Defend and Betray

Chapter 2

As soon as Hester returned, Major Tiplady, who had had little to do but stare out of the window, observed from her face that something distressing had happened, and since it would soon be public knowledge in the newspapers, she did not feel she was betraying any trust by telling him. He was very aware that she had experienced something extraordinary, and to keep it secret would close him out to no purpose. It would also make it far harder to explain why she wished for yet further time away from the house.

“Oh dear,” he said as soon as she told him. He sat very upright on the chaise longue. “This is quite dreadful! Do you believe that something has turned the poor woman's mind?”

“Which woman?” She tidied away his tea tray, which the maid had not yet collected, setting it on the small table to the side. “The widow or the daughter?”

“Why-” Then he realized the pertinence of the question. “I don't know. Either of them, I suppose-or even both. Poor creatures.” He looked at her anxiously. “What do you propose to do? I cannot see anything to be done, but you seem to have something in mind.”

She flashed him a quick, uncertain smile.”I am not sure.” She closed the book he had been reading and put it on the table next to him. “I can at least do my best to find her the very best lawyer-which she will be able to afford.” She tucked his shoes neatly under the chaise.

“Will her family not do that anyway?” he asked. “Oh, for heaven's sake sit down, woman! How can anyone concentrate their thoughts when you keep moving around and fussing?”

She stopped abruptly and turned to look at him.

With unusual perception he frowned at her. “You do not need to be endlessly doing something in order to justify your position. If you humor me, that will be quite sufficient. Now I require you to stand still and answer me sensibly-if you please.,”

“Her family would like her put away with as little fuss as possible,” she replied, standing in front of him with her hands folded. “It will cause the least scandal that may be achieved after a murder.”

“I imagine they would have blamed someone else if they could,” he said thoughtfully.”But she has rather spoiled that by confessing. But I still do not see what you can do, my dear.”

“I know a lawyer who can do the miraculous with causes which seem beyond hope.”

“Indeed?” He was dubious, sitting upright and looking a little uncomfortable. “And you believe he will take this case?”

“I don't know-but I shall ask him and do my best.” She stopped, a slight flush in her face. “That is-if you will permit me the time in which to see him?”

“Of course I will. But…” He looked vaguely self-conscious. “I would be obliged if you would allow me to know how it proceeds.”

She smiled dazzlingly at him.

“Naturally. We shall be in it together.”

“Indeed,” he said with surprise and increasing satisfaction. “Indeed we shall.”

Accordingly, she had no difficulty in being permitted to leave her duties once more the following day and take a hansom cab to the legal offices of Mr. Oliver Rathbone, whose acquaintance she had made at the conclusion of the Grey murder, and then resumed during the Moidore case a few months later. She had sent a letter by hand (or to be more accurate, Major Tiplady had, since he had paid the messenger), requesting that Mr. Rathbone see her on a most urgent matter, and had received an answer by return that he would be in his chambers at eleven o'clock the following day, and would see her at that hour if she wished.

Now at quarter to eleven she was traveling inside the cab with her heart racing and every jolt in the road making her gasp, trying to swallow down the nervousness rising inside her. It really was the most appalling liberty she was taking, not only on behalf of Alexandra Carlyon, whom she had never met, and who presumably had not even heard of her, but also towards Oliver Rathbone. Their relationship had been an odd one, professional in that she had twice been a witness in cases he had defended. William Monk had investigated the second one after the police force officially closed it. In both cases they had drawn Oliver Rathbone in before the conclusion.

At times the understanding between Rathbone and herself had seemed very deep, a collaboration in a cause in which they both fiercely believed. At others it had been more awkward, aware that they were a man and a woman engaged in pursuits quite outside any rules society had laid down for behavior, not lawyer and client, not employer and employee, not social friends or equals, and most certainly not a man courting a woman.

And yet their friendship was of a deeper sort than those she had shared with other men, even army surgeons in the field during the long nights in Scutari, except perhaps with Monk in the moments between their quarrels. And also there had been that one extraordinary, startling and sweet kiss, which she could still recall with a shiver of both pleasure and loneliness.

The cab was stopping and starting in the heavy traffic along High Holborn-hansoms, drays, every kind of carriage.

Please heaven Rathbone would understand this was a call most purely on business. It would be unbearable if he were to think she was pursuing him. Trying to force an acquaintance. Imagining into that moment something which they both knew he did not intend. Her face burned at the humiliation. She must be impersonal and not endeavor to exercise even the slightest undue influence, still less appear to flirt. Not that that would be difficult; she would have no idea how to flirt if her life depended upon it. Her sister-in-law had told her that countless times. If only she could be like Imogen and appeal with sweet helplessness to people, simply by her manner, so men instinctively would desire to help her. It was very nice to be efficient, but it could also be a disadvantage to be obviously so. It was also not especially attractive- either to men or to women. Men thought it unbecoming, and women found it vaguely insulting to them.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the hansom's arrival at Vere Street and Oliver Rathbone's offices, and she was obliged to descend and pay the driver. Since it was already five minutes before her appointment, she mounted the steps and presented herself to the clerk.

A few minutes later the inner door opened and Rathbone came out. He was precisely as she had remembered him; indeed she was taken aback by the vividness of her recall. He was little above average height, with fair hair graying a trifle at the temples, and dark eyes that were acutely aware of all laughter and absurdity, and yet liable to change expression to anger or pity with an instant's warning.

“How agreeable to see you again, Miss Latterly,” he said with a smile. “Won't you please come into my office, where you may tell me what business it is that brings you here?” He stood back a little to allow her to pass, then followed her in and closed the door behind him. He invited her to sit in one of the large, comfortable chairs. The office was as it had been last time she was there, spacious, surprisingly free from the oppressive feeling of too many books, and with bright light from the windows as if it were a place from which to observe the world, not one in which to hide from it.

“Thank you,” she accepted, arranging her skirts only minimally. She would not give the impression of a social call.

He sat down behind his desk and regarded her with interest.

“Another desperate case of injustice?” he asked, his eyes bright.

Instantly she felt defensive, and had to guard herself from allowing him to dictate the conversation. She remembered quickly that this was his profession, questioning people in such a way that they betrayed themselves in their answers.

“I would be foolish to prejudge it, Mr. Rathbone,” she replied with an equally charming smile. “If you were ill, I should be irritated if you consulted me and then prescribed your own treatment.”

Now his amusement was unmistakable.

“If some time I consult you, Miss Latterly, I shall keep that in mind. Although I doubt I should be so rash as ever to think of preempting your judgment. When I am ill, I am quite a pitiful object, I assure you.”

“People are also frightened and vulnerable, even pitiful, when they are accused of crime and face the law without anyone to defend them-or at least anyone adequate to the occasion,” she answered.

“And you think I might be adequate to this particular occasion?” he asked. “I am complimented, if not exactly flattered.”

