Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [106]
“Yes, he’s all right,” Charlotte whispered back. “Mr. McGinley went into the study and somehow triggered off a bomb made of dynamite.”
“Is ’e dead?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. He must have been right by the blast.”
Gracie caught her breath and nearly choked from the dust in the air.
“That’s terrible! Them Irish is mad! ’Oo’s this goin’ ter ’elp?”
“No one,” Charlotte said softly. “Hennessey says Mr. McGinley knew it was there and was trying to make it safe, but it must have been so finely balanced it went off anyway.”
“Poor soul.” Gracie was wrenched by sadness for him. “Per’aps ’e were so brave ’cos o’ Mrs. McGinley bein’ off wi’ Mr. Moynihan, like? Maybe ’e were ’urt so bad—” She stopped. She should not have said that. It was not her place.
“ ’E were very brave,” she added. She looked at Charlotte, then at Finn.
Charlotte gave her a little nudge.
Gracie went over and knelt down beside Finn. He seemed stunned, still only partially sensible of where he was. His face and clothes were filthy from the dust and smoke, and beneath the soot he was ashen skinned.
“I’m ever so sorry,” she said softly. She put her hand out and slid it over his, and he gripped it gratefully. “Yer gotta be brave, like ’e were,” she went on. “ ’E were a real ’ero.”
He stared at her, his eyes wide, almost hollow with shock and hurt.
“I don’t understand it!” he said desperately. “It shouldn’t have happened! He knew dynamite! He should …” He shook his head as if to clear it. “He should have been able to … to make it all right.”
“D’yer know ’oo put it there?” she asked.
“What?”
“D’yer know ’oo put the dynamite there?” she repeated.
“No. No, of course I don’t,” he replied. “Or I’d have said, wouldn’t I?”
“ ’Ow’d poor Mr. McGinley know it were there?”
He turned away. “I don’t know.”
Instantly she was ashamed. She should not be asking him all these questions when he was shocked and bruised and grieved. She should be trying to comfort him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “ ’cos you don’t understand it. I don’t s’pose nobody does, ’ceptin’ ’im wot put it there, an’ maybe not even ’im neither. Yer’d better come away and sit down for a while, quiet like. Mr. Dilkes won’t mind if yer ’ave a drop o’ ’is brady. Gawd knows, yer need it. Everybody needs time an’ a spot o’ ’elp ter get an ’old o’ themselves.”
He looked back at her. “You’re very sweet, Gracie.” He swallowed, took a very deep, shaky breath, and swallowed again. “I just don’t know how it could have happened!”
“Mr. Pitt’ll find out,” she answered him, trying to convince herself as well. “Come back ter Mrs. Hunnaker’s room an’ sit down. There’ll be lots o’ things ter do soon enough.”
“Yes …” he agreed. “Yes, of course.” And he allowed her to help him to his feet and, after thanking the footman, to lead him out of the dusty hall back through the green baize door and to Mrs. Hunnaker’s sitting room, where there was nobody to give or deny them entrance. She made him sit down, and then in the absence of the butler to grant her brandy, went to the cooking cupboard and helped herself to a stiff glass of sherry and took it back. Let Mrs. Williams quarrel about that later. She sat opposite him, watching him carefully, trying to comfort him, aching for his confusion and his loss.
By the time Tellman came to ask both of them where they had been all morning, and what they had seen, Finn was almost himself again.
Tellman stood just inside the doorway, his body angular, his shoulders stiff. He looked thoroughly disapproving as he stared at Gracie, sitting perched on the housekeeper’s second-best chair, and Finn, slumped in the best.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hennessey,” he said grimly. “I don’t like having to ask you when you just lost someone you’re close to, but we got to know what happened. Someone put that dynamite there. Probably the same person as killed Mr. Greville.”
“Of course …” Finn agreed, looking up at him. “I don’t know who it was.”
“Maybe not outright, or you’d have said.” Tellman was holding a pencil and paper in his