“Contempt is a contagion on this side of the Irish Sea.” Dermott looked up at the sky. “Moon’s waxing. Lovely evening for an invasion.”
“I thought you were skeptical about the threat, like the queen.”
“Oh, I am, I am.” Sir Lionel opened the gate and bowed Tennant through. “But did you know that over a hundred thousand Irishmen fought in the American Civil War?”
“That’s a lot of battle-hardened men in square-toed boots,” the inspector said, heading up the path.
“Nail on the head, old bean.” Dermott clapped Tennant’s shoulder. “And most of those boot-wearing Irishmen hate our guts.”
In London the following morning, Julia threaded through a muttering crowd, most with grievances etched into their Celtic faces. Hopeful men and women, once, Julia thought, who’d fixed their gaze on England as they crossed the Irish Sea. Their anger hummed like a hornet’s nest.
When a constable opened the door of the King’s Arms public house, a wave of stale ale and tobacco stung her eyes. The local coroner had rented the pub’s back room for the inquest, a common practice in London’s East End, where nearly every corner had a public house. Publicans earned a few extra pounds on mornings when drinkers were few. Julia was there to give medical evidence in the death of the Irish warehouseman, Kevin Leary.
She looked around and spotted a seat in the second row. A man with a reporter’s pad stood and shifted to make space for her on the aisle. The room was nearly full when six men from the hostile crowd entered and took the last seats in the back.
The coroner called Constable Tilden to the stand. He testified that he found Leary alone and face down on the pavement outside the Prince of Hesse public house. The assailants had fled, leaving a barkeep and one customer to carry him away for medical aid. Neither man had witnessed the fight that led to Leary’s death.
The coroner asked, “Are the men giving evidence this morning?”
“No, sir, as they had nothing to add.”
Then Inspector Slack from Scotland Yard took the stand. Hetestified that, despite a diligent canvass of the neighborhood, no witnesses came forward.
Julia was the last to give evidence. When the coroner’s assistant called her name and she stood, the dozy reporter at her side sat up and blinked. Whispers and a short bark of laughter followed her across the room. She spotted Chief Inspector Clark, Tennant’s superior in the detective department, standing in the rear with Inspector Slack.
Leary’s death was straightforward, Julia testified. Massive blood loss resulted from a broken whisky bottle thrust into his abdomen. She’d extracted pieces from the wound.
The coroner asked if she had anything else to add.
“Yes. In my hearing, the two men who carried Mr. Leary into my clinic spoke of threats they overheard uttered by men in the pub. Threats directed at the deceased.”
The six Irishmen at the back leaped from their seats and pushed out the door. The reporter scribbled furiously. With the proceedings over, a scowling Chief Inspector Clark turned on his heels and exited, followed by Slack. Julia stood at the door, waiting for the coroner to finish his business with the publican. Shouts and catcalls greeted Clark and Slack as they made their way through an angry gauntlet.
The coroner, a balding, precise little man with steel-rimmed spectacles and a thin mustache, counted out the medical examiner’s standard fee: two pounds, two shillings. He handed her the coins, saying, “Well, Doctor Lewis, you certainly put the cat among the pigeons.”
“That hearing was a travesty,” Julia said.
“Slack should be sacked. Still, he has his uses.”
“Meaning?”
The coroner pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “He’s probably the Yard’s least energetic officer. Call him in if youdon’twant answers.”
“Slack is aptly named.”
“The East End has little sympathy for an Irish victim. Slack will box up the evidence and stick it on a shelf.”
“Then they’ll have an Irish tinderbox on their hands,” Julia said, pocketing her fee.
The same morning on the Isle of Wight, Inspector Tennant sought answers at Osborne House, holding interviews in the office of the queen’s private secretary. O’Malley’s telegram added Stanley Hackett to the inspector’s list of promising suspects, and the prince’s valet was the morning’s first interview.
Hackett arrived promptly, wearing a charcoal cut-away coat that showed off a royal blue, diamond-patterned waistcoat. Tennant judged him to be in his middle thirties and more expensively suited than the typical manservant. Full muttonchop side whiskers and a fringe beard didn’t altogether hide a receding chin. The valet’s restless fingers fiddled with the knot in his tie. The bump in Hackett’s throat jumped like a jack-in-the-box when Tennant asked him about his movements on the day Lizzie Dowling was murdered.
“It’s difficult to say.” Hackett pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. “Probably tending to the prince’s wardrobe.”
“Probably or definitely?”
Hackett scowled, stuffing away the pocket square. “You can’t expect a fellow to remember one afternoon two months ago.”
