Acceptable Loss

CHAPTER

13

WHEN A PERSON WAS sentenced to hang, it was the law that three Sundays should pass before the execution was carried out. It was both the longest and the shortest period of time in the sentenced person’s experience. Unquestionably it was the most painful.

Toward the end of the first week, Rathbone was alone in his room in chambers when his clerk entered and told him that Hester wished to speak with him.

At first Rathbone was not sure if he wanted to see her. Pity would only add to his hurt, especially from her, and there was nothing she could say that would help. There was no help. And yet he had never had a better friend, except for his father.

“I have a few minutes,” he told the clerk. “Come back after about ten minutes and say there is a client wishing to speak with me.”

“Yes, sir.” The clerk withdrew, and a moment later Hester came in. She looked calm and composed, but still very pale. She was dressed in the same blue-gray she often wore, and it still suited her just as well.

Rathbone stood up. “What can I do for you?” he asked quietly.

She sat down in the chair opposite the desk, as if she meant to remain.

He sat also; not to would have been discourteous.

“Probably nothing,” she said with a tiny smile. “I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help you. William told me there was nothing, and that you might even prefer not to see me. I would understand that. But I would rather come and be asked to leave than not come and then afterward learn that there was something I could have done, or said.”

“How like you,” he replied. “Always do, never hesitate, and never abdicate.”

A shadow crossed her face, a moment of hurt.

“That was a compliment,” he said wryly. “I have spent too much of my life weighing and judging, and in the end doing nothing.”

“Not this time,” she answered. “There was nothing more you could have done. If Rupert hadn’t come forward, you would have won. I’m not sure that would have been a good thing, even for Margaret, not in the end.”

“It would have been a bad thing for Monk,” he said frankly. “Everyone would have said he had made a second mistake, gone after the wrong man because he had a personal vendetta against Ballinger over the Phillips affair. He might even have lost his job. I’m glad that didn’t happen.” Surprisingly, he meant that. He had not thought he would; the void inside himself was too big to allow much thought for anyone else.

Hester gave a slight shrug. “That’s true, and I thank you for it. But it’s past now. What about you?”

“I doubt I’ll lose any clients over it. No one wins every case.”

“For heaven’s sake, I know that!” she said impulsively. “Most people know perfectly well you only took the case because he was family and you had no choice! No one else would have managed a defense at all. And you nearly won.”

He looked at her steadily. “Did Monk persuade Rupert Cardew to speak?”

“No.” She did not evade his gaze. “I did. Not for William—at least, not only for him. It was for Scuff, and all the boys like him.”

“That won’t put an end to the trade, Hester.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted saying them.

“I know,” she conceded softly. “But it will stop some of it. Maybe quite a lot, at least for a while. People will know that we’re prepared to fight, and those who get caught will pay for it. Above all, Scuff will know.”

For a moment he could not speak, his throat was so tight, so choked and aching.

She put out her hand across the desk. She did not touch him, but she left it where, if he moved even a few inches, he could reach her.

“I’m sorry, Oliver. I really am sorry.”

“I know.”

She said nothing more for several moments.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come!” Rathbone answered.

The clerk came in. “Sir Oliver—”

“Ah, yes,” Rathbone said quickly. “Please bring some tea, and a few cookies, if you can find some.”

“Yes, sir.” The clerk withdrew obediently, his face calm with understanding, perhaps even a touch of relief.

Hester smiled. “Thank you. I’d like tea.”

He had asked for tea without thinking, but now he realized how much he wanted her to stay. He did not know how to begin, but the confusion inside him was an almost overwhelming pain. In a matter of months all the certainties he had begun to take for granted had gone.

“How is Margaret?” she said quietly. “I thought of going to see her, even though I have no idea what to say. Sometimes just being there is worth something. But I don’t think she would receive me. We … parted on bad terms.”

“She wouldn’t,” he agreed. “She blames you, at least in part. She blames everyone except her father. Most of all she blames me.” He knew there was bitterness in his voice, but he could not control it. His anger and pain came welling up, and it was a relief to let it flow. “She is convinced Ballinger is innocent and that it’s all a monstrous conspiracy of vengeance, cowardice, misplaced loyalty, and error. And on my part, professional ambition over love of family.” He needed Hester to deny it, to tell him he was right and that it was not true.

She looked stricken. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was so low, he could barely hear her.

“There was nothing else I could do!” he protested.

“I know that,” she answered quickly. “But disillusion is one of the worst pains we experience. Nobody can let go of their dreams without tearing themselves apart too. It’s like killing pieces of yourself. She’d blame everybody who sees what she can’t bear to see, because we won’t let her pretend anymore. Whether we mean to or not, we are the ones forcing reality on her.”

“What good would it do if I were to lie to her?” he protested. “Any hope now would be false.”

“Hope of what?” she asked. “That he is innocent, or of saving him from the gallows?”

