Women of Courage (119 page)

‘Come on, Sean boy, we can’t hang around here. Those soldiers are probably out looking for you. And there’s a curfew since you were arrested, you know - we haven’t a lot of time. Pedal down here after me and we’ll give them the slip, right enough.’

So Sean followed. As they turned out of the street he noticed its name - Nelson Street. But the joy had gone out of his release completely. When they met some soldiers, he pedalled past them quite calmly, hardly caring whether they recognized him or not. He remembered some words from a poem he had once read at school:

‘Stone walls do not a prison make

Nor iron bars a cage’.

No, he thought. It’s in our minds that we are free or not, depressed or joyful. If I’ve got the freedom of the whole city, and no love, what’s the point?

Catherine had tried to tell him that before.

‘It’s quite like mine, old boy. I’ll grant you that.’ Captain Smythe sucked at his pipe to keep it alight. ‘But I’ll swear by anything you like I never signed it. Let’s have a closer squint.’

He pulled a large magnifying glass out of a drawer, and examined the signature minutely. Kee sighed with exasperation. Who did the idiot think he was - Sherlock Holmes? ‘Look, I’ll accept your word for it …’ he began.

But Smythe was waxing enthusiastic. ‘There, see! Take a look at that loop on the Y! It’s not a single curve, it’s two. The pen’s not run straight on as it should. It’s stopped, and the fellow’s had to go back and join it on with another stroke. I’d never do that, you see. This is how I dash off the old autograph …’ He signed his name on a scrap of paper with a flourish. ‘Now these fellows couldn’t do that - probably traced my signature and then went over it in pen. But they couldn’t quite carry it through in one go.’ He straightened up. ‘Fascinating stuff, y’know.’

No wonder we don’t cooperate with these clowns, Kee thought. He said: ‘The question is not whether it’s forged or not, but who did it. Who is in a position to get hold of your signature and a copy of a correct order form with a genuine stamp on it?’

Smythe puffed at his pipe furiously. ‘Well now, the question we have to ask first, surely, is whether the paper and the stamp are genuine or not. First things first, you know, Inspector.’

‘They look real enough to me.’ Kee groaned inwardly, bracing himself for another session with the magnifying glass. But to his surprise Smythe picked up the paper and took it to the window.

‘There’s a watermark on all of these forms,’ he said, as he held it up. ‘Not many people know about that. Good Lord. Yes, well, that’s there all right.’ A little of his enthusiam seemed to be dented. ‘The other thing is, each individual sheet has a number. Printed in invisible ink at the bottom - my own invention, matter of fact. They’ll never have forged that, you know. Just add a few drops from this bottle and … Oh dear. Oh dear me.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘We only print these numbers on order forms for Intelligence. For this very reason, in fact.’ The man seemed distracted. He hunted around on his desk for his own order pad, looked at it, and sighed. ‘Yes. Look there, Inspector. The number on the top sheet is only one digit on from the one on this form of yours. That clinches it, I’m afraid. God knows how, but someone has managed to pinch a genuine order form off this very pad here on my desk.’

Smythe sat down abruptly in his chair as though someone had hit him behind the knees. He stared at Kee across the litter of papers on his desk. The measure of his surprise was obvious from the fact that his pipe, which he had put down for a moment, was left to smoulder slowly in the ashtray until it began to go out.

‘So who could have done that?’ Kee asked.

‘I really have no idea.’

Smythe might have no idea, but Kee had. There was already the damning evidence he had heard in Mountjoy. How had Brennan known what Radford looked like, and where he lived?
‘One of his own bloody detectives, that’s what
,’ Brennan had said. ‘Not that I liked the fellow much.’ Ever since Kee and Radford had come to Dublin from Belfast, they had been acutely conscious that the very force they had come to command was penetrated by Collins’ agents. Only a very few men in G Division had seemed worthy of trust. Men like Davis, and the young detective Foster, who were always ready to volunteer for any assignment, type out any report. And now this.

Kee asked, casually: ‘I don’t suppose any of my men has been to see you in the last few days?’

Smythe thought. ‘Well, yes, now you come to mention it. One of your chaps called Davis. Very good sort for an Irishman, you know. Had some rather useful information. I say …’ Light began to dawn. ‘You’re not suggesting he could have had anything to do with this, are you?’

