Blind Justice

CHAPTER 8

To begin with Rathbone had been dazed by the speed and the horror of what had happened to him. However, after the first night, when he awoke feeling stiff, his body aching, he knew exactly where he was and nothing of the previous day had been forgotten. Perhaps he had not slept deeply enough for any of it to have left him. All night he had lain on the hard, narrow bunk under a single greasy blanket, which smelled so stale he deliberately kept it low around his chest, away from his face. He refused to think who had been on it before him or when it was last washed.

He was awake when the jailer came with a tin jug and bowl of tepid water so that he could wash and shave and would look at least presentable, if not clean or uncrumpled. They lent him a comb for his hair and took it away again as soon as he had used it. Only then did he wonder if it might have lice in it. He had not even considered that before touching it. The thought was disgusting, and he tried to force it out of his mind. There were immeasurably more terrible things to think about.

Physical discomfort was trivial, and as far as he could see, unalterable. He could adjust his position, sit or stand, but he could not walk more than about five paces before having to turn and walk back. It was good only to uncramp his legs. The sounds of tin or stone, voices, the occasional scrape or clang of a door barely intruded on his thoughts.

If he were convicted, whoever sat as judge would be ordered to give him the harshest sentence the law allowed. This would be partly as an example to all other jurists, that they, above all others, must keep the law, and partly to demonstrate to the public that they had no partiality toward their own. Whatever they felt personally, Rathbone had no doubt that the authorities would make certain there was no misunderstanding in the direction of leniency. They had to, for their own safety.

What could Rathbone do to save himself? Was there a legal defense? He had given the prosecution evidence that called into very serious question the honor and integrity of their chief witness. That was not illegal. Nor could he have given it to the police earlier: he had not realized he had it.

No. The sin was in not having given it to both parties and then recusing himself from the case. It always came back to that. But if he had done so, it would automatically have been declared a mistrial. Both Taft and Drew’s reputations would have been unblemished. It was highly unlikely they would ever bring the case again-not unless stronger evidence had emerged.

Somewhere near him two men were shouting strings of inarticulate abuse at each other. More banging of tin mugs against the bars and the sound of footsteps and voices. Was someone coming? Monk again, to see him? Then the footsteps receded and went another way.

Was Rathbone’s real crime possessing the photographs in the first place, and not destroying them as soon as Ballinger’s lawyer had brought them to him after Ballinger’s death? What arrogance had made him imagine he was immune to the temptation to misuse them, as Ballinger had? Why had he thought he was above such human frailty?

He could recall even now the horror with which he had seen them, looking through more than half of them, recognizing faces and realizing the incalculable power he held in his hands. Should he have pushed it away from him then, refused to pick up the weapon, in case it slipped in his keeping and endangered the innocent and gradually corrupted him?

But he had never used those photos for his own gain. In fact, he had barely used them at all! There were men from all walks of life whose faces were in that locked box. Should he destroy what might be the only means to curb their power?

He still was not sure of the answer to that.

He knew one thing for certain: he could not hand over the box of photographs to anyone else. If he had given it to the home secretary it would place on him a burden that would cripple him. There were some things that should not be known, sins that needed redemption in darkness and silence, where their poison could spread no further.

Perhaps, for the sake of those, he should have destroyed them all. But it was too late to wish that now.

When was Monk coming back? Rathbone had been in prison twenty-four hours already, and there had been no one else to see him. Of course Monk was the only person to whom he had sent a message. But it would not be long before everyone knew. He could imagine what the newspapers would make of it.

The jailer came with a breakfast of porridge and tea. The porridge was revolting, thick and lumpy, a bit like tepid glue. But Rathbone could not afford not to eat. He must keep awake, watching and thinking. He must come up with a strategy to defend himself, first from the legal charge, and then later on, if it all came to the worst, from the other inmates.

He was brooding over that with deepening despair when the jailer came back again, this time to fetch him, saying that he had a visitor. He refused to give any more information than that.

Rathbone stood up awkwardly, his muscles almost locked with stiffness after the discomfort of the night. Was it Monk again, at last? Or was it someone else?

“What’s the matter, Fancypants?” one of the other prisoners called out jeeringly. He was a scrawny man with matted hair. “Not feelin’ so much like dancin’ today, are yer? I’ll larn yer, after yer bin before the beak!”

