The Shifting Tide

TWELVE

Rathbone had been to visit Gould in prison because he had promised Monk that he would. He had expected to find a man he was morally obliged to defend, not for the man’s sake, or because he was moved by any conviction that he was innocent, but because it was a clear duty. He realized as he left that he was inclined towards accepting Gould’s story that he really had found Hodge unconscious but not apparently injured. He admitted freely that he had stolen the ivory, but his indignation at the charge of murder had a ring of honesty that Rathbone had not expected.

However, on speaking to the undertaker who had buried Hodge, there could be no doubt whatever that he had suffered an appalling blow to the head. It had crushed the back of his skull, and was presumably the cause of his death. The undertaker had done as he was asked in burying Hodge, being assured both by Louvain and by Monk that all evidence had been recorded under oath and would be passed to the appropriate authorities. The perpetrator of the crime was being sought, and when found would be brought to justice.

Rathbone returned to his office and began to consider what possible courses were open to him. He was thus occupied when Coleridge informed him that Monk was at the door. It was a little after half past eight in the morning.

“Now?” he said incredulously.

Coleridge’s face was studiously without expression. “Yes sir. I daresay he is also concerned about the case.” He had no idea what the case was, and he was apparently offended by the omission. He also desired Rathbone to realize that Monk was not the only person working long and remarkable hours.

“Yes, of course,” Rathbone acknowledged. He had no intention of telling Coleridge what the case was; he could not afford to until it was absolutely necessary. Even then, it would be only what he was going to say in court, and not include the reason for any of his extraordinary silences. But Coleridge did deserve to be treated with consideration. “He would be,” he said, referring to Monk. “It is a grave matter. Will you show him in, please.”

“Would you like a cup of tea, Sir Oliver? Mr. Monk looks unusually . . .” The clerk searched for an adequate phrase. “In need of one,” he finished.

Rathbone smiled. “Yes, please. That is most thoughtful of you.”

Coleridge retreated, mollified.

Monk came in a moment later, and Rathbone saw immediately what Coleridge had meant. Monk was wearing the same clothes he had had on last time and his face looked even hollower, as though he had neither eaten nor slept well since then. He came into the office and closed the door behind him.

“Coleridge is coming back with tea in a few minutes,” Rathbone warned. “Have you found any of the crew yet? You’ll have to tell them, even if you keep them by force. You can’t put them into the clinic, can you?”

“We haven’t found them,” Monk replied, his voice low and rasping with exhaustion. “Not any of them. They could be anywhere in the country, or back at sea on other ships going God knows where.” He remained standing. Rathbone noticed that Monk’s body was rigid. His right hand flexed and unflexed and the muscles of his jaw twitched in nervous reaction. He must be in agony over Hester alone in Portpool Lane. He would have no idea whether there were more people dead, plague raging through the place with all its horror and its obscenity. Or if they were cooped up waiting, dreading every cough, every chill or flush of heat, every moment of faintness whether mere exhaustion or the beginning of the measured agony of fever, swelling, pain, and then death.

Rathbone was overcome with relief that Margaret was not in there; it welled up inside him like an almost physical escape from pain, like the fire of brandy felt in the stomach and the blood when one has been numb with cold.

He stood facing Monk, who was gray with dread of losing all that mattered most to him and gave his life purpose and joy. If Hester died, he would be alone in a way that would be a constant ache inside him, increasing every burden, dulling any possible happiness. And Rathbone was awash with relief at his own safety. It filled him with shame.

“I saw Gould,” he said aloud, trying for his own sake almost as much as Monk’s to occupy their minds with the practical. Pity would be no help. “I believed him.” He saw the slight lift of surprise in Monk’s face. “I didn’t expect to,” he said. “He’ll make a good witness, if I have to put him on the stand. The trouble is, I don’t know what the truth is, so I’m afraid of what I’ll uncover.”

Monk was pensive. “Well, so far as we know there was no one on board the ship apart from the skeleton crew and Gould, so the only defense can be that if Gould didn’t kill him, then one of the crew did, or else it was an accident.”

“If it was an accident then it can only have happened if he fell and cracked his head open, possibly breaking his neck,” Rathbone reasoned. “And if that were the case, it should have been apparent to whoever found him. Was his neck broken? You didn’t say so.”

“No it wasn’t.”

“And you said there was so little blood you thought he was actually killed somewhere else,” Rathbone went on. “You said . . .”

“I know what I said!” Monk snapped. “That was before I knew about the plague.”

“Don’t say that word!” Rathbone said sharply, his voice rising. “Coleridge will be back any minute!”

Monk winced, as though he had been caused sudden pain.

Rathbone drew in his breath to apologize, although he knew it was the truth which hurt Monk, not his words. Just at that moment there was a brisk tap on the door and Coleridge opened it, carrying in a tea tray and setting it on the table.

Rathbone thanked him and he withdrew again.

“Are you saying he died of . . . illness?” Rathbone asked, passing the tea as he spoke.

“It fits the facts if Gould is telling the truth,” Monk replied, sitting down at last. He looked so weary it was going to be an effort for him to stand up again. “Hodge had to be accounted for. They couldn’t just get rid of the body, so someone took a shovel to the back of his head to make that seem the cause of death.”

Rathbone believed it. “But that’s no use as a defense for Gould,” he pointed out. “All I can think of so far is reasonable doubt, and I don’t know how to raise that without going too close to the truth.” He shivered and put his hands into his pockets. It was an uncharacteristic gesture because it pushed his trousers out of shape. “Who can I call?” he went on. “The prosecution will call the crew, who will say they know nothing. I daren’t call any medical experts, because if I question them, we would raise the issue of whether he was dead already, and if so, what caused it. His neck wasn’t broken, there was nothing to suggest heart attack or apoplexy, and the last thing on earth we can afford is to have them dig Hodge up again.”