“You might be, if you understood the occasion,” she said a trifle tartly.

His smile was wide and quite without guile. He had beautiful teeth.

“Bravo, Miss Latterly. I see you have not changed. Please tell me, what is this occasion?”

“Have you read of the recent death of General Thaddeus Carlyon?” She asked so as to avoid telling him that with which he was already familiar.

“I saw the obituary. I believe he met with an accident, did he not? A fall when he was out visiting someone. Was it not accidental?” He looked curious.

“No. It seems he could not have fallen in precisely that way, at least not so as to kill himself.”

“The obituary did not describe the injury.”

Memory of Damaris's words came back to her, and a wry, bitter humor. “No-they wouldn't. It has an element of the absurd. He fell over the banister from the first landing onto a suit of armor.”

“And broke his neck?”

“No. Please do not keep interrupting me, Mr. Rathbone-it is not something you might reasonably guess.” She ignored his look of slight surprise at her presumption. “It is too ridiculous. He fell onto the suit of armor and was apparently speared to death by the halberd it was holding. Only the police said it could not have happened by chance. He was speared deliberately after he had fallen and was lying senseless on the floor.”

“I see.” He was outwardly contrite. “So it was murder; that, I presume, I may safely deduce?”

“You may. The police enquired into the matter for several days, in fact two weeks. It occurred on the evening of April twentieth. Now the widow, Mrs. Alexandra Carlyon, has confessed to the crime.”

“That I might reasonably have guessed, Miss Latterly. It is regrettably not an unusual circumstance, and not absurd, except as all human relationships have an element of humor or ridiculousness in them.” He did not go on to guess for what reason she had come to see him, but he remained sitting very upright in his chair, giving her his total attention.

With an effort she refrained from smiling, although a certain amusement had touched her, albeit laced with tragedy.

“She may well be guilty,” she said instead. “But my interest in the matter is that Edith Sobell, the sister of General Carlyon, feels most strongly that she is not. Edith is convinced that Alexandra has confessed in order to protect her daughter, Sabella Pole, who is very lightly balanced, and hated her father.”

“And was present on the occasion?”

“Yes-and according to what I can learn of the affair from Damaris Erskine, the general's other sister, who was also at the ill-fated dinner party, there were several people who had the opportunity to have pushed him over the banister.”

“I cannot act for Mrs. Carlyon unless she wishes it,” he pointed out. “No doubt the Carlyon family will have their own legal counsel.”

“Peverell Erskine, Damaris's husband, is their solicitor, and Edith assures me he would not be averse to engaging the best banister available.”

His fine mouth twitched in the ghost of a smile.

“Thank you for the implied compliment.”

She ignored it, because she did not know what to say.

“Will you please see Alexandra Carlyon and at least consider the matter?” she asked him earnestly, self-consciousness overridden by the urgency of the matter. “I fear she may otherwise be shuffled away into an asylum for the criminally insane, to protect the family name, and remain there until she dies.” She leaned towards him. “Such places are the nearest we have to hell in this life-and for someone who is quite sane, simply trying to defend a daughter, it would be immeasurably worse than death.”

All the humor and light vanished from his face as if washed away. Knowledge of appalling pain filled his eyes, and there was no hesitation in him.

“I will certainly keep my mind open in the matter,” he promised. “If you ask Mr. Erskine to instruct me, and engage my services so that I may apply to speak with Mrs. Carlyon, then I will give you my word that I will do so. Although of course whether I can persuade her to tell me the truth is another thing entirely.”

“Perhaps you could engage Mr. Monk to carry out investigations, should you-” She stopped.

“I shall certainly consider it. You have not told me what was her motive in murdering her husband. Did she give one?”

She was caught off guard. She had not thought to ask.

“I have no idea,” she answered, wide-eyed in amazement at her own omission.

“It can hardly have been self-defense.” He pursed his lips. “And we would find it most difficult to argue a crime of passion, not that that is considered an excuse-for a woman, and a jury would find it most… unbecoming.” Again the black humor flickered across his face, as if he were conscious of the irony of it. It was a quality unusual in a man, and one of the many reasons she liked him.

“I believe the whole evening was disastrous,” she continued, watching his face. “Apparently Alexandra was upset, even before she arrived, as though she and the general had quarreled over something. And I gather from Damaris that Mrs. Furnival, the hostess, flirted with him quite openly. But that is something which I have observed quite often, and very few people are foolish enough to take exception to it. It is one of the things one simply has to endure.” She saw the feint curl of amusement at the corners of his lips, and ignored it.

“I had better wait until Mr. Erskine contacts me,” he said with returning gravity. “I will be able to speak to Mrs. Carlyon herself. I promise you I will do so.”

“Thank you. I am most obliged.” She rose to her feet, and automatically he rose also. Now it suddenly occurred to her that she owed him for his time. He had spared her almost half an hour, and she had not come prepared to pay. His fee would be a considerable amount of money from her very slender resources. It was an idiotic and embarrassing error.

“I shall send you my account when the matter is closed,” he said, apparently without having noticed her confusion. “You will understand that if Mrs. Carlyon engages me, and I accept the case, what she tells me will have to remain confidential between us, but I shall of course inform you whether I am able to defend her or not.” He came around from behind the desk and moved towards the door.

“Of course,” she said a little stiffly, overwhelmed with relief. She had been saved from making a complete fool of herself.”I shall be happy if you are able to help. I shall now go and tell Mrs. Sobell-and of course Mr. Erskine.” She did not mention that so far as she was aware, Peverell Erskine knew nothing about the enquiry. “Good day, Mr. Rathbone-and thank you.”

“It was a pleasure to see you again, Miss Latterly.” He opened the door for her and held it while she passed through, then stood for several moments watching her leave.

Hester went immediately to Carlyon House and asked the parlormaid who answered the door if Mrs. Sobell were in.

“Yes, Miss Latterly,” the girl answered quickly, and from her expression, Hester judged that Edith had forewarned her she was expected. “If you please to come to Mrs. Sobell's sitting room, ma'am,” the maid went on, glancing around the hallway, then lifting her chin defiantly and walking smartly across the parquet and up the stairs, trusting Hester was behind her.

Across the first landing and in the east wing she opened the door to a small sunlit room with floral covered armchairs and sofa and soft watercolor paintings on the walls.

“Miss Latterly, ma'am,” (lie maid said quietly, then withdrew.

Edith rose to her feet, her face eager.

“Hester! Did you see him? What did he say? Will he do it?”

Hester found herself smiling briefly, although there was little enough humor in what she had to report.

“Yes I saw him, but of course he cannot accept any case until he is requested by the solicitor of the person in question. Are you sure Peverell will be agreeable to Mr. Rathbone acting for Alexandra?”

“Oh yes-but it won't be easy, at least I fear not. Peverell may be the only one who is willing to fight on Alex's behalf. But if Peverell asks Mr. Rathbone, will he take the case? You did tell him she had confessed, didn't you?”

