Twisted Root

9

OLIVER RATHBONE SAT in his office after Monk and Hester had gone, aware that he had made an utterly impetuous decision, which was most unlike him. He was not a man who acted without consideration, which was part of the reason why he was probably the most brilliant barrister currently practicing in London. It might also be why he had allowed Monk to ask Hester to marry him before he had asked her himself.

No, that was not entirely true. He had been on the verge of asking her, but she had very delicately allowed him to understand that she would not accept. It had been to save his feelings and the awkwardness between them that would have followed.

But then, if he were honest, the reason she would not accept him might easily have been her sense of his uncertainty. Monk would never have allowed his head to rule his heart. That was what Rathbone both admired in him and despised. There was something ungoverned in Monk, something even dark.

And yet he had come with Hester to try to persuade Rathbone to take the hopeless case of defending a nurse certainly guilty of theft, and almost as certainly guilty of murder. That could not have been easy for him. Rathbone leaned back farther in his chair and smiled a little as he remembered the look on Hester’s face, the stiffness in her body. He could imagine her thoughts. Monk would have done it for Hester’s sake, and he would know that Rathbone knew it also.

He was surprised how sharp the pain was on seeing Hester again, hearing the passion in her voice as she spoke of Cleo Anderson and the old sailor John Robb. That was just like her, full of pity and anger and courage, bound on some hopeless cause, not listening to anyone who told her the impossibility of it.

And he had agreed to help—in fact, to undertake some kind of defense. He would be a fool to pretend it would be less than that. Now he had begun she would not allow him to stop—nor would he allow himself. He would never admit to Monk that he would quit a fight before he had either won it or lost. Monk would understand defeat and forgive it, and respect winner or loser alike. He had tasted bitterness too often himself not to understand. But he would not forgive surrender.

And Rathbone would always want to be all that Hester expected of him.

So now he was committed to a case he could not win and probably could not even fight in any adequate manner. He should have been angry with himself, not analytical, and even in a faraway sense amused. He should have felt hopeless, but already his mind was beginning to explore possibilities, beginning to think, to plan, to wonder about tactics.

Both women had been charged with conspiracy and murder. The penalty would unquestionably be death. Rathbone had a justifiably high opinion of his own abilities, but the obstacles in this case seemed insuperable. It was extremely foolish to have such a will to win. In fact, it was a classic example of a man’s allowing his emotions not merely to eliminate his judgment but to sweep it away entirely.

He called his clerk in and enquired about his appointments for the next two days. There was nothing which could not be either postponed or dealt with by someone else. He duly requested that that be done, and left for his home, his mind absorbed in the issue of Cleo Anderson, Miriam Gardiner and the crimes with which they were charged.

In the morning, he presented himself at the Hampstead police station. He informed them that he was the barrister retained by Cleo Anderson’s solicitor and that he wished to speak with her without delay.

"Sir Oliver Rathbone?" the desk sergeant said with amazement, looking at the card Rathbone had given him.

Rathbone did not bother to reply.

The sergeant cleared his throat. "Yes sir. If you’ll come this way, I’ll take yer ter the cells ... sir." He was still shaking his head as he led the way back through the narrow passage and down the steps, and finally to the iron door with its huge lock. The key squeaked in the lock as he turned it and swung the door open.

" ’Ere’s yer lawyer ter see yer," he said, the lift of disbelief in his voice.

Rathbone thanked him and waited until he had closed the door and gone.

Cleo Anderson was a handsome woman with fine eyes and strong, gentle features, but at the moment she was so weary and ravaged by grief that her skin looked gray and the lines of her face dragged downwards. She regarded Rathbone without comprehension and—what worried him more—without interest.

"My name is Oliver Rathbone," he introduced himself. "I have come to see if I can be of assistance to you in your present difficulty. Anything you say to me is completely confidential, but you must tell me the truth or I cannot be of any use." He saw the beginning of denial in her face. He sat down on the one hard chair, opposite where she was sitting on the cot. "I have been retained by Miss Hester Latterly." Too late he realized he should have said "Mrs. Monk." He felt the heat in his face as he was obliged to correct himself.

