Death Of A Stranger

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The arrangement with Squeaky Robinson, at least so far, was working very well. It had been a major undertaking to move all the beds, other furniture, and medicines and equipment from Coldbath Square to Portpool Lane, but the women who were now released from debt were mostly overjoyed to find a way of earning their living which was completely admirable and required of them no lies or evasions. Nor was there fear of being dismissed for not meeting with the moral standards of some mistress because of a past which must be hidden.

Squeaky complained bitterly, but Hester believed that at least part of it was because he thought it was expected of him. His most urgent concern was gone, and he was immensely relieved, even if he refused to admit it.

She had had great satisfaction in telling Jessop that he would no longer be troubled by the questionable tenants in his Coldbath house, since they had found alternative premises, which were larger, and at better rental-in fact, at no rental at all-and would be leaving as soon as was possible, a day or two at the most.

He had looked nonplussed. “It was an agreement, Mrs. Monk!” he protested. “You still owe a month’s notice, you know.”

“No, I don’t,” she had said flatly. “You threatened to evict us, and I believed you. I have found another place, as you said I should.”

He had blustered, and refused to pay back the rent for the week paid for but apparently not to be used.

She had smiled at him, perhaps not as sweetly as she had meant to, and told him it did not matter in the slightest, which confused him. That in turn had made him angry. By the time the exchange was completed they had gathered quite an audience, all very plainly on Hester’s side.

Jessop had left enraged, but knowing better than to make any threats. It was not a neighborhood in which to incur enemies who might have more power than you did yourself, and Jessop knew his limitations. Whoever had given Hester and Margaret premises, at no charge, must have a good deal of money to waste, and money was power.

They watched him go with immeasurable satisfaction, Bessie chortling with joy.

She also assured both Hester and Margaret that she could manage very well without them during the daytime once the trial of Michael Dalgarno began. Should there be an emergency she would send one of the local urchins for Mr. Lockhart, and then if that was still not enough, for one of them as well. However, since there was still little business going on, and the people of the streets were generally allied together against circumstances, at least as long as this crisis lasted, there was greater peace than usual among them.

Constable Hart also promised to give discreet assistance, if such were needed. Hester thanked him profusely, to his embarrassment, and gave him a jar of black currant jam, which he accepted, taking it with both hands. Even Bessie decided that perhaps he was an exception to the general rules about police.

So when the trial opened, Margaret, Hester and Monk were all sitting in the public gallery. Dalgarno was white-faced in the dock, Jarvis Baltimore fidgeting unhappily a few rows in front of them, Livia silent and wretched beside him, as Mr. Talbot Fowler began the case for the prosecution.

He was extremely efficient. He called witness after witness to show that Dalgarno was talented, ambitious, gifted with figures, and that he was undoubtedly the one who had accomplished most of the land negotiations for Baltimore and Sons with regard to the London-to-Derby railway.

On the second day he demonstrated that Dalgarno had paid court to Katrina Harcus, albeit not as openly as he might have done. They had been seen together quite often enough to substantiate her belief in his affection for her. Indeed, two of the witnesses had expected them to announce an engagement within the month.

Margaret sat beside Hester, leaning forward a little. Several times she seemed to be on the edge of speech, and Hester knew she was wondering why Rathbone did not cross-examine the witnesses, at least to appear to offer some kind of a defense. It was only her care for Rathbone which prevented her each time from putting her anxiety into whispered words. It would seem like a criticism.

On the other side of Hester, Monk was sitting equally tense, his shoulders high and stiff, his eyes strained forward. He must be thinking the same thing, but for entirely different reasons. If Rathbone failed, for him it was far more than disappointment in someone with whom he was falling in love; it would almost certainly mean changing places with the man in the dock.

And yet as Fowler paraded one witness after another, Rathbone said and did nothing.

“For God’s sake!” Monk said desperately that evening as he paced his sitting room floor. “He can’t be going to let it go by default. He’s got to do more than just hope they can’t prove it. Does he want to get accused of an incompetent defense?” He was ashen-faced, his eyes hollow. “He’s not doing that to save me, is he?”

“No, of course not,” Hester said instantly, standing in front of him.

“Not for me,” Monk said with painful humor. “For you.”

She caught his arm. “He’s not still in love with me.”

“The more fool he!” he retorted.

“He’s in love with Margaret,” she explained. “At least he soon will be.”

He drew in his breath, staring at her. “I didn’t know that!”

A flash of impatience crossed her face and disappeared. “You wouldn’t,” she replied. “I don’t know what he’s going to do, William, but he’ll do something-for honor, pride, all kinds of things. He won’t let it go without a fight.”

But Rathbone was unavailable all weekend. When Hester went to fetch fresh milk on Saturday morning, Monk snatched a few moments alone to look again at Katrina’s diary. He hated doing it, but he was desperate enough to grasp after any clue at all.