“Of course I did.”

“Thank heaven. Hester, I really am most grateful to you for this, you know. Come and sit down.” She moved back to the chairs and curled up in one and waved to the other, where Hester sat down and tucked her skirts comfortably. “Then what happens? He will go and see Alex, of course, but what if she just goes on saying she did it?”

“He will employ an investigator to enquire into it,” Hester replied, trying to sound more certain than she felt.

' “What can he do, if she won't tell him?”

“I don't know-but he's better than most police. Why did she do it, Edith? I mean, what does she say?”

Edith bit her lip. “That's the worst part of it. Apparently she said it was out of jealousy over Thaddeus and Louisa.”

“Oh-I…” Hester was momentarily thrown into confusion.

“I know.” Edith looked wretched. “It is very sordid, isn't it? And unpleasantly believable, if you know Alex. She is unconventional enough for something so wild and so foolish to enter her mind. Except that I really don't believe she ever loved Thaddeus with that sort of intensity, and I am quite sure she did not lately.”

For a moment she looked embarrassed at such candor, then her emotions at the urgency and tragedy of it took over again. “Please, Hester, do not allow your natural repugnance for such behavior to prevent you from doing what you can to help her. I don't believe she killed him at all. I think it was far more probably Sabella-God forgive her-or perhaps I should say God help her. I think she may honestly be out of her mind.” Her face tightened into a somber unhap-piness.”And Alex taking the guilt for her will not help anyone. They will hang an innocent person, and Sabella in her lucid hours will suffer even more-don't you see that?”

“Yes of course I see it,” Hester agreed, although in honesty she thought it not at all improbable that Alexandra Carlyon might well have killed her husband exactly as she had confessed. But it would be cruel, and serve no purpose, to say so to Edith now, when she was convinced of Alexandra's innocence, or passionately wished to be.”Have you any idea why Alexandra would feel there was some cause for jealousy over the general and Mrs. Furnival?”

Edith's eyes were bright with mockery and pain.

“You have not yet met Louisa Furnival, or you would not bother to ask. She is the sort of woman anyone might be jealous of.” Her expressive face was filled with dislike, mockery, and something which could almost have been a kind of admiration. “She has a way of walking, an air to her, a smile that makes you think she has something that you have not. Even if she had done nothing whatsoever, and your husband found no interest in her at all, it would be easy to imagine he had, simply because of her manner.”

“That does not sound very hopeful.”

“Except that I would be amazed if Thaddeus ever gave her more than a passing glance. He really was not in the least a flirt, even with Louisa. He was…” She lifted her shoulders very slightly in a gesture of helplessness. “He was very much the soldier, a man's man. He was always polite to women, of course, but I don't think he was ever fearfully comfortable with us. He didn’t really know what to talk about. Naturally he had learned, as any well-bred man does, but it was learned, if you know what I mean.” She looked at Hester questioningly. “He was brilliant at action, brave, decisive, and nearly always right in his judgment; and he knew how to express himself to his men, and to new young men interested in the army. He used to come alight then; I’ve watched his eyes and seen how much he cared.”

She sighed. “He always assumed women weren't interested, and that's not true. I would have been-but it hardly matters now, I suppose. What I'm trying to say is that one doesn't flirt with conversation about military strategy and the relative merits of one gun over another, least of all with someone like Louisa. And even if he did, one does not commit murder over such a thing, it is…” Her face puckered, and for a moment Hester wondered with sudden hurt what Oswald Sobell had been like, and what pain Edith might have suffered in their brief marriage, what wounds of jealousy she herself had known. Then the urgency of the present reasserted itself and she returned to the subject of Alexandra.

“I imagine it is probably better that the truth should be learned, whatever it is,” she said aloud to Edith. “And I suppose it is possible the murderer is not either Alexandra or Sabella, but someone else. Perhaps if Louisa Furnival is a flirt, and was casting eyes at Thaddeus, her own husband might have imagined there was more to it than there was, and might finally have succumbed to jealousy himself.”

Edith put her hands up and covered her face, leaning forward across her knees.

“I hate this!” she said fiercely. “Everyone involved is either family or a friend of sorts. And it has to have been one of them.”

“It is wretched,” Hester agreed.' “That is one of the things I learned in the other crimes I have seen investigated: you come to know the people, their dreams and their griefs, their wounds-and whoever it is, it hurts you. You cannot island yourself from it and make it 'them,' and not 'us.' “

Edith removed her hands and looked up, surprise in her face, her mouth open to argue; then slowly the emotion subsided and she accepted that Hester meant exactly what she said.

“How very hard.” She let her breath out slowly. “Somehow I always took it for granted there would be a barrier between me and whoever did such a thing-I mean usually. There would be a whole class of people whose hurt I could exclude…”

“Only with a sort of dishonesty.” Hester rose to her feet and walked over to the high window above the garden. It was a sash window open at top and bottom, and the perfume of wallflowers in the sun drifted up. “I forgot to tell you last time, with all the news of the tragedy, but I have been enquiring into what sort of occupation you might find, and I think the most interesting and agreeable thing you could do would be as a librarian.” She watched a gardener walk across the grass with a tray of seedlings. “Or researcher for someone who wishes to write a treatise, or a monograph or some such thing. It would pay you a small amount insufficient to support you, but it would take you away from Carlyon House during the days.”

“Not nursing?” There was a note of disappointment in Edith's voice, in spite of her effort to conceal it, and a painful self-consciousness. Hester realized with a sudden stab of embarrassment that Edith admired her and that what she really sought was to do the same thing Hester did, but had been reluctant to say so.

With her face suddenly hot she struggled for a reply that would be honest and not clumsy. It would not be kind to equivocate.

“No. It is very hard to find a private position, even if you have the training for it. It is far better to use the skills you have.” She did not face her; it was better Edith did not see her sudden understanding. “There are some really very interesting people who need librarians or researchers, or someone to write up their work for them. You could find someone who writes on a subject in which you might become most interested yourself.”

“Such as what?” There was no lightness in Edith's voice.

“Anything?” Hester turned to face her and forced a cheerfulness into her expression. “Archaeology… history… exploration.” She stopped as she saw a sudden spark of real excitement in Edith's eyes. She smiled with overwhelming relief and a surge of unreasonable happiness. “Why not? Women have begun to think of going to most marvelous places-Egypt, the Magreb, Africa even.”

“Africa! Yes…” Edith said almost under her breath, her confidence returned, the wound vanished in hope. “Yes. After all this is over I will. Thank you, Hester-thank you so much!”

She got no further because the sitting room door opened and Damaris came in. Today she looked utterly different. Gone was the contradictory but distinctly feminine air of the previous occasion. This time she was in riding habit and looked vigorous and boyish, like a handsome youth, faintly Mediterranean, and Hester knew the instant their eyes met that the effect was wholly intentional, and that Damaris enjoyed it.