“Gracious of you,” Rathbone said sarcastically. Perhaps it was not wise, but he could not let them see he was afraid.

The corridors were as dank as before, but he had remembered them as longer, somehow larger. It was only moments until he was in the small room where prisoners were allowed to see their lawyers.

“Fifteen minutes,” the jailer warned Rathbone then let him inside, slamming the door. They heard iron on stone; the heavy bolt was locked home the instant he was through the door. A scarred wooden table was screwed to the floor, and two hard-backed wooden chairs sat one on either side.

Monk was waiting for him.

Rathbone’s first reaction was overwhelming relief and gratitude. Then, the moment after, he felt an embarrassment almost as acute. Had he been free to change his mind and retreat, he might have. But he was not free-the door had already closed behind him, literally, and in the larger sense of his life and his future.

He walked forward, shook Monk’s hand rather as if in a dream, then sat down.

Monk sat opposite him. There was no time to waste in niceties, even a habitual “How are you?”

“You did give Warne the photograph?” Monk said immediately. “Under some sort of privilege, I presume?”

“Yes, of course. I took it to him and told him where I got it and how. I left it up to him whether to use it or not.” Did that sound like an excuse? “I didn’t know he was going to call Hester.”

Monk dismissed that with a slight movement of his hand. “It was the best thing to do,” he replied. “And it gave him a chance to show the jury, and anyone else, that she wasn’t the emotionally fragile woman Drew had painted her to be. It was the perfect tactic. Calling me might have been practically difficult at short notice and would have looked as if I were defending Hester. Not nearly so effective.”

“You make it sound cold-blooded,” Rathbone said quietly. He was ashamed that Hester had been used, even though he had not done it himself.

Monk’s face darkened with impatience. “For God’s sake, Rathbone, you know Hester better than that! She doesn’t need protecting, by you or anyone else, and she wouldn’t thank you for it. We need to find out who laid the charge against you, and why. Who else even knew about the photographs, and that you have them?”

“I don’t know,” Rathbone replied, chastened. He was too desperate to be angry. There was no time for emotional self-indulgence. “I’ve been trying to work that out myself.” He smiled bitterly. “I’ve made a great many enemies in my career, but I didn’t realize any of them would stoop to this. Every case is won by someone and necessarily lost by someone else. It’s the nature of law, at least in the adversarial system. Sometimes it’s the skill of the lawyer; quite often it’s simply the evidence.”

“Is that how you feel when you lose? That it was the evidence?” Monk asked, amusement flickering for an instant in his eyes then disappearing.

“Not at the time,” Rathbone admitted. “But after a day or two, yes, it is.” His mind raced; he tried to think of any case he had won that was so bitter his opponent could carry a grudge of this magnitude. Had he ever done anything worthy of such resentment, such patient hunger for revenge?

Monk was not prepared to wait for him. “Why did you give the photograph to Warne?” he asked grimly. “The real reason, not the superficial one. We haven’t time for excuses.”

Rathbone was startled. “To stop Taft, of course. He was ruining the reputations, and in a way the lives of simple, gullible people who had trusted him-in the name of God-because that was what he asked of them. They weren’t doing it for any hope of profit. If it were that sort of confidence trick I’d have less pity for them.” He heard his voice grating with anger, his own situation momentarily forgotten. “I know a great deal of the money found its way into Taft’s pockets. Very little of it ever went to the charities he named, despite the way he talked his way through the account books. And those who gave so generously ended up cheated and desperate-their faith and their dreams taken from them, and their dignity. And then he mocked them in open court.” He leaned forward across the battered wooden table. “Damn it, Monk, Taft and Drew both deserve to be shown up for what they are. I’m sorry Taft killed himself, but surely the fact that he killed his wife and daughters as well says something of what kind of a man he was.”

Monk sighed. “The question has passed beyond whether Taft was a cheat, or Drew an abuser of children. It’s become whether you, as a judge in our legal system, and therefore in a place of unique trust, used secret knowledge to twist the outcome of a trial over which you presided, and did it for some personal reason of your own. They can call it perversion of justice because you should have recused yourself, and you know that, but there’s a bigger picture beneath that, and that is what concerns me.”