He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Of saving him, I suppose. I don’t think she has even faced the possibility that he is guilty of any of it. Not of Parfitt’s murder, certainly not of Hattie’s, and not of blackmailing the wretched men who used the boat. If she believed any of it, I imagine the rest would have to follow. I don’t know what to do, even what to say. She’s treating me as if it were my fault.”

Hester shook her head fractionally. “That’s because you’re the only one who isn’t to blame. And you’re the one who won’t support her illusions.”

“I can’t!” he said desperately. “Lying is no good now. It won’t stop it from happening. It doesn’t affect the truth, or that everyone else can see it. Sooner or later she’s going to have to face the fact that her father’s guilty—not just of corrupting other people, finding and feeding on their weaknesses, but of blackmailing them for exactly what he has helped them to do. He profited from the torture and humiliation of children, and he murdered Parfitt. I still don’t know why. That seems to have been a pointless piece of violence, and completely unnecessary. And he murdered Hattie Benson because she would have testified that it wasn’t Rupert Cardew, the only other obvious suspect.”

He took a shaky breath, and went on. “If Margaret doesn’t even acknowledge that, then she’s going to spend her whole life angry, and bitter because her father was unjustly hanged. That’s a kind of terrible madness. It will destroy her.”

Hester put out her hand and touched him very gently. “Give her time, Oliver. Some things we can’t face immediately. As long as he protests his innocence she can’t turn her back on him, whatever the evidence. Could you, if it were your father?”

“My father would …” He stopped. What he had been going to say only supported Hester’s point. His father would never do such a thing? No, he wouldn’t. But, then, perhaps Margaret believed just as passionately in her father, regardless of evidence. Hester was right; she would not be released from it until Ballinger admitted his guilt. Perhaps she couldn’t be, without betraying herself, and the guilt for that would destroy her also.

How terribly wide the damage spread.

Hester smiled. “I know. I love your father, and I don’t believe he would ever even think of anything like this. But, then, Margaret would feel the same. Sometimes we only know one side of a person we love so intensely.”

He could think of nothing to say.

“Parents especially are part of who we are,” she went on. She looked down, away from meeting his eyes. “I still can’t tell myself that my father failed because he took his own life. I wonder if I fight so hard over the things I believe in, to prove I’m not like that. I don’t give in.” She looked up again, and her eyes were full of tears. “I identify with the soldiers I nursed in the Crimea, and delude myself I’m like them, because I saw how they suffered and I loved their courage so much.”

Rathbone realized that he too was suffering a disillusion, not in Ballinger, because he had never cared for him, but in Margaret herself. Perhaps he had expected her to be more like Hester—more able to face the unbearable, more foolishly, passionately brave. And yet it was those very qualities in Hester that had frightened him, and had made her such an unsuitable wife for him. He had wanted Hester’s virtues, but without the danger. He loved Margaret, but not with the reckless fervor that counts no risk and no price too high.

Was he disillusioned in her, or in himself?

“She wants me to mount an appeal,” he said, remembering the scene vividly, although it had been a couple of days ago.

They had been standing in the withdrawing room, the dusk heavy outside, the gas lamps burning but the curtains still open onto the garden. She was dressed in dark gray, as if ready for mourning, and her face was colorless. She was so angry she trembled.

“Are you?” Hester asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Do you have any grounds? Did Winchester make some mistake?”

“No,” he said simply.

She swallowed and cleared her throat. “Did you?”

“Not so far as I know. Tactical, perhaps. Maybe if I had tried harder, I could have persuaded him not to take the stand himself, but he was adamant. I don’t think you can refuse to let a man speak in his own defense, if you have warned him of the danger and he still insists. But perhaps I should have thought of something.”

“You can’t go on retrying a case every different way until you get the verdict you want,” she pointed out.

He looked down at the desktop. He knew he shouldn’t say what he was going to, and yet the words spilled out.

“Margaret says I should have built in some error, so that I could have appealed afterward. She believes I have put my own career before her father’s life, because I am ambitious and essentially selfish.” He met her eyes. “Is that true? If I really loved her, more than I loved myself, would I have?”

“Have you ever made a deliberate mistake?” she asked, as if turning the thought over in her mind.

“No.” He smiled bitterly. “Not deliberate. Many accidental. Would an appeal court know the difference?”

“Possibly,” she granted. “But unless you were totally incompetent, it wouldn’t make them grant a new trial, would it? Anyway, what good would a new trial do? They’d only come to the same decision, except that someone else would be representing Ballinger, probably less well, and certainly with less dedication. It isn’t reasonable, Oliver. Don’t try arguing with her. You won’t win, because she isn’t listening. She is terrified. Everything she is and believes is slipping out of her grasp.”

“I’m still here,” he said simply. “She just doesn’t want me. I’ve done everything I can to save Ballinger. I failed. But I think I failed because he’s guilty.”