Hester smiled. She had dared in reality far further than Damaris into such forbidden masculine fields, seen real violence, warfare and chivalry, the honest friendship where there was no barrier between men and women, where speech was not forever dictated by social ritual rather than true thoughts and feelings, where people worked side by side for a desperate common cause and only courage and skill mattered. Very little of such social rebellion could shake her, let alone offend.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Erskine,” she said cheerfully. “I am delighted to see you looking so well, in such trying circumstances.”

Damaris's face broke into a wide grin. She closed the door behind her and leaned against the handle.

“Edith said you were going to see a lawyer friend of yours who is totally brilliant-is that true?”

This time Hester was caught off guard. She had not thought Damaris was aware of Edith's request.

“Ah-yes.” There was no point in prevarication. “Do you think Mr. Erskine will mind?”

“Oh no, not at all. But I cannot answer for Mama. You had better come in to luncheon and tell us about it.”

Hester looked desperately at Edith, hoping she would rescue her from having to go. She had expected simply to tell Edith about Rathbone and then leave her to inform Peverell Erskine; the rest of the family would find out from him. Now it seemed she was going to have to face them all over the luncheon table.

But Edith was apparently unaware of-her feelings. She stood up quickly and moved towards the door.

“Yes of course. Is Pev here?”

“Yes-now would be a perfect time.” Damaris turned around and pulled the door open. “We need to act as soon as we can.” She smiled brilliantly at Hester. “It really is most kind of you.”

The dining room was heavily and ornately furnished, and with a full dinner service in the new, fashionable turquoise, heavily patterned and gilded. Felicia was already seated and Randolph occupied his place at the head of the table. He looked larger and more imposing than he had lounging in the armchair at afternoon tea. His face was heavy, and set in lines of stubborn, weary immobility. Hester tried to imagine him as a young man, and what it might have been like to be in love with him. Was he dashing in uniform? Might there have been a trace of humor or wit in his face then? The years change people; there were disappointments, dreams that crumbled. And she was seeing him at the worst possible time. His only son had just been murdered, and almost certainly by a member of his own family.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Carlyon, Colonel Carlyon,” she said, swallowing hard, and trying at least temporarily to put out of her mind the confrontation which must come when Oliver Rathbone was mentioned.

“Good afternoon, Miss Latterly,” Felicia said with her eyebrows arched in as much surprise as was possible with civility. “How agreeable of you to join us. To what occasion do we owe the pleasure of a second visit in so short a time?”

Randolph muttered something inaudible. He seemed to have forgotten her name, and had nothing to say beyond an acknowledgment of her presence.

Peverell looked as benign and agreeable as before, but he smiled at her without speaking.

Felicia was very obviously waiting. Apparently it was not merely a rhetorical question; she wished an answer.

Damaris strode over to her place at the table and sat down with something of a swagger, ignoring the frown which shadowed her mother's face.

“She came to see Peverell,” she answered with a slight smile.

Felicia's irritation deepened.

“At luncheon?” Her voice held a chill incredulity.” Surely if it were Peverell she wished to see she would have made an appointment with him in his offices, like anyone else. She would hardly wish to conduct her private business in our company, and over a meal. You must be mistaken, Damaris. Or is this your idea of humor? If it is, it is most misplaced, and I must require you to apologize, and not do such a thing.”

“Not humorous at all, Mama,” she said with instant sobriety. “It is in order to help Alex, so it is entirely appropriate that it should be discussed here, with us present. After all, it does concern the whole family, in a way.”

“Indeed?” Felicia kept her eyes on Damaris's face. “And what can Miss Latterly possibly do to help Alexandra? It is our tragedy that Alexandra would seem to have lost her sanity. “ The skin across her cheekbones tightened as if she were expecting a blow. “Even the best doctors have no cure for such things-and not even God can undo what has already happened.”

“But we don't know what has happened, Mama,” Damaris pointed out.

“We know that Alexandra confessed that she murdered Thaddeus,” Felicia said icily, concealing from them all whatever wells of pain lay beneath the bare words. “You should not have asked Miss Latterly for her help; there is nothing whatsoever that she, or anyone else, can do about the tragedy. We are quite able to find our own doctors who will take care of her disposition to a suitable place of confinement, for her own good, and that of society.” She turned to Hester for the first time since the subject had been raised. “Do you care to take soup, Miss Latterly?”

“Thank you.” Hester could think of nothing else to say, no excuse or explanation to offer for herself. The whole affair was even worse than she had foreseen. She should have declined the invitation and excused herself. She could have told Edith all she needed to know quite simply and left the rest to Peverell. But it was too late now.

Felicia nodded to the maid and the tureen was brought in and the soup served in silence.

After taking several sips Randolph turned to Hester.

“Well-if it is not a doctor you are counseling us about, Miss Latterly, perhaps we had better know what it is.”

Felicia looked at him sharply, but he chose to ignore her.

Hester would like to have told him it was between her and Peverell, but she did not dare. No words came to her that could have been even remotely civil. She looked back at his rather baleful stare and felt acutely uncomfortable.

There was silence around the table. No one came to her rescue, as if their courage had suddenly deserted them also.

“I-” She took a deep breath and began again. “I have the acquaintance of a most excellent barrister who has previously fought and won seemingly impossible cases. I thought-I thought Mr. Erskine might wish to consider his services for Mrs. Carlyon.”

Felicia's nostrils flared and a spark of cold anger lit her face.

“Thank you, Miss Latterly, but as I think I have already pointed out, a barrister is not required. My daughter-in-law has already confessed to the crime; there is no case to be argued. It is only a matter of arranging for her to be put away as discreetly as possible in the place best suited to care for her in her state.”

“She may not be guilty, Mama,” Edith said tentatively, the force and enthusiasm gone out of her voice.

“Then why would she admit to it, Edith?” Felicia asked without bothering to look at her.

Edith's face tightened. “To protect Sabella. Alex isn't insane, we all know that. But Sabella may well be…”

“Nonsense!” Felicia said sharply. “She was a trifle emotional after her child was born. It happens from time to time. It passes.” She broke a little brown bread on the plate to her left, her fingers powerful. “Women have been known to kill their children sometimes, in such fits of melancholia, but not their fathers. You should not offer opinions in matters you know nothing about.”

“She hated Thaddeus!” Edith persisted, two spots of color in her cheeks, and it came to Hester sharply that the reference to Edith's ignorance of childbirth had been a deliberate cruelty.

“Don't be ridiculous!” Felicia said to her sharply. “She was unruly and very self-willed. Alexandra should have been much firmer with her. But that is hardly the same thing as being homicidal.”

