Sherlock Holmes: The American Years (28 page)

“The British have represented the crossing as a bunch of drunken Irishmen wandering over the border. The story hid the reality. In fact, the following year, the provinces of British North America united as the Dominion of Canada. So Canada has the Irish invasion to thank for its existence.”

“And what of this General O’Neill, as you call him?”

“O’Neill, as the victor over the British at Ridgeway and Fort Erie, became the hero of the conflict. He didn’t give up the idea easily and wanted to make a second attempt to invade British territory in pursuit of Irish independence. He became president of the Irish Republican movement in the United States and eventually settled here in Holt City.”

“And now you say he has been poisoned?”

“So it seems. And, as you say see, from his history, he is a man who has made powerful enemies.”

“And your fear about it being known that Mycroft works at
Dublin Castle, together with my arrival at this time, is that this might be construed as an attempt to eliminate O’Neill by the Castle authorities?”

Toorish shrugged.

“It is not the first time that assassination has been used as a political tool. The general does have a small staff around him who are very protective.”

“You sound as though you support him.”

Toorish looked sharply at me.

“I admire the man and I agree that Ireland should have its own government again. However, I would give my support to Mr. Butt and his Irish Home Rule League. I am no Fenian.”

“In view of what you say, does that not make your role as doctor to General O’Neill somewhat questionable?”

“Not at all. We both agree on the end to be achieved but not the method to achieve it. We have a mutual respect.” Toorish suddenly gave a wry smile, “Besides, I am the only Irish doctor in this town at the moment.”

We had driven some way beyond the main section of homesteads and buildings. The general’s house was a grand wooden structure that had been fairly recently erected. The grounds seemed large, with a river running nearby and an orchard spreading along its banks. Two men patrolled the gates leading to the house. They both carried carbines, and I noticed that they wore green jackets with insignia on them, and that one had a sergeant’s chevrons sewn on his sleeve. It was as if they were soldiers guarding the place. In fact, that was exactly what they were, but of this Irish Army of Liberation. They recognized Toorish but regarded me with suspicion.

“Who’s he, Doc?” demanded the man with sergeant chevrons. His Dublin accent was unmistakable.

“My cousin recently arrived from Ireland,” responded Toorish. On this intelligence we were waved through the gates toward the house.

I noticed that a flag was flying over the porch, a tricolor of green, white, and orange. I had no memory for such symbols, but Toorish told me it was the flag presented by the French to the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s and was now used by the Fenians.

A young woman was on the porch, wringing her hands, eyes red with weeping. Pretty, with pale skin and red hair, she was nearly disfigured by her tears. Beside her was a young man who seemed to have been speaking earnestly to her. He wore rough working clothes and only a shirt. On our arrival, he said something quickly to the girl and disappeared around the side of the veranda, or what is called the stoop in these parts. The girl came to the top of the steps as Toorish drew up.

“Oh, Doctor, thank God you have come. It is painful to watch the general so.”

“He still lives?” demanded Toorish, leaping down and taking his bag.

“Barely, sir,” she replied.

Toorish entered the house preceded by the young girl, who I understood must be one of the servants. Inside the hallway stood another of those green-jacketed men, with a revolver in his belt. Toorish muttered something in an aside to the man, which I think was by way of identifying me, and went directly up the stairs, the girl leading the way. I followed closely on their heels.

The general, a handsome, mustachioed man much diminished
by his poor health, was lying, fully clothed, twisting and turning on the bed. His cheeks sunken, he was pale, sweating, and in a state of unconsciousness. There appeared to be a spasmodic rigidity to his body. Toorish bent over him and began his examination. A few minutes of it confirmed his estimation of poison.

“You can do nothing, Holmes,” he said to me. “I must try to present an antidote to this. That he has not died so far is proof of a strong constitution.”

“You have identified the poison?”

“The muscular convulsions are an indication. Strychnine.”

“But if he had taken it in any quantity he would be already dead,” I pointed out, knowing that much about chemistry.

