said Sir Lucius, "and the flask? Good.

Then off you go. Now, Peter, Inishbawn first and after that wherever you're told to go. If you get wet, Torrington, don't blame me. Now, sergeant, I'm ready."

The _Tortoise_, a stiff breeze filling her sails, darted out to mid-channel. Peter Walsh paid out his main sheet and set her running dead before the wind.

"It'll come round to the southeast," he said, "before we're half an hour out."

Sir Lucius waved his hand. Then he turned and followed the sergeant into Sweeny's house.

CHAPTER XXI

The _Blue Wanderer_, with her little lug, sailed slowly even when there was a fresh wind right behind her. It was half-past ten when Priscilla and Frank ran her aground on Inishbawn. Joseph Antony Kinsella had seen them coming and was standing on the sh.o.r.e ready to greet them.

"You're too venturesome, Miss, to be coming out all this way in that little boat," he said.

"We came safe enough," said Priscilla, "didn't s.h.i.+p a drop the whole way out."

"You came safe," said Kinsella, "but will you tell me how you're going to get home again? The wind's freshening and what's more it's drawing round to the southeast."

"Let it. If we can't get home, we can't, that's all, I suppose Mrs.

Kinsella will bake us a loaf of bread for breakfast tomorrow. Cousin Frank, you'll have to make Barnabas take you into his tent. He can't very well refuse on account of being a clergyman and so more or less pledged to deeds of charity. I'll curl up in a corner of Lady Isabel's pavilion. By the way, Joseph Antony, how are the young people getting on?"

"I had my own trouble with them after you left," said Kinsella.

"I'm sorry to hear that and I wouldn't have thought it. Barnabas seemed to me a nice peaceable kind of curate. Why didn't you hit him on the head with an oar? That would have quieted him."

"I might, of course; and I would; but it was the lady that was giving me the trouble more than him. Nothing would do her right or wrong but she'd have her tent set up on the south end of the island; and that's what wouldn't suit me at all."

Priscilla glanced at the smaller of the two hills which make up the island of Inishbawn. It stood remote from the Kinsellas' homestead and the patches of cultivated land, separated from them by a rough causeway of grey boulders. From a hollow in it a thin column of smoke arose, and was blown in torn wreaths along the slope.