The Sleepers of Erin Read Online Free PDF Page A

hell. I’d teach the silly berk to blab about our sordid game to a dogooding cherub like her.
    I grovelled uncomfortably and nodded, pulled my forelock and swore I’d be honest and true. Anything to get away from those earnest eyes and that high moral tone. As it happened, Ledger saved me just as I was feeling suicidally holy.
    He came in smiling. ‘On your feet, lad. G’day, Sister.’
    A uniformed constable hovered outside, partly to catch me if I made a run for it and partly to ogle the nurses’ legs. Ledger was full of beans. Sister Morrison abruptly became her old frosty self while they signed me over like parcel post.
    ‘You won’t handcuff him or anything, will you?’ she asked, a last brave try to lessen my burden. Ledger said no and boomed a hearty laugh. I rose to go.
    As it happened it was the last laugh he probably had for years, because at that moment the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen in my life stepped into the office. Lustrous dark hair, overwhelming perfume, attired in furs and material that obviously cost a fortune, she wore so much gold and jewellery every step she took made her chime like a Buddhist temple in a gale. For an instant she stood there while we all gaped, then she stepped forwards with a little cry and enveloped me in a suffocating embrace while I tried to keep my swathed arm from being crushed.
    ‘Lovejoy, darling!’ she cried softly. ‘I’ve come at last! To stand by you! To . . .
own up
!’
    There were tears in her dark amber eyes. I swear I’d never seen such remorse.
    ‘Eh?’ I nearly asked who the hell she was but her eyes said
not yet, not yet
. I shut up.
    ‘It’s no good, darling,’ she sniffed. ‘I tried to stay away, but I couldn’t bear to read what they were doing to you. Day after day of absolute agony!’
    ‘Lovejoy’s been well cared for!’ Sister Morrison said in her bandsaw voice.
    The bird ignored her and sailed straight on into the big scene. ‘And now,
arrest
! Oh, dearest darling! I’ll tell the truth, reveal all to protect you!’
    I’d never been in a Victorian melodrama before so I was stuck there, dumbfounded, under this exotic creature’s armpit. The gimlet-eyed Ledger was quicker-thinking.
    ‘Truth?’ he ground out ominously. ‘Own up to what?’
    She dropped me and swung theatrically in obvious torment. I nearly fell over. Sister Morrison saved me as the woman rounded on Ledger, her bosom heaving, all Lilian Gish in dazzling colour.
    ‘Own up to what, Corporal?’ she said soulfully, gloved hands clasped together and eyes welling with tears.
    ‘Detective-Sergeant.’
    She ignored him too and appealed to the heavens. ‘Own up to what? To what happened the night of the crime! Proving poor Lovejoy’s complete innocence! Own up to his nobility in sacrificing his own reputation to save mine!’
    There was a lot of hate around. Ledger turned puce, and Sister Morrison, having enjoyed herself preaching sweetness and light at me a moment ago, now looked as peaceful as a panther. I was lapping it up, sensing rescue.
    ‘Don’t, darling,’ I said brokenly, right on cue but guessing a script quicker even than Ingrid Bergman ever did.
    Tearfully she wrung her hands, though the size of her superb Edwardian double garnet rings (once so fashionable worn on ladies’ gloved fingers) caused her some difficulty. With a clang of precious metal she turned to me, a sob in her voice.
    ‘It’s no good, darling! How could I go on?’
    ‘Madam. What is your connection with this man?’
    She blotted her eyes with a lace handkerchief so beautiful it dried my throat. You just don’t get lace more exquisite than the lace the Sisters made at the Youghal Presentation Convent in County Cork before 1913. It’s flat-point lace, and some find it too indiscreet on edgings, but to me it’s perfection. When I came to she was raising her eyes adoringly.
    ‘Lovejoy was in the church with me, Lieutenant—’
    ‘Detective-Sergeant.’
    She was terribly