Peverell smiled charmingly. “It really doesn't matter, Mama-in-law, because Alexandra will give me whatever instructions she wishes, and I shall be obliged to act accordingly. After she has thought about it awhile, and realized that it will not simply be a matter of being shut away in some agreeable nursing establishment, but of being hanged…” He ignored Felicia's indrawn breath and wince of distaste at the grossness of his choice of words. “… then she may change her plea and wish to be defended.” He took another sip from his spoon. “And of course I shall have to put all the alternatives before her.”

Felicia's face darkened. “For goodness sake, Peverell, are you not competent to get the matter taken care of decently and with some discretion?” she said with exasperated contempt. “Poor Alexandra's mind has snapped. She has taken leave of her wits and allowed her jealous fancies to provoke her into a moment of insane rage. It can help no one to expose her to public ridicule and hatred. It is the most absurd of crimes. What would happen if every woman who imagined her husband paid more attention to another woman than he should-which must be half London!-were to resort to murder? Society would fall apart, and everything that goes with it.” She took a deep breath and began again, more gently, as if explaining to a child. “Can you not put it to her, when you see her, that even if she has no feeling left for herself, or for us, that she must consider her family, especially her son, who is a child? Think what the scandal will do to him! If she makes public this jealousy of hers, and goodness knows there was no ground for it except in her poor mad brain, then she will ruin Cassian's future and at the very least be a source of embarrassment to her daughters.”

Peverell seemed unmoved, except by politeness and a certain outward sympathy for Felicia.

“I will point out all the possible courses to her, Mama-in-law, and the results, as I believe them, of any action she might make.” He dabbed his lips with his napkin and his face retained so smooth an expression he might have been discussing the transfer of a few acres of farmland, with no real perception of the passions and tragedies of which they were speaking.

Damaris watched him with wide eyes. Edith was silent. Randolph continued with his soup.

Felicia was so angry with him she had great difficulty in controlling her expression, and on the edge of the table her fingers were knotted around her napkin. But she would not permit him to see that he had beaten her.

Randolph put his spoon down. “I suppose you know what you are doing,” he said with a scowl. “But it sounds very unsatisfactory to me.”

“Well the army is rather different from the law.” Peverell's expression was still one of interest and unbroken patience. “It's still war, of course; conflict, adversarial system. But weapons are different and rules have to be obeyed. All in the brain.” He smiled as if inwardly pleased with something the rest of them could not see, not a secret pleasure so much as a private one. “We also deal in life and death, and the taking of property and land-but the weapons are words and the arena is in the mind.”

Randolph muttered something inaudible, but there was acute dislike in his heavy face.

“Sometimes you make yourself sound overly important, Peverell,” Felicia said acidly.

“Yes.” Peverell was not put out of countenance in the least. He smiled at the ceiling. “Damaris says I am pompous.” He turned to look at Hester. “Who is your barrister, Miss Latterly?”

“Oliver Rathbone, of Vere Street, just off Lincoln's Inn Fields,” Hester replied immediately.

“Really?” His eyes were wide. “He is quite brilliant. I remember him in the Grey case. What an extraordinary verdict! And do you really think he would be prepared to act for Alexandra?”

“If she wishes him to.” Hester felt a surge of self-consciousness that took her by surprise. She found herself unable to meet anyone's eyes, even Peverell's, not because he was critical but because he was so remarkably perceptive.

“How excellent,” he said quietly. “How absolutely excellent. It is very good of you, Miss Latterly. I am sufficiently aware of Mr. Rathbone's reputation to be most obliged. I shall inform Mrs. Carryon.”

“But you will not allow her to entertain any false notions as to her choices in the matter,” Felicia said grimly. “No matter how brilliant”-she said the word with a peculiar curl of her lip as though it were a quality to be held in contempt- “this Mr. Rathbone may be, he cannot twist or defy the law, nor would it be desirable that he should.” She took a deep breath and let it out in an inaudible sigh, her mouth suddenly tight with pain. “Thaddeus is dead, and the law will require that someone answer for it.”

“Everyone is entitled to defend themselves in their own way, whatever they believe is in their interest, Mama-in-law,” Peverell said clearly.

“Possibly, but society also has rights, surely-it must!” She stared at him defiantly. “Alexandra's ideas will not be allowed to override those of the rest of us. I will not permit it.” She turned to Hester. “Perhaps now you will tell us something of your experiences with Miss Nightingale, Miss Latterly. It would be most inspiring. She is truly a remarkable woman.”

Hester was speechless with amazement for a moment, then a reluctant admiration for Felicia's sheer command overtook her.

“Yes-by-by all means…” And she began with the tales she felt would be most acceptable to them and least likely to provoke any further dissension: the long nights in the hospital at Scutari, the weariness, the patience, the endless work of cleaning to be done, the courage. She forbore from speaking of the filth, the rats, the sheer blinding incompetence, or the horrifying figures of the casualties that could have been avoided by foresight, adequate provisions, transport and sanitation.

That afternoon Peverell went first to see Alexandra Carlyon, then to Vere Street to speak to Oliver Rathbone. The day after, May 6, Rathbone presented himself at the prison gates and requested, as Mrs. Carlyon's solicitor, if he might speak with her. He knew he would not be refused.

It was foolish to create in one's mind a picture of what a client would be like, her appearance, or even her personality, and yet as he followed the turnkey along the gray passages he already had a picture formed of Alexandra Carlyon. He saw her as dark-haired, lush of figure and dramatic and emotional of temperament. After all, she had apparently killed her husband in a rage of jealousy-or if Edith Sobell were correct, had confessed it falsely in order to shield her daughter.

But when the turnkey, a big woman with iron-gray hair screwed into a knot at the back of her head, finally unlocked the door and swung it open, he stepped into the cell and saw a woman of little more than average height. She was very slender-too slender for fashion-her fair hair had a heavy natural curl, and her face was highly individual, full of wit and imagination. Her cheekbones were broad, her nose short and aquiline, her mouth beautiful but far too wide, and at once passionate and humorous. She was not lovely in any traditional sense, and yet she was startlingly attractive, even exhausted and frightened as she was, and dressed in plainest white and gray.

She looked up at him without interest, because she had no hope. She was defeated and he knew it even before she spoke.

“How do you do, Mrs. Carlyon,” he said formally. “I am Oliver Rathbone. I believe your brother-in-law, Mr. Erskine, has told you that I am willing to represent you, should you wish it?”

She smiled, but it was a ghost of a gesture, an effort dragged up out of an attempt at good manners rather than anything she felt.

“How do you do, Mr. Rathbone. Yes, Peverell did tell me, but I am afraid you have wasted a journey. You cannot help me.”

Rathbone looked at the turnkey.

“Thank you-you may leave us. I will call when I want to be let out again.”

“Very well,” said the woman, and she retreated, locking the door behind her with a loud click as the lever turned and fell into place.

Alexandra remained sitting on the cot and Rathbone lowered himself to sit on the far end of it. To continue standing would be to give the impression he was about to leave, and he would not surrender without a fight.

