The Celtic Riddle

Despite the refined setting, and the hoity-toity manner in which we were being served, the room was awash in tension. I had a feeling that Alex and I, who had hied ourselves off to Second Chance at the request of Michael and Breeta to ferret out the details of the disappearance of Breeta's clue, had interrupted a scene of some drama when we'd arrived. If true, there was no mention made of it.

Margaret looked toward me, awaiting my response. She was neatly dressed, Chanel again, and black again, in a silk blouse and skirt, with expensive-looking pumps: snake, appropriately enough. The expression on her carefully made-up face was one of perpetual faint surprise, the result, I thought maliciously, of one too many face-lifts. But she was an attractive woman, nonetheless. She looked to be in her late forties, but I assumed she was probably ten years older than that. She sat framed against two oil portraits on the wall behind her, one of Eamon Byrne in happier and healthier times, another a man who was, if the thin lip line and resolute jaw was anything to go by, her father.

Seated next to her was her eldest daughter, Eithne. Eithne, who looked almost the same age as her mother, also dressed very much like her, but in a subdued shade of blue. Where Margaret looked rather smart, however, Eithne instead looked a bit old-fashioned, even frumpy, for her age. She restricted her interaction with the group to nodding favorably whenever her mother spoke and frowning when her mother did, which was often.

On the other side was Fionuala. Daughter number two had not inherited her mother's elegance and good taste, it was plain to see. Her dress, while expensive, I'd imagine, was way too tight for someone with her tendency to softness about the middle. Her jewelry looked just a little gaudy, a rhinestone pin that might be best for evening. Her attention was focused almost entirely on her hands.

Ungracious! I thought, pondering Margaret's opening words and the general unpleasantness of having to face the three hags across a tea tray. On the way to the house, we'd been virtually forced off the road, finding ourselves and the car in a close encounter with a fuchsia hedge, as Conail O'Connor, the predator on the cliff of the previous day, had come rocketing down the lane, his face contorted in what I took to be rage. He didn't even slow down when he saw us. "I'd say he drives very much the way he sails," Alex said mildly, voicing the same thoughts as mine, as I pulled the car back onthe road again, the scratching of branches along the car door accompanying the maneuver. Alex and I shared the same conclusion as to the identity of the skipper of the boat that had run us down.

As well, Margaret was clearly in a very bad mood when we arrived. One of the family's two solicitors, which one I wasn't sure, was just leaving as we approached the front door. "I am truly very sorry about this," I heard him say as he shook her hand, holding it rather longer than necessary, I would have thought. "Truly sorry. I will see what I can do." He nodded curtly at Alex and me as he brushed by us.

Whatever it was he had to be sorry about, it had blackened Margaret's already dark outlook on life. She barely spoke to us as we were ushered into the house. No, the word ungracious didn't quite cut it when it came to describing the Byrne family.

"Of course," I replied to her request for understanding, however. "Alex and I feel very badly that our presence may have added to the stress you and the family are feeling at such a sad time." Really, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth sometimes.

"Indeed," Alex agreed. We all nodded at each other, giving a completely erroneous impression of consensus.

The conversation continued in much the same vein for a few minutes, insincere pleasantry heaped upon cloying sentiment, Eithne nodding in support of her mother's every word, until exhausted by the effort of being nice to each other, we edged our way toward the business at hand. As we sipped our tea, I tried to take in my surroundings. I watched through the back windows as Sean McHugh, Eithne's husband, crossed the grounds to the rear. He was looking rather tweedy, leather patches at the elbows kind of thing, with big boots and a cap. I remembered Eamon's description of McHugh as an English squire, and could see it was apt. Michael Davis, who was also in view, was working in the gardens casting surreptitious glances back toward the house, perhaps in a vain attempt to see how we were doing. He bent and straightened, pulled weeds, straightened plants in a nice rhythm, and I found it comforting to see him out there. He was quite the nicest thing about Second Chance.