"She shouldn’t have," Cleo said sadly, her face pinched, emotion raw in her voice. "She’s a good woman, but she doesn’t have money to spend on the likes o’ you. I’m sorry for your trouble, but there’s no job for you here."

He was prepared for her answer.

"She told me that you took certain medicines from the hospital and gave them to patients who you knew were in need of them but were unable to pay."

Cleo stared at him.

He had not expected a confession. "If that were so, it would be theft, of course, and illegal," he continued. "But it would be an act which many people would admire, perhaps even wish that they had had the courage to perform themselves."

"Maybe," she agreed with a tiny smile. "But it’s still theft, like you said. Do you want me to admit it? Would it help Miriam if I did?"

"That was not my purpose in discussing it, Mrs. Anderson." He held her gaze steadily. "But a person who would do such a thing obviously placed the welfare of other people before her own. As far as I can see, it was an act, a series of acts, for which she expected no profit other than that of having done what she believed to be right and of benefit to others for whose welfare she cared. Possibly she believed in a cause."

She frowned. "Why are you saying all this? You’re talking about ’ifs’ and ’maybes.’ What do you want?"

He smiled in spite of himself. "That you should accept that occasionally people do things without expecting to be paid, because they care. Not only people like you—sometimes people like me, too."

A flush of embarrassment spread up her cheeks, and the line of her mouth softened. "I’m sorry, Mr. Rathbone, I didn’t mean to insult you. But with the best will in the world, you can’t clear me of thieving those medicines, unless you find a way to blame some other poor soul who’s innocent—and if you did that, how would I go to _my Maker in peace?"

"That’s not how I work, Mrs. Anderson." He did not bother to correct her as to his title. It seemed remarkably unimportant now. "If you took the medicines, I have two options: either to plead mitigating circumstances and hope that they will judge you from the charity of your intent rather than the illegality of your act, or else to try to misdirect their attention from the theft altogether and hope that they concentrate on other matters."

"Other matters?" She shook her head. "They’re saying as I killed Treadwell because he was blackmailing me over the medicines. You can’t misdirect anybody away from that."

"And was he?"

She hesitated. Something inside her seemed to crumple. She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Yes."

He waited for her to say more, but she remained silent.

"How did he find out about the medicines?" he asked.

"I suppose it wasn’t hard." She stared ahead of her, a shadow of self-mockery in her expression. "Lot o’ people could have, if they’d wanted to think about it, and watch. I took stuff to about a score o’ the old ones who were really in a bad way. I don’t know why I talk about it in the past—they still are, an’ here’s me sittin’ here useless." She looked up at him. "There’s nothing you can do, Mr. Rathbone. All the questions in the world aren’t going to make any difference. I took the medicines, and it’ll be easy enough to prove. Treadwell worked it out. I don’t know how."

There was no argument to make. He heard footsteps along the corridor outside, but they continued on and no one disturbed them. He wondered briefly if the jailers here sympathized with her; even were it possible, they might sooner have had the law turn a blind eye to her thefts. Maybe they had little time for a blackmailer.

It was academic, only a wish. The power was not in their hands. Maybe it was a thought each would have had individually and never dared voice.

She was regarding him earnestly, her eyes anxious.

"Mr. Rathbone-don’t let them go talking to all the people I took medicines to. It’s bad enough they won’t get any help now. I don’t want them to know they were part of a crime— even though they never understood it."

He wished there was some way he could prevent that from happening, but it would soon enough become common knowledge. The trial would be written up in all the newspapers, told and retold by the running patterers, and in the gossip on every street corner. What should he tell her?

She was waiting, a flicker of hope in her face.

He regarded her almost as if he had not seen her before, not been speaking to her, forming judgments those last ten minutes. She had risked her own freedom, taken her own leap of moral decision in order to help the old and ill who could not help themselves. She had faced the most painful of realities and dealt with it. She did not deserve the condescension of being lied to. She would know the truth eventually anyway.