Monk shook his head slowly, like a man in a fog of thought, too harried on every side to find his way. “You’ll have to play for time,” he said unhappily. “I need to find something to raise a doubt.”

Rathbone hated forcing the issue. Monk was exhausted, and Rathbone could barely guess at the fear which must be eating him alive. Margaret was safe. Rathbone had everything to look forward to. If he lost her, it would be his own doing: his cowardice, moral or emotional. The solution lay in his own hands. But Monk was powerless. There was nothing he could do to help. He did not even know from hour to hour if Hester was alive, still well, or already infected, suffering terribly. She was imprisoned with virtual strangers. Would they even care for her in her moments of extremity? Would they stay to nurse her, as she had nursed so many others? Would they run away in terror or inadequacy? Or would they be too close to death themselves to be able to raise a hand to fetch water, or whatever one did to ease the terror or pain of the dying? The thought made him sick with misery.

“What is it?” Monk demanded, cutting across his thoughts.

Rathbone recalled himself. “To raise reasonable doubt I have to suggest a believable alternative,” he answered. “If Gould didn’t kill him, either someone else did or it was an accident. Can you get evidence to back your original decision? Louvain wrote that paper swearing to get Hodge’s killer if you found the ivory. That’ll come out, because the undertaker will swear to it to protect himself. I can’t afford to question the medical evidence at all. They would dig the body up, and that’s a nightmare I don’t even want to imagine.”

Monk said nothing. He seemed to be lost in thought. As if noticing the tea for the first time, he poured himself a cup and drank it, wincing at the heat, and yet obviously grateful for it.

Rathbone poured some for himself as well. “Does Louvain know the truth?” he asked.

Monk looked up at him. “I really don’t know.”

“Then you’ve got to find out. At least one of us has to. If you . . .”

“I’ll do it,” Monk said with such biting decision that Rathbone knew he would not raise the question again.

“If he didn’t know,” Rathbone said quietly, “then you will have to tell him. The only way he can protect himself is to testify that he was mistaken, and Hodge could have fallen and hit his head.”

“Or that Gould killed him, exactly as I first believed.”

“Do you believe it now?”

“No.” Again there was no hesitation.

“Then we’ll have to find a way of getting Louvain to testify for him, or he’ll hang,” Rathbone warned him. “We can’t let the plague loose in London to save one man, however innocent.”

Monk took a deep breath and rubbed the heel of his hand over his face. “I know. How many days till the trial?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“I’ll see Louvain,” Monk promised. He straightened up, but there was a weariness inside him that bowed his shoulders and his face was ashen. “Durban is still hoping to find the crew.” His face crumpled. “How many people are there, Rathbone, that disappear and no one misses? How many can fall, and we all just press onward without even seeing the space they’ve left? Does anyone care? Are there people suffering, crippled with grief, and we don’t notice that either?”

Rathbone wished he had a lie good enough to give even the remotest comfort, but he hadn’t. Whether anyone missed the crewmen he had no idea. They might be dead of plague in any town in the south of England, or more probably already at sea on another ship. There was no terror spreading, no cry of quarantine, evacuation, or fire to burn it out, to exorcise it like a thing from hell. But Monk was speaking of the void in his own life that Hester’s loss would create, and Rathbone knew that.

And he was contemplating allowing himself to love Margaret just as deeply—wasn’t he? With all the strength of emotion he possessed. It defied every instinct of self-preservation he had followed all his life. It was a denial of sanity, the ultimate madness.

Had he any choice? Can one decide whether to love or not? Yes, probably. One could walk away from life and choose half a life, paralysis of the soul.

He had walked away from Hester, and she had been wise enough to refuse him anyway, perhaps for precisely that reason. Monk had had the courage of spirit to care, and she knew that, and valued it for the infinite worth it was. Now Monk would be racked by it forever if she died.

Margaret was safe, as much as anything warm and living and vulnerable was ever safe. If he wanted to be part of life, not merely a watcher, then he would let himself love as well. Perhaps it was the nature of caring that you could not help it. There was no choice to make; your own nature had already made it. If you could pull back then you were not wholly involved.

He had never admired Monk more than he did at this moment, for the courage it had taken him to risk everything. With that knowledge came a pity so deep it hollowed out new places within himself and filled them with a helplessness that twisted like a knife. There was nothing to say or do as Monk turned and walked to the door. Their friendship was deeper than Rathbone had acknowledged to himself before, and it was on the brink of being destroyed because part of Monk himself would be lost.

If friendship could hurt so profoundly, what in heaven’s name could love do?

Rathbone spent the rest of the day catching up on other work he had put aside in order to prepare for the Gould case, and much of the following morning also.

However, his mind was made up regarding Margaret. Time was precious, far more so than he had appreciated until now. He had dithered on the brink of asking her to marry him. It was both cowardly and foolish. He had written to her and dispatched the letter by messenger, inviting her to dinner that evening, and rather than wait till this crisis was past, whatever the relief, or the irretrievable loss, he would tell her his feelings and ask her to marry him.

As he dressed, regarding himself unusually critically in the glass, he was aware with surprise that he had taken it for granted that she would accept. It had not occurred to him until this moment that it was possible she would not.

Then he realized why the nerves in his stomach were jumping and there was a tightness in his throat. It was not that she might decline. Everything in society and in her personal circumstances dictated that she accept, and he was perfectly certain that there was no other suitor she was considering. She was far too honest to have allowed him to court her had there been. She would accept him. The question that turned and twisted inside him was would she love him? She would be loyal, because loyalty was in her nature. She would be gentle, even-tempered, generous of spirit, but she would have done that for anyone. It was not enough. To have all that, not because she loved him but because it was a matter of her honor that she should give it, would be a refinement of torture he could not bear to face. Yet if he did not ask her, he had already chosen failure.

