Acceptable Loss

CHAPTER 5

Rathbone felt a touch of chill in the pit of his stomach when his clerk told him Monk was in the waiting room, looking tired and rather drawn.

“Send him in,” Rathbone replied. He wanted to get it over with. He would find it hard to give his full attention to a client, with his imagination racing as to what it was that Monk had discovered. The fact that he had come to Rathbone at all made it inescapable that it had to do with Mickey Parfitt’s murder and the boat on which he’d practiced his particularly filthy trade.

Rathbone had tried to put from his mind Sullivan’s words blaming Arthur Ballinger for his downfall-first the temptation, then the corruption. Had his mind been deranged, and he had blamed Ballinger because he could not accept his own responsibility for what he had become? There had never been anything but words, perhaps hysterical-no facts, not even any details Sullivan could not have invented himself.

Monk came in through the door and closed it behind him. The clerk was right: he looked tired and miserable, almost defeated. The iron fist inside Rathbone’s stomach clenched tighter. He waited.

“I found out who killed Mickey Parfitt,” Monk said quietly. “The proof seems pretty conclusive. I thought you’d like to know.”

“I would!” Rathbone snapped. “So damned well tell me! Don’t stand there like an undertaker with toothache-tell me!”

A smile flickered across Monk’s face and disappeared. “Rupert Cardew.”

Rathbone was stunned. He had difficulty believing it. Certainly Rupert was a little dissolute, but surely not more than many young men with too much money and too many privileges. How on earth could he have become so degraded so young?

And yet even as a kind of sorrow washed over Rathbone, so did a relief. It was ridiculous to think that Arthur Ballinger could really have been involved with pornography, blackmail, and murder. If Claudine Burroughs had been correct and it really was Ballinger she had seen in the alley outside the shop with the photographs, then Ballinger must have been helping a friend, acting in his capacity of solicitor for some poor devil in over his head. Possibly he had even been attempting to pay off the blackmail by stealing the photographs with which the friend was being coerced. Yes, of course. A simple explanation; as soon as Rathbone thought of it, he wondered why it had taken him so long.

“I’m very sorry,” he said, meeting Monk’s eyes and seeing the sadness in them. For Hester, no doubt. Cardew had given much to the clinic, and she was not only grateful, but she liked him. How typical of Hester to befriend the troubled, someone others would shun when they knew.

Until she knew also; then she too would shun him. Many things she would forgive, but she would never countenance a man who abused and murdered children-vulnerable children, cold, hungry, and alone, like Scuff.

Monk stood very straight; he always did, with a kind of grace that was almost an arrogance. Except that, knowing him as well as he did, Rathbone understood that most of it was defense, his armor of belief in himself, the more rigid since his loss of memory had left him uniquely vulnerable.

Now it would be Hester whose pain Monk was preparing for. There would be no way he could comfort her, or ease the disillusion. Rupert Cardew must be like the young officers she had known in the Crimea, the ones she had seen wounded, dying, still struggling to keep some kind of dignity. She had been helpless then to save most of them, and she could do nothing for Rupert now.

Monk gave a slight shrug. “I thought you would want to know.” He did not add anything about Ballinger, or Margaret, but it did not need to be said between them. Neither of them would ever forget that night on Jericho Phillips’s boat-the horror and the fear that Scuff was already dead and they were too late, the stench of the dead rats in the bilges as they pulled him out, small and very white, his body shaking. Nor would they forget the corpses at Execution Dock.

“You are sure it was him?” Rathbone asked. He was surprised how normal his voice sounded.

“The bastard was strangled with his cravat,” Monk told him. “The surgeon cut it out of Parfitt’s neck where the flesh had swollen over it. The design is unusual-dark blue with gold leopards on it, in threes.”

Rathbone felt the knots ease in his stomach even more. It was proof. He was filled with shame that someone else’s despair should be such a relief to him. He knew now with certainty that he had been afraid that Ballinger was somehow involved; as the fear slipped away, he understood the power of it, and was almost giddy at the release.

“Yes,” he said. “You are right, that does seem conclusive. I’m very sorry. Lord Cardew will be devastated. Poor man.”

Monk said nothing. His face was still pale, and there was a bleakness in his eyes. He nodded slowly, gave Rathbone a slight smile in acknowledgment, then turned on his heel and left.

Rathbone heard him outside declining the clerk’s offer of a cup of tea.

With the door closed again, Rathbone sat down behind his desk and found himself shaking with an overwhelming sense of having escaped a danger he had been bracing himself against until his body had ached with the strain of it. He had failed to pursue the possibility of Ballinger’s guilt because of the irredeemable pain it would have caused Margaret were her father to be implicated. She loved her father unconditionally, with the same love that she must have borne for him in childhood, and Rathbone admired her for it.

It was the first time he had ever avoided seeking the truth, and he was ashamed. Fate had allowed him to escape facing the possible reality, and it was an undeserved gift.

This evening he would take Margaret to the dinner party for which they had already accepted an invitation. He would make it a celebration, a time of happiness she would remember. He allowed himself to think of that until the clerk told him the first client of the day had arrived.

The dinner party was magnificent. Rathbone had recently given Margaret a beautiful necklace of garnets and river pearls, with earrings and a bracelet to match. It was a bit extravagant, but exactly the kind of rich yet discreet setting she most liked. This evening she wore them with a gown of deep wine-red silk. It was fuller-skirted than she usually chose and perhaps even a little lower at the bosom. The jewels gleamed against her pale, flawless skin, and with a faint flush of happiness in her cheeks she was lovelier than he had ever seen her before.

