Death on the Holy Mountain Read Free Page A

at Markham Square. He left the documents lying on the table. Johnny had spent the day working on his next book, called Northern Birds . He had just finished the
first draft, he told the company, and proposed taking a break from birds before revising it. Powerscourt was astonished to see that his friend, a great consumer and connoisseur of wine, a man with
an account at no fewer than three of London’s leading wine merchants, was drinking tea.
    ‘Francis, Johnny,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘what do you make of it?’ She sensed, even at the very beginning of this case, that there was something about it, perhaps the return to
Ireland, that was making her husband uneasy.
    Powerscourt looked at Johnny, who seemed to send him a nod that said the floor is yours.
    ‘It could be any one of a number of things,’ he began. ‘It could be a practical joke. The Irish landlord class are rather better at practical jokes than they are at many other
things.’
    ‘But not twice, surely, Francis?’ said Lady Lucy.
    ‘If you were a serious practical joker in Ireland, Lady Lucy,’ said Johnny, who was also of Irish extraction, peering sadly at his empty teacup and making a preliminary
reconnaissance of a bottle of Fleurie on the sideboard, ‘you could keep going till you’d done four or five or maybe even six houses. It would show people you were serious, if you see
what I mean.’
    Lady Lucy wasn’t sure that she did see.
    ‘The real question, in a way,’ said Powerscourt, ‘is who is behind it. If it is a practical joker, then that seems to me, from the point of view of the Butlers and the
Connollys, to be tremendous news. An apple pie bed is infinitely preferable to a bullet in the back. One possibility is that the thieves are in it for the money. Either the pictures will turn up in
some gallery, probably in America, in the next year or so. Or there will be a blackmail note asking for so many thousands of pounds for the return of the paintings. The Irish landlord class have
always been devoted to their ancestors, they believe that the longer the line the more secure their claim to their lands.’
    ‘Do you think, Francis,’ said Fitzgerald, ‘that the same people would be as interested in buying the portraits as the Old Masters? The Old Masters could be the real target
after all, and the portraits just a series of red herrings on canvas. These Americans are paying fabulous prices just now.’
    ‘Or it could be the other way round,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to see a Mr Michael Hudson at the art dealers Hudson’s in Old Bond Street.
He is said to be London’s leading expert on the transatlantic market.’ Powerscourt paused to open the bottle of Fleurie and fill three glasses.
    ‘We’re tiptoeing round the problem, you know,’ he said. ‘We haven’t faced up to the truth that dare not speak its name in this affair. The women in the Connolly and
the Butler families are not frightened because one of their ancestors may end up on a wall in Boston or New York. The real issue is quite different.’
    ‘And it is?’ asked Lady Lucy quietly, wondering if this would provide a clue as to what was upsetting her husband.
    ‘Violence,’ said Powerscourt and he felt the word change the atmosphere. ‘Men of violence. Men who used to hough or maim cattle or horses in the night when they wanted the
landlords to leave. They have had many names, White-boys, Steel Men or Hearts of Steel, raparee men, Fenians, Irish Republican Brotherhood, Clann na Gael if you’re American. They all believe
in solving the land question or the political question by violence. They have rebellions or uprisings in Ireland almost as often as the French – 1798, thirty thousand dead, 1848, 1867. Who is
to say it is not time for another bout in the long battle against the landlords and the English garrison? This could be a refinement in tactics. You wouldn’t have put money on the Irish
inventing something so