The Celtic Riddle (3 page)

"As unorthodox as this may be, I have some hope for it, the foolish
optimism of a dying man, if you will. I have asked that after the Will
is read, McCafferty and McGIynn give each of you an envelope. These two
legal bookends have objected, of course, that this is not appropriate.
Their protestations, mild as they were, were intended no doubt to
protect their backsides should anything untoward occur, while still
permitting them to collect the additional fee they require for this
endeavor. They are too accustomed to the lush lifestyle of St.
Stephen's Green to refuse my request, particularly when I told them I
would find other executors for my estate if they did so.

"In each of the envelopes, there is a clue that, taken with the
others, will lead to something of great value. One clue in itself will
not get you there. Some lead to information about the object itself;
others point to its location. In other words, to find it, you must work
together. I am not trying to be even remotely subtle about this. If you
need a reason to participate, let me remind you of what I have already
said. For some of you there is nothing from me on my death, for others,
not as much as they might like. Those who have received something of
value from me may well find that what I have left you has become
worthless. This object has, if you find it, sufficient value to help
you all. I would urge you to learn to work and live in harmony. I very
much doubt that you will be able to do so, but I sincerely hope you
will prove me wrong. If you do not, then something truly remarkable and
priceless will remain hidden, possibly forever. That is all I have to
say."

With that, the face raised one hand in what could be interpreted as
a gesture of dismissal, either for the cameraman or all of us. The
camera drew back from the face slightly to reveal yet more tubes and
hospital paraphernalia, rows of pill bottles on a bedside table. From
Byrne there came no expressions of affection, not even a good-bye, just
the picture of a dying man lying there, lines of pain etched into his
face, slowly fading to black.

For a minute or two, we all sat looking at the blank screen as we
contemplated the last words of Eamon Byrne, no sound save a vague hiss
from the television the ticking of a clock in the hall, a muffled call
of bird the rustle of palm fronds, and somewhere far away, faint roar
of a wind-swept sea.

Breeta bestirred herself first. "Effing brill, Da," si sighed,
hoisting herself out of the chair and heading for the door. "Just
effing brill."

"What does effing brill mean?" Alex, looking pe plexed, whispered to
me, as we watched Breeta's exit.

"I think the second word is 'brilliant,' and the fir begins with an
f," I whispered back.

Alex looked over at Breeta's rather large departir rear and shook
his head disapprovingly. I stifled smile. Alex was, for many years, a
purser in the me chant marine, no less, but I have never heard an ol
scenity pass his lips, nor have I ever heard him swea I, on the other
hand… But so much for stereotypes.

Tweedledee nervously cleared his throat as a sign; that the more
formal part of the proceedings was begin. "Most unusual," he began. "I
suppose it is necessary for Miss Breeta Byrne to attend?" he said,
looling over at Tweedledum.

"Highly unusual. Should be here," Tweedledum r< plied. Tweedledee
shuffled papers uncomfortably for moment or two, as Deirdre pulled open
the curtains, could see Breeta heading down through the garden t<
ward the sea.

"May I suggest we all take a short break," Tweec ledum said.
"Perhaps Deirdre," he said, turning to th maid, "you would bring us
some fresh tea, and M Davis," he said, thinking better than to ask John
to d anything too taxing, seeing as how he'd backed out ( the room
several times during the proceedings, "yo might go and ask Miss Byrne
to oblige us by returnin to the house."

The fabulous five in front of us arose as if one unit and in single
file, left the room. Needless to say, no one bothered to suggest we
join them or have a tour of the house or anything, leaving Alex and me
and Padraig Gilhooly's lawyer to fend for ourselves, while Tweedledum
and Tweedledee fussed with papers and envelopes. Gathering that we were
to stay where we were, I gratefully unfolded myself from the
uncomfortable chair, and being no longer obliged to watch out for the
tortoise, Breeta having taken the creature with her, stretched and
looked about me as Michael Davis, visible through French doors on to
the patio, jogged off in the direction where we'd last seen Byrne's
youngest daughter.

It perhaps goes without saying that the reason I am in the antiques
business is that I love antiques, and once I'd adjusted to the chaos in
Eamon Byrne's room, and freed from the acid glances of his family, the
place was a real feast for the eyes and the soul for someone like me.

