Priscilla's Spies Part 25

"She was in Brannigan's last night, buying peppermint drops and every kind of foolishness, the same as she might be a little girleen that was given a penny and her just out of school."

"If she hasn't more sense at her time of life," said Kinsella, "she never will."

"Seeing it's that sort she is, I wouldn't say we'd any need to be caring where she goes so long as it isn't to Inishbawn."

"She'll not go there," said Kinsella, "for if she does I'll flay the skin of Jimmy's back with the handle of a hay-rake, and well he knows it."

"If I was easy in my mind about the strange gentleman that's up at the big house??"

"It's a curious thing, so it is, him sending for the sergeant the minute he came."

"Bed.a.m.n," said Peter Walsh, "but it is."

The extreme oddness of the strange gentleman's conduct affected both men profoundly. For fully five minutes they sat staring at the sea, motionless, save when one or the other of them thrust his head forward a little in order to spit. Kinsella at last got out his pipe, probed the tobacco a little with the point of his knife so as to loosen it, pressed it together again with his thumb, and then lit it.

"I wouldn't mind the sergeant," he said, "cute and all as he thinks himself, I wouldn't mind him. It's the strange gentleman I'm thinking of."

The _Tortoise_ stole round the end of the quay while he spoke. Kinsella eyed her. He noticed at once that Priscilla was steering with an oar. In his acutely suspicious mood every trifle was a matter for investigation.

"What's wrong with her," he said, "that she wouldn't steer with the rudder when she has one?"

"It might be," said Peter Walsh, "that she's lost it. You couldn't tell what the likes of her would do."

"She was in trouble this morning when I seen her," said Kinsella, "but she had the rudder then."

Priscilla hailed them from the boat

"Hullo, Peter!" she shouted. "Go down to the slip and be ready to take the boat. Have you the bath chair ready?"

"I have, Miss. It's there standing beside the slip where you left it this morning. Who'd touch the like? What's happened the rudder?"

"Iron's broken," said Priscilla, "and it must be mended tonight. I say, Kinsella, Jimmy's leg isn't near as bad as you'd think it would be, after having the horn of a wild bull run through it."

"It wasn't a bull at all, Miss, but a heifer."

"I don't see that it makes much difference which it was," said Priscilla.

"Do you hear that now?" said Kinsella to his friend in a whisper.

"Believe you me, Peter Walsh, it's as good for the whole of us that she's not in the police."

"What's that you're saying?" said Priscilla.

The boat, though the wind had almost left her sails, drifted up on the rising tide and was already past the spot where the two men were sitting. Peter Walsh got up and shouted his answer after her.

"Joseph Antony Kinsella," he said, "is just after telling me that it's his belief that you'd make a grand sergeant of police."

"It's a good job for him that I'm not," said Priscilla. "For the first thing I'd do if I was would be to go out and see what it is he has going on on Inishbawn."

Peter Walsh, without unduly hurrying himself, arrived at the slip before the _Tortoise_. Priscilla stepped ash.o.r.e and handed him the rudder.

"Take that to the smith," she said, "and tell him to put a new iron on it this evening. We'll want it again tomorrow morning."

"I'll tell him, Miss; but I wouldn't say he'd do it for you."

"He'd jolly well better," said Priscilla.

"That same Patsy the smith," said Peter Walsh, "has a terrible strong hate in him for doing anything in a hurry whether it's little or big."

"Just you tell him from me," said Priscilla, "that if I don't get that rudder properly settled when I want it tomorrow morning, I'll go out to Inishbawn, in spite of your rats and your heifers."

Peter Walsh's face remained perfectly impa.s.sive. Not even in his eyes was there the smallest expression of surprise or uneasiness.

"What would be the good of saying the like of that to him?" he said.

"It's laughing at me he'd be, for he wouldn't understand what I'd mean."

"Don't tell me," said Priscilla. "Whatever villainy there is going on between you and Joseph Antony Kinsella, Patsy the smith will be in it along with you."

Peter Walsh helped Frank into the bath-chair. Priscilla, her face wearing a most determined expression, wheeled him away.

"That rudder will be ready all right," she said.

"But what do you think is going on on the island?" asked Frank.

"I don't know."

"Could they be smuggling?"

"They might be smuggling, only I don't see where they'd get anything to smuggle. Anyway, it's no business of ours so long as we get the rudder.

I don't think it's at all a good plan, Cousin Frank, to be always poking our noses into other people's secrets, when we don't absolutely have to."

It occurred to Frank that Priscilla had shown some eagerness in probing the private affairs of the young couple who had hired Flanagan's boat.

He did not, however, feel it necessary to make this obvious retort.

Peter Walsh, the rudder under his arm, went back to Joseph Antony Kinsella, who was still sitting on the edge of the quay.

"She says," he said, "that without there's a new iron on that rudder tomorrow morning, she'll go out to Inishbawn and the young fellow along with her."

"Let Patsy the smith put it on for her, then."

"Sure he can't."

"And what's to hinder him?"

"He was drunk an hour ago," said Peter Walsh, "and he'll be drunker now."

"Bed.a.m.n then, but you'd better take him down and dip him in the tide, for I'll not have that young fellow with the sore leg on Inishbawn. If it was only herself I wouldn't care."

"I'd be afeard to do it," said Peter Walsh.