“Possibly not, Mrs. Carlyon, but please do not dismiss me before permitting me to try. I shall not prejudge you.” He smiled, knowing his own charm because it was part of his trade. “Please do not prejudge me either.”

This time her answering smile was in her eyes only, and there was sadness in it, and mockery.

“Of course I will listen to you, Mr. Rathbone; for Peverell's sake as well as in good manners. But the truth remains that you cannot help me.” Her hesitation was so minute as to be almost indiscernible. “I killed my husband. The law will require payment for that.”

He noticed that she did not use the word hang, and he knew in that moment that she was too afraid of it yet to say it aloud. Perhaps she had not even said it to herself in her own mind. Already his pity was engaged. He thrust it away. It was no basis on which to defend a case. His brain was what was needed.

“Tell me what happened, Mrs. Carlyon; everything that you feel to be relevant to your husband's death, starting wherever you wish.”

She looked away from him. Her voice was flat.

“There is very little to tell. My husband had paid a great deal of attention to Louisa Furnival for some time. She is very beautiful, and has a kind of manner about her which men admire a great deal. She flirted with him. I think she flirted with most men. I was jealous. That's all…”

“Your husband flirted with Mrs. Furnival at a dinner party, so you left the room and followed him upstairs, pushed him over the banister,” he said expressionlessly, “and when he fell you went down the stairs after him, and as he lay senseless on the floor you picked up the halberd and drove it through his chest? I assume this was the first time in your twenty-three years of marriage that he had so offended you?”

She swung around and looked at him with anger. Phrased like that and repeated blindly it sounded preposterous. It was the first spark of real emotion he had seen in her, and as such the very beginning of hope.

“No of course not,” she said coldly. “He was more than merely flirting with her. He had been having an affair with her and they were flaunting it in my face-and in front of my own daughter and her husband. It would have been enough to anger any woman.”

He watched her face closely, the remarkable features, the sleeplessness, the shock and the fear. He did see anger there also, but it was on the surface, a flare of temper, shallow and without heat, the flame of a match, not the searing heat of a furnace. Was that because she was lying about the flirting, the affair, or because she was too exhausted, too spent to feel any passion now? The object of her rage was dead and she was in the shadow of the noose herself.

“And yet many women must have endured it,” he replied, still watching her.

She lifted her shoulders very slightly and he realized again how thin she was. The white blouse and gray unhooped skirt made her look almost waiflike, except for the power in her face. She was not a childlike woman at all; that broad brow and short, round jaw were too willful to be demure, except by deliberate artifice, and it would be a deception short-lived.

“Tell me how it happened, Mrs. Carlyon,” he tried again. “Start that evening. Of course the affair with Mrs. Furnival had been continuing for some time. By the way, when did you first realize they were enamored of each other?”

“I don't remember.” Still she did not look at him. There was no urgency in her at all. It was quite obvious she did not care whether he believed her or not. The emotion was gone again. She shrugged very faintly. “A few weeks, I suppose. One doesn't know what one doesn't want to.” Now suddenly there was real passion in her, harsh and desperately painful. Something hurt her so deeply it was tangible in the small room.

He was confused. One moment she felt so profoundly he could almost sense the pulse of it himself; the next she was numb, as if she were speaking of total trivialities that mattered to no one.

“And this particular evening brought it to a climax?” he said gently.

“Yes…” Her voice was husky anyway, with a pleasing depth to it unusual in a woman. Now it was little above a whisper.

“You must tell me what happened, event by event as you recall it, Mrs. Carlyon, if I am to… understand.” He had nearly said to help, when he remembered the hopelessness in her face and in her bearing, and knew that she had no belief in help. The promise would be without meaning to her, and she would reject him again for using it.

As it was she still kept her face turned away and her voice was tight with emotion.

“Understanding will not achieve anything, Mr. Rathbone. I killed him. That is all the law will know or care about. And that is unarguable.”

He smiled wryly.”Nothing is ever unarguable in law, Mrs. Carlyon. That is how I make my living, and believe me I am good at it. I don't always win, but I do far more often than I lose.”

She swung around to face him and for the first time there was real humor in her face, lighting it and showing a trace of the delightful woman she might be in other circumstances.

“A true lawyer's reply,” she said quietly.'“But I am afraid I would be one of those few.”

“Oh please. Don't defeat me before I begin!” He allowed an answering trace of lightness into his tone also. “I prefer to be beaten than to surrender.”

“It is not your battle, Mr. Rathbone. It is mine.”

“I would like to make it mine. And you do need a barrister of some kind to plead your case. You cannot do it yourself.”

“All you can do is repeat my confession,” she said again.

“Mrs. Carlyon, I dislike intensely any form of cruelty, especially that which is unnecessary, but I have to tell you the truth. If you are found guilty, without any mitigating circumstances, then you will hang.”

She closed her eyes very slowly and took a long, deep breath, her skin ashen white. As he had thought earlier, she had already touched this in her mind, but some defense, some hope had kept it just beyond her grasp. Now it was there in words and she could no longer pretend. He felt brutal watching her, and yet to have allowed her to cling to a delusion would have been far worse, immeasurably dangerous.

He must judge exactly, precisely all the intangible measures of fear and strength, honesty and love or hate which made her emotional balance at this moment if he were to guide her through this morass which he himself could only guess at. Public opinion would have no pity for a woman who murdered out of jealousy. In fact there would be little pity for a woman who murdered her husband whatever the reason. Anything short of life-threatening physical brutality was expected to be endured. Obscene or unnatural demands, of course, would be abhorred, but so would anyone crass enough to mention such things. What hell anyone endured in the bedroom was something people preferred not to speak of, like fatal diseases and death itself. It was not decent.

“Mrs. Carlyon…”

“I know,” she whispered.”They will…” She still could not bring herself to say the words, and he did not force her. He knew they were there in her mind.

“I can do a great deal more than simply repeat your confession, if you will tell me the truth,” he went on. “You did not simply push your husband over the banister and then stab him with the halberd because he was overfamiliar with Mrs. Furnival. Did you speak to him about it? Did you quarrel?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She turned to look at him, her blue eyes uncomprehending.

“What?”

“Why did you not speak to him?” he repeated patiently. “Surely at some time you must have told him his behavior was distressing you?”

“Oh… I-yes.” She looked surprised. “Of course… I asked him to be-discreet…”

“Is that all? You loved him so much you were prepared to stab him to death rather than allow another woman to have him-and yet all you did was to ask-” He stopped. He could see in her face that she had not even thought of that sort of love. The very idea of a consuming sexual passion which culminated in murder was something that had not occurred to her with regard to herself and the general. She seemed to have been speaking of something else.

Their eyes met, and she realized that to continue with that pretense would be useless.

“No.” She looked away and her voice changed again. “It was the betrayal. I did not love him in that way.” The very faintest smile tugged at the corners of her wide mouth. “We had been married twenty-three years, Mr. Rathbone. Such a long-lived passion is not impossible, I suppose, but it would be rare.”