You can tell a lot about people from the art they collect, and while
I was sticking with my snap analysis that life for Byrne was a battle
of some kind, I began to see a thread of coherence in what he'd
amassed. I decided after a few minutes that the paintings were the
anomaly. They'd probably been in the family, his or hers I wasn't sure,
for a long time, and they'd been positioned where Byrne, sitting at his
desk, wouldn't see much of them.

What Byrne did like to look at were two things: the weapon
collection and his maps. The weapons were, I decided, very old and
reasonably consistent with a particular period, although I wasn't sure
what that period would be. That is to say, Byrne did not collect
weapons in general, he collected a specific period. There were no
muskets and pistols, for example, no Prussian r mets or war medals,
just very old swords and sp points.

Maps were everywhere in that room, framed on t walls, spread out on
a worktable, lying about the roc in the form of large atlases. There
were also sevei rolls in the corner of the room, and I'd be willing
wager that they, too, were maps. As well, there was cabinet with long
shallow drawers that would probab house more.

I've had old maps in the shop from time to time an at that time was
beginning to look for more of ther for a new customer who was an avid
collector. Essen tially, most of the maps you see on the average wal
these days are prints pulled from old atlases, and mos of them date to
the middle and late nineteenth century Botanicals, botanical prints,
have been very trend) lately, and prices have soared, but I've found
maps tc be a nice steady item. A lot of people buy them because they
look nice on their panelled den walls, decorator art I call it, but
there are serious collectors out there who look for the rare and
unusual and are prepared to pay for it. These people are particularly
thrilled by sheet maps, that is maps that are not cut out of atlases,
but were printed or, in really rare cases, drawn, on individual sheets
of paper or textile.

My customer, a normally amiable fellow by the name of Matthew Wright
who collected early maps of the British Isles, would have killed, or at
least seriously maimed, for a couple of Byrne's. Matthew has told me
that Britain and Ireland were known to the ancients, due to a
flourishing trade with the islands, and that as august a personage as
the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy had mapped that area in the second
century A.D. All of Byrne's maps were of Ireland, and a couple of them
at least I recognized. One was a Speed map, John Speed having been a
mapmaker in the early seventeenth century. It was not entirely
accurate, in terms of its survey of Ireland, but it was undoubtedly the
best of its time. Byrne's was dated 1610, and while it was not
necessarily a first edition, because Speed's maps were usually dated
then, but were copied for a long time afterward, I was reasonably sure
it was an original.

Another map was attributed, according to a bronze plaque on its
frame, to William Petty, who, if I remembered correctly, had produced
the first atlas of Ireland sometime in the seventeenth century. There
was a third map, under glass on top of the map cabinet, that was rather
charming, with the lines of sunrise and sunset over Ireland for several
points during the year depicted, along with drawings of monsters
arising from the sea around Ireland's shores. The rest of the framed
maps were also good, although not as unique as the Speed and the Petty,
but an impressive collection indeed. I could see why Byrne had seen fit
to leave it to Trinity College, and I expected they'd be more than
pleased to have it.

What was interesting, if one were inclined to try to understand
Byrne from this collection, was that in addition to the framed maps,
there were hundreds of others, none of them, to my relatively untrained
eyes at least, valuable, attractive, old, or particularly noteworthy in
any way. There were current ordnance maps, Michelin road maps, maps of
all shapes and sizes. This said to me that while Byrne collected the
weapons for their antiquity, he collected maps for a different reason,
one that I thought at the time I would probably never know.

After a few minutes delay, no doubt to serve the family first,
Deirdre wheeled in the tea service on a little trolley, handing cups of
tea all round. I thought a sip or two of the legendary Irish whiskey
would have been a considerable improvement, but understood that the
occasion called for solemn sobriety.