"I can’t stop them, Mrs. Anderson," he said gently, startled by the respect in his own voice. "And they’ll know anyway when it comes to trial. That is perhaps the only good thing about this whole affair. All London will hear of the plight of our old people to whom we owe so much—and choose not to pay. We may even hope that a few will take up the fight to have things changed."

She looked at him, hope and denial struggling in her face. She shook her head, pushing the thought away and yet unable to let go completely.

"D’you think so?"

"It is worth fighting for." He smiled very slightly. "But my first battle is for you. How long have you been paying Treadwell, and how much?"

Her voice hardened, and the pity vanished from her eyes. "Five years—an’ I paid him all I had, except a couple of shillings to live on."

Rathbone felt a tightening around his heart.

"And he asked you for more the night of his death. How much?"

Her voice sank to a whisper. She hesitated a moment before answering at all. "1 never saw him the night he died. That’s God’s truth."

He asked the question whose answer he did not want to hear and possibly he would not believe.

"Do you know who did?"

She answered instantly, her voice hard. "No, I don’t! Miriam told me nothing, except it wasn’t her. But she was in a terrible state, frightened half out of her mind an’ like the whole world had ended for her." She leaned towards him, half put out her hand, then took it back, not because the emotion or the urgency was any less, simply that she dared not touch him. "Never mind about me, Mr. Rathbone. I took the medicines. You can’t help me. But help Miriam, please! That’s what I want. If you’re my lawyer, like you said, you’ll speak up for her. She never killed him. I know her—I raised her since she was thirteen. She’s got a good heart an’ she never deliberately hurt anyone, but somebody’s hurt her so bad she’s all but dead inside. Help her—please! I’d go to the rope happy if I knew she was all right...."

He met her eyes and felt his throat choke. He believed her. It was a wild statement. She might have no real conception of what it would be like when the moment came, when the judge put on his black cap, and later when she was alone in the end, walking the short corridor towards the trap in the floor, and the short drop. Then it would be too late. But he still believed her. She had seen much death. There could be little of loneliness or pain that she was not familiar with.

"Mrs. Anderson, I am not sure there is anything I can do, but I promise I will not secure any leniency—or indeed, any defense—for you at Miriam Gardiner’s expense. And I will certainly do all I can to secure her acquittal, if she wishes it, and you do—"

"I do!" she said with fierce intensity. "And if she argues with you—for me—tell her that is my wish. I’ve had a good life with lots of laughter in it and done the things I wanted to. She’s very young. It’s your profession to convince people of things. You go and convince her of that, will you?"

"I can only work within the facts, but I will try," he promised. "Now, if there is anything more of that night you can tell me, please do."

"I don’t know anything else of that night," she protested. "I wish I did, then maybe I could help either one of us. I knew nothing until the police came because someone had reported finding a body on the pathway."

"When was that, what time?" he interrupted her.

"About an hour after dark. I didn’t look at the clock. I suppose Miriam must have left the party in late afternoon, and it would be close on dark by the time the carriage got as far as the Heath. I don’t know where he was attacked, but I heard say he crawled from there to where they found him."

"And when did you see Miriam Gardiner?"

"Next morning, early. About six, or something like that. She’d been out on the Heath all night and looked like the devil had been after her."

"Like she’d been in a fight?" he asked quickly. "Were her clothes torn, dirty, stained with mud or grass?"

Something inside her closed. She was afraid he was trying to implicate Miriam. "No. Only like she’d been running, p’raps, or frightened."

Was that a lie? He had no way of knowing. He recognized that she was not going to tell him any more. He rose to his feet. The fact that she had withdrawn her trust, at least as far as Miriam was concerned, did not alter his admiration for her or his intent to do all he could to find some way of helping.

"I shall go and speak with Mrs. Gardiner," he told her. "Please do not discuss this with anyone else. I shall return when I have something to tell you or if I need to ask you anything further. You have my word I shall take no steps without your permission."