Rathbone heard the words with a surge of anger then, looking into Monk’s eyes, a sudden horrifying clarity. Monk was right. He had seen what the legal system was going to see: their desperate need to protect themselves by cutting off the gangrenous limb-himself.

Monk was watching him quietly, as if he could see past all the protective masks into the desperately vulnerable heart inside.

“What motive would they ascribe to me, do you think?” Rathbone said, his voice shaking for the first time.

“Arrogance to think yourself above the law and to retrieve what you lost in the Jericho Phillips trial,” Monk answered him. “To give Hester the chance to show people that she has all the courage and judgment that she failed to show then. To turn back the clock.”

Rathbone sat silently. Had he wanted to do that? Was exposing Drew only the excuse? He had not thought so at the time. The hot anger in the front of his mind had surfaced on behalf of the same victims Hester had wished to save. But would he have done it if the person involved had been somebody else, somebody he did not know? Or over whom he had not still felt such corrosive guilt?

“I’ll find out all I can,” Monk was saying. “I think there may be a lot about this that we don’t know yet.”

Rathbone jerked his attention back to the moment. There was no time to waste-perhaps only minutes left for this meeting. He was a prisoner. He stood up and sat down when other people commanded him to. He ate what he was given, and only at their pleasure. In time perhaps he would wear only their clothes. He would look like any other convict. Would the time come when he would feel like that-seem like that, to others?

His father would never abandon him, no matter how bitterly disappointed he might be.

The thought of his disappointment was so painful it tightened around Rathbone’s heart like a closing fist. He could hardly draw in his breath.

Monk was talking again. There was a sudden, intense compassion in his face, burning a moment and then vanishing.

“You must get someone to represent you, as soon as possible.”

Rathbone started.

“Don’t even imagine you can speak for yourself,” Monk said sharply. “You can’t do it any more than a surgeon can remove a bullet out of his own back. You must find someone you trust and, more to the point, who trusts you.”

Rathbone was shaken. The second of Monk’s conditions was something he had not even thought of. Who would trust him? Who would be prepared to jeopardize his own career by speaking up for Rathbone, in these circumstances?

“But I don’t even know who to trust because I have no idea who started this prosecution,” he said wearily. “I’m as blind as a bat stumbling about at the bottom of a hole.”

“I’ll do what I can to find out who is behind this,” Monk replied without even the flicker of a smile at the absurdity of the picture evoked. “But I think, then, your father is the man to find you a lawyer. With the respect he’s earned he’ll be able to employ the best person, someone to trust no matter what he thinks of this issue.” He smiled now, with both pity and friendly jest. “And whatever he thinks of you in general.”

Rathbone wished to protest, but he felt too vulnerable to fight.

Monk must have seen the pain in his face. He leaned forward a little across the scarred and stained table. “You’ve fought far too many cases for anyone to be impartial about you, and won too many of them. Don’t drown in self-pity now. You chose what you wanted to do, and you did it extremely well … well enough to have got yourself noticed by the winners, and the losers. It is too late for you to seek solace in anonymity. That door shut a long time ago.”

Rathbone had always known Monk had a ruthless streak, but this was the first time he could remember being at the painful end of it. And yet what use to him was a man who flinched at anything or who would step aside from the truth to save a temporary injury?

He had been robbed of a shield, but it was a worthless one, and perhaps he was stronger for the glimpse of reality.

Then the other thing that Monk had said reached him and he was forced to face it.

“I haven’t told my father yet. I wanted to have some kind of an answer before I did, so I could soften the blow, tell him what was behind it, and …” He stopped. There was no understanding in Monk’s face at all, only disgust.

“Rubbish!” Monk said curtly. “You’re not protecting him, you’re protecting yourself. You’re shutting him out from helping you because you don’t want to face his pain. Sort out your thoughts right now, and then tell him. To keep him out of this would be both cowardly and selfish. He might forgive you for it because he wouldn’t pile his anger on top of what you already have for yourself-but I would damn well be angry! And more to the point to you, so would Hester.”

Rathbone winced. Momentarily he wanted to lash back at Monk, hurt him just as much. But it was more than his own vulnerability that stopped him. He remembered Monk’s fears in the past. He too had spent time in prison, falsely accused, more falsely than Rathbone was now. He knew what it was like to have all judgment against you. He also knew that the only way out was to fight, to gather your wits and your courage and marshal your thoughts.