They swept into the main reception room with a rustle of silk and to polite words of welcome. There were nearly a score of people present. The men were in elegant black, women in a blaze of colors, from the youngest in gleaming pastels to older doyennes of the aristocracy in burgundies, midnight blues, plums, and rich browns. Diamonds glinted with suppressed fire; ropes of pearls glowed on bare skin. There was soft laughter, the clink of glass, slight movement, like a wind through a field of flowers.

Margaret held Rathbone’s arm a little more tightly. He could smell the warmth of her perfume, sweet and indefinable.

“Ah! Sir Oliver-Lady Rathbone! How delightful to see you.” The welcome was repeated again and again. He knew them all and didn’t need to rack his memory for a name, a position, or an achievement. He replied easily, shared a joke or an item of news, a comment on the latest book or exhibition of art.

It was not until they went in to dinner that he realized there was an odd number of them, something no hostess in England would ever allow intentionally.

“What is it?” Margaret whispered, seeing his puzzlement.

“There are nineteen of us,” he replied, speaking almost under his breath.

“Something must have happened,” she said with certainty. “Someone is ill.” She looked around casually, trying to conceal the fact. “It’s a man,” she said finally. “There are ten women here.”

Then suddenly the answer was obvious, as was the reason no one had mentioned it. The missing man was Lord Cardew.

Considering who had been invited, Rathbone was certain that when the ladies had retired after dinner, the gentlemen would be discussing over port and cigars the vexed question of industrial pollution. He remembered Ballinger saying it was a subject Lord Cardew had been involved in for years. Rathbone wondered if it had been Cardew who had somehow prevailed upon Lord Justice Garslake to change his mind, and thus the ruling of the Court of Appeal on the case.

He felt a sinking sensation of misery inside himself, and guilt that he was here with his happiness unclouded. It was in no way his fault that Rupert Cardew had murdered Parfitt. It was Rathbone’s relief that shamed him, and the fact that he had been prepared to look the other way when discomfort threatened his own happiness. Perhaps Lord Cardew had done that for years-refused to see what Rupert really was, face the truth and at least attempt to do something about it. In that, then, they would be the same, except that Rathbone had not had to pay anything for it.

“Oliver?” Margaret’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

He dismissed them immediately, forcing himself to think only of the moment, and of her.

“Yes,” he lied. “Someone must have been taken ill. Let us hope it is slight and he will soon be better.” He put his hand over hers briefly, then moved forward, smiling, and took his place at the table.

No one mentioned Cardew, or any other subject that could cloud the enjoyment of the occasion. Rathbone was happy to see Margaret so forgetting her earlier shyness that she laughed openly, making amusing and sometimes even slightly barbed responses to the opinions with which she disagreed. More than once a ripple of laughter swept around the table, a flash of appreciation for her wit.

Rathbone was proud of her.

He thought of Hester-her quick tongue, the passion that made her outrageous at times, her fury at incompetence and the pride that covered deceit, the pity that made her crusade so inappropriately, caring too little for the consequences. He would always find her exciting, but he had once mistaken that for love and imagined he would be happy with her. Thank heaven she had refused him. At a dinner party like this, he would always have been waiting for her to say something disastrous, something so candid it could never be forgotten, much less ignored.

He looked across the table now at Margaret, her face serious as she answered the man to her left, talking about the enormous power of industry and the complexity of profit and responsibility. There was nothing dismissive in his attitude. He was not in the slightest humoring her as he explained how such giants could not be fought against.

Rathbone smiled. And then, as if sensing his gaze on her, Margaret looked up, and her eyes were warm, bright, full of happiness.

That sweet mood of intimacy lasted all through the carriage ride home, and became more intense as they dismissed the servants for the night and went upstairs alone. Suddenly passion was easy and without hesitation. There was no moment of reassurance necessary, no asking. To have spoken at all would have been to doubt the gift of such happiness.

But the next morning in Rathbone’s office, his peace of mind and heart was shattered.

“Lord Cardew is here to see you, Sir Oliver,” the clerk said gravely. “I told him that I would have to consult you, but I took the liberty of asking Lady Lavinia Stock if she would consult you at another time. The matter is trivial, and she was quite agreeable to postponing her appointment.”

Rathbone stared at him, horrified. The man was an excellent clerk, and had given too many years’ loyal service for Rathbone to dispense with him, but this was nonetheless a liberty.

The clerk had a slight flush in his cheeks, but he met Rathbone’s eyes without blinking.

“Knowing you as I do, sir, I felt certain that you would offer him at least the kindness of listening to him, even should you not wish to take the case-or not feel it is one you are able to handle.”

Rathbone drew in his breath to give a swift retort, and realized with a mild amusement that the man had very neatly boxed him in. He would never admit that he was not able to handle a case, nor on the other hand could he refuse to listen to Cardew in what must be the most appalling state of distress of his life.

“You had better show him in, since you have clearly made up your mind that I should take the case,” he said drily.

The clerk bowed. “It is not for me to decide which cases you take, Sir Oliver. I will show Lord Cardew in immediately. Shall I make tea, or perhaps in the circumstances you would prefer something a little stronger? Perhaps the brandy?”

“Tea will be excellent, thank you. I shall need to be very sober indeed to help in this matter. And …”

“Yes, Sir Oliver?”

“We shall have words about this later.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll bring the tea as soon as it is brewed.”

