“Well, thin, we did, sir, an’ no mistake.”
“My plan is, major,”—Bernard turned to the resident magistrate—“to take my friend here, Jerry Higgins, with us, to the place I’ve been speaking of. We’ll leave the other man here, as the editors say in my country, as a ‘guarantee of good faith.’ The only point is that we three must go alone. It wouldn’t do to take any constables with us. In fact, there’s a secret about it, and I wouldn’t feel justified in giving it away even to you, if it didn’t seem necessary. We simply confide it to you.”
“You can’t confide anything to me,” said the resident magistrate. “Understand clearly that I shall hold myself free to use everything I see and learn, if the interests of justice seem to demand it.”
“Yes, but that isn’t going to happen,” responded Bernard. “The interests of justice are all the other way, as you’ll see, later on. What I mean is, if the case isn’t taken into court at all—as it won’t be—we can trust you not to speak about this place.”
“Oh—in my private capacity—that is a different matter.”
“And you won’t be afraid to go alone with us?—it isn’t far from here, but, mind, it is downright lonesome.”
Major Snaffle covered the two men—the burly, stout Irishman and the lithe, erect, close-knit young American—with a comprehensive glance. The points of his mustache trembled momentarily upward in the beginning of a smile. “No—not the least bit afraid,” the dapper little gentleman replied.
The constables at the outer door stood with their big red hands to their caps, and saw with amazement the major, Bernard and Jerry pass them and the cars, and go down the street abreast. The villagers, gathered about the shop and cottage doors, watched the progress of the trio with even greater surprise. It seemed now, though, that nothing was too marvelous to happen in Muirisc. Some of them knew that the man with the flower in his coat was the stipendary magistrate from Bantry, and, by some obscure connection, this came to be interpreted throughout the village as meaning that the bodies of both O’Daly and Miss Kate had been found. The stories which were born of this understanding flatly contradicted one another at every point as they flew about, but they made a good enough basis for the old women of the hamlet to start keening upon afresh.
The three men, pausing now and again to make sure they were not followed, went at a sharp pace around through the churchyard to the door of Jerry’s abode, and entered it. The key and the lantern were found hanging upon their accustomed pegs. Jerry lighted the candle, pushed back the bed, and led the descent of the narrow, musty stairs through the darkness. The major came last of all.
“I’ve only been down here once myself,” Bernard explained to him, over his shoulder, as they made their stumbling way downward. “It seems the place was discovered by accident, in the old Fenian days. I suppose the convent used it in old times—they say there was a skeleton of a monk found in it.”