“She’ll realize that in time.”

He knew in that moment, with an overwhelming grief, that he was not sure he would ever see Margaret with the same tenderness and trust, even if eventually she did accept the truth.

“She has made it a condition,” he said aloud.

“A condition? For what?” Hester looked puzzled.

“If I do not manage to appeal for her father, Margaret will leave me, go back to comfort and care for her mother.” Now that he’d said it, it was real, not just a nightmare hovering around him like a covering darkness. And yet the house was unbearable. They walked around each other, icily polite. He came to bed late. She was either asleep or pretending to be. He did not speak. It was over a week since they had touched each other, even in the smallest gesture. It was infinitely worse than being alone.

Hester was looking at him, her face a little pinched with anxiety. “And if you could manage to think of some way of bringing about an appeal, which you would still lose, because the evidence is the same, then she would forgive you?” she asked.

He started to answer, and then realized that he did not know.

“She is grieving, Oliver.” Hester answered her own question. “She is in too much pain and confusion to listen to reason. She wants a way out of the truth. At least part of her knows she will have to accept it one day, but now she can’t face it. She wants you to rescue her from it, and she blames you because you can’t.”

“She’s not a child!” he said with a flare of his own confusion and loss. “The truth of it is that she has to choose between her father and me, and she chooses him, guilty or not.” Saying it was like cutting his own flesh. “You wouldn’t have done that. You would always choose Monk.”

“I don’t know what I would choose,” she said honestly. “I haven’t had to. There’s part of all of us that chooses the most vulnerable, the one who needs us most, because we can’t live with the guilt of turning our backs on them.”

“Are you thinking of Scuff?”

“I don’t think so. He would never expect me to sacrifice anything for him. I’m not sure he would even understand the idea, although he would do it himself, without thinking.”

“That’s what Margaret wants from me, loyalty without thinking.”

“If you love someone, you do not ask them to destroy the best in themselves,” she answered. “Love also means the freedom to follow your own conscience. If you can’t be true to yourself, you don’t have much left to give anyone else.” Again she touched his arm through the cloth of his jacket. “Don’t give in to temptation because it would be more comfortable for you, in the short term. She needs you to be the best in yourself. In time she will be glad of it.”

“Do you think so?” Rathbone was asking for the answer he wanted to hear.

“I hope so,” was all she could say.

He looked at her steadily, thinking that she possessed a kind of beauty he had not really appreciated before. Her face was too angular, but there was an intense gentleness in it he saw only now. She was awkward at times, too quick; far too clever; her honesty was sometimes painful to receive; but there was a generosity of spirit he needed; and always, always there was courage.

She blushed very slightly and stood up.

“Give her time,” she said again. “And perhaps it would be better not to tell her I called.” She hesitated, then decided not to add any more.

She passed close to him on her way out, but only smiled briefly as she reached the door. “Thank you for the tea.” And she was gone, and the silence washed in again, surrounding him with loneliness.

———

THE FOLLOWING MORNING THE message came from Newgate Prison that Arthur Ballinger wanted to see him, urgently. Rathbone had no choice but to go. He was duty-bound as Ballinger’s lawyer, apart from the fact that Ballinger was Margaret’s father, and a man condemned in a matter of days to be hanged. Less than two weeks were left. Rathbone could not even imagine how that would feel.

He dreaded finding the previously bluff and rather arrogant Ballinger now a pathetic ghost of himself. Would he be frightened of death now? Surely a priest was the only one who could help him?

Would he plead for Rathbone to find some way, any way at all, to save him from the rope? That would be embarrassing, even repulsive, and Rathbone would wish for any form of escape from that. He might even feel nauseated. His throat was tight and his stomach was churning already.

The hansom ride was all too brief. The prison gates opened and clanged shut behind him. He made all the usual civil remarks, and followed the prison guard down the narrow corridors to Ballinger’s cell. Did the place smell of human fear and despair, or was it his imagination?

The huge iron key turned in the lock. The door opened with a faint squeak of hinges, and Rathbone was facing Arthur Ballinger. The floor was black, draining the light from the room. The whitewashed walls made everything ghostly, giving back a dead reflection of the air and the glimpse of sky outside.

Behind him the door was shut and locked.

After everything that had happened, what on earth was there to say? How could they speak as normal? It would be absurd.

“What can I do for you?” Rathbone said simply. To ask Ballinger how he was would be farcical.

“Appeal, of course,” Ballinger replied.

He did not look as crushed as Rathbone had expected. Rathbone should have been relieved. He would avoid the revulsion of weeping, begging, the sight of a man robbed of every dignity. And yet looking at Ballinger’s face—his bright, angry eyes—he wondered if it was madness he was seeing. But perhaps insanity was the only refuge left to him. How should he answer?

Ballinger was waiting.

