Chapter Seventeen
A Decision Is Made
Apart from the wan light cast by the dirty oil lamp on the bare table, the quiet back room of Quinlan's bar was in complete darkness, the air foetid, thick with the reek of cigarette smoke. The man seated at the table broke off from considering the facts set down in the detailed manuscript report before him, glanced furtively up at the clock ticking on the wall, and with apparent distaste eyed the disassembled parts of the Mauser pistol before him. A moment or two later and there was a cautious knock at the door.
"Yes?" he barked. His eyes snapped up as another man, thick-set, heavily built, sweating profusely, smoking, came in closing the door to the bar quietly behind him.
"And?" asked the man seated at the rickety table which served as his desk.
"They're all agreed about that feckin' bastard Branson but as for the girl ... they're still ..."
"What? Having a feckin' vote about it? For Christ's sake man! Tis her feckin' kind have oppressed us for centuries".
"Some of them ... some aren't happy about killing a woman, let alone a nurse".
The ringing of the telephone on the desk momentarily precluded any further consideration of the matter under discussion. The man who had just come into the room lifted the receiver from its cradle, and put the 'phone to his ear.
"Yes, yes ... I'll let him know". He coughed raucously, fumbled nervously, as he replaced the telephone.
"It's both of them," he said quietly.
The man seated at the table nodded.
"I could have told you that," he said, as calmly and methodically he began putting together the pieces of the disassembled pistol.