‘Was there any time at all when he was alone in your office?’

Smythe had picked up his pipe again, but he paused in the act of opening a matchbox. A faint tinge of pink began to spread across his face. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, old chap, I’m awfully sorry to say this, but there was.’

Michael Collins was vastly pleased to see Sean. The big man shook him fervently by the hand, punched him playfully on the shoulder, and seemed almost about to indulge in a wrestling match, before something of the reserve in Sean’s demeanour stopped him.

‘Well, Sean boy, it must have been a hard time indeed. Sit down now. I want to hear about what happened - all of it.’

They were in the drawing room of a lodging house in Donnybrook. Sean sat down uneasily in one of the comfortable flowery armchairs, with Seamus Kelly grinning opposite him.

‘I don’t really want to talk about it, Mick,’ he said.

‘So you may not, but it’s necessary, I promise you. I didn’t go to all the trouble of getting you out of the cells of Brunswick Street and the Joy without expecting a soldier’s report, you know. We need to know everything we can. Did they hurt you badly?’

For all his bluff, boisterous nature, Collins could be amazingly sensitive at times. His voice as he spoke the last words was gentle; as Sean looked up he thought he saw the shining of tears in his eyes.

He shook his head. ‘Only on the first day. Kee hit me then - so did our man Davis. But it wasn’t that bad. Just a lot of questions, again and again, and no time to sleep.’

Collins looked surprised and relieved. ‘That’s a wonder, then. Take me through it all, though, will you, Sean? From the beginning when you were arrested.’

So Sean told him. The hardest thing was to explain why he had been in Merrion Square at all; Collins had known about Catherine, even met her once or twice, but the act of going to the house was pure foolishness. Sean tried to skate over the moment when they had let Catherine see him inside Brunswick Street, but even so, Collins became thoughtful. ‘They could have charged the girl along with you if they’d wanted, Sean boy,’ he said. ‘If they didn’t, it’s probably because of her father, or it could be that she told them what she knew. Either way, it’s best that you’re finished with her now. She’s not a risk that a soldier like you should be running, especially now that you’re out. If that girl looks behind her in the next few days she’ll probably see six shadows, and five of them’ll be working for the British and looking for you.’

Sean understood Collins’ logic, but he could not bear it. Throughout the rest of the conversation only half his mind was on what he was saying; the other half replayed, again and again, the vision of Catherine entering the house in Nelson Street, the other man’s arm reaching familiarly round her shoulders …

Perhaps I should tell him, Sean thought, as his story came to an end. Mick Collins has a big heart, he’ll understand. But even as he opened his mouth the front door slammed, and there were shouts and laughter in the corridor. Paddy Daly burst in, with Clancy and O’Reardan from the armoured car.

‘It’s in here they are, then! We fetched them for you, Michael! Sean Brennan and the Browning as well!’

In the ensuing pandemonium of back-slapping, laughter, and celebration, there was no place for any sensitive consideration of Sean’s feelings towards Catherine. There was a moment when Collins and Daly, each trying to lift the other off the floor in a bearhug, collapsed together onto a delicate bow-legged wooden chair which promptly splintered into matchwood beneath them. For Sean, after the tension and silence of the prison cell, it was overpowering. After an hour or so Collins noticed this, and said: ‘You look tired, young Sean. What you need is a good night’s sleep. Seamus - take him up to meet the landlady. As for the rest of youse, clear off out of it now, and take care with the curfew. Can’t you see this row is making your uncle Patrick and me tired? And the pair of us with state business to discuss, as well!’

The younger members of the group shuffled out, grinning widely. It was well known that Collins worked harder and made more noise than any other three men put together, and his changes of mood were equally sudden and disconcerting. When they had gone, Collins turned to business. He pulled a letter from his pocket. ‘I’ve had another of these, Paddy,’ he said. ‘I thought we might.’

Daly took the letter and read it. It was handwritten this time, on embossed, printed notepaper.