“On what grounds?” Rathbone played for time. Had the verdict really snapped Ballinger’s hold on reality? He looked afraid, but not panicky, not wild-eyed, and certainly not confused. “I’ve reviewed the case—of course I have—but I can see no legal errors, and there is certainly no new evidence.”

“I don’t care on what grounds,” Ballinger answered, coming a step closer to him.

Rathbone was aware of a sense of physical fear. Ballinger was a big man, broad and heavy. He was going to be hanged in two weeks anyhow—what had he to lose? Did he also blame Rathbone for his conviction? Sweat broke out on Rathbone’s body, and his stomach knotted. His mind raced.

“Can you tell me something with which to plead for clemency?” he said, surprised how steady his voice sounded. “So far you have claimed that you are not guilty, but if Parfitt attacked you, there might be some way of making his death a matter of self-defense.”

“And say I’m guilty?” Ballinger responded angrily. “Haven’t you got any bloody sense at all? If I killed Parfitt, then obviously I killed Hattie Benson as well. What excuse do I give for that?”

Rathbone felt the heat burn up his face. Ballinger was right; it had been a stupid suggestion, given without thought.

“I need the verdict reversed, not some pathetic plea for clemency,” Ballinger went on. “Prove Rupert Cardew killed Parfitt, because he was blackmailing him and he couldn’t pay anymore.”

Rathbone was cold. The room could have been walled with ice. The man he saw in front of him was a stranger.

“Did you kill Parfitt?” he asked.

“Of course I did!” Ballinger snapped. “But the verdict was only on balance of probability. You could still make it look like Cardew. Clearly the same person killed the girl as well, so I’d be free of both charges.”

Now Rathbone was shivering. It was a nightmare. He must be at home, asleep uncomfortably, and he would wake up. All this would disappear.

Ballinger took another step toward him.

“I can’t,” Rathbone said grimly, refusing to move backward. “There are no grounds for appeal.”

“Then make some, Oliver.”

Rathbone said nothing. This was ridiculous. He could understand desperation. He had seen it many times before, even refusal to acknowledge the fact of one’s own death. But it was usually an insane hope, not a demand for something of which there was no possibility. And Ballinger had seemed anything but a weak man.

“Don’t stand there in self-righteous horror,” Ballinger said sharply. “You know nothing about it. Parfitt was filth, a parasite on human depravity.”

“I know that,” Rathbone replied. “And if I could have mitigated your killing him, I would have. But I will not blame someone else for it.”

“You think Rupert Cardew is so worth saving?” Now Ballinger’s voice was a snarl, his face ugly with contempt. “He’s another kind of parasite—useless, worthless, utterly selfish. Not even an honest passion of vice. Just bled his father dry, then when he was in trouble, turned on his friends.”

“His friends being the other men who used those wretched children, and were blackmailed for it?” Rathbone asked.

“Weak, cruel cowards of men,” Ballinger said with contempt. “Bored with the ease of their lives and looking for a little danger to sharpen the appetite. I’ve seen it all before. I didn’t create their vice, I merely fed it, and profited—and for a damned good reason.”

In spite of his revulsion, Rathbone was curious.

“A good reason?” His voice grated as he said it.

Ballinger’s face twisted. “Sometimes your stupidity astounds me! You live in your safe, prudish little world, posturing as if you fight evil, and letting it pass by under your nose because you won’t break the rules and risk your own neck. You don’t look because you don’t want to see—”

Rathbone tried to interrupt, but Ballinger ignored him, his voice harsh. He was sweating in spite of the cold, and his physical presence dominated the room.

“I told you I stopped pollution of the river by that damn factory. How the hell do you think I got Garslake to reverse the judgment on appeal? He’s Master of the Rolls, head of the entire civil appeal system, and half his friends own factories like that.”

Suddenly Rathbone was horribly afraid. Sickening thoughts swirled in his mind.

“At last …” Ballinger breathed out slowly. “How would you influence men like that, Oliver? They have all the money they can imagine, all the power, all the deference, the respect, the glory. You can’t bribe them, and they don’t need to listen to reason, or mercy. But by God in heaven, they need to listen to the threat of exposure! I have pictures of Lord Justice Garslake that would make your stomach heave. And he’ll make the right damn decisions, or I’ll ruin him, and he knows it.”

Rathbone could think of nothing to say. Words fell over themselves in his mind, and all were inadequate for the understanding and the horror that filled him.

“Think!” Ballinger shouted at him. “Think of a way to appeal, Oliver. Because I have very vivid and explicit photographs, far more than the few you saw in court, of a large number of gentlemen performing acts that are not only obscene, but are with children. Some of these gentlemen are of excellent family, and hold high offices in law and government. One or two are even close to the queen. If something unfortunate should happen to me, such as my death, other than of disease or old age, these photographs will fall into someone else’s hands, and you do not know who they are or what they would do with them. You would not like that, because they may not use them as judiciously as I have. They are very, very sharp weapons indeed. So regardless of what you feel about me, you will see to it that I remain alive and in good spirits.”