He took a hansom to call on her, and this time he found Mrs. Ballinger’s attentions even more difficult to receive gracefully. His emotions were far too raw to expose to her acute perception. He had no layer of wit with which to defend himself, and he found parrying her enquiries extremely hard work. He was relieved when Margaret was unfashionably punctual; in fact, he was deeply grateful for it.

He offered her his arm, bade Mrs. Ballinger a good evening, and went out to the waiting hansom just a fraction more hastily than was graceful.

“Have you heard anything more from Monk?” Margaret asked as soon as he had given the cabbie instructions. “What is happening? Has he heard from Hester?”

“Yes, I have seen Monk again,” he replied. “He came to my chambers yesterday morning, but he had heard nothing from Portpool Lane. I know no more than you do.”

She made a tiny sound of desperation. “How was he?”

How could he protect her from pain? To love and cherish her was the privilege he was seeking to obtain for the rest of their lives. Surely he should begin now?

“He is trying very hard to find evidence to help Gould’s trial,” he replied. “It starts tomorrow.”

“Sir Oliver!” she said simply. “Please do not patronize me. I asked you because I wished to know the truth. If it is a confidence you cannot tell me, then say so, but do not tell me something untrue simply because you believe it is what I wish to hear. How is Monk?”

He felt powerfully rebuked. “He looks dreadful,” he said honestly. “I have never seen anyone suffer as he is doing now. And I know of no way to help him. I feel as if I am watching a man drown, and standing by with my arms folded.”

She turned to face him, the carriage lamps of the passing traffic throwing a flickering light on her face. “Thank you,” she said softly. “That at least I believe. And please don’t blame yourself like that; no one can help. There are not many occasions that friendship cannot improve, but I think this might be one of them. We can only do our best, and be there if the time should come when there is something to do.”

There was no answer that was large enough, so he made none. A kind of peace settled between them. He thought how fortunate he was to be sitting beside her, and the resolve within him to ask her to marry him became even more certain.

They arrived at the home of their hosts and alighted. They were welcomed in their turn, there being over a score of guests. It was a very formal affair, women in magnificent gowns, richly embroidered, jeweled combs and tiaras glittering in their hair, diamonds on earlobes and around pale throats.

Margaret wore very little adornment, only a simple pearl necklace, and he was surprised how anything so modest could please him so much. It had a purity that was like a quiet statement of her own worth.

Within a few moments they were absorbed into the buzz of conversation. He had been accustomed to such parties for years, but he had never found it quite so intensely difficult to chatter politely without saying anything of meaning. He recognized several people and did not wish to become involved in exchanges with them because he knew he could not concentrate. His usual ease of manner was impossible. Emotions threatened to break through his composure, and it required a constant vigilance to conceal them. He wanted to protect Margaret from the intrusive speculation that was customary. He had escorted her several times now, and it was inevitable that many would be waiting for him to make some declaration. They would be watching her for pride, disappointment, desperation. It was all intrusive, unintentionally cruel, and a part of society they both took for granted.

Far more deeply than that, he wanted to protect her from the fear she felt for Hester and the sense of helplessness because there was nothing she could do beyond continuing to raise money.

“How charming to see you again, Miss Ballinger,” Mrs. Northwood said meaningfully, looking first at Margaret, then at Rathbone.

Rathbone drew in his breath to answer her, then saw Margaret’s face and realized she did not care. She had caught the implication and it barely touched her. He felt a rush of admiration for her. How beautiful she was in her passion and integrity, beside these bright and trivial women. What did a little social prurience matter, compared with the horror that was going on less than two miles away in Portpool Lane?

He moved a little closer to her.

Mrs. Northwood noticed it, and her eyes widened.

There was at least a half an hour before dinner would be announced, but they were hemmed in by people on all sides. He could hardly ask her to find a place where they could speak alone. He did not even know exactly what he was going to say. Such things should be graceful, romantic, not blurted out in the fear they would be interrupted or overheard. He should have invited her to a completely different kind of function. What on earth had made him choose this?

But he knew the answer. She would accept this because it gave her the opportunity to seek funds again. She would have refused a more charming situation, more romantic, where they could be alone and then it would have become embarrassing, and worst of all, contrived. And he enjoyed being with her in company. He looked around at the other people present and was proud that it was she on his arm and not one of them. He found himself smiling. He would create a situation where he could speak to her, even if it was on the way home.

Lady Pamela Brimcott was coming towards them. She was in her mid-thirties, handsome, and formidable. He had defended her brother Gerald on a charge of embezzlement—unsuccessfully. At least she had considered it so, because Gerald had been found guilty even though the sentence had been relatively lenient due to Rathbone’s plea of mitigating circumstances. Actually, Gerald was greedy and selfish, and Rathbone had believed him guilty as charged. But it was his duty to be advocate, not judge.

“Good evening, Oliver,” Pamela said coolly. Her gaze moved to Margaret. “I presume this is Miss Ballinger, whom I hear about so often? I daresay Oliver has told you as much about me?”

Rathbone felt the heat flood up his face. At one time he had courted Pamela, had even considered she would be a suitable wife. That had been before he met Hester and realized that suitable was a description without passion or laughter, or necessarily even friendship. Thank heaven his instinct had prevailed. He could see the enmity in Pamela’s eyes, and knew she had not forgiven him for either of the things in which she believed he had let her down. She very probably would not have married him then—he had had no title—but she would have liked to be asked.

“I’m afraid he has not mentioned you,” Margaret replied, her tone polite and implying regret.

Pamela smiled. “How discreet of him.” She let the layers of hidden meaning unfold.

