She threw herself suddenly at Biddy’s feet and began to moan. But almost immediately she jumped to her feet again and cried out:
“An’ what’s more he gave three quid to that swank of an Englishwoman. He gave her three quid and he paid two quid more to Aunt Betty, money that was owin’ to her for board, an’ he never gave me a penny. Me that kept him for the last six months when I hadn’t a bite mesel’. But I’ll tell everybody. I’ll tell.”
She looked around her wildly. She saw Mulholland. She came up to him and bent down close to his face. Her hat trailed off. Her hair fell down over her eyes. She swayed. She pointed her right forefinger menacingly at Mulholland’s forehead.
“Listen to me, Bartly,” she said. “You remember me when I was a good girl an’ when I was a member o’ … ye know yersel’ … Well, so was he, wasn’t he? Well, can ye tell me how did Frankie McPhillip get plugged? Who got the twenty quid that the Farmers’ Union gave out? Where did he get the money? I’m not shoutin’ any names. No names, no pack drills. But ye can guess for yersel’. Where did he get his money from? Was it be robbin’ a sailor at the back o’ Cassidy’s same as he told me in the pub? Was it?” She suddenly threw her hands over her head and clawed the air, shrieking. They jumped up and caught her.
Mulholland got to his feet quietly. He stole out into the street, avoiding the people who came rushing up to Biddy Burke’s door, attracted by the screaming.
Mulholland chuckled as he crossed the street. He would have plenty of news for Gallagher. After this there would be little difficulty in his getting McPhillip’s job on the Headquarters Staff. He stole quietly into the hallway of Aunt Betty’s house. He went noiselessly up the stairs without attracting the attention of the revellers who were still “on the tear.” He reached the landing. There were three doors, with light streaming through each of them. He listened at each door. The third was the right one. He stood straight. He lifted the latch suddenly and strode into the room. He called out as he did so dramatically:
“Come on, Gypo, it’s time for ye to be comin’ with me.”
For a moment he could see nobody, owing to his excitement and the thick mist of smoke and unescaped vapours which filled the room. He stood within the door with his feet spread out wide on the bare moth-eaten boards of the floor, with his right hand in his pocket fingering his revolver. His heart was beating wildly. Then he became aware of Gypo’s presence. He felt that peculiar movement in his head that the realization of Gypo’s presence always caused, a little snapping movement of unreasoning terror. Then he heard Gypo’s voice, heavy and hoarse with drunkenness, but cordial and friendly and distinctly patronizing.
“Hello, Bartly. Sit down an’ have a drink. Plenty time yet.”
Then he turned his head towards the fireplace and saw Gypo.
Gypo was sitting on the floor to the right of the fire, in a corner, in half-darkness, bare to the waist, with his trousered legs stretched out at a wide angle, sitting bolt upright, a bottle gripped in his right hand between his knees, his feet bare.
Connemara Maggie was standing by the fire drying Gypo’s shirt, his jacket and his socks. The big boots were resting on a fender before the fire, steaming. She took no notice of Mulholland’s entrance. With her golden hair hanging in disorder over her face, with her blouse undone, with her strong, heavy-boned face covered with perspiration, with her great, soft eyes swollen and gentle like the eyes of a heifer, she busied herself tending her man, just as if she had never left the purity of her Connemara hills and she were tending her peasant spouse after a hard day’s work in the fields; instead of tending a casual lover in the sordid environment of a brothel. There was no hint of vice or of libidinous pleasure in her face or in her movements. She seemed to be, like Gypo himself, a child of the earth, unconscious of the artificial sins that are the handiwork of the city. In her two brawny arms she held the steaming shirt to the blaze. She stood silent and immovable.
There was little else in the small, whitewashed, low-ceilinged room. A bed with the clothes tousled on it, a quilt that lay on the floor by the bed, a chair on three legs and a weatherbeaten washstand, containing a basin and a broken jug, comprised the furniture.
Mulholland looked around at all this