"Thank you," she answered. "I—I am grateful, Mr. Rathbone. Will you tell Mrs. Monk that, too ... and..."

"Yes?"

"No—nothing else."

He banged on the door, and the jailer let him out. He walked away along the dim corridor with a fluttering fear inside him as to what else she might have been going to say to Hester. She was a woman prepared to go to any lengths, make any sacrifice, for what she believed to be right and to save those she loved. No wonder Hester was keen in her defense. In the same place she might so easily have done the same things. He could picture Hester with just this blind loyalty, sacrificing herself rather than denying the greater principle. Was that what Cleo had been going to say—some instruction or warning to Hester about the medicines? Was it a request, or was Hester already doing it even now?

He felt sick at the thought. His stomach knotted and sweat broke out on his skin. What could he do to help her if she was caught? He could not even think clearly about Cleo Anderson, whom he had never seen before today.

Start with Miriam Gardiner, that was the only thing. Usually, he would have told himself that the truth was his only ally, always to know the truth before he began. But in this case he was afraid there were truths he might prefer not to know—though he was uncertain which they were. He would have looked the other way, if only he was certain which way that was.

Rathbone was allowed in to see Miriam, but not as easily as when he had been to see Cleo Anderson. The atmosphere was different. Cleo was in police cells, a local woman known to the men—by repute, if not personally—to be undoubtedly a good woman, one whose life they valued far more than that of any blackmailing outsider.

Miriam was in prison, accused of murdering her prospective mother-in-law in order to inherit money the sooner—or possibly because the unfortunate mother-in-law was aware of some scandal in her past which would have prevented the marriage. Greed was an altogether different matter.

Miriam was not at all as he had expected. It was not until he saw her that he realized he had pictured in his mind some rather brashly handsome, bold-eyed woman with accomplished charm, who would quickly try to win him to her cause. Instead he found a small woman, a little too broad of hip, with a fair, tired face full of inner quietness and a strength which startled him. She maintained a deep reserve, even after he had explained to her who he was and the exact circumstances and reasons for his having come.

"It is good of you to take the time, Sir Oliver," she said so softly he had to lean forward to catch her words. "But I don’t believe you can help me." She did not meet his eyes, and he was aware that in a sense she had already dismissed him.

If he could not appeal to her mind, he would have to try her emotions. He sat down in the chair opposite her and crossed his legs as if he intended to make himself comfortable.

"Have they told you that you and Mrs. Anderson are to be charged together with conspiracy in the murders of Treadwell and Mrs. Stourbridge?"

She stared at him, her eyes wide and troubled. "That’s absurd! How can they possibly think Mrs. Anderson had anything to do with Mrs. Stourbridge’s death? She was in their own prison at the time. You must be mistaken."

"I am not mistaken. They know all that. They are saying that they believe you and Mrs. Anderson planned from the beginning that you should marry Lucius Stourbridge, thus gaining access to a very great deal of money, some now, far more later, on Major Stourbridge’s death, whenever that might be."

"Why should he die?" she protested. "He is quite young, not more than fifty, and in excellent health. He could have another thirty years, or more."

He sighed. "The mortality rate among those who seem to stand in the way of your plans is very high, Mrs. Gardiner. They would not consider his age or his health to be matters which would deter you."

She closed her eyes. "That is hideous."

Studying the lines of her face, of her mouth, and the way it tightened, the sadness and the momentary surprise and anger in her, he could not believe she had even thought of Harry Stourbridge’s death until this moment, and now that she did, the idea hurt her. But he could not afford to be gentle.

"That is what they are accusing you of—you and Mrs. Anderson together. Unless you accuse each other, which neither of you has done, you will both either stand or fall."

She looked up at him slowly, searching his eyes, his face, trying to read him.

"You mean I am to defend myself if I do not wish Cleo to suffer with me?"

"Yes, exactly that."

"It is completely untrue. I ... loved Lucius." She swallowed, and he could almost feel the pain in her as if it had been in himself. "I had no thought of anything but marrying him and being happy simply to be with him. Had he been a pauper it would have made not the slightest difference."