Rathbone felt the heat increase in his face. He would have loved to utter a crushing response, but he cared too much to think of one. He knew Hester would have, and wished she were here to defend them both.

Margaret grasped the implication immediately. Her body stiffened; Rathbone could feel it almost as if she were actually touching him. But she smiled with startling sweetness and looked unblinkingly at Pamela. “He never discusses past cases with me,” she responded.

Rathbone gasped.

There was utter silence for a second, two seconds. Then Pamela’s face went white as she understood what she had heard. For the first time in years she struggled to find a response. The remark had been truer than Margaret could have known, and she could not fling it back.

Margaret waited, refusing to help her.

“He certainly wouldn’t discuss this one!” Pamela said at last. “He doesn’t care to speak of failures, and this was a disaster. He defended a member of my family who was charged with an act of which he was completely innocent, but suffered in spite of it.”

Now Margaret’s face was tense and pale also. She raised her eyebrows very slightly. “Really?” she said with disbelief. “That must have been most distressing for you. I admire your courage in speaking of it so frankly to a stranger.” Her tone implied that it was also indiscreet.

“We are not really strangers when we share so much,” Pamela replied between her teeth.

Margaret lifted her chin even higher. “Do we? I had not realized, but I am delighted to know it. Then you will be as keen as I on giving to charitable causes. I am presently concerned with a clinic which treats sick and injured women in the Farringdon area. Even a few pounds is sufficient to provide heating and medicine so the most desperate cases can have time to recover a little. I shall give you an account of how it is spent, naturally.”

Pamela looked startled—and cornered. “I admit you have surprised me, Miss Ballinger. I did not expect you to ask me for money!”

Margaret contrived to look even more surprised. “Have you something else I might wish?”

Rathbone could feel his stomach clench, his face burning, and yet he wanted to laugh. The whole evening was escaping him. He had failed Pamela’s brother, not in that he was found guilty but in arguing the case at all. He should have persuaded him to admit his guilt and repay the money. He could have; he had had the means. He had bent to pressure from the family, and because he was fond of Pamela he had not wanted to tell her that her brother was a thief. He did not want Margaret to know that.

“Nothing that I could pass to you, my dear,” Pamela said icily, her meaning perfectly plain.

Margaret smiled radiantly. “I’m so glad,” she whispered, and turned to walk away, leaving Pamela utterly confused, feeling she had been bested without knowing exactly how.

Rathbone was amazed, and a little startled at how pleased he was that Margaret had defended herself so very effectively. He caught up with her in a glow of satisfaction, almost pride. He took her arm, but as soon as they were a few yards away she stopped and faced him with all trace of humor gone.

“Oliver, I would like to be able to speak to you for a few moments without interruption. I believe there is a conservatory; would you mind if we went to it? There would surely be a discreet corner where we could go”—she smiled a trifle self-consciously—“without people leaping to romantic conclusions.”

He felt oddly crushed. He did not wish her to take the lead; it was vaguely unbecoming. And yet she had made it plain that her intention was not romantic, and he was disappointed. “Of course,” he replied, hearing the coolness in his voice and wishing it were not there. She must surely have heard it also. “It is this way.”

It was a marvelous room, full of wrought-iron arches and filled to the roof with exotic plants. The sound of falling water was delightful, and the smell of damp earth and flowers filled the air.

Margaret stopped as soon as they were several yards from the nearest person who might overhear them. Her face was extremely grave.

He felt a sense of alarm. This was not even remotely how he had intended it to be. “What is it?” His voice sounded nervous, scratchy.

“Have you heard from Hester?” she asked. There was no lift of expectation in her.

“No. Have you?”

“I don’t even know if she is well or ill,” she admitted. “I choose to believe that were she not still alive, then the rat catcher would have told me, but I can’t even be certain of that. But I do know that it is not over, or she would have returned home.” She looked at him very steadily. “She is still in there, with only the help of unskilled women, and Squeaky and the rat catcher. There is no one to look after her, if she should need it, or even to be with her so she does not face this alone. I am going tomorrow morning, early, before light. Please don’t try to argue with me. It is the right thing to do and there is no alternative.”

It was terrible! Unbearable! “You can’t!” He reached out and took her hands, clasping them hard. She did not resist, but neither did she respond. “Margaret, no one is allowed in—or out!” he said urgently. “I understand your wishing to help, but . . .” His mind was filled with horror, as if a pit had suddenly yawned open at his feet and he and all he loved were teetering on the rim.

She pulled her hands away sharply. “Yes I can. I shall write a message for the men with the dogs to take to the rat catcher. Hester may not let me in, but Sutton will, for her sake.” She looked so white now that he was afraid she might faint. She was as terrified as he was, just as aware of the horror of the disease and the chances of her contracting it and dying a vile death. And yet she intended to go.

He had to stop her. The irony of it was devastating. “I was going to ask you to come to the conservatory so that we might speak alone for an utterly different reason.”

“What?” She was startled, as if she thought she might have misheard him.

“I was going to ask you to marry me. I love you, Margaret, more than I have ever loved anyone else, more than I realized I could. I am very afraid of caring so intensely, but I find I do not have a choice in the matter.” How stilted he sounded, as if he were addressing a judge before a more impassioned plea to a jury.

Her eyes filled with tears, which amazed him.

“Please?” he said gently. “I love you far too much to give up asking. For me there is no second best, nothing else to fall back on.”

“I love you, too, Oliver,” she said in little more than a whisper. “But this is not the time to be thinking of ourselves. And we do not know if there will be a future after this.” There was reproach in her voice; it was infinitely gentle, but it was also impossible to mistake.

