“The Auxiliaries thought them interesting,” I retorted bitterly.
“Yes, mum,” chorused Mrs. O’Grady.
“How did I know what they were? Would I have kept them if I did? My son sent his portmanteau home from France and these were a few trophies. I didn’t know they were there. I didn’t know what they were. I told the officer in charge so. ‘Are those bullets?’ I asked him, and you see he believed me.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald, “that a woman of your age doesn’t know a bullet when she sees it?”
“I don’t believe you, mum,” declared Mrs. O’Grady. “Not if you was to go down on your knees, and what’s more, those never came home from France, for I went through everything in your room at Christmas time meself, and that box, too, and they were never there then. You’ll remember, I was looking for your shoes, which you had with you all the time.”
“I declare I didn’t know what they were. Dumdum, he called them. There were some little ones, too, loose, or he said there were.”
“Have you anything else?” I asked.
She shuffled, but we had got her in hand.
“Well, they didn’t find everything. I told my beads all the time, and they didn’t pull out the shutters. I had some things there. And they must have tripped over a revolver a dozen times. By the goodness of God, they didn’t find everything.”
“You’ll get rid of all those things at once, Mrs. Slaney,” I said. “You’ll burn the papers and get rid of the revolver and whatever else you have. They’ll come back, you may be certain of that.”