Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [146]
“I’m saying nothing,” Finn replied, then stood still, his head lifted, his eyes straight ahead.
Tellman came up behind him and slipped on the handcuffs. The groom looked aghast. He opened his mouth to speak and then found he had nothing to say.
Pitt turned and left to go and search Hennessey’s room. He took the butler, Dlikes, with him, in case he should find something and later require a witness to the fact.
Dlikes stood in the doorway somberly, deeply unhappy at the whole affair. Pitt went into the room and began methodically to go through cupboards and drawers. He found the candles and the one stick of dynamite inside a tall boot at the back of the wardrobe. It was out of sight, but hardly hidden. Hennessey had either been sure enough of Gracie or had thought it not worth trying to hide in some other place less obviously his. Maybe his type of loyalty extended to not attempting to lay the blame on anyone else. He was a passionate believer in his cause, not a murderer for hire or for personal satisfaction.
There was paper ash in the bowl. It could have been anything, possibly the letter Gracie saw on the table. He had taken care at least to destroy everything to link him to someone else. That was worth a kind of oblique respect.
Pitt showed the dynamite to Dlikes, then replaced it and requested the butler to lock the door and give him the key. If there was another key, he was to find that and give it to Pitt also. There was a storeroom with a grille window and a stout door where Hennessey could remain until the local police took him away, perhaps tomorrow or the day after.
Pitt went back to Finn again, with Tellman, and told him about finding the dynamite.
“I’m not saying anything,” Finn repeated, looking directly at Pitt. “I know my cause is just. I’ve lived for Irish freedom. I’ll die for it if I have to. I love my country and its people. I’ll just be one more martyr in the cause.”
“Being hanged for a murder you committed is not martyrdom,” Pitt replied tartly. “Most people would regard murdering your employer, a man who trusted you, another Irishman fighting for the same cause, as a pretty shabby and cowardly betrayal. And not only that, but pointless as well. What did killing McGinley achieve? He wanted exactly the same as you did.”
“I didn’t kill McGinley,” Finn said stubbornly. “I didn’t put the dynamite there.”
“You expect us to believe that?” Pitt said with disdain.
“I don’t care a damn what you believe!” Finn spat back. “You’re just another English oppressor forcing your will on a defenseless people.”
“You’re the one with the dynamite,” Pitt retaliated. “You’re the one who blew up McGinley, not me.”
“I didn’t put the dynamite there! Anyway, it wasn’t meant for McGinley, you fool,” Finn said contemptuously. “It was for Radley! I’d have thought you’d realize that—” He stopped.
Pitt smiled. “If you didn’t put it there, how do you know who it was meant for?”
“I’m saying nothing,” Finn repeated angrily. “I don’t betray my friends. I’ll die first.”
“Probably,” Pitt agreed. But he also knew that he would get little more from him, and grudgingly he respected his courage, if little else. “You are being used,” he added from the door.
Finn smiled. His face was very pale, and there was a sweat of fear on his lip. “But I know by whom, and what for, and I’m willing. Can you say as much?”
“I believe so,” Pitt replied. “Are you as sure that those you’ve used feel as certain?”
Finn’s jaw tightened. “You use who you have to. The cause justifies it.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Pitt replied, this time with absolute certainty. “If it destroys what is good in you, then it is a bad cause, or you have misunderstood it. Everything you do becomes part of it and part of you. You can’t take it off, like old clothes, when you get there. It’s not clothes, Finn, it’s your flesh.”
“No, it isn’t!” Finn