He returned a moment later and opened the door for Lord Cardew. He was in his early sixties, although today he looked twenty years more. His skin was drained of all color, and dry like old parchment. He stood straight, shoulders squared, but he moved as if his whole body were filled with pain.

Anything as banal as “Good morning” seemed ridiculous. There could be nothing good in it for this man. Rathbone thanked the clerk and excused him, then gestured to the big leather chair opposite the desk, for Cardew to sit down.

“I am aware of what has happened,” Rathbone said quickly, to spare Cardew the pain of telling him. “At least the rudiments.”

Cardew looked startled.

“Commander Monk has long been a friend of mine,” Rathbone explained.

“He tells you of all his cases?” Cardew asked with disbelief.

“Not at all, sir. But this one distressed him more than most, because of its connection to the Jericho Phillips case a very short while ago.”

Cardew looked like an old man too stubborn to admit defeat. Rathbone had seen other men like that, for whom surrender was too alien to be considered. They were bewildered, carrying on from force of habit and inability to think of any alternative.

“Why should he be distressed?” Cardew asked. “He is doing his job. In his place I would assume my son to be guilty. Such evidence as they have indicates it to be so. That creature was undoubtedly killed with Rupert’s cravat. Even I could not argue against it. The thing is distinctive. I know. I gave it to him. Apparently they cut it off the wretched man’s neck.”

“Did Rupert confess that he did it?” Rathbone asked.

A flush spread up Cardew’s cheeks, and he lowered his eyes. Cowardice was a sin neither his nature nor his upbringing could forgive. A gentleman did not make excuses, he did not complain, and above all he did not lie to escape the consequences of his acts.

“No, he did not,” he said, so quietly that Rathbone barely heard him.

Rathbone considered any words of comfort he could offer, and all were inadequate, trite, or the very lies that Cardew so despised.

“What is it you would like me to do?” Rathbone said gently.

Cardew looked up. “Do you know what Parfitt was?”

“I know at least something of it.” Memory assailed Rathbone like a wave of nausea. “I know what Jericho Phillips was. I was there on his boat. I saw his corpse at Execution Dock, and I could look at it without regret. He died obscenely, but I could feel only relief that he was gone. I’m not proud of that. Indeed, it is something I prefer not to recall.”

“Then, you will understand why I have no pity for Mickey Parfitt,” Cardew replied. “Is there not some plea of mitigation you can make for the man who killed him-if only to save him from the gallows?” He said the last word as if sticking a knife into himself.

“I can try,” Rathbone said reluctantly. How often had this man pleaded with someone for leniency toward the son who had let him down with such anguish? Did he never grow tired of it? Did he wonder now whether, if he had made Rupert pay for his errors earlier, pay the full price then when they’d been so much less, might Rupert have learned the lesson, and this would not now be happening? Did he go on, exhausted as he was, because he understood that his gentleness before had been only an evasion of the inevitable? That in that space between, it had grown until now the price would be his life?

Cardew leaned forward, his face tense, his eyes fixed on Rathbone’s. “He won’t tell me what happened. I was able to see him only briefly before they took him away. But if he killed Parfitt, then perhaps it was in self-defense. Or the defense of someone else. Is that mitigation in the law?”

“If it was to save the life of someone else who was in immediate danger of being killed, then it is certainly more than mitigation,” Rathbone answered. “If it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it is justification. But I’m afraid that might be very difficult to convince a jury of now, when Rupert has been arrested, since an innocent man would have said so at the time.”

Cardew winced. “Of course. Yet I cannot believe that Rupert would kill him without the most terrible compulsion to do so. He has a temper, but he is not a fool.” He swallowed hard, as if he had an obstruction in his throat. “And in spite of his immorality in other directions, he has a sense of honor, in his own way. Killing a man in cold blood, even a man like Parfitt, would not be … acceptable. It is a coward’s way.” Unconsciously his shoulders squared a little as he said this, as though facing some threat himself.

Rathbone smiled slightly, but utterly without pleasure. “I have some difficulty in deciding for myself what ‘cold blood’ really is.”

At that moment the clerk knocked on the door and, with Rathbone’s permission, came in with the tray, of tea in a silver pot, a silver cream jug and sugar bowl, and silver tongs and teaspoons. The porcelain was plain, delicate, and ornamented only by a small blue crown. In spite of Rathbone’s refusal, the clerk had also brought a bottle of Napoleon brandy, and set it on the sideboard. He poured the tea, then excused himself and withdrew.

“How civilized,” Cardew said with a desperate edge to his voice. “How intensely British. We sit here with tea in German porcelain cups, with French brandy if we need the fire of it, and we talk about murder, justice, and hanging. We would sit exactly like this, with the same tone of voice, if we were speaking of the weather.”

“Because we have to use our intelligence, not our emotions,” Rathbone answered. “The self-indulgence of feelings will not help your son.”

“Self-indulgence,” Cardew said with the first touch of bitterness that Rathbone had heard in him. “Rupert’s sin, which I never curbed in him. I saw it, and I let it pass, as if he would grow out of it. Why is it we still see our sons as children who can be excused, given time and love and patience, even when they are grown men and need to know better? The world will make no such excuses for them, and it is deceit that we do. Unspoken, of course, but a deceit nevertheless.”

“Because we love day by day, inch by inch,” Rathbone replied. “We don’t notice the passing of time and the dangers that we should have prevented, or at least should have warned of. But none of that will help us now.” He looked steadily at Cardew. “You obviously are familiar with Parfitt’s name and reputation. How do you come to know that, sir?”

Cardew was startled, then deeply uncomfortable.