Rathbone was so appalled, he could not speak. He started at Ballinger as if he had risen out of the ground like some hellish apparition, and yet was so horribly, passionately human. It all made sense, the temptation, the logic, the rage, and the success.

“And don’t bother to look for them,” Ballinger went on. “You will not find them—not in two years, let alone two weeks.” He smiled. “The judiciary, in particular, would suffer. So you had better find some way to see that my conviction is overturned, whatever you have to do to bring that about. I don’t think I have to explain it for you, but if necessary, I can, and I will. There will be more than just me asking you for rescue, or blaming you, should you fail.”

Rathbone had thought the nightmare could get no worse, and now it had doubled, tripled.

“Why did you kill Parfitt?” he asked. It hardly mattered; he was just curious. “Was he growing greedy? Or threatening to bring the whole thing down himself?”

“No, there was nothing wrong with Parfitt,” Ballinger said quite casually, almost as if it were by the way, no more than incidental. Then suddenly his voice filled with intense emotion and he stared at Rathbone unblinkingly. “But I have to keep this power. There is so much still to be done, not just about pollution, but slum clearances, child labor …” His eyes were brilliant, feverish, watching Rathbone’s every flicker of expression. “What can you do, Oliver, with all your brilliant arguments in court? Can you move those men one inch from their comfort and their power?”

Rathbone did not bother to reply—the question was rhetorical. They both knew he could do nothing.

“I can,” Ballinger went on. “But I knew that Monk would never let it go. He believed I was behind Jericho Phillips, and he was determined to get me hanged. Parfitt’s death, in the same trade, would draw him like a magnet. If he hanged Rupert Cardew for it, wrongly, it would finish him in the police forever.”

“God almighty!” Rathbone swore incredulously. “It was to get Monk?”

“No, you fool!” Ballinger snarled with sudden savagery. “It was to save me. Monk is like a rat: he would never let go. I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life looking backwards over my shoulder to see what new plan he has to ruin me.”

“And poor Hattie was going to testify that she stole Cardew’s cravat and gave it to … whom? Someone of yours?”

“Tosh Wilkin, if it matters.”

“No, not really.” Rathbone knew the moment he said it that Tosh would not have the photographs.

“Find a way, Rathbone,” Ballinger said between his teeth. “You have too much to lose if you don’t.”

Rathbone did not move. His limbs felt heavy, his chest as if there were a tight band around it.

“Don’t stand there like a damn footman,” Ballinger said with a sudden blaze of fury. “You haven’t got time to waste!”

Wordlessly Rathbone turned and banged on the door to be released.

HESTER HAD COME HOME from the clinic a little earlier than usual, but Monk was barely through the door when Rathbone arrived at Paradise Place. He looked so ashen, Hester was frightened for him. His hollow eyes and the dragging lines of his face made it clear that he was almost at the end of his strength. She offered him tea immediately, and went to put the kettle on without waiting for his answer. Also without asking him, she put in a stiff dash of brandy.

When she returned with it already poured out in a large kitchen mug, Rathbone was sitting next to the fire in Monk’s usual seat, and he was still shivering. Monk sat on a hard-backed chair.

Hester put the tray down on the table between them, with Rathbone’s mug nearest to him, and then she looked at Monk. His face was pale too, and the lines in it were more than those of tiredness.

Monk gestured to her chair, opposite Rathbone, and she sat obediently.

“Ballinger has photographs,” Monk said simply. “They’re with somebody who’ll make them public if Ballinger is hanged. We don’t know who’s in them, but what they’re doing is obvious. Ballinger said they’re all kinds of people: in government, judiciary, business, even the royal household. He blackmails them, not for money but for power, to bring about the reforms he believes are just. At least that’s what he told Rathbone. Any of that might be true, or might be lies, but we can’t afford to take the risk.”

“He wants me to mount an appeal.” Rathbone looked at her. “That’s the condition for his silence. But I can’t. There are no grounds.”

For a moment Hester was stunned. It was monstrous. Then the more she thought of it, the more it made sense. It might all be true. It would be a passionate and almost understandable reason for all he had done. She could see the temptation. If she had had such power to use in the reform of nursing, she would have played with the idea, and please God, discarded it, but perhaps not? But, then, it could also be a brilliant way of defending himself, because they could not afford to ignore him.

“I’m surprised he trusted someone else with the pictures. How do you know they are all together, with one person?” Hester asked.

Rathbone stared at her, horror in his face.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But I wouldn’t give everything to one person, would you?”

“Oh, God!” he said in utter wretchedness. There was no hope in his voice.

