Fred Hoyle by Ossian's Ride

Author:Ossian's Ride
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

10. Beyond The Barrier

“Well, well, Mr. Colquhoun. And how does it feel to be raised from the dead?”

“So it’s Mister Sure-fire, trying to be funny.”

Of course the report in the Irish Times hadn’t mentioned Colquhoun by name. I had simply jumped to what seemed a reasonable conclusion. I did what I could by way of explanation.

“Now isn’t that just like Mr. Clever-Dick?” he said. “Was there nobody but meself in the whole of Dublin on whom the guards might be wanting to set a hand?”

“The time and place seemed singularly appropriate.”

“They did, did they?”

Colquhoun rose threateningly, a wrench in his right fist.

“And where would the notebook now be?” he asked.

“With Mr. Houseman of the Unicorn Hotel, Longford, of course.”

“You shrunken pin-wit,” he roared, “you should have found out that the man was sold to the divil.”

“As a matter of fact I did find out, but orders are orders. Mine but to do and die, you know.”

“You’ll be dead before your time,” he growled, taking a step toward me.

“Quit fooling, Colquhoun. If you don’t drop that spanner I’ll knock all Hades out of you. When I found Houseman had thrown in his lot with the P.S.D. crew, I burned the book. It’s fertilizing some farmer’s field.”

He put down the wrench and leaned against the car. “Is that the truth of it?”

“Of course.”

“What a shocking pity you didn’t keep it!”

“Stop being a pinhead yourself. I might have been caught half a dozen times these last three weeks. Did you want the police to get hold of the damned thing?”

“No, I suppose for an amateur you did the best you could,” he conceded.

“What news do you hear of Houseman?”

“The best,” he answered. “There is a good chance that he may have departed from this vale of tears.”

“How did you come to hear that? I had quite a bit of trouble with the man.”

“Listen to little Mr. Wren, the King of Birds. Listen to him sing! He had trouble with the man!”

“It looks as if you’ll be having quite a walk, Mr. Colquhoun, unless you can get your car running again.”

“It’s a strange tale. A horrible huge mountain of a fellow appeared one day in the town of Tipperary with a cracked skull.”

“Which strikes me as one of the most unlikely statements I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m telling you again, and for the last time, not to be always interrupting me. As I was saying, this horrible fellow appears in Tipperary with multiple fractures of the cranium. What makes this such a noteworthy incident is that this same fellow is known to be bodyguard of the moguls of P.S.D.”

“Which doesn’t seem to me to make the story any more probable. Surely you can see that for yourself?”

Colquhoun was now getting thoroughly angry. But he plowed determinedly on. “A strange tale this fellow tells when at last they get him to talk.”

“Who gets him to talk?”

“The guards, of course. Then up they went to a high mountain farm, where they found a most terrible scene, a scene of shocking debauchery.

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