Rathbone had a nightmarish thought that perhaps Cardew himself had once been tempted to such pastimes as Parfitt had provided, and then he dismissed it as ridiculous and repulsive. Nevertheless, the question required an answer, and he waited for it.

Cardew avoided his eyes again. “Rupert has caused me a certain embarrassment most of his adult life, let us say the last fifteen years, since he was eighteen. Often I have known in what ways because I … I helped him when necessary.” It was an evasion of the ugliness of the truth, and they were both embarrassingly aware of it. Even now Cardew could not bring himself to be literal.

Rathbone was not enlightened by euphemisms. “Lord Cardew,” he said grimly, “I cannot do anything useful for your son if I don’t know what I am fighting against. What trouble? He paid for prostitution-unflattering, but not unusual. Certainly not a crime for which any gentleman is punished by the law, especially a man who is not married and therefore does not owe a sexual loyalty to anyone. It is not worth mentioning-and is far better than seducing a young woman of virtue and with expectation of marriage. That is a moral offense of some weight, but still not punishable by law.”

Cardew’s face was ashen, his shoulders so tight that in places they strained the fabric of his jacket, but he said nothing.

“Force would be a different matter,” Rathbone continued. “Rape is a crime, no matter who the victim is, although society would bother little if the woman were of questionable virtue anyway. Unless there were a great deal of violence involved. Is that the case?”

“Rupert has a temper,” Cardew said almost under his breath, his voice cracking with emotional tension, “but so far as I am aware, his quarrels were always with other men.”

“Violent?” Rathbone pressed.

Cardew hesitated. “Yes … sometimes. I don’t know what they were about. I preferred not to.”

“But they were not justified?”

“Justified? How can beating a man nearly senseless be justified?”

“Self-defense … or defense of someone else weaker, already injured, or in some other way helpless.”

“I wish I could believe it was as excusable as that.”

“Is that all-just fighting?”

“Is that not enough?” Cardew said miserably. “The use of prostitutes, drunkenness, brawling until you injure a man for the rest of his life? Good God, Rathbone, Rupert was brought up as a gentleman. He is heir to all I have, the privileges and the responsibilities. How can I ever allow him to marry a decent woman? I couldn’t do that to another man’s daughter.”

Rathbone had seen scores of men sit in this chair in his quiet office, so racked with fear and pain that it filled the room like a charge of electricity. But none deeper than this, perhaps the worse because Cardew’s pain was not for himself but for someone he loved. Had Rupert any idea of the hell he was inflicting? If he could even imagine it, then he was close to inexcusable.

Rathbone thought of Arthur Ballinger, and how loyal his children were, especially Margaret. To torture him like this would have been unthinkable.

How worthless Rupert Cardew was in comparison. What utter selfishness governed him?

Rathbone thought of his own father. Their friendship was perhaps the most precious thing in his life because it was the bedrock on which all else rested. He could not remember a time when Henry Rathbone had not been there to advise, to share a problem, to encourage, and at times to praise.

Would he and Margaret have sons one day, and would he be as good a father?

What had Lord Cardew done, or omitted to do, that had led to this tragedy? Bought his son’s love with a leniency that in the end corroded both of them? Averted the pain of confrontation, the loneliness of the turning away, even if only fleetingly? Rathbone understood it so easily, but as he looked at Cardew’s haunted face, he could also imagine the price.

Was that the guilt that Cardew felt, that somehow he should have prevented this? A word, a silence, a decision carried through, and it might all have been different?

There was nothing left to do now but try to help.

“Why would Rupert kill Mickey Parfitt?” Rathbone asked. “There must be some connection. It wasn’t a crime of rage. Mickey was hit on the head; then, when he was at least dazed, possibly unconscious, he was deliberately strangled with a cravat, which was knotted, to be more effective with pressure on the throat, the windpipe, the veins of the neck. That is not impulse of fury or hot temper. And I don’t see how it could possibly be self-defense.” He found it hard to keep his eyes on Cardew’s face, but he owed it to the man at least to look at him while he said such things.

Cardew sat motionless.

“No one happens by chance to find his best cravat in his pocket, handily knotted so as to be a more effective weapon,” Rathbone continued. “He carried it with him for the purpose of killing someone. It is not a weapon of self-defense. The bough of a tree might be perhaps, but if he had already struck him senseless with it, and if escape from his own danger were the purpose, he would have left then. But he remained, took off his cravat, knotted it, and then strangled the unconscious man lying at his feet. Not to mention then dropping him into the river.”

Cardew winced each time Rathbone spoke. “Parfitt was an abomination,” Cardew said with loathing. “The most degraded of human beings, scarcely fit to walk upright. He preyed upon the weaknesses of others, indulging them until his victims became almost as depraved as he was. Then he blackmailed them. And if you think that was the depth to which he sank, think of the children he used to do this. They were blameless, and they suffered the most, and without escape. Any man who killed him has done a service, as a doctor who has rid us of a filthy disease.” He took a deep breath. “And don’t bother to tell me that that does not justify murder. I am perfectly aware of it. I need help, Sir Oliver, not a sermon on the sanctity of all human life.”

Rathbone smiled bleakly. “I have no intention of offering you one, Lord Cardew. I totally agree with you. And believe me, if it is I who stand in court before a judge and jury to plead Rupert’s case, I will draw such a portrait of Mickey Parfitt that they will see him for what he was. But I will need more than his depravity to justify his death. The jury will require to know why Rupert in particular, of all his victims, was the one who actually killed him. I must tell it from his point of view, in particulars, not generalities. They must walk in his shoes, feel his fear, outrage, whatever it was that drove him to such an act. The prosecutor will be clever and articulate also, and will defend Parfitt’s right to live as he would that of any of us.”