“You are certain that Ballinger killed Parfitt? It was not one of Parfitt’s other victims who did it?” Monk asked.

“Oh, yes. He told me as much.” A painfully bitter smile touched Rathbone’s lips. “Actually, he did it to ruin you, get you off his trail forever. He meant you to go after Rupert Cardew, and then he would have proved him innocent, at the last moment, carried Lord Cardew’s everlasting gratitude, and seen you off the force with your reputation shattered. Nothing you said about him after that would have been listened to. Even evidence would have been disregarded.”

Monk looked startled.

“He knew you suspected his part in Phillips’s boat and it would be only a matter of time before you came after him,” Rathbone went on. “With your care for Scuff, you wouldn’t have let it go.”

Hester looked across at Monk and felt a sense of warmth fill her, as if even in this ghastly situation she still wanted to smile, still trusted in a goodness, an inner beauty that would survive.

“I’m sorry,” Monk said with a little shake of his head. “What can we do? If we could think of any way of appealing, would you?”

“I don’t know,” Rathbone admitted. “But there isn’t. There’s no new evidence, and no legal grounds. I suppose the only thing I can think of is to find the photographs and destroy them. But I have no idea where to look. Who would he trust with such things? There can’t be so many people.”

“Are we sure he was telling the truth?” Monk looked from one to the other of them.

Rathbone pushed his hand through his hair. “I believe him. He still wants to go on forcing through the reforms he cares about. But I can’t think of any way of proving it, and can we afford to take the risk?”

Hester spoke slowly, weighing her words, uncertain of her own feelings. “Even if we could find these photographs and destroy them, and we were certain they were the only ones, do we want to? It is a sin and a crime to abuse children in such a way. Why do we want to protect men who are doing such things? I’m not sure that I do. And I’m not sure that I want to have that kind of power over people in anyone’s hands, even my own. How do you decide what to use it for, when to stop, how many people’s lives you can destroy along with the guilty?” She shook her head minutely, her shoulders rigid, aching, with the muscles knotted. “No one—”

“I see! I see,” Rathbone said sharply, his voice raw-edged. He pushed his hand through his hair again. “I should have seen it. But whatever he could do, I still don’t have grounds for an appeal.”

“Then, we have to look for the photographs,” Monk replied. “At least it will tell us who is vulnerable, even if we have no guarantee that they are the only copies.”

“God, what a nightmare!” Rathbone said softly. He seemed about to add something more, and then changed his mind.

“We’ll need help,” Hester said practically. “We can’t possibly do it all by ourselves. We don’t even know where to look, or how to make the right people listen to us.”

Rathbone raised his hand. “Who else could we trust?”

“The people at the clinic,” she replied, thinking as she answered. “Squeaky Robinson, perhaps Claudine?”

“What on earth could she do?” Rathbone said incredulously.

“Make inquiries in society,” Hester replied. “I don’t mix with the sort of people who would be worth blackmailing for power, and you can hardly ask.”

Rathbone blushed very faintly, and she knew he was thinking that at any other time they would have asked Margaret to help, but now it was impossible. But Hester would not say so, or even that he himself would hardly be wishing to move in his usual social circle. He had not even considered how life would be after his father-in-law was hanged. There would be no waking up from this nightmare.

“And Crow,” Monk added. “I’ll ask Orme. His knowledge of the river is better than mine.”

“I’ll ask Rupert Cardew,” Hester said, looking at Monk, then at Rathbone. She expected them to argue, and she had her rebuttal ready.

“He could be putting his life at risk, after what he’s already done,” Monk warned her.

“I know. And I’ll remind him of it. But I have to ask. It’s a long path back from where he was, and I believe he means to take it.”

“If he stays in London, he’s ruined,” Rathbone said grimly. “Doesn’t he understand that? He’ll never be forgiven for what will be seen as betraying his own.”

“He knows,” she assured him, remembering Rupert’s ashen face when she had asked him to testify. “He’s ruined anywhere in England. I expect he’ll go to Australia, or somewhere like that. Start again.”

“What hell for his father,” Rathbone murmured. “Poor man.”

“Better he go having made amends than stay here as he was.” Hester shook her head a little. “He hasn’t left himself such a lot of choices. This is the bravest thing, the cleanest. But he can do this one thing more before he leaves. He may be the only one who knows some of the people Ballinger knew. And Ballinger probably gave the pictures to someone who was in them himself. It would be the best way to make sure he obeyed.”

Monk swore under his breath, but he did not argue. He stood up. “Then we’d better start. Where’s Scuff?”

She was horrified. “You’re not taking him?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course I am. You think he’d be better off staying here alone? You think he would stay? At least if he’s with me, I’ll know where he is.”

She let out her breath slowly. He was right, but it was not good enough, not safe enough. But, then, probably it never would be. Life wasn’t safe.

