Danny Dempsey and the Unlikely Alliance by Denis Byrne Page B

they departed. They were to operate in teams of eight, each team to descend in orderly fashion on the buildings under surveillance, there to remain eavesdropping for as long as it took to gather the required information on the brothers.
    Windowsills, air-vents, hot water closets. Everywhere a snippet of conversation from within could be overheard was to be covered. If necessary, laundry chutes were to be infiltrated, and woe betide any member of a team who didn’t give their full attention to the task. She’d issued instructions to Central Command that each team member was to have a lightweight electronic listening device fitted to their leg, so there was no reason why the exercise should take any longer than three days at the very most. The latest modern listening devices were no larger than a pin-head, so excuses regarding it hampering their flying would on account be tolerated.
    And none were given, either. It took the feathered flying squad a mere two days to successfully accomplish their mission. Notes were taken by the leader of each team from every building under surveillance. Most of the information was irrelevant to the case in question, but Madam Noseybeak was delighted with everything the team leaders had recorded. There was enough idle gossip about perfectly innocent people throughout the land to feed her fascination regarding the fickleness and vagaries of human nature to the full, and she spent the following months happily poring over the notes, comparing them favourably or other wise to the weaknesses and frailties of her own community. She was surprised to discover that there wasn’t an awful lot to choose between them.
    *
    Madam Noseybeak’s neatly spiral-bound report on the brothers was passed over to Danny exactly one week after he’d made the initial request. Naturally, he’d had to endure a further two hour session regarding everything from A to Z in the gossip department, but it was a small price to pay for the vital data he’d received.
    He still felt a bit light-headed when he was finally able to make his escape, and the wind in his face as he cycled back to town from the woods didn’t take long to make him feel normal again. When he reached his shack, he promptly phoned the Superintendent, gave him the good news and told him he’d send Charlie in the form of a carrier-pigeon with the report straight away. Under the circumstances, he thought it the only appropriate mode of transport which could possibly be used.
    â€˜He’ll be on your office windowsill in five minutes, Super,’ Danny informed him, then couldn’t resist adding, ‘Make sure you have the window open just in case he might take it into his head to fly straight through it.’
    A month later, two men in bedraggled looking evening wear entered a rural branch of one of the largest banks in the county. The bank was in a small, sleepy town situated deep in the countryside. There was dirt all over the men’s fine black suits. They were limping badly, and were plainly in distress. Their faces were scratched and bruised, and had what appeared to be blood streaking their cheeks and foreheads. Their black bowties were hanging askew, and it was taking them all their time to hobble towards the security guard, as each had an identical violin case clutched under his arm.
    There’d been an accident a few miles up the road, one of them managed to gasp, and all the other members of the orchestra in the coach were either dead or unconscious. They themselves had been fortunate enough to escape with only minor injuries, but it had taken them well over an hour to reach here and raise the alarm. Could somebody please phone the Gardai and hospital services immediately and have them rush to the scene to see what could be done for their unfortunate colleagues? Every single mobile phone on the coach had been rendered useless by the terrible crash.
    All the time they were conveying the tragic news, they