His heart plunged. She had seen his terror of disease, and while she might understand it, she could conquer her own fear. She expected as much from him. Had he lost her already, not to plague but to contempt, or even to its kinder and more devastating likeness, pity? And yet he had no power to govern the churning of his stomach, the feeling as if everything strong and in control inside him had suddenly turned to water.

He closed his eyes. “It is precisely because there may be no future after this that I had to tell you how I feel.” He heard his voice, hollow, shaky rather than passionate. “Tomorrow, or next week, may be too late. I could merely have said I love you, but I imagine you already know that—the important part is that I wish to marry you. I have never asked a woman that before.”

She turned away from him, smiling in spite of her tears. “Of course not, Oliver. If you had, she would have accepted you. But I can’t, not with things as they are. I hope you will forgive me, and take my place in the raising of funds. We will still need them desperately, probably even more so. But others apart from me can do that. No one else can be there, nor should they.” She turned back. “I am not asking because you love me, or because I love you, but because it is right.”

“Of course.” He did not have to give it an instant’s thought. He wanted to argue with her, say anything, do anything, to prevent her from going, but he knew if he did it would be rooted in selfishness and it would destroy both of them. He offered her his arm, and they went back to join the party and proceed in to dinner.

It was not late when he took her home because they both could think of nothing but the fact that she must be up early in the morning to reach the clinic before dawn.

He alighted from the hansom and offered his arm to hand her out. He hesitated for a moment, hoping to kiss her. She must have sensed it, because she pulled away.

“No,” she said quietly. “Good-bye is difficult enough. Please don’t say anything, just let me walk away. Apart from anything else, I do not wish to have to explain myself to my mother. Good night.” And she walked across the footpath as the front door of the house opened. She went in, leaving him as utterly alone as if he were the only man alive in a deserted city.

He slept badly and at half past four gave up the attempt altogether. He rose, shaved in tepid water, and dressed. Without bothering to eat breakfast, he took a hansom cab and gave the driver the address of his father’s house in Primrose Hill.

It was nearly six when he arrived, and still as dark as midnight. He spent almost five minutes on the front doorstep before Henry Rathbone’s manservant let him in.

“Good gracious, Mr. Oliver! Whatever’s wrong?” he said with horror. “Come in, sir. Let me get you a brandy. I’ll go an’ fetch the master.”

“Thank you,” Rathbone accepted. “That’s very good of you. Please tell him that I am quite unhurt, and so far as I know in perfectly good health.”

Henry Rathbone arrived some ten minutes later, accepting the offer of a cup of tea from his manservant. Then he sat down in the armchair opposite Oliver, who was nursing a brandy. He did not cross his legs as usual but leaned forward, giving Rathbone his whole attention. The room was cold, no one having risen yet, in the normal course of the day, to clean out the grate, set, and light a new fire.

“What is it?” he said simply. He was a taller man than his son, lean with a gentle, aquiline face and steady, very clear blue eyes. He had been a mathematician and sometime inventor in his earlier years, and the lucidity of his mind, and its gentle reasonableness, had often assisted in Oliver’s more desperate cases.

Oliver remembered Henry’s profound affection for Hester; it made what he had to say almost impossibly difficult. He hesitated, now that the moment had arrived, lost for words.

“I cannot help if I do not know what it is,” Henry reminded him reasonably. “You have come this far, before dawn, and you are obviously beside yourself with anxiety over something. You had better say what it is.”

Rathbone looked up. His mere presence made it both better and worse. It brought all his own emotions so much closer to the surface. “It is something that can be told to no one else at all. I should not tell you, but I am at my wits’ end,” he said.

“Yes, I see that,” Henry agreed. “Wait till we have the tea and can be uninterrupted.”

Oliver obeyed, marshaling the thoughts in his mind into some kind of rational order.

When the tea was brought and they were alone, he began. He told the story very simply and in a manner as devoid of emotion as he could manage. Rather than robbing it of feeling, this reserve added to it.

Henry said nothing whatever until Oliver stopped speaking and waited for a comment.

“How like Hester,” Henry said at last. “I am sure Margaret Ballinger is a fine woman, that much is quite clear, and perhaps Hester would not have made you happy, nor you her. But I have never known anyone else whom I liked quite so much.”

“What can I do?” Oliver asked.

“Defend the thief to the best of your ability,” Henry told him. “As long as you do not ever allow anyone to guess, as wildly as they may, that you are concealing a disease of any nature, let alone this one. You could create a panic which could end in mass destruction. Neither Hester nor Margaret would survive it, and it would not even necessarily contain the plague. Whatever you do, Oliver, you must let no one suspect. It would be very dreadful if the thief is hanged for a crime of which he is innocent, but for once injustice is not the greatest evil.”

“I know,” Oliver agreed quietly. “I do know!”

“And poor Monk is doing what he can to trace the members of the crew who were paid off?”

“Yes. The last I spoke to him, he had had no success at all.”

“They may already be dead,” Henry pointed out. “It is even possible they died at sea and he will find no trace of them because there is none to find.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Oliver admitted.

“Is there any reason to believe this man, Louvain?”

“None at all.”

“Then you had better appeal to his interest rather than his honor.”

“Now that Margaret is no longer able to raise money for food, coal, medicines, it is up to me. There is a fear of immorality and disease in our midst. We don’t like to be reminded of such things so close to home. We feel guilty that it happens while we are perfectly well and comfortable ourselves. Africa is too far away to be our fault.”

“Personally,” Henry agreed dryly, “it is too far away for us to feel accountable for it and it is equally too far away for them to be accountable to us.”

Oliver was too tired to grasp his meaning. He was cold and exhausted deep to his bones. “What do you mean?”

“That we give money and feel our duty is discharged,” Henry replied. “There is no probability of seeing that it goes to the cause we have been told, so we feel virtuous and ignore the rest.”

