For what, then, had Davenport given this money to Blake? The latter said the interview between the two had been of a pleasant character. Why? Blake was disreputable, and Davenport eminently respectable. It was absurd to suppose Davenport could have had a liking for Blake. Taking that thousand pounds years ago must have destroyed any good opinion Davenport had of Blake. Why, then, had the latter been received well and been given money? He had not only been received well and given money, but invited to dinner on a later date! It was simply incredible that out of gratitude for that service rendered long ago in Florence, Davenport was going to forget that this man had been his rival, and invite him to his house and a necessary meeting with his beautiful wife.
O'Brien did not for a moment suspect the widow and her former admirer of perjury, of concocting their stories. These stories were not at all calculated to exculpate either of the two. In fact, these stories, uncorroborated by the evidence obtained at the post-mortem examination, would have heightened suspicion rather than allayed it. At first these stories seemed prodigal in daring, but this very excess of apparent improbability made them seem most probable when read by the light of Davenport's written confession. No, there was no reason to suspect perjury.
He could make nothing of it so far. But did those documents of Fahey's aid one towards a solution? He could not see how they bore on the case one way or the other, and yet the coincidences were remarkable. He had seen Blake in London the day of the night on which Davenport died. When Alfred Paulton told him what had happened at Crescent House, he came to the conclusion Blake was in some way or other mixed up in the matter. This conclusion turned out right, although not exactly in the way he had expected. Now upon his coming back to Kilbarry he is met by a still more remarkable story. A man whom O'Hanlon knew ten or eleven years ago, and was then drowned at the hideous Black Rock, appears to O'Hanlon in the same spot and same clothes as he had been last seen alive in. It seemed as if he, O'Brien, were destined to be connected with the Davenport affair whether he would or not. Alfred Paulton was the greatest friend he had in London, and John O'Hanlon was the best friend he had in Kilbarry. He knew Blake by appearance and report, and he was acquainted with the Davenports; and here were all mixed up in the same matter in more or less degree, and all in a disagreeable way. It was the smallest of small worlds. He had no particular reason for being interested in the complication; and, indeed, except for the extraordinary statement made by O'Hanlon, the incident might be said to be closed, were it not that he was not quite sure whether Alfred Paulton-whom he hoped one day to have for a brother-in-law-had got over the fascination exercised on him by that beautiful woman. Any way, he had nothing particular to do now but fight those rascally commissioners; so he'd just glance over these documents again, and see if he could make anything out of them.
With a sigh, he put them away a second time. He might as well look for help to the stars. He would call at O'Hanlon's to-day and ask was there any news.
He found Mr. Gorman, head clerk to O'Hanlon, leaning against his favourite shutter with his hands in his trousers' pockets, placidly regarding through the window a tattered, battered, and wholly miserable-looking man of between sixty and seventy, who was playing "The Young May Moon," atrociously out of tune and out of time, on a penny tin whistle.
"Well," said O'Brien, briskly to Gorman, "any news?"
"Not a blessed word," answered the clerk, resting his back against the shutter instead of his shoulder, and so facing the visitor. "I suppose you came over about your weirs? Deuced bother, Mr. O'Brien!"
"It is an infernal nuisance. Do you know, Mr. Gorman, I think half the people who ought to be hanged are never even brought to trial."
"These Fishery Commissioners don't murder any one but fisheries and the proprietors of fisheries, and there is no precedent for hanging a man merely because he killed a fishery or the proprietor of a fishery. However, Mr. O'Brien, you need not be afraid. Your weirs are as safe as the Rock of Cashel. I often wonder why they call a rock a rock. It's about the last thing that would think of rocking, and the sea, which is the best rocker out, can't stir a rock that's in good wind and form. It would take the Atlantic a month of Sundays to rock the Black Rock, for instance, at Kilcash."
The mention of the Black Rock made O'Brien start slightly, for it was in the rock that famous and treacherous Hole yawned and breathed dismay and destruction. It was odd Gorman should mention the rock which had occupied such a prominent place in his thoughts that forenoon.
"It's strange," said O'Brien, walking over to the window, and placing himself against the shutter opposite Gorman, "that I should have been thinking of the Black Rock a little while ago! What put it into your head now?"
"Well, I tell you, nothing could be simpler or more natural. I knew you arrived from London yesterday. I knew you were acquainted with the Davenports of Kilcash, and a man who once had some connection with the Davenports was last seen on the Black Rock, and drowned himself, to escape the police, in the Hole. You may remember the circumstance?"
"Yes," said O'Brien, instantly interested; "I have a faint recollection of that man's death. Were you with Mr. O'Hanlon then?"
"Oh, yes. I remember all about it. He was a client of ours. We didn't do much for him; in fact, we didn't do anything for him. He left some papers with the governor, and then got into trouble about passing flash notes. The police had their hands just on him, when he leapt into the Hole. You know what that means. The body was never found; but that does not count as anything, for the bodies of persons drowned near that spot are never found."
"And nothing was known of the connection between this unfortunate Fahey and the Davenports?"
"I don't know anything about it, and I don't think the governor does. It was supposed he was an old hanger-on of old Davenport's, since the time Davenport was abroad. Davenport himself, as far as I could find out, never volunteered information about Fahey; and, you know, he wasn't the kind of man you'd care to ask unnecessary questions. He was about the closest man in the county. I never had any business to do with him, but I've kept my ears open."
"He died very rich, I suppose?" – with a laugh. "A friend of mine is already greatly interested in the widow."
"Ah, no wonder! She's a fine woman-the finest woman in these parts. I often saw her. You might do worse than try your luck there yourself, Mr. O'Brien. If he left her the bulk of his fortune she will be very well off. He had no one else in the world but his brother, who is crack-brained, I believe; and the dead man was very rich-made a whole fortune abroad, in various kinds of speculations, both in Europe and America."
"What did he speculate in chiefly?"
"I don't know. All kinds of stocks and shares. They say he had some plan never before adopted, and out of which he made money as fast as he liked, and this plan he never would tell any one. At all events, for more than ten years before he settled down here he had been wandering pretty well over the whole civilized world. Every one who knew of his great business cleverness wondered why he retired before fifty, but he said he had enough for a lifetime, and that his asthma was too bad for him to go on any longer. But somehow it leaked out that he got a great fright about some bank on the Continent in which he had a large sum of money-I think ten thousand pounds-lodged to his credit."
"Do you remember the story, Gorman?"
"I do."
"Well, tell it to me. But, for heaven's sake, first send out the boy and order that man with the tin whistle to go away. Here's sixpence for him."
"Not fond of music! I thought you were." He took the coin, and despatched the boy. "The Bank of England had its own reasons for keeping the thing quiet at the time, and it never came fully before the public, as the criminal was never discovered. Mr. Davenport gave notice to the foreign bank that on a certain day he would require the ten thousand he had lodged there, and that the more Bank of England notes he found in the packet, the better he should be pleased.
"On the day he had named he called and got the money, and that very evening started for London with the cash. This