And yes, Rathbone must tell his father properly, before Henry heard it from someone else.

“I have nothing with which to write a letter,” he said, “and no one to send with it before news of my arrest will be in the newspapers …”

“I’ll tell him for you,” Monk replied. “But it might be better if I ask Hester to. She always got along well with Henry. He’ll know that if she’s on your side you’ll survive it, one way or another.”

Before Rathbone could reply the jailer returned and Monk was told that his time was up.

Rathbone was returned to his cell, weary and confused. He had wanted desperately to find some hope before his father found out what had happened. But Monk was right, of course. He would find out soon enough by seeing it in the newspaper, or else some busybody would tell him assuming he already knew, wanting to commiserate with him. The hurt of finding out the details from anyone except Rathbone himself would be the same: the shock, even the humiliation that he had not been told, would add to his father’s grief. Telling Henry would be worse for Rathbone than the arrest, the physical discomfort, and the indignity of this wretched prison, but it must be faced. Hester would share only the bare minimum, he knew. Then Henry would come, and by the time he did, Rathbone must be prepared with courage and a plan.

It was almost three hours later when he was called to the interview room again. Henry Rathbone was standing beside the table, tall and lean, though a little stooped now. His face was calm, completely composed, but the grief was unmistakable in his eyes.

The jailer was by the doorway, watching, his expression unreadable. It could have been respect or contempt, a prurient curiosity, or complete indifference.

Rathbone indicated the chair and Henry sat down in it. Rathbone took the other, with the table between them.

“Fifteen minutes,” the jailer warned, and went outside, clanging the door behind him and turning the key so the falling of the tumblers was audible.

“Hester told me what happened in court, and that you’d been arrested, but not much else,” Henry said immediately. “I assume it was you who gave the photograph of Robertson Drew to Warne?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Henry asked. “Why did you give it to Warne? What did you want him to do with it?”

That was the question Rathbone had known he would ask, and he had tried to prepare an answer.

“Because he was losing the case,” he said. “I meant him to do exactly what he did. Drew and Taft between them destroyed the credibility of every witness against them, even Hester. Taft was going to be acquitted and set free to do exactly the same thing again, vindicated and with an even wider audience to fleece, even more people whose faith he could destroy.”

“An evil man,” Henry agreed. “But were you sure that was the only way to deal with him?”

To anyone else Rathbone might have protested that it was, even that Drew deserved nothing but to be disgraced in front of the many people he had tried so thoroughly to destroy. However, he knew that was not the point now, and Henry would not be sidetracked.

“It was the only way I could think of at the time,” Rathbone replied. “And it was certain. Just raising a slight doubt wouldn’t have achieved anything. He’d been ruthless and the jury believed him.” He looked down at his hands on the table. “If you don’t lie yourself, you don’t have that instinctive feel for other people’s weaknesses. You can’t manipulate people’s faith or gullibility, so you can’t see when other people do it because it just doesn’t occur to you. Most of the parishioners were like that, and most of the jury.” He raised his head again and met Henry’s eyes. “For heaven’s sake,” he said urgently, “we pick our jurors from men of property, men who don’t know what it’s like to be poor, disadvantaged, ill educated, and on the border of survival. It’s supposed to be a jury of your peers, but by definition it isn’t.”

Memory of the trial was sharp in his mind. He could see Drew on the stand and hear his confident, slightly unctuous voice.

“Drew was very persuasive,” he went on. “If I hadn’t seen that photograph I might have believed him myself. And if he hadn’t savaged Hester, I might not even have looked for the photograph.”

Henry smiled very slightly. “And that was the turning point, not the reason?”

Rathbone thought for a moment. It was the turning point because without that there would have been no excuse for Warne to raise the picture in evidence at all. But was it also his reason for taking such a monumental risk with his own career? Would he have done exactly the same had Drew not attacked Hester? Had his mind really been totally focused on delivering justice only within this particular case? He had lain awake and thought hard about it before making his decision, but had he thought clearly? Had he been completely honest? With all the disgust, the outrage, did he even know how to be?

