The Savage Day - Jack Higgins [44]
'In return for what?'
'The firing pins and the rest of the arms you have stored away over there in Oban somewhere.' He sampled some of his wine. 'I'd see you were suitably recompensed. On delivery, naturally.'
I laughed out loud. 'I just bet you would. I can imagine what your version of payment would be. A nine millimetre round in the back of the head.'
'No, really, old lad. As one gentleman to another.'
He was quite incredible. I laughed again. 'You've got to be joking.'
He sighed heavily. 'You know, nobody, but nobody takes me seriously, that's the trouble.' He emptied his glass and stood up. 'Let's go downstairs. I'll show you over the place.'
I hadn't the slightest idea what his game was, but on the other hand, I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter with Dooley dogging my heels, that sub-machine-gun at the ready.
We went down to the main corridor leading to the grand stairway. Barry said, 'My revered uncle, my mother's brother, made the place over to the National Trust on condition he could continue to live here. It has to be open to the public from May to September. The rest of the time you could go for weeks without seeing a soul.'
'Very convenient for you, but doesn't it ever occur to the military to look the place over once in a while in view of the special relationship?'
'With my uncle? A past Grand Master of the Orange Lodge? A Unionist since Carson's day? As a matter of interest, he threw me out on my ear years ago. A well-known fact of Ulster life.'
'Then how does he allow you to come and go as you please now?'
'I'll show you.'
We paused outside a large double door. He knocked, a key turned, and it was opened by a small, wizened man in a grey alpaca jacket who drew himself stiffly together at once and stood to one side like an old soldier.
'And how is he this evening, Sean?' Barry asked.
'Fine, sir. Just fine.'
We moved into an elegant, booklined drawing-room which had a large, four-posted bed in one corner. There was a marble fireplace, logs burning steadily in the hearth, and an old man in a dressing-gown sat in a wing chair before it, a blanket about his knees. He held an empty glass in his left hand and there was a decanter on a small table beside him.
'Hello, Uncle,' Barry said. 'And how are we this evening?'
The old man turned and stared at him listlessly, the eyes vacant in the wrinkled face, lips wet.
'Here, have another brandy. It'll help you sleep.'
Barry poured a good four fingers into the glass, steadied the shaking hand as it was raised. In spite of that, a considerable amount dribbled from the loose mouth as the old man gulped it down greedily.
He sank back in the chair and Barry said cheerfully, 'There you are, Vaughan, Old Lord Palsy himself.'
I had found him likeable enough until then, in spite of his doings, but a remark so cruel was hard to take. Doubly so when one considered that it was being made about his own flesh and blood.
There was a silver candelabrum on a side-board with half a dozen candles in it. He produced a box of matches, lit them one by one, then moved to the door which the man in the alpaca jacket promptly opened for him.
Barry turned to look back at his uncle. 'I'll give you one guess who the heir is when he goes, Vaughan.' He laughed sardonically. 'My God, can you see me taking my seat in the House of Lords? It raises interesting possibilities, mind you. The Tower of London, for instance, instead of the Crumlin Road gaol if they ever catch me.'
I said nothing, simply followed him out and walked at his side as he went down the great stairway to the hall. It was a strange business, for we moved from one room to another, Dooley keeping pace behind, the only light the candelabrum in Barry's hand flickering on silver and glass and polished furniture, drawing the faces of those long-dead out of the darkness as we passed canvas after canvas in ornate gilt frames. And he talked ceaselessly.
He stopped in front of a portrait of a portly, bewigged gentleman in eighteenth-century