“Well, of course it—” Oliver stopped.

Henry reached for the teapot and topped up his cup. “I shall help. It will not be difficult for me to raise money for you. You attend to rescuing the thief from the gallows. I shall bring money for you tomorrow. For today I have about seven pounds in the house. Take that and begin. I shall get more, however I do it.”

“However?” Oliver said sharply.

He glanced around the room at various pieces of pewter, silver, a couple of wooden carvings. “Can you think of anything better I could do with whatever I have?” Henry asked.

“No. No, of course not.” Oliver rose to his feet stiffly. “I must get back to town. Thank you.”

As darkness shrouded the river on the evening Rathbone took Margaret to dinner, Monk was standing on the shore at Wapping Stairs waiting for Durban. He heard the boat scraping against the stones and moved forward out of the shadows.

Durban came up the steps slowly, coughing in the raw night air. For a brief moment he was silhouetted against the water where the riding lights of a moored boat shimmered behind him, then he was in the dark. But Monk had seen him for that moment, and knew from the hunch of his shoulders that he had found nothing.

“Neither did I,” he said quietly. He voiced the thought that had been in his mind for some time. “Do you think they could have died at sea and simply been put overboard, and that’s why there is no trace?”

“Of plague?” Durban asked, standing close beside Monk so he did not have to raise his voice. “And the rest of the crew got the ship here?”

“Why not? Couldn’t four men do it if they had to?”

“Probably, and they wouldn’t all go at once. But that isn’t the issue. If the men died of an ordinary illness they’d report it. Why not? And Louvain would know.”

“Yes,” Monk agreed. “But if they died of plague, they wouldn’t. The ship would be barred from landing and Louvain would lose his cargo, and we already know he can’t afford that.”

“You saw Newbolt and the others,” Durban responded. “Do you think they’d stay on a plague ship out of loyalty to Louvain?”

“No.” There was no argument; the idea was ludicrous. “So where are they?”

“Paid off, as Louvain said, and either lucky enough not to have got the plague, or died of it by now,” Durban answered, his voice soft in the darkness and the gentle slurping of the tide against the stones.

“Gould goes to trial tomorrow,” Monk said. “I believe Hodge died of plague, and someone beat his head in to hide the fact. They didn’t dare put him over the side once they were in port, which means Gould had nothing to do with it. We can’t prove that, and wouldn’t even if we could. We daren’t even suggest it was one of them, or the whole thing could come out. We daren’t give any cause to dig up the body, so we can’t call any medical evidence.”

Durban did not ask if Monk knew anything from the clinic; they had spent enough time together that he would have heard it in Monk’s voice, in what he didn’t say as well as what he did. He never once offered pity, just a quiet understanding of pain.

“It wasn’t any of the crew,” he agreed. “If they knew it was plague they’d have been off that ship if they’d had to swim. It must have been Louvain himself. But we’ll not get him to testify to that.”

“What would be reasonable doubt?” Monk was thinking aloud. “Dead drunk and fell?”

“It would mean Louvain would have to go back on his word,” Durban warned. “He’d not like that.”

“He’d not like the alternative either,” Monk said with growing conviction. “I need to make it sufficiently unpleasant so he’ll be glad to say he was mistaken. Hodge was drunk and he fell and hit his head so hard it killed him. There was more blood around Hodge’s than he first realized.”

“Hodge was a drunkard?” Durban asked dubiously. “They left a known drunkard on watch at night on the river, with the cargo still on board? That’s incompetent.”

“They’re shorthanded.”

“Then put your drunkard on during daylight.”

“Then you’re right, they’re incompetent,” Monk agreed bitterly. “That’s still better than plague-ridden, and that’s Louvain’s choice.”

“You going to tell him?”

“Can you think of anything better?”

“You want me to come?”

Monk heard the exhaustion in Durban’s voice. “No. Anyway, I’d like to see that bastard alone. I want to be the one to force him to save Gould. It’s not much, but I’d like to.”

“I understand. But be careful,” Durban warned, and suddenly the edge was back in his tone, the tiredness gone. “Make sure he knows you are not working alone. The River Police know everything. Make absolutely certain he understands that!”

“You think he’d kill me?” Monk was only mildly surprised, and it was a strange, flat emptiness inside him that he did not really care. He was exhausted with plunging between hope and despair for Hester. Hope was agonizing; sometimes it was almost unbearable to cherish it. Better to accept that this was the end. Sooner or later she would catch it. She had given her life to save London, maybe Europe. He was passionately proud of her, yet so angry he could have killed Louvain with his bare hands and felt the life choke out of him with the nearest he could know to pleasure. He was so full of pain he was buckling under the weight of it. He did not want to eat, and could not sleep, only succumb to unconsciousness now and then.

“Actually I think you might kill him,” Durban said reasonably. “So I’ll come with you anyway. You can be the one to talk, I’ll just be there.”

“And if he has men there, and kills both of us?” Monk asked.

“Chance I’ll take,” Durban replied dryly. “We’ll take him with us; that’ll be something.”

“Won’t help Gould much.”

“No, it won’t, will it!” Durban agreed. “Come on. Let’s go and see him.”

This time it was less easy to gain entrance to Louvain’s office, even though the clerk readily admitted that Mr. Louvain was still in and there was no one with him.

“It’s to do with the Maude Idris and the theft of the ivory,” Monk said curtly.

“Yes, sir. We have the ivory back, thank you.”

“I know, damn it! I’m the one who got it back for you. The thief goes on trial tomorrow. A matter has arisen which I need to speak to Louvain about before then.”

“I’ll ask, sir. And the gentleman with you?”

“Inspector Durban of the River Police.”