Would he have done it at all if he had been with Margaret still, comfortable and happy? Perhaps not.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I thought so at the time, but now I don’t know anymore. I certainly don’t know how to offer any defense.”

“Of course you don’t,” Henry agreed. “But then you aren’t going to. I have considered whom to approach to represent you, and in my opinion Rufus Brancaster would be best. However, if you have someone you prefer, please let me know and I shall have him come to you.”

Rufus Brancaster. Rathbone tried to place the name and failed. As far as he could think, he had never faced him in court. Certainly in the short time he had been a judge Brancaster had not been before him.

“I don’t know him,” he said tentatively. The decision was his, everything that mattered in his future rested on it, but he did not want to challenge his father, or sound distrustful of his judgment. Heaven help him, his own had been fatally flawed.

“I know,” Henry said with a bleak grimace of humor. “He is from Cambridge …”

Rathbone’s heart sank. He was probably a friend of his father’s, a decent man, elderly, a professor or something of that sort. Either way, a man completely unfit to battle it out in the ruthless courtrooms of London. How could he refuse politely? He looked at his father’s face and saw gentleness in it, and beneath that, the fear.

At that moment, Rathbone would’ve given anything he had to undo his own arrogant stupidity-but it was too late.

He thought about his mother, and what she would think of his betrayal of the family if she were still alive. She had believed in him so intensely as a child, unwaveringly. She had told him he could do anything. She had even sent him away to school, smiling as she hugged him for what she knew would be the last time, and watched him walk away, cheerfully ignorant. She had not clung to him for that extra moment, nor called him back.

What if Henry were doing his best, but Brancaster was useless? How he would blame himself afterward!

“Please ask him to come,” Rathbone said, then instantly wondered how big a mistake that was going to be. “He might not be willing to act for me when he knows more of the case. If he can’t, then I will have to reconsider …”

“I doubt he’ll refuse. He’s a good man and never gives up a fight. But if he does, then I’ll continue to look,” Henry answered. There was a shadow of disappointment in his eyes. “Is there anything I can do for you? Do you wish me to see if Margaret is all right?” It was an awkward question, one put only tentatively.

Rathbone smiled, self-mockingly. “No, thank you. There is no help you can offer her, and I would prefer you didn’t leave yourself open to her comments.”

“Is it finished?” Henry said quietly. There was no way in his face to tell what he felt.

“I think so,” Rathbone admitted. “It was more of a mistake than I had realized before. I’m sorry.” He was sorry, but the failure of his marriage was only a small part of many other larger and more urgent things he had to grieve over now.

The guard returned and told Henry it was time for him to leave.

Henry stood up slowly, swaying for a moment and then catching his balance by putting his hand on the table.

“I’ll come again … soon,” he said a little huskily. “Keep your heart up.” Then without looking back he walked to the door, past the guard, and out. He didn’t say anything about his feelings; he never did. But it was not necessary. Of all the things in the world that Rathbone knew, or thought he knew, he had never doubted his father’s love. What he felt now was the terrible, choking weight of having let him down.

It was another endless, painful day in the prison, before Rathbone heard that his lawyer had come to see him. He had spent the time grateful to be alone in the cell, although jeered at now and then by the inmates close enough to see through the bars of both their cells and his. He would be no match for them physically. Even the puniest of them would be wiry and quick on his feet, used to fighting for anything he could get. Rathbone had no weapon but his wits.

He had gone over and over what he needed to say in this meeting. Regardless of Monk’s warning to not attempt to defend himself, he had still imagined what course Brancaster would take. But each time he did, he felt only more despair-the facts were undeniable, and he was too easy a target. They would make an example out of him, he was certain, no matter what argument Brancaster made.

He had dreaded the guard coming to escort him to the meeting, which was ridiculous because it would be far worse for him if Brancaster did not arrive. Was the man really the fighter that Henry believed him to be? Even if he was … not even the best could win without weapons, ammunition.

He did not want to hurt his father. He must accept Brancaster, however futile the battle seemed. He must be courteous, helpful, appear to have trust in him.

The guard marched him along the corridor to the same small, stone-floored cell, and Rathbone found himself face-to-face with a very dark gentleman, no more than forty at the most. He was about Rathbone’s height but perhaps a little broader in the shoulder. His features were strong. He was handsome in a mercurial sort of way, and there was a sense of confidence in him almost as if he imagined himself invulnerable.