“Of course. I understand. We cannot allow any one of us to be the unappointed judge and executioner of another. The simple answer is that I don’t know why Rupert killed him. I didn’t have the chance to ask him. And to tell you the truth, I am not sure whether he would tell me …” He struggled for a moment to find words for what he could hardly bear to say.

Rathbone put an end to it, as one would put an animal out of its pain. “Of course,” he said, cutting across him, “it is often easier to speak to someone whose opinion does not touch your emotions. It happens to many of the people I see in my office. With your permission, I shall go to the prison and speak to Rupert immediately.” He rose to his feet. “I think we should address this as soon as possible. I will see that he is being reasonably treated, and that he has all that he is permitted for his comfort. I will speak to you as soon as I have something of value to say.” He held out his hand.

Cardew rose to his feet slowly. It seemed to cost him some effort, but when he clasped Rathbone’s hand, it was with surprising power. A drowning man, reaching for help amid the overwhelming waves.

By early afternoon Rathbone was in the entrance of Newgate Prison. The huge iron doors closed behind him, and a sour-faced warden beckoned him along the narrow corridors toward the cell where he would be permitted to interview Rupert Cardew. His footsteps sounded hard on the floor, but the echo died almost immediately, as if the stone of the walls suffocated it. The place was a curious mixture of life and death. Rathbone was acutely conscious of emotional pain, of fear, remorse, the dread of physical extinction and what might lie beyond in the nightmares of the soul. And yet the place stifled life. There was no energy, nothing could breathe here, nothing could grow or have will.

The warden walked ahead of him without ever turning to ascertain if he was following. But, then, who would wish to wander alone in this maze of corridors, all the same and all leading nowhere?

The man stopped, took a key from the chain at his belt, and unlocked the iron door, swinging it open with a squeal of unoiled hinges.

“Thank you,” Rathbone said curtly, walking past him. “I’ll knock when I’m ready to leave.”

The man acknowledged with a silent nod and slammed the door shut. The sound of the lock going home on the outside was as loud as the clang of iron on stone had been.

The cell was bare except for two wooden chairs and a small table, which was scarred and dented. One leg was shorter than the other three, so that when Rathbone touched it, the table wobbled before settling back to its place.

Rupert Cardew stood in the center of the small space. He was wearing the shirt and trousers in which he must have been arrested, and he was crumpled and unshaven. However, he held himself upright and met Rathbone’s eyes without wavering.

“I’m here at your father’s request,” Rathbone began. He was used to meeting accused men or women in circumstances like these, but it never grew any easier. For almost all of the major cases he dealt with, it was the person’s first time in prison, and the sheer shock of it caused either numbness or a panic that was close to hysteria. All too often, the shadow of the hangman’s noose darkened all reason and hope. Even the innocent were terrified. There was no trust in the judgment of the law when it was your own life in the balance.

Rupert nodded. He found it difficult to speak, and when he forced the words out, his tone was uneven.

“I knew he would … help. I … I’m not sure what you can do. The evidence seems to be … to be …” He breathed in and out deeply. “If I were Monk, I would believe as he does. The cravat is mine-no argument.”

Rathbone heard the nervousness in his voice, the tension. He put his hand out and pulled the chair nearest him away from the table. He waved at the other. “Sit down, Mr. Cardew. I need you to tell me as much as you can, from the beginning. It might be simpler if I ask you questions.”

Rupert obeyed, unintentionally scraping the chair legs on the floor. He sat down awkwardly, but his hands on the table were strong and lean, and Rathbone saw with respect that they did not tremble.

“You do not question that it was your cravat?” Rathbone asked.

“No,” Rupert said wryly. “I don’t imagine there are many like that. My father gave it to me. I expect he had it made. His tailor would swear to it.”

“I see.” He was not surprised, but it might have been an advantage if the point could have been argued. “What time did you leave home that evening?”

“I expected you to ask me that. Early. It was a lovely evening.” He gave a twisted grimace, not quite a smile, as if the bitter humor of it were momentarily overwhelming. “I walked down by the river for an hour or more. I lost track of time.…”

Rathbone held up his hand to stop him. “Down by the river where? You don’t live anywhere near Chiswick.”

“Of course not. Who the devil lives in Chiswick? But I didn’t want to wander along the Embankment and run into half a dozen people I know who would want to talk politics, or gossip. I took a boat up the river, and I’ve racked my brain to recall anyone I knew who saw me. But the whole charm of going up on the water is the peace of it, the very fact that you don’t meet anyone you know. I’m sorry.” He shrugged very slightly, with barely a movement of his shoulders.

“You didn’t row yourself!” Rathbone observed.

“Well, actually, I did.”

“You hired a boat? From whom? They’ll have a record of it.”

“No. I have my own. At least, I share it with a fellow I know. But he’s in Italy at the moment. No use, is it!”

“No,” Rathbone agreed. “Where did you go-exactly?”

“Chiswick. I tied it up at one of the mooring posts up there opposite the Chiswick Eyot. Then I went along the Mall and had a drink at the pub off Black Lion Lane. I spoke to a few lads I know, but I doubt they’d remember it. Just stupid remarks about the weather, that sort of thing.”

“Then what?”

Rupert looked down at his hands on the table. “Then I went and visited a woman I know-a girl.”