He felt she was telling the truth, and yet why had she hesitated? Why had she spoken of her love for Lucius in the past? Was that because the love had died, or simply the hope?

"James Treadwell was blackmailing Mrs. Anderson over the medicines she stole from the hospital to treat her patients. Was he blackmailing you also?"

Her head jerked up, her eyes wide. She seemed about to deny it vehemently, then instead she said nothing.

"Mrs. Gardiner," he said urgently, leaning forward towards her, "if I am to help either of you then I must know as much of the truth as you do. I am bound to act in your interest, and believe me when I say that the outlook could not be worse for either of you than it already is. Whatever you tell me, it cannot harm you now, and it may help. In the end, when it comes to trial, I shall take your instructions, or at the very worst, if I cannot do that, then I shall decline the case. I cannot betray you. If I did so I should be disbarred and lose not only my reputation but my livelihood, both of which are of great value to me. Now—was James Treadwell blackmailing you or not?"

She seemed to reach some decision. "No, he wasn’t. He could not know anything which would harm me. Except, I suppose, a connection with Cleo and the medicines, but he never mentioned it. I had no idea he was blackmailing her. If I had, I would have tried to do something about it."

"What could you do?" He tried to keep the edge from his voice.

She gave a tiny, halfhearted shrug. "I don’t know. I suppose if I had told Lucius, or Major Stourbridge, they might have dismissed him, without references, and made certain it was very hard for him to find new employment."

"Would that not have driven him to expose Mrs. Anderson in retaliation?" he asked.

"Perhaps." Then she stiffened and twisted around to stare at him, her face bleached with horror. "You think I killed him to protect Cleo?"

"Did you?"

"No! I didn’t kill him—for any reason!" The denial was passionate, ringing with anger and hurt. "Neither did Cleo!"

"Then who did?"

Her expression closed again, shutting him out. She averted her eyes.

"Who are you protecting, if it isn’t Mrs. Anderson?" he asked very gently. "Is it Lucius?"

She shivered, glanced up at him, then away again.

"Did Treadwell injure you in some way, and Lucius fought with him and it went further than he intended?"

"No." She sounded as if the idea surprised her.

It had seemed to him so likely an answer he was disappointed that she denied it, and startled at himself for believing her for no better reason than the intonation of her voice and the angle and stiffness of her body.

"Do you know who killed him, Mrs. Gardiner?" he demanded with sudden force.

She said nothing. It was as good as an admission. He was frustrated almost beyond bearing. He had never felt more helpless, even though he had certainly dealt with many cases where people accused of fearful crimes had refused to tell him the truth and had in the end proved to be innocent, morally if not legally. Nothing in his experience explained Miriam Gardiner’s behavior.

He refused to let it go. If anything, he was even more determined to defend both Miriam and Cleo, not for Hester and certainly not to prove himself to Monk, but for the case itself, for these two extraordinary, devoted and blindly stubborn women, and perhaps because he would not rest until he knew the truth. And maybe also for the principle.

"Did Mrs. Stourbridge know anything about Treadwell or about Cleo Anderson?" he pursued.

Again she was surprised. "No ... I can’t imagine how she could. I didn’t tell her, and I can hardly think that Treadwell would tell her himself. He was a—" She stopped. She seemed to be torn by emotions which confused her, pulling one way and then another: anger, pity, horror, despair.

Rathbone tried to read what she was feeling, even to imagine what was in her mind, and failed utterly. There were too many possibilities, and none of them made sense entirely.

"He was a man who did evil things," she said quietly at last, as much to herself as to him. "But he was not without virtue, and he is dead now, poor soul. I don’t think Mrs. Stourbridge knew anything about him except that he drove the carriage quite well—and, of course, that he was related to the cook."

"Why was she killed?"

She winced. "I don’t know." She did not look at him as she said it. Her voice was flat, the tone of it different.

He knew she was lying.

"Who killed her?"