Ten minutes later they were in Louvain’s office, the fire still burning, the room warm, the gaslight gleaming on the polished surface of his desk. He was standing with his back to the window, as he had been when Monk was there the last time, the lights of the Thames flickering in the dark window behind him. He looked tense and tired.

“What is it?” he said as soon as the door was closed. “I know the thief goes on trial tomorrow. What of it?” He did not bother to hide his irritation as they faced each other across the room, anger brittle in the air between them. “What the hell have you got the River Police here for?”

“Gould didn’t kill Hodge,” Monk stated. “I didn’t look at the body closely. As I was meant to, I saw only the back of his head.”

Louvain’s eyes were hard and steady. Not once did they look at Durban. “And what more did you wish to see?” he asked.

“The cause of death,” Monk replied instantly. “Or the cause of Ruth Clark’s death—whoever she was.”

Louvain’s face paled under the windburn on his skin. “She has nothing to do with them,” he said gruffly. For the first time there was an emotion in him quite different from anger.

Monk wondered if she had been Louvain’s mistress after all. Had it even hurt him to take her to the clinic and leave her there? Monk had thought it possible that Louvain had not known it was plague, believed it to be simply pneumonia, but Durban’s logic was relentless. If Gould had not killed Hodge, then it had to be Louvain who had disguised the cause of his death. If the crew had known the truth, nothing on earth would have kept them on the ship. Which also meant that the other three had been paid off rather than died at sea.

“She has everything to do with it,” Monk said with a choking hatred inside him. “You took her to the Portpool Lane clinic knowing she had the plague.” He ignored Louvain’s wince of pain. However much he might have cared for her, it did not excuse his taking her to where she could pass on the disease to other people, women other men loved! In fact, the depth of his own loss made it worse. “That is what Hodge died of—isn’t it!” he accused. “It was you who took a shovel to the back of his head to make it look like murder, so he would be buried quickly and no one would ever know the truth. You didn’t care a toss that an innocent man might hang for it!”

“He’s a thief,” Louvain said bitterly, anger in his voice at being held to account.

“Is that why you’re hanging him?” Monk was incredulous, and yet the more he thought of it, the more he believed it. “Because he stole from you?”

Louvain’s mouth twisted. “You think you’re a worldly man, Monk, and that no one dares to defy you, but you’re naÏve. You’re hobbled by your own morals. You’re too weak to survive on the river.”

A few days ago that insult would have bothered Monk. Today it was too trivial even to answer. What was vanity in the face of the loss that gaped in front of him?

“Gould is not going to hang,” Monk answered instead. “Because we are going to see he is acquitted on the grounds of reasonable doubt.”

Louvain bared his teeth in something like a smile. “Reasonable doubt as to what? You’re not going to tell anyone he died of plague.” Even as he said the word his voice caught, and Monk realized for the first time the horror that turned Louvain sick at even speaking the word. It was anger, greed, and pride which drove him, but it was fear which beaded the sweat on his skin and drained the blood from it. “You’ll have panic like forest fire,” he went on. “Your own wife will be one of the first to be killed. The mob would torch the clinic, and you know that.” A glitter of triumph, thin as melting ice, lit his eyes.

Monk was drenched with the sense of the power in Louvain, the intelligence and the violence held in check only by judgment of his own need. Now Monk knew exactly why he had been so willing to sign the paper testifying to Hodge’s death. He had intended even then to hold Hester and the clinic to ransom. That was why he had chosen Monk! It made the most perfect sense.

“Of course I won’t tell,” Monk agreed, his voice shaking, and almost oblivious now of Durban behind him. “And neither will you, because if you do you’ll be mobbed as well. I’ll see to it. The river wouldn’t thank you for bringing plague into London. You’ll not only lose your ship, and the cargo still in it, but you’ll be lucky if they don’t burn your warehouse, your offices, and your home. They’d string you up for the pleasure of it.” He smiled back. “I’ll make damn sure of it—if I have to.”

He saw the sweat of fear on Louvain’s lip and brow, and the hatred in his eyes.

“So you are going to testify that you were mistaken,” Monk said in a hard, level voice, holding Louvain’s eyes. “You did not want everyone to know that you had a watchman on duty who was a drunkard. Bad for your reputation. But you realize now that you have to be more precise with the truth. Hodge drank too much, he smelt of it, and he must have overbalanced and fallen, hitting his head, because that’s how you found him. Gould will change his story about Hodge’s being drunk but unhurt when he saw him. It will be reasonable enough to think that’s what happened.”

“And if I refuse?” Louvain said very carefully. He stood stiffly, his body balanced as if for a physical fight, shoulders high, weight on the balls of his feet. “You’re not going to let the plague story out any more than I am. We are hoist on the same petard, Monk. I say Gould hangs. The next thief will think twice before stealing from a Louvain ship.”

“How clever do you think Gould is?” Monk asked, as if it were merely a matter of curiosity. “How moral?”

“Not much—in either case,” Louvain answered, shifting his weight a little. “Why?”

“He didn’t kill Hodge. What are you prepared to gamble on his willingness to hang in order to protect your interests?”

Louvain’s eyes were bright, but the last vestige of color had drained from his face, making the stubble on it look gray rather than brown. “You wouldn’t tell him,” he stated.

“I wouldn’t have to,” Monk replied. “He might be able to work it out. Not plague, perhaps, but yellow fever, typhus, cholera? Are you willing to have them dig up Hodge’s body to see if he’s right? Once it gets that far, none of us will be able to prevent it.”

There was silence in the room. Suddenly the ticking of the chronometer on the table became audible, counting away the moments of eternity.

Louvain spoke at last. “What do you want me to say?” His skin was white and sheened in sweat, but there was black rage in his eyes.

Monk told him again, slowly and carefully, then he and Durban went out into the rain-washed, blustery darkness, a small triumph like a pin dot of warmth inside him, too tiny to ease the vast fear of loss.