But he still could understand only fragments of it. It was cryptic, scattered words as if simply to remind herself of emotions; the people who inspired them were so woven into her life she needed nothing more to bring them back to her. Nothing made a chain of sense.

He struggled with his own memory. There was something just beyond his grasp, something that defined it all, but the shadows blurred and the harder he looked the more rapidly it dissolved into chaos, leaving him dependent on the slow, minute process of the law.

On Monday morning, when the trial resumed for the third day, it looked as if letting go without a fight was exactly what Rathbone was going to do.

Monk, Hester and Margaret all sat in an agony of impatience as Fowler brought on the police witnesses, first the constable called to the scene who found the body, then Runcorn, who described his own part in the proceedings.

At last Rathbone accepted the invitation, now offered somewhat sarcastically, to cross-examine the witness.

“Good gracious!” Fowler said in amazement, playing to the jury, who until now had had nothing to consider but uncontested evidence.

“Superintendent Runcorn,” Rathbone began courteously. “You described your conduct in excellent detail. You appear to have overlooked nothing.”

Runcorn eyed him with suspicion. He was far too experienced at giving evidence to imagine a compliment was merely that. “Thank you, sir,” he said flatly.

“And presumably you tried to find evidence proving that this cloak found on the roof from which Miss Harcus fell belonged to Mr. Dalgarno?”

“Naturally,” Runcorn conceded.

“And did you succeed?” Rathbone enquired.

“No, sir.”

“Mr. Dalgarno doesn’t have a cloak?”

“Yes, sir, but it’s not that one.”

“Has he two, then?”

“Not that we can trace, sir. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t his,” Runcorn said defensively.

“Of course not. He purchased this one secretly in order to leave it on the rooftop after he had thrown Miss Harcus off it to her death.”

There was a nervous titter around the room. Several jurors looked confused. Jarvis Baltimore reached across and slid his hand over Livia’s.

“If you say so, sir,” Runcorn replied blandly.

“No, no, I do not say so!” Rathbone retorted. “You say so! I say it belonged to someone else… who was on the roof and was responsible for Miss Harcus’s death… someone you never thought of trying to trace.”

“No one else had reason,” Runcorn said calmly.

“That you know of!” Rathbone challenged him. “I will presently show you a completely different interpretation of circumstances, Superintendent, one beyond your wildest ideas… which you would never seek to prove because it is extraordinary beyond anything else I have ever heard, and no man could be expected to think of it. Thank you. That is all.”

Monk swiveled to look at Hester, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I’ve no idea.”

The jurors were staring at each other. There was a buzz of speculation in the body of the court.

“Grandstanding!” Fowler said audibly, disgust heavy in his voice.

Rathbone smiled to himself, but Hester had a hideous fear that he was doing exactly that, and that Fowler was not blustering, but knew it.

Margaret sat with her knuckles white, leaning forward a little.

Fowler called his next witness-the police surgeon, of whom Rathbone asked nothing-and then began on the neighbors who had seen or heard something that evening.

Rathbone glanced at his watch now and then.

“What is he waiting for?” Monk hissed.

“I don’t know!” Hester said more sharply than she had intended. What could Rathbone hope for? What other solution was there? He had not shaken any of the testimony at all, let alone suggested the alternative he had spoken of so dramatically.

They adjourned for the day and people trooped out into the halls and corridors. Hester overheard more than one say that they would not bother to return.

“I don’t know why a man like Rathbone would take such a case,” one man said disgustedly as he began down the broad steps into the street. “There’s nothing in it for him but defeat, and he knows it.”

“He can’t be doing as well as we thought,” his companion replied.

“He knows his client’s guilty!” The first man pursed his lips. “Still, I’d have thought he’d try, for the look of it.”

Hester was so angry she started forward, but stopped as she felt the pressure of Monk’s hand on her arm. She swung around to face him.

“What were you going to say?” he asked.

She drew breath to reply, and realized she had nothing prepared that made sense. She saw Margaret’s misery and growing confusion. “He’ll fight!” she assured her, because she knew how badly Margaret wanted to believe it.

Margaret made an attempt at a smile, but excused herself to find a hansom home before facing the evening in Coldbath Square.

Hester began the fourth day of the trial with a sinking heart. She had lain awake in the night wondering whether to go to Rathbone’s house and demand to see him, but realized there was nothing she could learn that would help, and certainly she had nothing to offer him. She had no idea who could have killed Katrina Harcus, or why. She knew it was not Monk, and was less and less certain that it was Dalgarno, although she could not like the man. Looking at him through the days so far she had seen fear in his face, in the hunched angle of his shoulders, the tight lips and pallor of his skin, but she had not seen pity for the dead woman. Nor had she seen any concern for Livia Baltimore, who was growing more miserable with each new piece of testimony that showed how callously he had treated a young woman who had believed he loved her, and whom, all evidence showed, deeply loved him.