"I don’t know," she repeated.

"Lucius?"

"No!" This time she turned to look at him, eyes dark and angry.

"Were you with him?"

She said nothing.

"You weren’t. Then how do you know he did not?"

Again she said nothing.

"It was the same person who killed both people?"

She made a very slight movement. He took it for agreement.

"Has it anything to do with the stolen medicines?"

"No!" Suddenly she was completely frantic again. "No, it has nothing to do with Cleo at all. Please, Sir Oliver, defend her." Now she was pleading with him. "She is the best person I have ever known. The only thing she has done against the law is to take medicines to treat the ill who cannot afford to buy them. She made nothing for herself out of it." Her face was flushed. "How can that be so wrong that she deserves to die for it? If we were the Christian people we pretend to be, she wouldn’t have had to take them. We would care for our own old and sick. We would be grateful to those who fought to protect us when we needed it, and we’d be just as keen to protect them now. Please, don’t let her suffer for this. It’s nothing to do with her. She didn’t kill Treadwell and she couldn’t possibly have killed Mrs. Stourbridge." Her voice was tight with fear and strain, almost strangled in her throat. "I’ll say I killed them both, if it will free her, I swear it!"

He put his hand on her arm. "No—it would only condemn you both. Say nothing. If you will not tell me the truth, at least do not lie to me. I will do anything I can for both of you. I accept that Mrs. Anderson could not have killed Mrs. Stourbridge, and I believe you that you did not kill Treadwell. If there is another answer I shall do everything in my power to find it."

She shook her head fractionally. "You can’_t," she whispered. "Just don’t let them hang Cleo. She only took the medicines—that’s all."

Rathbone had a late luncheon at his club, where he knew he would be left in complete solitude, should he wish it—and he did. Then he took a hansom out to the North London Hospital, intending to see Hester. He was not looking forward to it, and yet it was necessary to do so. He had not seen her alone since her marriage, but he had always known that it would be painful to him.

He sat in the cab as it clipped smartly through the streets, unaware of the other passing vehicles, even of where he was as they moved from one neighborhood to another, as they changed eventually from stone-facaded houses to the green stretch of the Heath.

He had changed his mind a dozen times as to what he would say to her, what manner he would adopt. Every decision was in one way or another unsatisfactory.

When he reached the hospital, paid the cabbie and alighted, he walked up the steps and met her without having had time to prepare himself. She was coming along the wide corridor at a brisk, purposeful walk, her head high. She was wearing a very plain blue dress with a small, white, lace collar, almost like a kind of uniform. On anyone else it might have been a little forbidding, but it was how he always visualized her: as a nurse, determined about something, ready to start some battle or other. The familiarity of it almost took his breath away. No amount of imagining this moment could stab like the reality. The sunlight in the corridor, the smell of vinegar, footsteps in the distance, all were printed indelibly in his mind.

"Oliver!" She was startled to see him, and pleased. He could detect none of the roar of emotion in her that he felt himself. But then he should not have expected it. She was happy. He wanted her to be. And part of him could not bear it.

He made himself smile. If he lost his dignity they would both hate it. "I was hoping to see you. I trust I am not interrupting."

"You have news of some sort?" She searched his face.

He must think only of the case. They had a common cause, one that mattered as fiercely as any they had ever fought. The lives of two women depended on it.

"Very little," he replied, moving a step closer to her. He caught a warmth, a faint air of some perfume about her. He ached to move closer still. She was so different now, so much less vulnerable than before. And yet in so many ways she was exactly the same. The will to battle was there, the stubbornness, the unreason, the laughter he had never completely understood, the arbitrariness that exasperated and fascinated him.

There was a very faint flush on her cheeks, as if she guessed some part of his thoughts.

He looked away from her, avoiding her eyes, pretending to be thinking deeply of legal matters.

"I have been to see both Cleo Anderson and Miriam Gardiner. Both deny either conspiracy or murder, but Miriam at least is lying to me about the murders. She knows who committed them, but I believe her when she says it is not she. I have not met Lucius Stourbridge."

