Wilkins, Lord Manton’s butler, was a good servant. He opened the door to Sergeant Farrelly at about twelve o’clock, and blandly gave the message with which he had been charged.
“His lordship is out, and it is uncertain at what hour he will return.”
Sergeant Farrelly was baffled. He went back to the barrack. He found that Miss Blow had moved from the office, which was small and incommodious, and had settled herself in the men’s day room. Constable Moriarty, embarrassed and very pink about the face, stood in front of her. Constable Cole, who was off duty, was grinning in a corner. Miss Blow at once reiterated her demand that a party should go out to look for Dr. O’Grady’s body. Sergeant Farrelly reasoned with her. When reason failed, he tried to impress her with the majesty of the law. He was a portly man and over six feet in height. On patrol duty, on guard over a public-house on Sunday, or giving evidence in court as to the amount of drink taken by a prisoner, he was an impressive man. He did not impress Miss Blow. Being an English woman, she held the curious theory that the police exist for the protection of the public, and that they ought to engage willingly in the investigation of crime. Sergeant Farrelly knew, of course, that this was not true; but he was unable to explain his position to Miss Blow, because she would not listen to what he said.
At two o’clock, Miss Blow being still immovable in the day room of the barrack, Sergeant Farrelly started again for Clonmore Castle. This time he was accompanied by Constable Moriarty, who, reckless of the consequences of not obeying orders, refused to be left to entertain Miss Blow. Constable Cole slipped quietly out into the garden and took a turn at the potatoes which the sergeant had been obliged to leave undug.
Wilkins said politely what he had said before. Sergeant Farrelly and Moriarty sat down in the hall to wait. They waited till four o’clock. Then they returned to the barrack, hoping that Miss Blow would have gone home. They found that she had not gone and showed no signs of going. She was sitting in the men’s room, eating biscuits out of a paper bag. It appeared afterwards that Constable Cole had gone out and bought the biscuits for her, fearing that she might be hungry. Sergeant Farrelly reprimanded him sharply for this.
Miss Blow gave the sergeant and his men her opinion of the Royal Irish Constabulary. She used plain and forcible language, repeating such words as incapacity, inefficiency, and cowardice at frequent intervals. She spoke for nearly half an hour, and then demanded again that the whole force should set out at once and search for Dr. O’Grady’s body. Constable Cole grinned, and was caught in the act. The sergeant snubbed him promptly. Miss Blow took off her hat and jacket, and said she intended to stay where she was until a search party went out.
Sergeant Farrelly and his men withdrew and held a counsel in the kitchen. Constable Moriarty suggested that Miss Blow should be arrested on a charge of drunkenness, and locked up for the night.
“If she isn’t drunk,” he argued, “she wouldn’t be behaving the way she is.”
His advice was not taken. In the first place, she was a well-dressed and good-looking young woman; and Sergeant Farrelly, being unmarried, was a courteous man. In the second place, she had come to the barrack bearing a note from Lord Manton, and however unintelligible the note might be, it had unquestionably been written by a peer of the realm. In the third place, as Constable Cole pointed out, their object was not to keep Miss Blow in the barrack, but to get her out. Pressed by Moriarty and the sergeant for an alternative scheme, Cole suggested vaguely that they should resort to what he called a “stratagem.” This sounded well; but it turned out in the end that he had nothing better to suggest than that Jimmy O’Loughlin should be induced to send a message to her to the effect that her dinner was ready and would be spoiled if she kept it waiting. The plan received no support. Sergeant Farrelly pointed out that it would be most unwise to confess their difficulty to Jimmy O’Loughlin.
“That fellow,” he said, “would take a delight in turning the police into ridicule, and setting the whole country laughing at us. And besides,” he said, with a look of withering contempt at Constable Cole, “it’s not likely she’d be caring about her dinner after you giving her sixpennyworth of biscuits and more. Believe you me, she wouldn’t mind this minute if she never saw dinner again.”