In court in the morning she looked at Livia. Her skin was pale and puffy around the eyes, her body rigid, and Hester knew she was still clinging to hope. But even if Rathbone could somehow perform a miracle and gain an acquittal of murder for Dalgarno, was there anything on earth he could do to show him innocent of duplicity and opportunism?

Fowler concluded for the prosecution.

Hester slipped her hand over Monk’s briefly. It was easier than trying to find words when she had no idea what to say.

Rathbone rose to begin the defense. The public gallery was almost half empty. He called the surveyor again.

Fowler complained that he was wasting the court’s time. The surveyor had already testified in great detail. The subject had been more than exhausted.

“My lord,” Rathbone said patiently, “my learned friend knows as well as the rest of us that I was able only to cross-examine him on the subjects already spoken of in direct examination.”

“Can there possibly be any other subjects left?” Fowler asked to a ripple of laughter from the crowd. “We already know far more about the building of railways than we need to, or I imagine than we wish to.”

“Possibly than we wish to, my lord.” Rathbone smiled very slightly. “Not than we need to. We have still reached no unarguable conclusion.”

“You are lawyers,” the judge said dryly. “You can argue any conclusion on earth! However, proceed, Sir Oliver, but do not waste our time. If you appear to be talking for the sake of it I shall sustain Mr. Fowler’s objection-indeed, I shall object myself.”

Rathbone bowed with a smile. “I shall endeavor not to be tedious or irrelevant, my lord,” he promised.

The judge looked skeptical.

Rathbone faced the surveyor when he had been duly reminded of his previous oath and had restated his professional qualifications. “Mr. Whitney,” he began, “you have already told us that you surveyed both the originally intended route for the railway of Baltimore and Sons from London to Derby and the route now taken. Is there a significant difference in cost between the two?”

“No, sir, not significant,” Whitney replied.

“What do you consider significant?” Rathbone asked.

Whitney thought for a moment. “Above a few hundred pounds,” he replied at length. “Hardly as much as a thousand.”

“A lot of money,” Rathbone observed. “Sufficient to buy several houses for an ordinary family.”

Fowler rose to his feet.

The judge waved him down again and looked at Rathbone. “If you are intending to reach any conclusion, Sir Oliver, you have diverted further than the railway in question. You would be better occupied justifying your own circuitous journey.”

There was a titter from the crowd. This, at least, was mildly entertaining. They were happy to see Rathbone baited; he was better game than the accused, who had long since lost any sympathy they might have felt for him.

Rathbone took a deep breath and steadied his temper. He acknowledged the judge’s remark and turned again to the witness stand. “Mr. Whitney, would it be technically possible to commit a far greater fraud than the one suggested here, one worth several thousands of pounds, by this same means of diverting a proposed route?”

Whitney looked startled. “Yes, of course it would. This was only a slightly greater length, a few hundred yards. One could do far more to make money.”

“For example?” Rathbone asked.

Whitney shrugged. “Buy land oneself, prior to the rerouting, and then sell it back at an inflated price,” he answered. “Many things, with enough imagination and the right contacts. Choose a stretch where a lot of construction was necessary, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, even long cuttings, and take a percentage on materials-the possibilities are numerous.”

“My lord!” Fowler said loudly. “My learned friend is simply showing that the accused is incompetent even at fraud. That is not an excuse.”

There was open laughter in the room. No one pretended not to be amused.

When it had died down Rathbone turned to him. “I am attempting to prove that he is innocent of murder,” he said politely, but with an underlying anger. “Why is it that you seem unwilling to allow me to do that?”

“It is circumstances that are preventing you, not I,” Fowler returned to another rustle of laughter.

“Your circumstances!” Rathbone snapped. “Mine not only allow me to, they oblige me to.”

“Mr. Fowler!” the judge said very clearly. “Sir Oliver has a point. Unless you have some objection of substance in law, will you cease from interrupting him, or we are likely to be here indefinitely!”

“Thank you, my lord,” Rathbone said ironically. Hester believed that he was, in fact, spinning out time, but she had no idea what for. What, or whom, was he expecting? She felt the first sudden shiver of hope.

Rathbone looked up at Whitney. “You have given us examples of other ways in which a more efficient fraud could be perpetuated. Have you knowledge of any such fraud-I mean a specific circumstance?”

Whitney looked slightly puzzled.

“For example,” Rathbone assisted him, “in Liverpool almost sixteen years ago? The company involved was Baltimore and Sons. There was a falsification of a survey, the grid references were changed…”

Fowler stood up again.

“Sit down, Mr. Fowler!” the judge commanded. He looked at Rathbone sternly. “I presume you have facts, Sir Oliver? Be careful you do not slander anyone.”

“It is a matter of record, my lord,” Rathbone assured him. “A man named Arrol Dundas was convicted of the crime, and unfortunately died in prison of jail fever. But the details of the crime were made public at the trial.”

“I see. The relevance to this present case may easily be guessed, nevertheless we require you to prove it.”