“Is that a euphemism for a prostitute?” Rathbone inquired.

A dull color marked Rupert’s cheeks. “Yes.”

“Her name?”

“Hattie Benson.”

“You know her? Other than in the carnal sense?”

Rupert looked up quickly. “Yes. But I don’t imagine her word is going to help a lot. I still had my cravat then. I remember taking it off, so it must have been before Parfitt was killed with it. Unless someone killed him with another silk cravat, exactly like mine. That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” There was a flicker of hope in his voice, but he killed it himself, before Rathbone had the chance.

“Yes. I’m afraid it is,” Rathbone replied. “Where did you go after you left Miss Benson?”

“I don’t know. I was pretty drunk. I fell asleep somewhere, I don’t remember where. When I woke up, it was dark, and I felt like hell. I went over to the horse trough, stuck my head into the water, sobered up a bit, and then rowed home.” He looked at Rathbone, waiting for the condemnation he expected.

“The prosecution won’t be able to make a case unless they can prove that you knew Mickey Parfitt, and had some reason to want him dead,” Rathbone told him. “Tell me of all your dealings with him, and don’t lie to me. If they catch you out even once, it will be sufficient to shatter any credibility you might have with the jury.”

Rupert stared at him, the skin tight across his cheeks, his mouth drawn into a line of pain.

“It is too late for discretion,” Rathbone warned him. “I shall not tell anyone anything you can afford for me to hide. Particularly I shall not tell your father. He will suffer quite enough in spite of all I can do.”

Rupert looked as if Rathbone had struck him and bruised his face deeper than the flesh.

“I did not kill Parfitt,” he said clearly.

Rathbone continued exactly as if he had not spoken. “What was your connection with him? When and where did you first meet? If any of this is verifiable, I’d like to know that too.”

Rupert looked down at the scarred tabletop. “I met him just over two years ago. I was out with a group of friends, at Black Lion Lane again. We were all pretty high and bored. Somebody began telling tall stories about women they’d had, not just in London, but Paris, somebody said Berlin, and someone else said Madrid. The stories got taller and taller, most of them lies, I expect.” He took a deep breath. “Then someone said he knew of a place a lot more daring than anything mentioned so far. He said danger was the thing that really made your heart beat, and the blood-” He stopped. He was looking at Rathbone’s exquisite suit, his crisp, clean shirt.

“I can imagine,” Rathbone said drily. “You don’t have to fill in the details of what he described. The risk of ruin was the ultimate temptation.”

“Yes,” Rupert said very quietly. “I can’t believe now that I was so stupid!”

“It was a boat on the river?”

“You know what it was.”

“I still need you to tell me.”

Rupert winced. “I went out, with the others. I suppose there were half a dozen of us, something like that. The boat was moored up on the other side of the Chiswick Eyot. Quite a row. With the cooler air I was close to sober when we got there. At first it looked like another brothel, except on a boat. We were made welcome, given some of the best brandy I’ve ever had. Then … then there was a kind of performance, very explicit … men and little boys. Some of them were not more than five or six years old.” His voice cracked, and his face was scarlet.

Rathbone waited.

“It … it was a form of club. There were … initiation rites. We had to … take part … and be photographed. It was a dare-the ultimate risk … in which you could lose everything. We all did it.” His voice sank to a whisper. “I didn’t have the courage to refuse. Afterward I scrambled up the gangway and vomited over the side into the river. I wanted to leave, but there was no way, other than jumping into the water and hoping to survive.” He gulped. “If I’d been worth anything, I’d have done that. Wading out of the river covered in mud and sodden to the skin on the streets of Chiswick would have been better than the hell that followed.”

Rathbone could imagine it more easily than he wished. There had been some days at university when he himself had been less than sober, less than discreet. He would greatly prefer that his father did not know about those days, even if he might guess. His excesses had never been of this magnitude, but the hot burn of shame was just as real.

“Please go on,” he said more gently.

“I staggered back toward the gangway downstairs again, and one of Parfitt’s men came up behind me. We collided, and somehow the next thing I knew I was falling downward, thumping and bashing myself against the walls, until I landed at the bottom. I can remember faces peering at me in a sort of haze, and I felt dreadful. Then I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew I was lying on a bed in one of the cabins, and Mickey Parfitt himself was looking at me, sneering.

“ ‘Shouldn’t drink so much, Mr. Cardew,’ he said with satisfaction oozing out of him. ‘Fell downstairs, you did. But had your bit of fun first.’ At the time I didn’t remember the staged show with the little boys, or the photograph, so I didn’t feel anything much. He gave me a stiff jolt of brandy and helped me to my feet. I went back over the river with my friends-what a damn stupid word for them!” For a moment bitterness flashed across his face.

Rathbone felt himself sympathizing and, to his amazement, also believing him. “Then what happened?” he asked, although he knew.

Rupert looked down again. “About a week later Parfitt sent a letter to my home, inviting me to join them on the boat again. I burned the letter.”

“But he wrote again?”

“Yes. I ignored it the second time. Burned it without opening it, actually. The third time he sent a letter to my father. I recognized the writing. I burned the one to my father, but I read the one to me. He said that I had entered into a contract with him, and there was a photograph to prove it. Whether I went to the boat again or not, I still owed him the money.”

“Blackmail.” Rathbone nodded. It was cleverer than he had thought, much harder to prove in court. How could he show that there had been no “gentleman’s agreement”? Such things were often unwritten, especially regarding something like gambling, or the services of a prostitute. No one put those “agreements” in writing.