“Strychnine has a bitter taste. Perhaps after the first sip he was warned? It would take ten to twenty minutes to start the convulsions. Death would come in two to three hours, depending on how much he swallowed. Now, let me do what I can. If you want to make yourself useful, find out how the general managed to imbibe this poison.”

He waved both the maid and myself out of the room.

I looked at the red-eyed girl, who was in a state of great distress.

“Come downstairs and tell me how this happened,” I suggested.

She led the way down to what appeared to be the general’s library. It was filled mostly with books of Irish and American history and items of a military nature.

“Begin by telling me your name,” I said, leaning against a large oak desk.

“Kitty, sir. Kitty McKenny.”

“I judge that you are from Monaghan by your accent.”

“Indeed, I am.”

“How long have you been in service to the general?”

“Since I came to this country. My family knew the general’s family in Monaghan. That was five years ago.”

“And in what capacity do you serve here?”

“I am both maid and cook, sir. In truth, sir, the general has no other domestic servants, only myself and Kevin, who serves as aide and valet to him. At the moment, Mrs O’Neill and her children are in Omaha visiting some relatives.”

“No other servants here? I thought I saw several men about the place.”

“Oh, indeed you will. There are half a dozen of the general’s soldiers who serve as guards and help out about the grounds.”

“Why would the general need guards?”

“You are not Irish then, sir.”

“Dr. Sherlock is my cousin,” I pointed out, but I feared she meant that I was not of her ilk of Irish.

“Then you should know that the general is an enemy to the British government and his activities brought him into conflict with those who run affairs in Washington. Only a few years ago he was arrested by a United States marshal at the Canadian border.”

“I can understand the British seeking his arrest, but why Washington? Was he not a hero of the late war between the states?”

“He is more of a hero to the Irish people, sir. In disturbing the settlement between Washington and London, he is regarded with deep hatred in many quarters on both sides of the Atlantic. There have been several threats on his life. That is why he needs a bodyguard.”

“And do you know how this accident happened?”

“Accident, sir?”

“How did the general come to imbibe the poison?”

The girl sniffed.

“I do not know. It happened after the midday meal, scarcely two hours ago.”

“Well, tell me the circumstances leading to your sending for Doctor Sherlock.”

“I had poured a glass of whiskey for the general while he sat in this very study. It was his habit to take a glass in midafternoon while working at his desk there.”

“You handed him the glass of whiskey?”

“I placed it on the desk beside him. Look, it is still there.”

I glanced to where she pointed and saw a glass tumbler half filled with whiskey on the desk.

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then I left the room. After a moment I thought that I heard him call. I came back and found him standing by the cabinet over there, where the drinks are stored. He had a bottle in his hand, peering at it. “Did you want another glass?” I asked him. He glanced up at me and shook his head. “It was bitter,” was all he said. I saw that the glass on his desk had barely been touched.”

“You poured the whiskey while at this cabinet?” I interrupted.

“I did.”

“From a decanter?”

“From a bottle, sir. The general has cases of it shipped from John Power’s distillery in Dublin. He refuses to drink anything else.”

“What then?”

“I withdrew from the room and had barely stepped into the
hallway when I heard a thud from the study. I returned and found the general on the floor having a fit. I called Kevin and we managed to get him to his bedroom. But with the condition worsening, Kevin took to his horse and rode for Doctor Sherlock.”

“You were alarmed at the condition. Yet why was Kevin able to report to the doctor that the general had been poisoned?”

She frowned as she considered the question.

“There were flecks of spittle around his mouth and the convulsions. I supposed that alerted him.”

“Do you know that such symptoms meant poison, then?”

She shook her head.

“It was Kevin who said so, sir. That’s why he rode off immediately.”

I glanced back to the glass tumbler of whiskey on the desk.

“Nothing has been touched since you poured the whiskey?”

“It seems so, sir.”