“Then what, Mrs. Carlyon?” he demanded. “Why did you kill him as he lay there in front of you, senseless? And do not tell me you were afraid he would attack you for having pushed him, either physically or in words. The last thing he would have done was allow the rest of the dinner party to know that his wife had pushed him downstairs. It has far too much of the ridiculous.”

She drew breath, and let it out again without speaking.

“Had he ever beaten you?” he asked. “Seriously?”

She did not look at him. “No,” she said very quietly. “It would help if he had, wouldn't it? I should have said yes.”

“Not if it is untrue. Your word alone would not be greatly helpful anyway. Many husbands beat their wives. It is not a legal offense unless you feared for your life. And for such a profound charge you would need a great deal of corroborative evidence.”

“He didn't beat me. He was a-a very civilized man-a hero.” Her lips curled in a harsh, wounding humor as she said it, as if there were some dark joke behind the words.

He knew she was not yet prepared to share it, and he avoided rebuff by not asking.

“So why did you kill him, Mrs. Carlyon? You were not passionately jealous. He had not threatened you. What then?”

“He was having an affair with Louisa Furnival-publicly- in front of my friends and family,” she repeated flatly.

He was back to the beginning. He did not believe her, at least he did not believe that was all. There was something raw and deep that she was concealing. All this was surface, and laced with lies and evasions. “What about your daughter?” he asked.

She turned back to him, frowning. “My daughter?”

“Your daughter, Sabella. Had she a good relationship with her father?”

Again the shadow of a smile curled her mouth.

“You have heard she quarreled with him. Yes she did, very unpleasantly. She did not get on well with him. She had wished to take the veil, and he thought it was not in her best interest. Instead he arranged for her to marry Fenton Pole, a very agreeable young man who has treated her well.”

“But she has still not forgiven her father, even after this time?”

“No.”

“Why not? Such a grudge seems excessive.”

“She-she was very ill,” she said defensively. “Very disturbed-after the birth of her child. It sometimes happens.” She stared at him, her head high. “That was when she began to be angry again. It has largely passed.”

“Mrs. Carlyon-was it your daughter, and not you, who killed your husband?”

She swung around to him, her eyes wide, very blue. She really did have a most unusual face. Now it was full of anger and fear, ready to fight in an instant.

“No-Sabella had nothing to do with it! I have already told you, Mr. Rathbone, it was I who killed him. I absolutely forbid you to bring her into it, do you understand me? She is totally innocent. I shall discharge you if you suggest for a moment anything else!”

And that was all he could achieve. She would say nothing more. He rose to his feet.

“I will see you again, Mrs. Carlyon. In the meantime speak of this to no one, except with my authority. Do you understand?” He did not know why he bothered to say this. All his instincts told him to decline the case. He could do very little to help a woman who deliberately killed her husband without acceptable reason, and a flirtation at a dinner party was not an acceptable reason to anyone at all. Had she found him in bed with another woman it might be mitigating, especially if it were in her own house, and with a close friend. But even that was not much. Many a woman had found her husband in bed with a maid and been obliged to accept in silence, indeed to keep a smile on her face. Society would be more likely to criticize her for being clumsy enough to find them, when with a little discretion she could have avoided placing herself-and him-in such a situation.

“If that is what you wish,” she said without interest. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Rathbone.” She did not even ask who had sent him.

“It is what I wish,” he answered. “Good day, Mrs. Carlyon. “ What an absurd parting. How could she possibly have a good anything?

Rathbone left the prison in a turmoil of mind. Every judgment of intelligence decreed that he decline the case. And yet when he hailed a hansom he gave the driver instructions to go to Grafton Street, where William Monk had his rooms, and not to High Holborn and Peverell Erskine's offices, where he could tell him politely that he felt unable to be of any real assistance to Alexandra Carlyon.

All the way riding along in the cab at a steady trot his mind was finding ways of refusing the case, and the most excellent reasons why he should. Any competent barrister could go through the motions of pleading for her, and for half the sum. There was really nothing to say. It might well be more merciful not to offer her hope, or to drag out the proceedings, which would only prolong the pain of what was in the end inevitable.

And yet he did not reach forward and tap on the window to redirect the cabby. He did not even move in his seat until they stopped at Grafton Street and he climbed down and paid the man. He even watched him move away along towards the Tottenham Court Road and turn the corner without calling him back.

A running patterer came along the footpath, a long lean man with fair hair flopping over his brow, his singsong voice reciting in easy rhymes some domestic drama ending in betrayal and murder. He stopped a few yards from Rathbone, and immediately a couple of idle passersby hesitated to hear the end of his tale. One threw him a threepenny piece.

A costermonger walked up me middle of the street with his barrow, crying his wares, and a cripple with a tray of matches hobbled up from Whitfield Street.

There was no purpose in standing on the paving stones. Rathbone went up and knocked on the door. It was a lodging house, quite respectable and spacious, very suitable for a single man of business or a minor profession. Monk would have no need of a house. From what he could remember of him, and he remembered him very vividly, Monk preferred to spend his money on expensive and very well-cut clothes. Apparently he had been a vain and highly ambitious man, professionally and socially. At least he had been, before the accident which had robbed him of his memory, at first so totally that even his name and his face were strange to him. All his life had had to be detected little by little, pieced together from fragments of evidence, letters, records of his police cases when he was still one of the most brilliant detectives London had seen, and from the reactions of others and their emotions towards him.

Then had come his resignation over the Moidore case, both on principle and in fury, because he would not be ordered against his judgment. Now he struggled to make a living by doing private work for those who, for one reason or another, found the police unsuitable or unavailable to them.

The buxom landlady opened the door and then, seeing Rathbone's immaculate figure, her eyes widened with surprise. Some deep instinct told her the difference between the air of a superior tradesman, or a man of the commercial classes, and this almost indefinably different lawyer with his slightly more discreet gray coat and silver-topped cane.

“Yes sir?” she enquired.

“Is Mr. Monk at home?”

“Yes sir. May I tell 'im 'o's calling?”

“Oliver Rathbone.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Rathbone. Will you come in, sir, an' I'll fetch 'im down for yer.”

“Thank you.” Obediently he followed her into the chilly morning room, with its dark colors, clean antimacassars and arrangement of dried flowers, presumably set aside for such purposes.

She left him, and a few minutes later the door opened again and Monk came in. Immediately he saw Monk, all the old emotions returned in Rathbone: the instinctive mixture of liking and dislike; the conviction in his mind that a man with such a face was ruthless, unpredictable, clever, wildly humorous and quick tongued, and yet also vindictive, fiercely emotional, honest regardless of whom it hurt, himself included, and moved by the oddest of pity. It was not a handsome face; the bones were strong and finely proportioned, the nose aquiline and yet broad, the eyes startling, but the mouth was too wide and thin and there was a scar on the lower lip.

