“Look here!” he said. “You forgot something. The O’Mahony knew of this place.”
“Well, thin, he did, sir,” assented Jerry. “’T was him discovered it altogether.”
“Major,” the young man exclaimed, wheeling now to again confront the magistrate with his revolver, “there’s something queer about this whole thing. I don’t understand it any more than you do. Perhaps if we put our heads together we could figure it out between us. It’s foolishness to stand like this. Let me light the candles here, and all of us sit down like white men. That’s it,” he added as he busied himself in carrying out his suggestion, to which the magistrate tacitly assented. “Now we can talk. We’ll sit here in front of you, and you can keep out your pistol, if you like.”
“Well?” said Major Snaffle, inquiringly, when he had seated himself between the others and the door, yet sidewise, so that he might not be taken unawares by any new-comer.
“Tell him, Jerry, who this O’Mahony of yours was,” directed Bernard.
“Ah, thin—a grand divil of a man!” said Jerry, with enthusiasm. “’T was he was the master of all Muirisc. Sure ’t was mesilf was the first man he gave a word to in Ireland whin he landed at the Cove of Cork. ‘Will ye come along wid me?’ says he. ‘To the inds of the earth!’ says I. And wid that—”
“He came from America, too, did he?” queried the major. “Was that the same man who—who played the trick on my father? You seem to know about that.”
“Egor, ’t was the same!” cried Jerry, slapping his fat knee and chuckling with delight at the memory. “’T was all in the winkin’ of an eye—an’ there he had him bound like a calf goin’ to the fair, an’ he cartin’ him on his own back to the boat. Up wint the sails, an’ off we pushed, an’ the breeze caught us, an’ whin the soldiers came, faith, ’t was safe out o’ raych we were. An’ thin The O’Mahony—God save him!—came to your honor’s father—”
“Yes, I know the story,” interrupted the major. “It doesn’t amuse me as it does you. But what has this man—this O’Mahony—got to do with this present case?”
“It’s like this,” explained Bernard, “as I understand it: He left Ireland after this thing Jerry’s been telling you about and went fighting in other countries. He turned his property over to two trustees to manage for the benefit of a little girl here—now Miss Kate O’Mahony. O’Daly was one of the trustees. What does he do but marry the girl’s mother—a widow—and lay pipes to put the girl in a convent and steal all the money. I told you at the beginning that it was a family squabble. I happened to come along this way, got interested in the thing, and took a notion to put a spoke in O’Daly’s wheel. To manage the convent end of the business I had to go away for two or three days. While I was gone, I thought it would be safer to have O’Daly down here out of mischief. Now you’ve got the whole story. Or, no, that isn’t all, for when I got back I find that the young lady herself has disappeared; and, lo and behold, here’s O’Daly turned up missing, too!”