“Yes, my lord. I shall prove that records of it were kept by Baltimore and Sons, therefore it was known to senior members of the present company, even though they were not involved-in fact, not even out of school-at the time.”

“Very interesting. Be sure that it is also relevant to Mr. Dalgarno’s innocence.”

“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone drew out a few more details from Whitney, then excused him. Fowler looked as if he were considering asking him something, then declined, and Whitney left the stand.

Hester looked at Monk, but it was obvious from his tense, white face and the confusion in his eyes that he did not know what Rathbone was planning any more than she did. He was frowning, and staring at the court clerk, busily taking notes, his right hand bandaged. Fortunately, he wrote with his left.

Rathbone then called a junior clerk from Baltimore and Sons and drew from him the statement that the records of the earlier dealings were available-not easily, but a diligent search by a company member would elicit them all.

“And was the case public knowledge?” Rathbone said finally.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Fowler tried to show that it was an abstruse piece of information, never discussed and unlikely to come to the attention of Dalgarno.

“I couldn’t say, sir,” the clerk replied soberly. “I would think such things would be known, sir, even if only as an object lesson in what not to do.”

Fowler retreated. “I still say, my lord, that incompetence does not equal innocence!” he said tartly. “The Crown does not say that the accused committed fraud well, merely that he did it!”

Rathbone opened his eyes very wide. “If the Crown wishes, my lord, I can call a number of witnesses to demonstrate that Mr. Dalgarno was an ambitious and extremely able young man, that he rose from a relatively minor position to become one of the partners-”

The judge held up his hand. “You have already done so, Sir Oliver. We take the point that the nature of the fraud with which he is charged is far less efficient than the earlier example for which Mr. Dundas was found guilty. The only thing relevant to this case appears to be the fact that the earlier case may well have been known to Mr. Dalgarno, and one wonders why he did not emulate it, if fraud was his intention. So far you have not completed your task. Please be succinct!”

“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone recalled the foreman of the team of navvies who had worked on the Derby line, and drew from him greater and more tedious detail of the cutting and blasting necessary to drive a track through a hillside, coupled with the labor and cost of building a viaduct. He could equally easily have asked Jarvis Baltimore, but the navvy was not only more skilled in detail, he was demonstrably impartial.

The court did not bother to hide its total lack of interest.

They adjourned for luncheon. Monk told Hester to go with Margaret and he would join them later. Unwillingly, she obeyed, and he strode forward, shouldering his way through the crowd moving in the opposite direction until he was standing in front of the court clerk.

“Excuse me,” he said, trying not to be abrupt, and yet his voice was sharp.

The man made an effort to be civil. He was still trying to catch up with his notes. His writing was cramped, awkward, and with an odd, backward slope. Monk felt a strange dizziness in his mind as if there was something familiar about it. Could his idea be right?

“Yes, sir?” the clerk said patiently.

“What did you do to your hand?” Monk asked him.

“I burned it, sir.” The clerk blushed very slightly. “On the cooking stove.”

“You were writing with your other hand yesterday, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Fortunately, I can write with either hand. Not so neatly, but it’ll do.”

“Thank you,” Monk said with a surge of understanding like a blaze of sunlight. He could picture exactly the odd characteristic capitalG ’s andE ’s in Katrina’s diary, and sloping back, but still the same, in Emma’s. And suddenly the inscription in the recipe book-Eveline Mary M. Austin-EMMA! She had loved Katrina, and Katrina had kept her alive in her imagination by writing to her, and even from her, using her left hand.

It was a painful and eccentric thing to do, and even with the explanation, it troubled him.

At the beginning of the afternoon there were even fewer people in the public seats.

“I call Miss Livia Baltimore,” Rathbone said to an immediate hiss of speculation and distaste. Livia herself looked startled, as if she were unprepared, but there was interest again from the crowd. Several jury members straightened in their seats as she made her way across the floor of the court and climbed the steps to the stand, pulling herself a little on the handrail as if she needed its support.

“I apologize for putting you through this ordeal, Miss Baltimore,” Rathbone said gently. “Were it avoidable I would not do so, but a man’s life hangs in the balance.”

“I know,” she said so quietly it was barely audible. The slight rustle of movement in the body of the court ceased, as if everyone were straining not to miss a word. “I will do anything I can to help you prove that Mr. Dalgarno did not do this terrible thing.”

“And your testimony will assist me greatly,” he assured her. “If you tell the exact truth as you know it, absolutely exact! Please trust me in this, Miss Baltimore.”

“I do,” she whispered.

The judge asked her to speak more loudly, and she repeated it: “I do!”

Rathbone smiled. “I imagine you have a natural sympathy for Miss Harcus. She was young, like yourself, not more than four or five years older, and very much in love with a charming and dynamic man. You must know how she felt, her whole future before her, full of promise.”

She swallowed convulsively, and nodded.

“I am sorry, but we need you to speak,” Rathbone said apologetically.