As soon as the door was closed and locked Brancaster inclined his head in acknowledgment, then indicated the chair for Rathbone.

“We have a reasonable amount of time,” he began without preamble, “but there is a great deal to sort through. I imagine you would prefer to discuss the details of the case before deciding whether you wish to retain my services beyond today. I have offered to take your case as a favor to your father, for whom I have the deepest respect-should you agree, of course. When we have discussed the situation, I shall tell you what I believe we may reasonably hope for.”

Rathbone found his manner blunt, almost brutal. He would not have spoken to a client that way. But then he had never defended another lawyer, one with more experience and a greater reputation than his own. He looked steadily into Brancaster’s slightly hooded, unblinking eyes and had absolutely no idea what he was thinking.

“Agreed,” he said simply, not trusting his voice to remain steady for much more.

Brancaster sat back and studied him carefully. His face was unsmiling; yet there was nothing hostile in attitude.

“You are charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice,” he said after a moment or two. “But they are actually blaming you indirectly for Taft’s murder of his family and then his own suicide. And you can be certain the prosecution will make sure the court hears all the details. They will most likely have read it in the newspapers, and he will remind them at every opportunity. People hear what they want to hear. But I imagine you know that!”

“Of course I do,” Rathbone rejoined. “But it was Drew in the photograph, not Taft. I don’t see how the connection between Drew’s behavior and Taft’s death can be so close-knit that I can be blamed, in a way that will hold up in court, anyway.”

Brancaster raised his eyebrows.

“Was Taft in any of the other photographs? There are more, aren’t there?”

“Yes, there are. I haven’t counted them,” Rathbone answered, “but there are at least fifty. I don’t remember Taft in any of them, so I assume not, but I could be wrong.”

“He’s an arrogant man,” Brancaster smiled drily. His eyes were fixed directly on Rathbone’s; even so it was a second or two before Rathbone saw the flicker of irony in them, not even enough to be called amusement.

Rathbone felt it keenly. If ever a man could be accused of arrogance, it was himself.

“We may be able to win the legal argument, then,” Brancaster went on, “or maybe not, depending on if they amend the charge before we get to court. This, as it stands, is enough to hold you, and for now that is all they need. But we must also win the moral argument. I’ve looked into the case against Taft. From what I read, until the moment Warne produced the picture, Taft was definitely winning. He was a very plausible liar, and Drew even more so. You should have recused yourself. The picture changed the course of justice, whether it perverted it or not. I assume Gavinton was so taken aback that he had not even considered demanding that you prove the authenticity of it?”

Rathbone was beginning to regain a little of his composure. Brancaster was nothing like the dry and rather otherworldly academic he had been expecting. He owed his father an apology for his lack of faith in him. And for a little while it was good to engage his brain in his familiar profession. It was a brief escape back into his own world.

“I doubt Gavinton wanted the jury’s mind on the thing any longer than necessary,” he said drily. “And he certainly wouldn’t want them to have to look at it.”

Brancaster smiled for the first time. “I’m sure. Did you think of that at the time?”

“No. I gave it to Warne and let him do with it as he thought right, under legal privilege, of course. I actually began to think he wasn’t going to use it at all. Which makes me wonder-who brought the prosecution against me? Why me and not Warne? He is really the one who used the picture, in the end.”

“A lot of interesting questions, Sir Oliver,” Brancaster agreed. “How did anyone know it was you who gave it to Warne? Who else did you tell?”

“No one but Warne himself,” he replied. “And if he thought it was wrong enough to turn me in, why did he use it?”

“As I said, a lot of questions,” Brancaster repeated. “What did you tell Warne about where you got the pictures in the first place?”

“The truth!”

“Which is?”

Rathbone felt his throat tighten and a certain sense of shame fill him with unwelcome heat. “They were bequeathed to me by my father-in-law.” He saw Brancaster’s amazement flash before he masked it, but he did not interrupt.

“He had used them for blackmail,” Rathbone went on. He heard his own voice as if it belonged to someone else. “I tried, unsuccessfully, to defend him on a charge of murder. He was to be hanged, from which I could not save him. He threatened to use the photographs to bring down half the establishment if I did not mount an appeal …” He found himself breathless, his chest tight.