Rupert nodded. “I realized it only then. God, I was so stupid!” His voice was heavy with self-disgust.

“Did you pay?”

Rupert’s face tightened. “With that photograph? Of course I did. I meant to buy myself a little time, and then think what to do. I knew if I didn’t do something, the bastard would have me paying for the rest of my life.”

Rathbone looked at him, searching his eyes. He saw desperation, profound embarrassment, even shame, but curiously, no awareness of having just admitted to the perfect motive for murder. Was that because he felt himself justified? And if he did, could Rathbone disagree with him? If ever a man deserved to be gotten rid of, it was Mickey Parfitt. Thinking of him, it was as if Jericho Phillips had risen from the dead.

“Well, you’re rid of him now,” he said with asperity.

“Hardly,” Rupert said bitterly. “He’ll take me down to the grave with him. It almost makes me wish I had killed him!”

“Didn’t you?”

Rupert’s head jerked up, his eyes hot. “No, I didn’t!”

Rathbone was used to denial. Almost everyone claimed either that they did not do it at all or that, if they did, it was either an accident or the victim deserved it. And yet he was on the brink of believing Rupert Cardew, which was totally unreasonable. Every scrap of evidence pointed to him.

“Then, who did?” he said grimly. “With your cravat?”

“I don’t know. Whoever found it, I suppose.”

Rathbone opened his eyes wide. “They chanced on your cravat, lying wherever it was, and thought, ’Ah, I know what I’ll do with this. I’ll tie a few knots in it, and then I’ll strangle someone. What about Mickey Parfitt? We’d all be better off without him.’ ”

Rupert flushed hotly. “I don’t know who killed him, or why. There could be a dozen reasons, and fifty men with one at least as good as mine. I only know that I didn’t. I’ve never been so drunk that I couldn’t remember what I’d done-just not always where, or with whom.” He gave a slight shrug, and a flicker of humor lit his eyes for an instant, then vanished.

Rathbone’s mind raced. Was it conceivable that Rupert really was innocent, at least of the murder? A reasonable doubt would prevent his conviction, but not remove from people’s minds the belief that he was guilty. Some might praise him for it, but the stain would still be indelible. The only good answer would be to prove someone else’s guilt.

“What do you know about Parfitt?” he asked. “Apart from what you have told me. Where did he come from? Who are his partners in the boat? He didn’t find the money to buy it in the first place without help. Who was it? Who else shares the profit? Who are his other clients whom he might have pushed over the edge into ruin? And did he blackmail only for money, or for favors also?”

“Favors?” Rupert blinked. “You mean-”

“Political favors,” Rathbone corrected him. “Or worse, perhaps, judicial favors?”

“Judicial …?” Rupert began, and then stopped as understanding swept over him. “God, I never thought of that. Would he really?”

“I don’t know. But you see the possibilities?”

Rupert was pale now. Was he thinking of his father, and the power he had in the House of Lords, the influence on members who fought for reform? If Rupert’s own reputation were in the balance, what might Cardew have been coerced into doing to save him?

“What made you think of that?” he asked. “Do you know something?” There was fear in his voice now, no anger left.

“No,” Rathbone said truthfully. “But that is what Jericho Phillips did, and it seems an obvious thing.”

“Phillips?” Rupert asked.

“Yes.”

“Then Parfitt would too. He learned all his skills from Phillips. He started by working for him, downriver from Chiswick, nearer Westminster and that way.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then, you know more about him than the one visit you’re telling me about.”

Rupert paled. “Look … I went three times, and I’m ashamed of it. The first time, it wasn’t so bad. Or the second. Young men, but we all know that kind of thing goes on. A bit of gambling, and a hell of a lot to drink. If I’d had any sense, I’d have known that wasn’t all there was to it, but I didn’t think. I … I wanted to stay in with the friends I had. I haven’t been back, ever.”

Against all his experiences of frightened men lying when accused, Rathbone believed him. But at the same time, it robbed him of a defense that he could hope to succeed with, or at least use to mitigate the sentence sufficiently to avoid the rope. He shrank from telling Rupert this now. He could not work with him paralyzed with fear. He had to have as much of the truth as possible in order to defend against the evidence the Crown would bring. Mickey Parfitt’s death was not a cause celebre, but Rupert Cardew in the dock most certainly would be.

“Do you know who has been?” Rathbone asked.

Rupert was stunned. “I can’t tell you the names of my friends who were there! For God’s sake, that would be a despicable thing to do.”

“Even if one of them murdered Mickey Parfitt?”

“Betray them all because one of them might have killed him? Is that what you would do, Sir Oliver?” Suddenly the challenge was sharp and very personal.

Rathbone admired him for it. “You want me to answer that truthfully?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. Would you?”

“No, Mr. Cardew. But, then, my friends don’t frequent places like that, so far as I know. But I wouldn’t know, because I don’t. I’ve seen what men like Phillips and Parfitt do to children, and I’d be happy if the law allowed anyone who wished to get rid of them all. But if we permit people to make their own decisions as to who should live and who should die, it would be a license to murder at will. We can always find excuses when we want them. All of which you know as well as I do.”

“I still can’t tell you the names of the men I know who went to that boat.”

“Not yet. When you know more of what Parfitt did, and how he used his power, you may change your mind.” Rathbone rose to his feet.

“Will you represent me?” Rupert asked, standing also. His knuckles were clenched, and he had to brace himself to keep his body from shaking.

“Yes,” Rathbone replied without hesitation, surprising himself by the firmness of his decision, as if no other answer had occurred to him.