“Yes, I do,” she said huskily. “I can imagine it very well.”

“Have you ever been in love, Miss Baltimore, even if it had not yet reached more than a matter of understanding between you?”

Fowler was on his feet. “My lord, that is completely irrelevant to the issue of this court, and it is grossly intrusive! Miss Baltimore’s personal feelings have no place here and should be respected by-”

The judge flapped his hand at him impatiently. “Yes, yes, Mr. Fowler. Sir Oliver, your point? Or you may continue no further on this rambling excursion of yours.”

“My lord.” Rathbone looked up at Livia. “Miss Baltimore, has Mr. Dalgarno paid court to you? Please do not be modest or discreet to the detriment of the truth. Trust me. And do not oblige me to ask other witnesses to refute any denial made in the effort to protect your reputation. There is nothing to be ashamed of in someone’s paying court to you, even professing love and asking you for your hand in marriage.”

Her face was scarlet, but she looked directly at Rathbone. “Yes. Mr. Dalgarno has done me the honor of asking me to marry him. We are simply not in a position to make the matter public so soon after my father’s death. It would be insensitive… and… wrong.”

There was a gasp of breath around the court. Now, at last, Rathbone had their attention. The judge’s eyes opened very wide, and he shook his head slowly from side to side, not in denial but in surprise.

Fowler rose to his feet, and then before anyone directed him, sat down again.

“Just so,” Rathbone said when the noise permitted him. “Not to mention the death of his previous fiancée, who heard of his change of heart only weeks earlier, but still kept her own passionate feelings toward him. I assume, Miss Baltimore, that although she must have been made aware of you, you were not aware of her?”

Hester looked across at Dalgarno and saw the tight, desperate look in his face. He had to see the jurors’ increasing contempt for him. In law, to have deceived and discarded a woman, unless there were a promise, was not an offense. But he also knew that logic does not always override emotion. He shot a look of pure loathing at Rathbone, which had he seen it, should have scorched his tongue into silence.

Livia looked as if Rathbone had struck her. The blush faded from her face, leaving her ash pale, struggling to catch her breath. “Michael wouldn’t kill her!” she gasped. “He wouldn’t!” But it sounded more like a plea than an assurance.

“No, Miss Baltimore,” Rathbone agreed loudly and very clearly. “Of course he wouldn’t. He had no cause to wish her harm, merely to desire that she leave him alone to pursue a more fitting bride. Did you ever see her in your home after the time Mr. Dalgarno began to court you?”

She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears.

“No,” Rathbone repeated for her. “Or in any public place, seeking to embarrass or pursue Mr. Dalgarno?”

“No,” she whispered.

“In fact, you were unaware of her interest in him at all?”

“Yes… I was.”

“Thank you, Miss Baltimore. That is all I have to ask you.”

Fowler shook his head. “This is irrelevant, my lord. We are chasing ghosts. All my learned friend has demonstrated is Dalgarno’s abandonment of his commitment to a relatively poor woman when a richer one gave him hope that he might woo her successfully.”

“No, my lord,” Rathbone contradicted him. “I am showing the court that Miss Harcus had every reason to feel desperately betrayed by a man she loved, and whom she had sincerely believed loved her. That, with other facts I shall also bring witnesses and documents to prove, will explain what happened on the night of her death, and why. And it will show that Mr. Dalgarno had no intentional hand in it. He is guilty of no more than abusing a woman’s love, which I regret to say is something many men have done and walked away from. It is regarded by most of us as contemptible, but not as criminal.”

“Then do so, Sir Oliver,” the judge instructed. “You have still some way to go.”

“Yes, my lord,” Rathbone said obediently.

He was bluffing, Hester knew it with certainty. A coldness gripped her.

“A witness, if you please, Sir Oliver,” the judge said plaintively. “Let us proceed. We still have at least an hour before we may reasonably adjourn.”

“Yes, my lord. I call Mr. Wilbur Garstang.”

“We have already heard from Mr. Garstang… at some length!” Fowler protested.

“We have already heard from everybody at some length, yourself included,” the judge retorted. “Please keep your interruptions to the minimum, Mr. Fowler. Sir Oliver, is there really anything Mr. Garstang can do beyond fill the time?”

“Yes, my lord, I believe so,” Rathbone answered, although there was surely more truth in the judge’s comment than he could afford to admit.

“Call Wilbur Garstang,” the judge said wearily.

Mr. Garstang climbed the steps and was advised by the judge that he was still under oath. He was a precise little man with a carping attitude and an inclination to pick fault.

“I have already told you what I observed,” he said to Rathbone, looking down at him over the top of his gold-rimmed eyeglasses.

“Indeed,” Rathbone agreed. “But I wish to reestablish it in the minds of the jury, with rather a different emphasis. You are an exact and acute observer, Mr. Garstang, that is why I chose you to speak yet again. I apologize for the inconvenience no doubt it causes you.”