THEY WORKED FOR SIX days, starting before dawn and stopping only late at night. Monk and Orme went up and down the river. Rathbone went through every social acquaintance and business connection of Ballinger’s that he could trace. Claudine listened to society gossip and asked inquisitive and even intrusive questions. Squeaky Robinson put out inquiries among all the brothel-keepers, prostitutes, and petty criminals that he knew. Crow sought all the dubious medical sources, procurers, and abortionists. Rupert Cardew risked his safety, and even his life, asking questions. Once he was beaten, and was lucky to escape with no more than severe bruising and a cracked rib.

Every lead fizzled out, and they were left with no more than fears and guesses as to who had the photographs, or even if they were real.

Rathbone decided to try one more time to plead with Arthur Ballinger, for the sake of his family, if nothing else, to tell them where the photographs were, and allow them to be destroyed.

He would go in the morning. At midnight he stood in the drawing room of his silent house and stared out through the French windows into the autumn garden. The smell of rain and damp earth was sweet, but he was barely aware of it. The wind had parted the clouds, and the soft moonlight bathed the air, making the sky milky pale, the black branches of trees elaborate lace against it.

The room was not cold, but he was chilled inside.

There was nothing else left but to go back to Ballinger, and he must do it in the morning.

He finally closed the curtains and went upstairs, creeping soundlessly, as if he were in a strange house and did not wish to disturb the owners. He changed into his nightclothes in the dressing room and walked barefoot to the bedroom. The lights were out. He could not hear Margaret move, or even breathe. It was a curiously sharp feeling of isolation, because he knew she was there.

HE WOKE AT SIX and rose immediately, washing, shaving, and dressing silently, and going downstairs in a house still chilly from the night. The maid had lit the fires, but they had not burned up sufficiently to warm the air.

The maid boiled the kettle for him and made a cup of tea and two slices of toast. He had to force himself to eat it, standing at the kitchen table, making the girl uncomfortable. The master had no business alone and miserable in her territory. It was not the way houses were supposed to be run.

He thanked her and left, catching a hansom a block away from the house, and finding himself all too quickly outside the cold gray walls of the prison. It was only twenty minutes before eight, and the sky was so overcast it seemed still shadowed by the retreating night.

As the lawyer of a condemned man he was admitted immediately.

“Mornin’, sir,” the jailer said cheerfully. He was a large, square-shouldered man with a ready smile and a gap between his front teeth. “Don’t often get folks ’ere this time o’ the day. Mr. Ballinger, is it? Not long for ’im now. Best it’s over, I say. Longest three weeks in the world.”

Rathbone did not argue. The man could not know Ballinger was Rathbone’s father-in-law, or anything of the bitter and complicated relationship between them. Rathbone followed obediently along the stone corridors. He could hear no voices, no footfalls, because he walked carefully. Yet the silence seemed restless, as if there were always something just beyond his hearing. It was cold, and the air smelled stale. No one had let wind or light inside to disturb the centuries of despair that had settled here.

This was no place for a man to end his days. Remembering Mickey Parfitt did not help. Rathbone forced himself to think of the children, like Scuff, small, thin, humiliated, and forever afraid. Then he found he could straighten his shoulders and accept the necessity of the situation. Nothing on earth could make him like it.

The jailer stopped at the cell door, and the sudden jangle of his keys was the first loud noise. He poked one into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door. It swung open inward, with a slight squeak of hinges.

“There y’are, sir,” he invited.

Rathbone took a deep breath. This was loathsome. He would not have wished to walk into Ballinger’s bedroom and find him in his nightshirt, half-asleep, expecting privacy, even at the best of times. This was a loss of dignity that was degrading to both of them.

He stepped in. The light was faint from the single small, barred window high in the opposite wall. It was a moment before he realized that what looked like a heap of bedclothes on the floor was Arthur Ballinger’s body.

Without even knowing he did it, he let out a cry and stumbled forward onto his knees, grabbing for the flung-out hand. His fingers closed over the flesh, feeling the bones. It was cold.

“Sweet Jesus!” the jailer said from behind him, his voice shaking. He held the lantern up, whether it was for Rathbone to see, or himself, was unclear.

The light showed Ballinger in his prison nightshirt, sprawled awkwardly, one leg bent. The back of his head was matted with blood, but from his staring eyes and protruding tongue, it was hideously clear that he had been strangled to death. The bruise marks from hands were darkening on his throat.

“ ’Ere,” the jailer said. “Yer’d better get up, sir. In’t nothing we can do fer ’im. Best get out of ’ere an’ tell the chief warden. ’E in’t gonna like this.”

Rathbone was frozen; his legs would not obey him.

“ ’Ere,” the jailer repeated, suddenly his voice gentle. “Up yer get, sir. Come on, sir, this way.”

Rathbone felt the man haul at him, taking his weight, and he rose to his feet, trembling.

“How could this happen?” he asked, still staring at Ballinger.