Schloss Hessel

Altenkirchen

Sauerland

Dear Mr Collins,

You will know very well that I was arrested and deported after failing to meet you in Dublin last week. Unfortunately it was impossible to fully disguise from the police my intentions, because of the guns and papers I then on my person had. I am most angry about this, since I had full trust in your orgqanization and was most badly betrayed.

Nevertheless, the machinery we discussed is still in my possession, and I would like you to see it and if possible agree to buy. I am a man of determination and I hope that you also are such. I intend to return to Dublin and shall be as before in the Lambert Hotel resident for one day only, on 5th February. To stay longer, I dare not. If you or your representative can meet me there and arrange a secure place for negotiation, I shall be happy to make your acquaintance. If not, I shall be disappointed in you, as indeed my countryman Captain Spindler in 1916 was.

Yours sincerely,

Manfred von Hessel.

‘What do you think of it?’ Collins asked.

Daly examined the letter carefully, as though the paper itself might give him some clue. He said: ‘How did it come?’

‘Intercepted in the post and passed to one of our boys on the North Wall. Here’s the envelope.’

Daly examined that too. He grunted. ‘It seems genuine enough. But the man’s mad, to come back for a second try.’

‘Surely.’ Collins raised an eyebrow. ‘And so are you and I, to think of springing young Sean out of the Joy. But it worked.’

‘That’s different, Mick.’

‘Every action is different in some way or another. The man seems determined enough - what do you think?’

Daly scratched his head, thinking back to the two meetings he had had with Hessel; one in the Lambert Hotel, the other escorting him to Brendan Road. ‘Sure he was an impressive man. Tall, hard sort of fellow. Would put up a good fight in a corner.’

‘He did that, you say, when the police came to Brendan Road.’

Daly grinned. ‘There was a deal of banging and cursing, to be sure. He gave us time to get away - and he spotted the peelers first, from the window.’

‘So you wouldn’t say he was a fraud, then?’ Collins looked at him curiously, an odd half-smile on his face.

Daly considered the question. ‘He didn’t act like it, surely. And he had two fine German army pistols to show you. I suppose the police have got them now.’

‘I suppose so.’ Collins pushed a lock of loose black hair away from his forehead, and drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the chair arm. ‘I’ve asked Dick Davis about that raid. He knew nothing about it before, and it was Kee and Radford who interrogated the German. Davis couldn’t get to see him. It seems Kee’s like that - he kept young Sean mostly to himself, too.’

‘So?’

‘So he’s a good detective. It doesn’t help us with Hessel. What I want to know is, do I see him, or not?’

Daly pondered. It was not often that Michael Collins seemed uncertain, or asked his advice so directly. ‘I’d say no, Mick.’

‘Why? We could do with the guns, couldn’t we?’

‘We could, and that’s a fact. But look – he’s a known man, the police have arrested him, and he’s more or less told them his plans. They’ve only got to see him stepping ashore to set a man on to follow him. And there’s another thing. When Davis got that paper stamped by the Intelligence man in Dublin Castle, he was boasting about some kind of ‘German plot.’ Don’t you remember?’

‘I do that.’ Collins grinned and scratched his chin. ‘You mean this fellow could be something to do with it?’

‘He’s German, isn’t he?’

‘I know. And his countrymen have given us more help than any others in our generation. Remember Spindler and the
Aud
in 1916? He brought a shipload of guns all through the British blockade. If only the lads in Kerry had been in position when he was, we could have had a rising all over the country. The man’s right about that, at least.’

Collins still had that provoking half-smile on his face. Daly felt as though Collins were playing with him, teasing him, holding something back. He felt annoyed, and protective, like a father with a wilful, brilliant child. He said: ‘And what if he’s just a spy, trying to lead the police to you?’

Collins shrugged. ‘He didn’t behave like that in Brendan Road, you say. You even let him into my room with two pistols.’

‘True, but …’
I didn’t even check they weren’t loaded
, Daly remembered with a rush of cold sweat. ‘But I don’t trust a man who avoids the police so easily, and then comes back.’

‘All the more credit to him, I’d say. If half our boys dared as much, we’d have had a republic years ago. Are you really telling me, Paddy Daly, that you can’t arrange a meeting for me with this fellow without a G man hanging round the corner? I know Radford was there last time, but we’ve taken care of him.’