Garstang grunted, but a look of satisfaction smoothed out his features a little. He did not consider himself susceptible to flattery, in which he was profoundly mistaken.

“I shall do my best,” Garstang said, straightening his lapels a trifle and assuming an expression of readiness.

Rathbone hid a smile, but he was tense. Even his movements lacked their usual grace. “Thank you. Mr. Garstang, you were at your window on the night of Miss Harcus’s death. Would you please remind us of the reason for this?”

“Certainly.” Garstang nodded. “My sitting room is opposite her rooms, and very slightly below, the stories of the house in which my apartment is situated being a foot or two less in height. I heard a noise, as if someone were crying out. In case that were so, and they were in need of assistance, I went to the window and drew the curtains so that I might see.”

“Just so,” Rathbone cut across him. “Now, would you tell us exactly what you did see, as precisely as if you were painting a picture? Please do not tell us what you believed or have since heard that it was. I realize that this is difficult, and takes a very exact and literal mind.”

“Oh… really…” Fowler groaned.

Garstang shot a look of acute dislike at him. He felt insulted, cut short and dismissed before he had even begun.

“Please, Mr. Garstang,” Rathbone encouraged. “It is of the utmost importance. Indeed, someone’s life is at stake.”

Garstang assumed an attitude of intense concentration and held it until the court was silent, then he cleared his throat and began.

“I saw a dark shape on the balcony opposite. It seemed to heave and change outline violently, and to move from the open doorway across towards the edge. It surged back and forth for several moments, I cannot tell how long because I was horrified by the prospect of the tragedy about to happen.”

“Why was that?” Rathbone said.

“You asked me to be literal,” Garstang said crossly. “I described to you exactly what I saw, but it was perfectly obvious to me that it was two people struggling with each other, one intent upon hurling the other off the balcony onto the stones beneath.”

“But you did not see two separate figures?” Rathbone asked.

“I did not. They were locked in mortal combat.” Garstang’s voice was schoolmasterly, as to a particularly stupid child. “If he had even once let go of her she might have escaped him, and we should not be here to see justice done after the event.”

“Let us remember that we are here to see justice done,” Rathbone reminded him. “Not to exercise our personal feelings. You have described what you saw very precisely so far, Mr. Garstang. Did you see a figure go off the balcony and actually fall?”

“Yes, of course I did. That is when I left the window and ran out of the room and down the steps to see if I could help the poor woman, or on the other hand apprehend her murderer,” Garstang replied.

Rathbone held up his hand. “Just a moment, Mr. Garstang. I am afraid I need you to be more precise than that. I apologize for what must be distressing to any decent person. I assure you I would not do it were there any other way.”

Fowler stood up. “My lord, this witness has already told us in overlong detail what he saw. My learned friend is flattering-”

“I am not flattering the witness at all, my lord!” Rathbone cut across. “Mr. Garstang may be the only man who observed exactly what happened and is capable of telling us not what he has since concluded but what actually was.”

“If you do not have a point, Sir Oliver, I shall not indulge you again!” the judge warned. “Proceed, but be brief.”

The relief in Rathbone was visible even from where Hester sat, but she had no idea why. She could see nothing whatever changed. She glanced at Monk, and saw equal confusion in his face.

Rathbone looked up at Garstang. “Mr. Garstang, you saw her go off the balcony. You are sure it was she who went off?”

There was a moment of silent incredulity, then a rush of sound, a babble, disgust, laughter, anger.

Garstang stared at him, disbelief giving way to a slow, terrible memory.

The noise in the room subsided. Even Fowler sank back into his seat.

Monk craned forward.

Hester sat with her hands clenched.

“I saw her face…” Garstang said hoarsely. “I saw her face as she fell… white… she was…” He shuddered violently. “She was between murder… and death.” He put both hands up to his eyes.

“I apologize, Mr. Garstang,” Rathbone said gently and with sudden sincerity that was like a warmth in the room. He was speaking for an instant only to Garstang, not the court. “But your evidence is the key to the whole, terrible, tragic truth, and we all thank you for your courage of the mind, sir. You have saved a man’s life today.”

Fowler stood up and swiveled around as if looking for something that was not there.

Rathbone turned to him and smiled. “Your witness, Mr. Fowler.”

“For what?” Fowler demanded. “He has said nothing! What on earth does it matter that he saw her face? We all know it was she who fell!” He looked at the judge. “This is preposterous, my lord. Sir Oliver is making a farce out of a tragedy. Whether he is legally in contempt of court or not, morally he is.”

“I am inclined to agree,” the judge said with apparent reluctance. “Sir Oliver, you have certainly caught our attention, but you have proved nothing. I cannot allow you to continue in this manner. We have the public in our courts in order that they may see that justice is done, not as a form of entertainment. I shall not allow you to yield any further to the temptation to become a performer, in spite of your obvious talent in that direction.”

There was a murmur of nervous laughter around the court.

