Death on the Holy Mountain Read Online Free PDF

beginning his investigation here as Kincarrig House was closest
to Dublin and the Holyhead boat. He had made his appointment before leaving Markham Square. Then he planned to move further west to Butler’s Court. Powerscourt’s cabby was a cheerful
soul, pointing out the places of interest as they went along.
    ‘This gate lodge now,’ he said, ‘and the arch and the drive here, sure they’re among the finest in Ireland.’
    Powerscourt made appreciative noises. He gazed upwards at the Triple Gothic Arch that towered above the road. It was completely useless. All over Ireland, he thought, at the entrance to the Big
Houses with their long drives of beech and yew curling away to hide the property from the prying eyes of the public and people of the wrong religion, the owners had built monumental gates of one
sort or another. Anglo-Irish mansions were guarded by a strange stone menagerie of lions and unicorns, of falcons and eagles, of hawks and harriers, tigers and kestrels and merlins. Powerscourt had
heard stories of a house with a stone dinosaur on guard. The animals were often surrounded by great stone balls, as if, in times of emergency, they might return to life and begin hurling this
weighty ammunition at their enemies. Powerscourt remembered his father telling him of one estate belonging to a Lord Mulkerry in County Cork where the demesne walls and the monumental gates became
one side of the town square. And on the side of the town square was a large plaque on which was written: ‘Town of Ardhoe, property of Lord Mulkerry’. Badges of ownership, marks of
superiority, symbols of arrogance, Powerscourt disliked them intensely. And as his cab rattled along this very long drive he remembered too the prestige that attached to the length of the
approaches to the Big House. Less than half a mile and you were virtually going to a peasant’s cabin. Half a mile to a mile, pretty poor, little better than a cottage you’ll find at the
end, a mile to a mile and a half, there might be a pillar or two to greet you at the end but nothing much, anything over two miles and respectability is attained at last. Over to his left he could
see the sun glittering on a fast-flowing river which must, he suspected, pass the Connolly house to enhance the Connolly view.
    The house was Regency with a front of seven bays and a Doric entrance porch with eight pillars. Well-tended grass ran down the slope towards the river. Inside was a magnificent entrance hall
with a marble floor that ran the whole length of the front of the house with a dramatic enfilade of six yellow scagliola pillars and dozens and dozens of drawings and etchings and paintings of
horses. A huge elk head guarded the doorway. A very small butler greeted Powerscourt, asking him to wait while he found his master.
    The architecture of this house and the houses like it whispered a strange language of their own, a language that came back to Powerscourt from years before.
    It spoke of parapets, and turreted gateways, of rectangular windows with mullions and astragals under hood-mouldings, of quatrefoil decoration on the parapets, of vaulted undercrofts and great
halls, of carved oak chimney pieces and overmantels, of segmental pointed doorways, battlemented and machiolated square towers, of portes cochères and oriels, of ceilings in ornate Louis
Quatorze style with much gilding and well-fed putti in high relief supporting cartouches and trailing swags of flowers and fruit, of entablature enriched with medallions and swags and urns, of
halls with screens of Corinthian columns and friezes, of tripods and winged sphinxes, of quoins and keystones, of Imperial staircases and rectangular coffering, of rusticated niches and doorways,
of scaglioli columns, of friezes and volutes and many more, stretching out across centuries through hall and drawing room and dining room the length and breadth of the country.
    Out in the parks and walkways, many of them by lakes or rivers,