I bent over it to sniff its aroma. It had no other smell than whiskey. So I dipped my forefinger in it and carefully tasted it with the tip of my tongue. There seemed nothing out of the ordinary about it. It was good, plain Irish whiskey. There was certainly nothing bitter about it. I noticed there was an oily thumbprint on the glass.

“Was the general engaged in oiling some implement at this desk? Perhaps a pocket watch?” I asked.

The girl seemed to think me mad.

“The general, sir? He was writing some letters.”

“Show me the bottle you poured from. Was it the same that the general was inspecting when you saw him?”

“There was only one bottle newly opened, sir. It is in the cabinet.”

I went to look for myself. There was, as she had told me, one bottle of Power’s whiskey that had been opened, and, by my judgment, about a half-tumbler full had been poured from it. Once again, I sniffed at the bottle. And then gingerly tasted some of it on my fingertip. There was no bitter effect. It seemed that however the general had imbibed the strychnine it was not through the means of its being disguised in Mr. Power’s distillation. Once again, I noticed a few drops of oil adhering to the bottle.

Yet, and here the logic of deduction was quite clear, if the general had imbibed nothing before the whiskey and nothing afterwards, and within ten minutes of taking the whiskey fell prey to the symptoms, then it must have been through this means that the poison was introduced into his body. But there was no other glass or open bottle within the room.

“Has this man Kevin returned to the house yet?” I asked.

“He has, sir. He came back before you did. He felt that his place was at the general’s side.”

“Ah, was he the young man I saw with you on the porch?”

“Indeed it was not, sir. That was Billy McCartan, one of the men . . .”

There was a high color in her cheeks, which told a story.

“Your fiancé?” I hazarded.

“We have walked out together. But he has not been here long. He’s from County Down.”

“So he is not one of the general’s veterans?”

“He’s hardly older than me,” asserted the girl. “He tends the
gardens. He got into trouble at home and had to take passage here. He joined the republicans in New York and then made his way here by their recommendation. The general took pity on him and gave him a job. He wants to make something of himself and . . .”

She paused, blushing even further.

“Well, let us continue,” I said. “Ask this Kevin to come in here. We will see how he diagnosed poison so quickly.”

The man whom Kitty showed into the study was the man who had been standing in the hallway when we arrived. He was cleanshaven and had obviously been in military service, judging from the way he carried himself and almost stood at attention before me. He wore that green jacket, and now I could see that he had a lieutenant’s insignia on the shoulders. I was also aware of the revolver he carried in the holster at his belt, whose military flap, I noticed, was open.

“Your name?” I asked.

“Kevin Mullan, sir. Lieutenant of the Irish Army of Liberation. The Thirteenth Regiment.”

“You have been employed by the general for how long?”

“I fought at his side at Ridgeway and at the skirmish at Fort Erie. I was in his command under General Sherman in the war between the states. I have been his aide since we withdrew across the Niagara.”

“So you were always a soldier?”

“I came to this country just as the war between the states started and immediately enlisted in the cavalry in Michigan. The general commanded the unit. However, in Ireland, I had been a student, sir.”

“Where and what was your subject?”

“I was at Queen’s College in Galway and I studied botany.”

“Botany? From botanist to soldier, a curious change.”

“Not so curious, sir. But you have surely not come to waste time on my life story. I thought you were a doctor, a relative of Dr. Sherlock.”

“My cousin has asked me to discover how the general came to take strychnine. Do not worry,” I added, “my cousin is even now fighting to save your general’s life.”

The man who had continued to stand at attention seemed visibly to relax, but not entirely, for there was a certain tension in his body.

“How did you know that the general had taken poison?” I demanded suddenly. “When you came to my cousin’s house, you told him that fact.”

“That’s easy. I had seen animals display similar symptoms when poisoned.”

“You must explain that to me.”

The man pointed to the window.

“You will observe, sir, that we are close to a river. This building was much troubled by rodents when it was first erected. The general ordered that these creatures be poisoned to keep their numbers down.”