But none of it seemed so easy to explain to Margaret that evening in their own quiet dining room, with the faint aroma of apple wood burning in the fire and the gaslights soft.

“Rupert Cardew?” she said with amazement. “How awful for his father. The poor man must be devastated.” Her face was bleak with pity.

“Yes. I wish I could offer him more hope,” Rathbone agreed. They were at the dining room table. The air was warm outside, and the long curtains still weren’t drawn, letting in the sweet smells of earth and leaves as the garden faded with the year. There were golden chrysanthemums and purple asters in bloom. The summer flowers were cut down, but it was too early for the leaves to turn. There was no rich perfume of wood smoke or bonfires yet.

“There’s nothing you can do, Oliver,” she said gently. “Just don’t shun him when he comes back into society again. So many people do, because they don’t know what to say, and it’s easier to say nothing than face other people’s pain.”

“If he’s found guilty, they’ll hang him,” he replied. “There won’t be any ‘coming back.’ ”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “For goodness’ sake, I meant Lord Cardew, not Rupert! Of course they’ll hang him. There’s no other possible answer.”

He looked at her and saw no trace of indecision in her face, and only a remnant of the pity she had felt for Lord Cardew, nothing fresh for Rupert.

“Parfitt tried to blackmail him,” he said, reaching absentmindedly for the salt, and then, realizing that he had already used it, putting it down again. “It would have gone on forever.”

“Of course it would. Until his father refused to pay,” she said drily, returning her attention to her meal. They had an excellent cook, both imaginative and skilled, but tonight Rathbone barely tasted his food.

“You haven’t asked me if I believe he did it,” he pointed out, and then realized how critical he sounded.

Margaret put her fork down. “Do you doubt it?”

“There must always be room for doubt-”

“Don’t be pedantic, Oliver,” she interrupted him. “I know that, legally. I mean do you, personally, doubt it?”

“Yes, I do. He denies it, and I believe he may be speaking the truth. He is hardly the only one to wish Parfitt dead.”

“There is all the difference in the world between wishing someone dead and making it so,” she said reasonably. “How much difference is there between a man who will pay others to torture and abuse small boys for his gratification, and one who will kill the provider of such abomination rather than continue to pay for it?”

He heard the anger in her voice, and the revulsion. He would not have expected anything less. He felt it himself. And yet he also understood Rupert’s horror when he realized what his blindness and stupidity had led him into. Was he naive to believe that Rupert might actually be innocent of the murder of Parfitt? Was he acting on exactly the kind of emotional loyalty, devoid of reason, that he saw in Margaret’s family? Lord Cardew reminded him of his own father, and his pity was instinctive and immediate.

“I’ve agreed to defend him,” he said aloud.

Margaret froze.

Now he was compelled to justify himself. “Everyone deserves a defense, Margaret, the benefit of doubt until guilt is proved.”

“Of course he needs to be defended,” she agreed, her eyes bright and angry. “But not by you. You are the finest barrister in London, maybe in the whole of England. Your very presence will draw attention to the case and make people believe there is something to be said for the whole repulsive business. Whatever you argue on the niceties of the law, the vast majority of people will believe you are doing it because of his father’s title and money, not because you have any real belief in his innocence.”

“No one will who knows me,” he said with a touch of chill. Her accusation hurt. It caught him by surprise that she should think it.

“Most people don’t know you,” she said reasonably, but there was a pucker between her brows. “They will simply leap to the easiest conclusion.”

“And I should cater to them?” he inquired.

“You are exaggerating,” she answered coolly. “I didn’t suggest that you follow every whim of public opinion, merely that you do not need to defend every criminal, no matter how base their crime, just to prove that the law must be honored. Let someone else defend Rupert Cardew.”

“You mean so that we may hang him and then go home and still sleep well?”

“Yes, I suppose I do mean that.” Now it was a definite retaliation. “If you are going to hang anyone at all, then Rupert Cardew deserves it. The use of children in prostitution and pornography is bestial. Anyone who had a part in that, of any sort, deserves the rope.” She leaned forward over her plate, the food now entirely forgotten. “And don’t tell me he didn’t actively participate. That is irrelevant, Oliver, and you know it. He knew, and he did nothing about it. He could have called the police, made the whole thing public, but instead he chose to kill Parfitt, in order to spare his own embarrassment, and that of his friends who are little better. You can’t defend him, because it is indefensible.”

He was stunned into silence.

“I suppose Lord Cardew asked you to,” she went on. “And you were too softhearted to refuse him. Of course the poor man believes his son is innocent. What else could he bear to believe?”

“Perhaps he is right?” he said softly, placing his knife and fork on the plate. His food was half-eaten, but he no longer wanted it.

“Nonsense,” she answered. “And Cook will be offended if you don’t eat at least most of that.”

“Tell her I’m ill. In fact, I’ll tell her myself.” Rathbone rose to his feet. The thought of remaining at the table in a bitter silence was so unpleasant, he would rather retreat into work. Any excuse would do. “As you have pointed out, it will be exceedingly difficult to present any believable defense. And if I don’t make a reasonable show of it, I will not only let Rupert Cardew down, and his father, I will damage my own reputation. I cannot afford to do that.” He turned at the door. “Don’t wait up for me. I shall probably be a long time.”

Margaret opened her mouth to speak, and then changed her mind. He would never know whether it would have been an apology or not. He chose to think that it would. But even so, the laughter, the intimacy, of the previous evening seemed an age ago, hard even to recall to the inner mind, where treasures are stored.