“How did you prevent him from doing that?” Brancaster asked. “I think I prefer not to know, but I have to ask. This case appears to have some uglier possibilities than I had assumed.” It was a thundering understatement, and Rathbone was as aware of that as Brancaster.

“I didn’t,” Rathbone answered, wondering if Brancaster would believe him-indeed, if anybody would. “He told me the photographs were safe. That they would be in the hands of someone else who could use them. Then he was murdered.”

“In prison?” There was a raw edge of incredulity to Brancaster’s voice.

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“They never found out.”

“And the pictures … who had them?”

“His lawyer, I assume. That’s who delivered them to me.”

Brancaster took a deep breath. “Who else knows this? And please be careful to give me an honest answer. Believe me, you can’t afford to protect anyone else at this point.”

“I don’t know who else Ballinger told. I told Monk, and Hester Monk, and recently my father.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

“I said don’t lie to me, Sir Oliver,” Brancaster’s eyes were hard, his voice grating. “I should have included ‘don’t lie by omission.’ And, don’t be naïve. Did you not mention such an extraordinary event to your wife? She was Ballinger’s daughter, after all.”

Rathbone noticed the curious use of the past tense, as if Margaret were dead. As far as love was concerned, or loyalty, perhaps she was. That still hurt. Why? Why did he allow it to? He did not know her now.

“She never believed her father guilty.” Rathbone said quietly. “I could not shatter what was left of her faith in him by telling her more than she needed to know. And I would not have shown them to her anyway. And without the physical evidence, I know she could have gone on disbelieving me, even if I had told her the truth.”

“But you did not feel such a need to protect Mrs. Monk?” Brancaster questioned.

For the first time Rathbone laughed, a hard, jerky sound torn out of him. “Hester saw the live victims,” he said witheringly. “She would hardly be thrown into a fit of the vapors by photographs. She was an army nurse. She has seen men blown to bits on the battlefield and gone in to help those who were left alive. For any man I know to protect her from the truth is a laughable idea. Perhaps that’s why Warne chose her to identify Drew in court.”

“That was rather well done,” Brancaster remarked with respect in his voice. “I shall be very sorry if I find it was he who brought you to the attention of the authorities. Have you any connections with Drew or Taft that I should know about?”

Rathbone tried to think of anything. He realized how much he was impressed with Brancaster. It would be a very hard blow indeed if Brancaster declined to take the case.

“Only that Hester-Mrs. Monk-decided to investigate Taft, and it was her inquiries, employing her bookkeeper from the Portpool Lane clinic, that uncovered the main details of Taft’s fraud. But I didn’t know anything of that at the time.”

“And your acquaintance with Mrs. Monk?” Brancaster asked. He did not need to explain his precise meaning; it was perfectly clear from his expression.

“Friends,” Rathbone replied, not avoiding his eyes. “At one time I was in love with her. I decided she was not the right sort of wife for me, and she was in love with Monk, whom she married not long after that. We have remained friends.”

Brancaster waited for him to add more, perhaps to justify himself, to insist that there was nothing inappropriate in the relationship. Rathbone knew that to do so would be a mistake. Explaining, protesting too much always was. He knew that from his own experience in questioning witnesses.

Brancaster relaxed with a smile. It lit his face and made him look quite different: younger and more vulnerable.

“I cannot promise victory, Sir Oliver, but I can promise an exceedingly good fight.” He stood up. “I don’t have anything more to ask you at the moment, but I expect I will soon think of things.” He walked the short distance to the door and called for the guard. He straightened his suit jacket, and, with the very slight inclining of his head, he went out as the door opened. He did not ask if Rathbone wished to keep his services or not. That was a degree of hubris not unlike his own, Rathbone thought. Perhaps Brancaster was exactly the lawyer he needed.

As he walked back to his cell with the guard at his side, he thought how short a time ago it was that he had sat at Ingram York’s dinner table in his magnificent house and celebrated his own handling of another, infinitely different case of fraud.

He had looked at Beata York and thought how beautiful she was, not the superficial loveliness of regular features or delicate coloring, but the deep, inner beauty of humor, gentleness, vulnerability, and the power to understand and forgive.

He was sure she would not understand or forgive this if she could see him now!