"He died right there," Deirdre said, after handing me my teacup.
"Right where you're standing." Involuntarily, I jumped, almost dumping
my tea on the oriental carpet. "We had his bed set up in here," she
went on, not noticing my distress. "He couldn't get up the stairs at
the end. Lung cancer," she added. "Came on sudden. Very bad, it was. He
liked it here, though, with his books and his maps, and the view of the
garden and the sea. We put the bed where he could look out. He was
alone. Sad really. The night nurse hadn't come in yet and the rest of
them," she said, tossing her head in the direction we'd last seen the
family, "were at dinner. And Breeta long gone." Deirdre looked even
more morose, if that was possible. "In the prime of life, he was, not
old at all. I thought he'd last till Christmas, you know. Lots of
people do, hold on until Christmas, I mean."

"Why don't we have a look outside?" Alex said, taking my elbow.

"Fine idea," I said gratefully, and Alex and I, throwing caution to
the winds, risked the ire of the Byrne family by opening the French
doors and stepping outside to the flagstone patio at the back of the
house. We stood there soaking up the sun while we waited, carefully
sipping cups of tea so strong and hot you could feel it corroding your
insides on the way down.

"What a place!" I exclaimed when we were out in the fresh air. Alex
nodded.

"What did Byrne mean when he said you'd given him a second chance?"
I went on. Alex had told me he'd known Byrne many years before, that's
all. In fact, I'd found him a little cagey on the subject, an attitude
I was soon to find out was due to a promise he'd made Byrne so long ago.

Alex gestured to me to move away from the house. "I'm not sure how
much his family knows of this," he said quietly, "so let's make sure
we're well out of earshot." We moved into the gardens, pausing to enjoy
the scent of a profusion of rosebushes. "The first time I saw Eamon
Byrne he was holding up the bar in a seedy dive in Singapore," Alex
began. "My ship was in dry dock for repairs, and so I and the lads had
a bit of shore leave. Eamon was drunk, of course, the proverbial
drunken Irishman, and a little morose, to boot. Not a happy drunk, but
a talkative one. You know how it is, people who want to talk whether
you want to listen or not. Went on and on about Ireland, how beautiful
it was, but none so fair as the woman he loved and lost, that kind of
thing. Real drivel, I thought. In fact, I'd have to say he was a
crashing bore. But I went back the next night, same place. The booze
was cheap, and they didn't water it down too much. Eamon was there
again, just as drunk.

"This time he wasn't nearly as talkative. Just stood there holding
up the bar, downing glass after glass of cheap Irish whiskey, crying
into his glass. Hard to say, isn't it, which is worse: a talkative
drunk or a morose one. The only thing he told me was how he'd let his
family, his mother, I think, down. He was a disgrace, really. Smelled
bad, and it was not just the booze. Hadn't bathed in days. I just
wanted to get rid of him.

"One minute he's got his head on the bar, then, in a flash, he's
straightened his back, as if he's reached some resolution, some
conclusion, and he staggers off the bar stool and out into the street.
I have no idea why I did it, he was so unpleasant, a sixth sense maybe,
but I followed him. He walked down to the water and stood for the
longest time on the pier, brooding, staring into the water. I was about
to pack it in, when suddenly, quick as a wink, he threw himself in.
Even in the dim beam from the light at the end of the pier, I could see
he couldn't swim. He didn't even try. Just sank like a stone. Well,
what was I to do? Just stand there and watch him drown? I went after
him."

"Are you saying he couldn't swim, or that he wouldn't?" I
interrupted.

"Probably couldn't. A lot of sailors refuse to learn to swim. Figure
if they go overboard in the North Atlantic, or somewhere like that,
they might as well go straight to the bottom as struggle hopelessly on."

"But you're saying he was trying to kill himself. That it wasn't an
accident."

"It was no accident, of that I am certain. It was really hard to
find him in the dark, and I can't tell you how heavy he was, but I
managed to haul him out. The poor sod was trying to fight me off, but
he was too drunk. I dragged him back to a filthy little hotel, him
cursing at me-his daughter comes by her choice of language honestly, I
must say-put him to bed, and watched over him while he slept. The next
day I made him wash, and we had a little chat about life, the one I had
from time to time with the young lads on the ship who went somewhat
astray, shall we say. We had a terrible row, actually. Somewhat comic,
I'd think, in the overall scheme of things, if it wasn't so desperate.
Here I was trying to think of reasons why he shouldn't kill himself,
and him arguing with me.