very good idea what particular ailment, but play daft and maybe you’ll get in for nothing.
‘An addiction to laudanum, indeed any drug which promoted oblivion,’ was the unruffled response.
‘Laudanum? That’s the very devil, is it not?’
His remark hit a nerve and, for a moment, there was a flash of anger in her eyes.
‘The doctors dole it out to women who are troubled, restless, unable to hold their … place in society. It helps them … accept the unacceptable.’
‘And incidentally often renders them addicted?’
She nodded.
‘And that in turn supplies more work for the doctors, curing the sick they themselves have created. I’m in the wrong profession!’
McLevy let out a bray of laughter. Mulholland winced at the lack of sensitivity but Eileen didn’t even blink.
‘Helen Gladstone was not cured by medical means but by the knucklebone of a female saint.’
Now it was McLevy’s turn not to blink. He sat as if turned to a wax representation of himself while the hairs on Mulholland’s Protestant neck were beginning to prickle.
‘Monsignor Wiseman, who was the agent of Helen’s conversion to Catholicism, arrived at the house after Mr Gladstone had finally returned to London. The Monsignor brought with him a holy relic.’
‘The said knucklebone?’
Another nod. Eileen continued.
‘Her jaw was locked, the whole body in paralysis. He performed a truncated service, touched the relic to her jaw and effected what can only be described as a miraculous transformation.’
Mulholland spluttered as if something had got stuck in his throat but McLevy’s face was unreadable.
‘God works in mysterious ways,’ he opined. ‘But I wouldnae think William Gladstone was any too pleased at the source of this … miracle.’
Eileen smiled thinly. ‘I think Mr Gladstone was grateful to have his sister recovered. Back in the fold of the family.’
There was a deal of black irony in these last words that McLevy registered with some relish. Things were hotting up. Just the way he liked them.
‘Do you believe in such things?’ he enquired.
‘I am a Protestant,’ was the composed response. ‘But I saw what I saw.’
‘A miracle of sorts?’
‘Of sorts.’
Their eyes met. McLevy scratched his nose, absent-mindedly, like an old man on a park bench.
‘What did Helen do, back in the fold?’ he asked mildly.
‘She looked after their father, Sir John, until the old man died in December of the following year. I was her companion more than her nurse. By that time.’
The last three words hung in the air. Eileen seemed to have withdrawn into herself. McLevy sensed many conflicting emotions behind that calm exterior.
She was a stern, handsome woman but her face had softened, the lower lip extended … just a touch.
He put his finger to his own lips, part in thought, part signalling a fidgety Mulholland to a continued, still, silence. They waited. The silence grew.
The door to the sitting room creaked open as if a ghost had been summoned and an elderly, rather fat labrador dog waddled in, plumped itself at Eileen’s feet and, catching McLevy’s jaundiced gaze, growled softly. Eileen reached down and scratched the beast.
‘Albert’s getting old,’ she said. ‘Like myself.’
‘What was she like?’ he asked. ‘Helen? The little sister. Helen … Gladstone,’ he pronounced the name quietly, like an incantation. ‘What was she like?’
‘She … found peace in Germany. In a convent. We … corresponded. Until she died.’
Mulholland noted that the woman had never yet answered the inspector’s questions directly. It was as if she was responding to other enquiries that she alone heard. Then he abruptly chided himself for that flicker of interest. None of this was of any consequence. Out of their parish.
The dog whined. Eileen had stopped scratching. It wanted more. So did the inspector.
Her replies were cautious, considered, judicious. McLevy therefore, like a pig after truffles, suspected treasure to be found in the digging.
‘Between Helen and her brother, what transpired? At the time of Jessy Gladstone’s death. What … transpired?’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr McLevy.’
‘I think you just might, Miss Marshall.’
He smiled. His face open, like a child’s.
Mulholland had seen the technique before but it never ceased to impress; this was not the monster who had stared down at Frank Brennan.
‘What was told to me was told in madness. In delirium. Once she was cured, Helen never spoke of it again. We never spoke of it again.’
‘That’s the terrible thing about getting the cure. You’re never the same person,’ said McLevy.
He smiled again. She did not respond.
‘But she did speak of
Eileen Marshall shook her head as if denying the words she had recently uttered. McLevy pressed further. Gently does it though. Firm but merciful, that’s the ticket.
‘I am engaged upon an investigation, Miss Marshall. My authority has been granted from the most high office.’
Mulholland gulped at the bare-faced lie. The inspector, as usual, was hanging from the window with the backside out of his trousers.
‘Anything you confide will remain completely … at my discretion.’
Which meant if McLevy thought the conviction warranted such, he would haul the poor woman, dog and all, up before the judge like a tub of guts.
‘I am asking for your help. Without it, I cannot proceed.’ McLevy bowed his head, a forlorn figure.
That much was true and who is to say that Eileen Marshall had not been waiting to tell her story for all these years?
Even those without Romanish tendencies long for the face behind the grille to which they may unburden their soul in blessed relief. The only drawback with James McLevy in such function was that a hand might come through the holy orifice and arrest you where you genuflect.
No trace of that ruthless impulse on the inspector’s face now, however, a kindly receptacle only.
The dog had fallen asleep, bubbles of saliva gathering at its mouth.
Eileen Marshall made her decision, took a deep breath and began. The underlying harsh tones of her voice softened slightly, with memory.
‘The day after wee Jessy Gladstone had been buried at Fasque, Helen and I were alone in her bedroom. Her father was asleep upstairs, as was her brother, William. He had returned from Edinburgh that evening and spent some hours with Helen before retiring.
‘It was past three in the morning but she could not rest despite a strong sleeping draught. I thought her dark suffering was because of withdrawal from the drug, weaning from laudanum is an agonising business.
‘But the cause of her pain was more than that. I feared her mind would crack. The demons had her. They were dancing on the grave. Dancing with delight.’