“I dunno, sir. There’ll ’ave ter be an inquiry. In’t fer us ter say. We’d better get out of ’ere an’ tell someone. Yer didn’t touch nothin’, did yer?”

“His … his hand. It’s cold,” Rathbone stammered.

“Yeah. Must a bin done last night. Come on, sir. We gotta get out of ’ere.”

Rathbone allowed himself to be led away, stumbling a little, hardly aware of passing through the corridors, crossing a hallway, and being ushered into a warm office. The chair he was put in was soft, and someone brought him a cup of tea. It was hot and too strong, but he was glad of it. He heard footsteps outside, hurrying, anxious voices, but he could catch no words, and for a moment he hardly cared.

How had this happened? Ballinger was due to be hanged in less than a week. Why would anyone kill him? And how? A jailer had to have helped, colluded. Someone had paid, perhaps a great deal. Surely that was proof that the photographs were real, and all that Ballinger had said of them was true? What fearful irony that all his care to keep his power had actually ended in his own death. Were his secrets dead with him, or simply waiting to be laid bare, one by one? Most likely they would only be guessed at when a trust was betrayed, an inexplicable judgment made, a suicide, a law passed against all expectations.

How was he going to tell Margaret? How much? He winced as he thought how she would blame him for this too. If he had gained an acquittal, Ballinger would have been at home with his family, safe, and with all the power still in his hands.

Or perhaps he would have been murdered anyway, just not here?

And if there had been no danger of an appeal, would he have been left to hang?

No. If he’d been hanged, then someone had had the instructions to make it all public. He must have been killed by someone who intended either to destroy all the pictures or to use them himself. God, what an unimaginable horror!

IT WAS WORSE EVEN than Rathbone had expected. When he told her, she stood in the center of the morning room, her face sheet-white, swaying a little on her feet.

Afraid she was going to faint, he took a step toward her. She backed away sharply, almost as if she feared he was going to strike her.

“Margaret!” he said hoarsely.

“No!” She shook her head and put her hands up to ward him off.

“No. You’re lying.”

“I’m sorry—,” he began.

“Sorry! You’re not sorry. You made this happen,” she accused. “If you hadn’t put your career before your family—”

“I couldn’t defend him.” He was burning with a sense of the injustice of her charge. “He was guilty, Margaret. He killed Mickey Parfitt.”

“Parfitt was vermin,” she retorted. “He should have been killed.”

“And Hattie Benson?”

“She was a prostitute, a whore who was going to lie to protect Rupert Cardew.”

“Protect him from what? He didn’t kill Parfitt. And you’ve just said Parfitt needed killing. You can’t have it both ways.”

The tears were running down her cheeks, and she was gasping for breath. “My father’s been murdered, and you’re standing there justifying yourself! You’re disgusting. I used to love you so much, because I thought you were brave and loyal and you fought for the truth. Now I see you’re just ambitious. You don’t even know what love is!”

He felt as if he had been slapped so hard that his flesh was bruised. He stood without moving as she turned away and walked to the door. When she was in the hall she looked back at him. “I’m going home to look after my mother. She will need me. I will send for my belongings.” With a rustle of silk and the sound of her footsteps on the floor, she was gone.

Rathbone could not measure how grieved he was or how deep the wound, or how, and if ever, it would heal.

THE OVERCAST WAS SO heavy that it was dusk before five in the afternoon. Monk came home to find a fire, bright and warm in the parlor, and Hester and Scuff sitting beside it. There was a pot of tea on the table between them, and they were eating hot crumpets with butter. Scuff had crumbs on his chest. He was sitting in Monk’s chair and looked a little guilty when Monk opened the door, but he did not move. He was waiting to see what would happen, maybe how much he belonged here.

Hester stood up and walked over to Monk. She kissed him on the cheek, gently, then on the mouth. He slid his arms around her and held her until she pulled back.

“I know,” she said softly. “Crow came and told us. Someone murdered Ballinger in his cell.”

Monk looked past her at Scuff. The boy was watching him, waiting, the crumpet held in his hand, dripping butter onto his clothes. His eyes were wide.

“It isn’t the way I would have chosen,” Monk replied. “But maybe that’s an end of it. It’s hideous for Rathbone, and for Margaret, but there was never anything we could have done to change that.”

Scuff was still watching Monk.

Monk smiled at him. “No more river trade on those boats,” he said.

“What about them pictures yer was lookin’ fer?” Scuff asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re destroyed, maybe not. But they’re only pictures. If the people in them get blackmailed, we’ll worry about that if we ever get to know. Finish your crumpet before it’s cold.”

Scuff grinned and took a big bite of it, scattering crumbs onto the floor, and onto Monk’s chair.

“Next time the chair’s mine,” Monk said with a nod.

Scuff hitched himself a little farther back against the cushions and continued smiling.