“Morning Monk,” Rathbone said dryly. “I have a thankless case which needs some investigation.”

Monk's eyebrows rose sharply. “So naturally you came to me? Should I be obliged?” Humor flashed across his face and vanished. “I presume it is not also moneyless? You certainly do not work for the love of it.” His voice was excellent. He had trained himself to lose his original lilting provincial Northumbrian accent, and had replaced it with perfectly modulated Queen's English.

“No.” Rathbone kept his temper without difficulty. Monk might irritate him, but he was damned if he would allow him to dictate the interview or its tone. “The family has money, which naturally I shall use in what I deem to be the client's best interest. That may be to employ you to investigate the case-but I fear there will be little to find that will be of use to her.”

“You are quite right,” Monk agreed. “It does sound thankless. But since you are here, I presume you want me to do it anyway.” It was not a question but a conclusion. “You had better tell me about it.”

With difficulty Rathbone kept his equanimity. He would not permit Monk to maneuver him into defensiveness. He smiled deliberately.

“Have you read of the recent death of General Thaddeus Carlyon?”

“Naturally.”

“His wife has confessed to killing him.”

Monk's eyebrows rose and there was sarcasm in his face, but he said nothing.

“There has to be more than she has told me,” Rathbone went on levelly, with some effort. “I need to know what it is before I go into court.”

“Why does she say she did it?” Monk sat down astride one of the two wooden chairs, facing Rathbone over the back of it. “Does she accuse him of anything as a provocation?”

“Having an affair with the hostess of the dinner party at which it happened.” This time it was Rathbone who smiled bleakly.

Monk saw it and the light flickered in his eyes. “A crime of passion,” he observed.

“I think not,” Rathbone answered. “But I don't know why. She seems to have a depth of feeling in inappropriate places for that.”

“Could she have a lover herself?” Monk asked. “There would be a great deal less latitude for that than for anything he might do in such a field.”

“Possibly.” Rathbone found the thought distasteful, but he could not reason it away. “I shall need to know.”

“Did she do it?”

Rathbone thought for several moments before answering.

“I don't know. Apparently her sister-in-law believes it was the younger daughter, who is seemingly very lightly balanced and has been emotionally ill after the birth of her child. She quarreled with her father both before the night of his death and at the dinner party that evening.”

“And the mother confessed to protect her?” Monk suggested.

“That is what the sister-in-law says she believes.”

“And what do you believe?”

“Me? I don't know.”

There was a moment's silence while Monk hesitated.

“You will be remunerated by the day,” Rathbone remarked almost casually, surprised by his own generosity. “At double police pay, since it is temporary work.” He did not need to add that if results were poor, or hours artificially extended, Monk would not be used again.

Monk's smile was thin but wide.

“Then you had better tell me the rest of the details, so I can begin, thankless or not. Can I see Mrs. Carlyon? I imagine she is in prison?”

“Yes. I will arrange permission for you, as my associate.”

“You said it happened at a dinner party…”

“At the house of Maxim and Louisa Furnival, in Albany Street, off Regent's Park. The other guests were Fenton and Sabella Pole, Sabella being the daughter; Peverell and Damaris Erskine, the victim's sister and brother-in-law; and a Dr. Charles Hargrave and his wife-and of course General and Mrs. Carlyon.”

“And the medical evidence? Was that provided by this Dr. Hargrave or someone else?”

“Hargrave.”

A look of bitter amusement flickered in Monk's eyes.

“And the police? Who is on the case?”

Rathbone understood, and for once felt entirely with Monk. A pompous fool who was prepared to allow others to suffer to save his pride infuriated him more than almost anything else.

“I imagine it will fall under Runcorn's command,” he said, meeting Monk's eyes with understanding.

“Then there is no time to be wasted,” Monk said, straightening up and rising from his seat. He squared his shoulders. “The poor devils haven't a chance without us. God knows who else they will arrest-and hang!” he added bitterly.

Rathbone made no answer, but he was aware of the quick stab of memory, and he felt Monk's anger and pain as if it were his own.

“I'm going to see them now,” he said instead. “Tell me what you learn.” He rose to his feet as well and took his leave, passing the landlady on the way out and thanking her.

At the police station Rathbone was greeted with civility and some concern. The desk sergeant knew his reputation, and remembered him as being associated with Monk, whose name still called forth both respect and fear not only in the station but throughout the force.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the sergeant said carefully. “And what can I do for you?”

“I should like to see the officer in charge of the Carlyon case, if you please.”

“That'll be Mr. Evan, sir. Or will you be wanting to see Mr. Runcorn?” His blue eyes were wide and almost innocent.

“No thank you,” Rathbone said tartly. ”Not at this stage, I think. It is merely a matter of certain physical details I should like to clarify.”

“Right sir. I'll see if 'e's in. If 'e in't, will you call again, sir, or will you see Mr. Runcorn anyway?”

“I suppose I had better see Mr. Runcorn.”

“Yes sir.” And the desk sergeant turned and disappeared up the stairs. Three minutes later he came back and told Rathbone that if he went up Mr. Runcorn would give him five minutes.

Reluctantly Rathbone obeyed. He would much rather have seen Sergeant Evan, whose imagination and loyalty to Monk had been so evident in the Moidore case, and in the Grey case before that.

Instead he knocked on the door and went in to see Superintendent Runcorn sitting behind his large, leather-inlaid desk, his long, ruddy-skinned face expectant and suspicious.

“Yes, Mr. Rathbone? The desk sergeant says you want to know about the Carlyon case. Very sad.” He shook his head and pursed his lips. “Very sad indeed. Poor woman took leave of her senses and killed her husband. Confessed to it.” He looked at Rathbone with narrowed eyes.

“So I heard,” Rathbone agreed. “But I assume you did look into the possibility of the daughter having killed him and Mrs. Carlyon confessing in order to protect her?”

Runcorn's face tightened. “Of course.”

Rathbone thought he was lying, but he kept the contempt from his face.

“ And it could not be so?”

“It could be,” Runcorn said carefully.”But there is nothing to suggest that it is. Mrs. Carlyon has confessed, and everything we have found supports that.” He leaned back a little in his chair, sniffing. “And before you ask, there is no way that it could possibly have been an accident. He might have fallen over by accident, but he could not possibly have speared himself on the halberd. Someone either followed him down or found him there, and picked up the halberd and drove it into his chest.” He shook his head. “You'll not defend her, Mr. Rathbone, not from the law. I know you're a very clever man, but no one can deny this. A jury is ordinary men, sensible men, and they'll hang her-whatever you say.”

“Possibly,” Rathbone agreed with a feeling of defeat. “But this is only the beginning. We have a long way to go yet. Thank you, Mr. Runcorn. May I see the medical report?”

“If you like. It will do you no good.”

“I'll see it anyway.”

Runcorn smiled. “As you wish, Mr. Rathbone. As you wish.”