Rathbone bowed as if contrite. “I assure you, my lord, I shall shortly show how the fact that Mr. Garstang saw her face is of the utmost importance.”

“Are you questioning her identity?” the judge said with amazement.

“No, my lord. If I may call my next witness?”

“You may, but this testimony had better be relevant or I shall hold you in contempt, Sir Oliver.”

“It will be, my lord, thank you. I call the Reverend David Rider.”

Hester heard Monk’s gasp of indrawn breath and saw him lurch forward in his seat.

Margaret turned to stare at Hester, and then at Monk, the question in her face. Hester looked at her helplessly.

The court watched in silence as the vicar climbed the steps up to the witness-box, his hands gripping the rail as if to steady his balance. He looked tired, but worn out by emotion rather than any physical effort. His skin was pale and puffy around the eyes, and he looked back at Rathbone as if there was some profound understanding between them of more than grief, some overwhelming burden of knowledge which they shared.

Rider swore to his name, his occupation and his residence on the outskirts of Liverpool.

“Why are you here, Mr. Rider?” Rathbone asked gravely.

Rider spoke very quietly. “I have been wrestling with my conscience ever since Mr. Monk came to see me over a week ago, and I have come to the conclusion that my greater obligation is to tell that part of the truth that I know regarding Katrina Harcus. My duty to the living is too great to deny in order to protect the dead.”

There was a slight rustle of movement in the court, and then total silence.

Hester looked across at Dalgarno, as did several of the jurors, but they saw only complete confusion.

“You knew Katrina Harcus?” Rathbone asked.

“From her birth,” Rider replied.

Fowler shifted in his seat in apparent discomfort, but he did not interrupt.

“Then I presume you also know her mother?” Rathbone said.

“Yes. Pamela Harcus was my parishioner.”

“You say was,” Rathbone observed. “Is she now dead?”

“Yes. She died some three months ago. I… I am glad she did not live to see this.”

“Indeed, Mr. Rider.” Rathbone bowed his head in acknowledgment of the tragedy of it. “Did you also know Katrina Harcus’s father?”

“Not personally, but I knew of him.” Then, without waiting for Rathbone to ask, he added, “His name was Arrol Dundas.”

Monk let out an involuntary cry, and Hester reached out and put her hand on his arm, feeling the muscles hard underneath her touch.

The judge leaned forward. “Is this the same Arrol Dundas who was convicted of railway fraud sixteen years ago, Sir Oliver?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Let me understand you,” the judge continued. “Was she his legitimate daughter or illegitimate?”

Rathbone looked at Rider in the witness-box.

“Illegitimate, my lord,” Rider replied.

“What has that to do with her death?” Fowler demanded. “We all know that illegitimacy is a stigma that ruins lives. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children whether we wish them to be or not, but it is irrelevant to her death, poor creature. It excuses nothing!”

“It is not offered as an excuse,” Rathbone said tartly. He turned back to Rider. “To your knowledge, was Katrina aware of her father’s identity?”

“Most certainly,” Rider replied. “He provided handsomely for both Pamela Harcus and her daughter. He was a wealthy man and not ungenerous. She knew both him and his colleague, who apparently regarded her as if she were his niece.”

“He was a man her father’s age, I presume?” Rathbone said.

“As closely as I could judge,” Rider agreed.

“But in spite of this her father could not legitimize her,” Rathbone went on.

Rider looked even more unhappy. He moved his weight slightly, and his hands, swollen-jointed, gripped the railing of the box. It was obvious that he still struggled with revealing such information, which in his view was private and painful.

Hester looked at Monk, seeing in his face the crumbling of disillusion, the fighting for memory, hunting for any bright shards to redeem the darkness that was closing in. She ached for something to help him, but there was no shelter or balm for the truth.

“He could have,” Rider said so quietly that the silence became even denser as everyone strained to catch his words. “It was perhaps a dishonorable thing to do. His wife was in no way at fault. To leave her in her middle years would be barbarous… a breaking of the covenant he had made in his marriage. But it would not have been impossible. Men do put away their wives. With money, and lies, it can be achieved.”

“But Arrol Dundas did not?”

Rider looked wretched. “He intended to. He was very torn. His wife had no children. Pamela Harcus had given birth to one, and might have had more. But he had a protégé, a young man whom he regarded almost as a son, who in the end persuaded him not to. I daresay it was for Mrs. Dundas’s sake.”

Monk was so white Hester was afraid he was going to faint. He seemed scarcely to be breathing and was oblivious of her fingers gripping his arm. She did not even glance at Margaret.

“Do you know his name?” Rathbone repeated.

“Yes… it was William Monk,” Rider replied.

Monk very slowly put his hands up to his face, hiding it even from Hester. Rathbone did not turn, but he could not have been unaware of the effect the words would have.

“I see,” he said. “And do you know if either Pamela Harcus or Katrina was aware of who stopped their financial comfort, and far more than that, their honor, their legitimacy, their social acceptance?”

