The Black Swan

It was only when I was over there that the proposition was put to Hunter and me. We were younger than the others and more physically capable if the need arose. We had both done a little of this sort of work before and we were told that we had been selected to join the party because there was a need to carry out a little secret work... very secret. You know Buganda has recently become a British Protectorate, and in such cases there are always pockets of resistance to change in some quarters. There was a plot against the British brewing and Hunter and I were to discover the leaders of the proposed insurrection. It was necessary, of course, that they should be unaware of our intentions, and because of that we had to cast off our identities as Members of Parliament. We had to work in the utmost secrecy. Because we were Members of Parliament we should immediately be objects of suspicion to those we were meant to track down. So ... we were kidnapped, not by thieves, but by our own agents. Then we were made aware of what we had to do. It was given out that we were missing and later that we had been murdered. I did stipulate that my family and my fiancée must be told the truth. My father, as a well-known public man, could be trusted and this was conceded.”

“Your father did not tell me.”

“He decided you were too young to be trusted with such a secret. We were not officially engaged. He said that I had no fiancée; and a little word... even a look... could have betrayed the secret and perhaps cost us our lives. You must forgive him, Lucie. He was afraid for me.”

“He need not have been.”

“I know... but he was.”

“I went to see your parents. Your father was strange... aloof....”

He nodded.

“Oh, Joel ... if only I had known!”

“It seems as though fate was against us. And you, Lucie... you married that man.”

“I was bewildered... lonely. Rebecca... and everyone advised me. I had to start a new life, they said. It was too much... losing my father... and you. You see ... I was there with my father when it happened. I actually saw the man who did it. I saw the gun. I saw him fall. I saw everything. Then there was the trial ... and I was the one ... I was the one whose evidence condemned that man. And then, I lost you, too. I went to France with Belinda and Jean Pascal Bourdon. He is her father, you know. They all thought it would be good for me to get away... and on the boat I met the Fitzgeralds: Phillida and Roland ...”

“And you married Roland.”

“They were so good to me. He is good to me. He did a great deal to help. I felt I was becoming reconciled ...”

“Where is he now?”

“In Yorkshire. We are going to have a house there ... to be near Bradford where his business is. It’s the wool trade.”

“And you stopped caring for me.”

“I tried to ... but I didn’t succeed. I would always have remembered. But I could have been happy in a way with Roland, because he has always been so kind and understanding. But I could never forget you, and I can never forget what happened to my father.

I have been tormented by a terrible fear.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It is this man who murdered my father.”

“This Fergus O’Neill.”

“You knew of him?”

“He was a terrorist... not unknown in this country. The authorities here were aware of him. He was under observation. That was why it was so easy to pick him up. He had been involved in other cases and had nearly been caught on several occasions.”

“So you know of these things?”

“Well, I’ve done a little work... similar to that I was doing in Buganda. This Irish trouble has gone on for years. Who was it who said, ‘You can’t solve the Irish question, because if you did they would only find another question’? It’s been the case since before Cromwell’s days. It looks as though it will always be there, no matter what happened. I don’t think you need have any qualms about that man. Helping to convict him you have probably saved many lives.”

“There is one thing, Joel. Oh, it is so easy to talk to you. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone like this-except Rebecca since you went away.” He pressed my hand and I went on, “The night before my father was killed, I saw a man waiting on the other side of the road, watching the house. I saw him from my window. His hat blew off and I saw that he had a decided peak where the hair grew low on his forehead and there was a white scar on his cheek.”

“That’s Fergus O’Neill. That distinctive hairline was always against him. It made him so easily recognizable.”

“Joel, I saw that man standing on the same spot. It was after he had been executed.”

“How could that be?”

“That’s what I wonder. Was there another just like him? Had I helped to convict the wrong man?”

“You were in an overwrought state. Do you think you imagined this?”

“That is what they say. Rebecca said that was the answer and I came to believe it.

But ... it happened again.”

“At the same spot?”

“No. At Manor Grange.”

“Manor Grange?”

“Yes... only a few nights ago. You remember the Grange... the haunted seat?”

“Yes,” he said.