In the morning Rathbone was preparing to go into court when Monk came to him in the corridor. He looked ashen-faced and his clothes were ragged.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I lost track of the time. I should have been here earlier. Louvain will testify that Hodge was a drinker, and when he found him he was on the ledge at the bottom of the steps, dead drunk, his head bashed in from the fall.”

Rathbone stared at him. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. He dare not do anything else.” Monk blinked. “You look terrible.” His voice caught in his throat, fear naked in his eyes, his face, the wild, angular rigidity of his body.

Rathbone felt an overwhelming sense of brotherhood with him, a bond shared so profoundly it changed something inside him at that moment. All he could think of was getting rid of the terror in Monk’s eyes. He understood it because it was his own. “Margaret has gone to the clinic to help Hester,” he answered. “I don’t know any more, good or bad, but I’m taking money and supplies.”

The momentary relief left Monk speechless. His eyes filled with tears and he turned away.

Rathbone let him go. There was no need for words between them.

The trial lasted for three days. On the first the prosecution began with the undertaker who had buried Hodge, and his evidence seemed damning. There was little Rathbone could have done to shake him, and he knew he would only make himself unpopular with the jury were he to try. The undertaker was an honest man and it was quite clear he believed utterly what he said. He behaved with both dignity and compassion.

In the early afternoon Hodge’s widow gave evidence as to the identity of the body, not that anyone had doubted it. It was her quiet grief that the prosecution wished the jury to see.

Rathbone rose to his feet. “I have nothing to ask this witness, my lord. I would merely like to offer my condolences upon her loss.” And he sat down again to a murmur of approval from the crowd.

Next to be called was Clement Louvain. Rathbone found his heart beating faster, his hands clenched and slick with sweat. There was more than a man’s life depending upon him. If he probed too far, asked too much, he could let out a secret that could destroy Europe. And no one in the room knew it but Louvain and himself.

Louvain took the oath. He looked tired, as if he had been up all night, and his face was deep-lined with the ravages of emotion. Rathbone wondered briefly what part of it might be loss of the woman Ruth Clark.

The prosecution led Louvain through the finding of Hodge’s body and the description of the terrible wound on his head.

“And why did you not call in the police, Mr. Louvain?” he enquired mildly.

Rathbone waited.

Louvain stood silent.

The judge stared at him, his eyebrows raised.

Louvain cleared his throat. “Part of my cargo had been stolen. I wanted it recovered before my competitors were aware of it. It ruins business. I employed a man to do that. It was he who caught Gould.”

“That would be Mr. William Monk?”

“Yes.”

The prosecution’s tone was audibly sarcastic. “And now that you have your cargo back, you are ready to cooperate with the law and the people of London, not to mention Her Majesty, and help us to obtain justice. Do I understand you correctly, Mr. Louvain?”

Louvain’s face was twisted with fury, but there was nothing he could do. Watching him, Rathbone had a sense of the power in him, the strength of his will, and was glad he had not incurred such hatred.

Louvain leaned forward over the railing of the witness-box. “No, you don’t,” he snarled. “You have no idea of life at sea. You dress in smart suits and eat food brought you by a servant, and you’ve never fought anything except with words. One day on the river and you’d heave up your guts with fear. I got the thief and I got back my cargo, and I did it without anyone getting hurt or spending the public money on police time. What else do you want?”

“For you to follow the law like anyone else, Mr. Louvain,” the prosecution replied. “But perhaps you will tell me exactly what you found when you went to your ship, the Maude Idris, and discovered the body of Mr. Hodge.”

Louvain did as he was bidden, and the prosecution thanked him and invited Rathbone to question the witness if he wished.

“Thank you,” Rathbone said courteously. He turned to Louvain. “You have described the scene very vividly, sir, the dim light of the hold, the necessity of carrying a lantern, the height of the steps. We feel as if we have been there with you.”

The judge leaned forward. “Sir Oliver, if you have a question, please ask it. The hour is growing late.”

“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone refused to be rushed, his tone was easy, almost casual. “Mr. Louvain, is it as awkward to climb the steps into the hold as you seem to suggest?”

“Not if you’re used to it,” Louvain answered.

“And sober, I presume?” Rathbone added.

Louvain’s shoulders clenched under his jacket, and his hands on the railing looked as if he could break the wood. “A drunken man could miss his footing,” he conceded.

“And fall a considerable distance. I believe you said eight or ten feet?”

“Yes.”

“And sustain serious injuries?”

“Yes.”

“And was Hodge sober?”

Louvain’s eyes narrowed. “Not from the smell of him, no.”

“Then what makes you believe he was murdered, rather than simply having missed his footing, slipped and fell?” Rathbone walked a step farther forward into the middle of the floor. “Let me assist you, Mr. Louvain. Could it be that since your cargo had been stolen, you automatically assumed that the watchman was a victim of the same crime? You looked at the scene and concluded that the thief had come aboard your ship, attacked your watchman and stolen your goods, rather than that your watchman had died an accidental death. His absence from his post had allowed a thief to come aboard your ship and steal your goods? Is that possible, Mr. Louvain?”

“Yes,” Louvain said bitterly. “That is possible.” His voice was barely audible. “In fact, I believe that is what happened.”

“Thank you, sir.” Rathbone returned to his seat.

The rest of the trial was a formality; the other witnesses, including Monk, gave their evidence the following day, substantiating all that Louvain had said. The jury returned a verdict on the third day—Gould was guilty of theft, as he had pleaded, but there was more than reasonable doubt that any murder had been committed at all. Of that charge he was not guilty.

Rathbone walked out into the mid-morning rain with a sense of one very small victory, one man’s life saved, at least for the time being.