“Katrina was only a child, perhaps seven or eight years old,” Rider answered. “But Pamela was aware, that I know for certain. It was she who told me, but I did verify it for myself. I spoke to Dundas.”

“Did you try to change his mind?”

“Of course not. All I said was that he should be certain to make financial arrangement for them in the event of his death. He swore to me that he had already done so.”

“So they were financially supported after he died?”

Rider’s voice dropped until it was almost inaudible. “No sir, they were not.”

“They were not?” Rathbone repeated.

Rider gripped the railings. “No. Arrol Dundas died in prison, for a fraud I personally do not believe he committed, but the proof at the time seemed unarguable.”

“But his will?” Rathbone argued. “Surely that was executed according to his decisions?”

“I imagine so. The provision for Pamela and Katrina must have been a verbal one, perhaps to protect the feelings of his widow. She may have known of them, or she may not, but since a will is a public matter, it would be deeply hurtful for them to be mentioned,” Rider replied. He looked down at his hands. “It was a written note, or so he told me. A personal instruction to his executor.”

“Who was?” Rathbone stared at him, not for an instant turning towards the gallery where Monk sat white-faced and rigid.

“His protégé, William Monk,” Rider said.

“Not the colleague to whom you referred earlier?” Rathbone asked.

“No. He trusted Mr. Monk uniquely.”

“I see. So all the money went to Dundas’s widow?”

“No. Not even she received more than a pittance,” Rider answered him. “Dundas was a rich man at the time of his trial. When he died a few weeks later he had barely enough to provide a small house and an annuity for his widow, and that ceased upon her death.”

There was a low rumble of anger in the room. Several people turned and glared at Monk. There were ugly words, catcalls.

“Silence!” the judge shouted, banging his gavel with a loud crack of wood on wood. “I will not have this unseemly noise in here. You are to listen, not to make judgments. Any more of this and I shall clear the court.”

The sound subsided, but not the anger in the air.

Hester moved closer still to Monk, but she could think of nothing to say. She could feel the pain in him as if it were communicable, like heat.

On the other side of her, Margaret put her hand gently on Hester’s. It was a generous moment of friendship.

“Then unless someone else assisted them, I assume that Pamela and Katrina Harcus lived in extremely straitened circumstances after Dundas’s death?” Rathbone asked relentlessly.

“Extremely,” Rider agreed. “I am afraid there was no one else to assist them. Her aunt, Eveline Austin, was also dead by this time.”

“I see. Just one more thing, Mr. Rider. Would you be good enough to describe Katrina Harcus for us, if you please?”

“Describe her?” For the first time Rider looked puzzled. Until now he had understood everything with tragic intimacy, but this escaped him.

“If you please? What did she look like, as exactly as you can tell us?” Rathbone insisted.

Rider floundered a little. He was obviously uncomfortable with the personal details of such a thing.

“She… was… she was quite tall-for a woman, that is. She was handsome, very handsome, in an unconventional way…” He floundered to a stop.

“What color of hair had she?” Rathbone asked.

“Oh… dark, dark brown, with a sort of shine to it.”

“Her eyes?”

“Ah… yes, her eyes were unusual, very fine indeed. Sort of golden brown, very fine.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rider. I appreciate that this has been very difficult for you indeed, both because it concerns the tragic death of a woman you knew since her infancy, and because it required you to speak publicly of matters you would very much prefer to have kept in confidence.” He turned to Fowler, still not looking up at Monk, or Hester beside him. “Your witness, sir.”

Fowler regarded Rider, shaking his head slowly. “A sad but not uncommon story. Has any of it got anything whatsoever to do with Michael Dalgarno having thrown her off the roof of her house?”

“I do not know, sir,” Rider replied. “I had assumed that was what we were here to decide. From what I have heard from Sir Oliver, I believe it may.”

“Well, from what we have heard from Sir Oliver, it is simply a piece of very moving but totally irrelevant tragic theater,” Fowler said dryly. “The poor woman is dead… they both are! And Arrol Dundas and his wife also, and all except Katrina herself were gone before the crime which brings us here.”

“Do I assume that means you have no questions to ask, Mr. Fowler?” the judge enquired.

“Oh, I certainly have a question, my lord, but I doubt Mr. Rider is in a position to answer it,” Fowler said tartly. “It is-when is Sir Oliver going to address the defense of his client?”

“I am addressing something a little higher, but which will answer the same purpose, my lord,” Rathbone said, and perhaps Hester was the only one in the room who could hear the edge of tension in his voice. Even through her own fear, and her agony for Monk, she knew that Rathbone was afraid also. He was gambling far more than he could afford to lose-Monk’s life still lay in the balance. Rathbone was traveling, at least partially, blind.

She felt the heat rush through her, and then the chill.

“The truth,” Rathbone finished. “I am trying to uncover the truth.” And before Fowler could do more than sound a jeer, he went on. “I call William Monk, my lord.”