Hester was startled. "Do you believe he could be guilty of killing his own mother?"

"I don’t think so, but it would seem to have been someone in the family, or else Miriam Gardiner," he reasoned.

She looked up and down the corridor. "Come into the waiting room here. There is no one needing it at the moment. We can speak more easily." She opened the door and led him in.

He closed it, trying to force his emotions out of his consciousness. There were far more important issues between them.

"Major Stourbridge?" he asked. "Or the brother, Aiden Campbell?"

She looked miserable. "I don’t know. I can’t think of any reason why they would hurt either Mrs. Stourbridge or, still less, Treadwell. But he was a blackmailer. If he would blackmail Cleo, then maybe he would blackmail others as well. William says he seemed to spend more money than he could have had from Cleo, so there will have been other victims."

"Lucius?"

"Perhaps," she said quietly. "That would explain why Miriam is prepared to defend him, even at the price of being condemned for it herself."

It was possible. It would explain Miriam’s refusal to tell the truth. But he still found it hard to believe.

"I cannot think of anything we could argue which would convince a jury of that, especially in the face of Miriam’s denial," he said, watching Hester. "And she would not let me try. I have promised not to act against her wishes."

A smile touched the corners of Hester’s lips and then vanished. "I would have assumed as much. I would like you to be able to defend Miriam, but I am more concerned with Cleo Anderson. I hope she did not kill Treadwell, but she cannot have killed Mrs. Stourbridge. I am absolutely sure she would not have conspired for Miriam to marry Lucius, or anyone else, for money. That part of it is simply impossible."

"Even to put to a good cause?" he asked gently.

"To put to any cause at all. It would be revolting to her. She loves Miriam. What kind of a woman would have her daughter marry for money? That’s prostitution!"

"Hester, my dear! It is the commonest practice in civilization. Or out of it, for that matter. Parents have sold their daughters in marriage, and considered it as doing all parties a service, since time immemorial—longer. Since prehistory."

"Isn’t that the same?" she said tartly.

"Actually, no. I believe ’time immemorial’ is in the middle of the twelfth century. It hardly matters."

"No, it doesn’t. Cleo would not sell her daughter, and she certainly would not conspire to murder someone who got in the way. If you knew her as I do, you wouldn’t even have thought of it."

He did not believe it either, but it was what a jury would believe that mattered. He pointed that out to her.

"I know," she said miserably, staring at the floor. "But we’ve got to do something to help. I refuse to hide behind an intricacy of the law as if it excused one from fighting."

He found himself smiling, but there was no laughter in it, no light at all, except irony. "Murder is not an intricacy of the law, my dear."

She looked at him with utter frankness, all the old friendship warm in her eyes, and suddenly he was short of breath. The final bit of denial of his emotions slipped away. He forced his mind back to the law and Cleo Anderson.

"How much medicine is missing, and exactly what?"

She looked apologetic. "We don’t know, but it’s a lot—a few grains a day, I should think. I can’t give you precise measurements and I wouldn’t if I could. You would rather not know."

"Perhaps you are right," he admitted. "I won’t ask again. When the matter comes to court, who is likely to testify on the thefts?"

"Only Fermin Thorpe, willingly—or at least not willingly but for the prosecution," she amended. "He’s going to hate having to say that anything went missing from his hospital. He won’t know whether to make light of it, and risk being thought trying to cover it up, or to condemn it and be seen on the side of the law, all quivering with outrage at the iniquity of nurses. Either way, he’ll be furious at being caught up in it at all."

"Is he not likely to defend one of his staff?"

The look in her face was eloquent dismissal of any such prospect.

"I see," he concluded. "And the apothecary?"

"Phillips? He’ll cover all he can—even to risking his own safety, but there’s only so much he can do."

"I see. I will speak with a few of the other nurses, if I may, and perhaps Mr. Phillips. Then I shall go and see Sergeant Robb."

It was early evening by the time Rathbone had made as thorough an examination of the hospital routine as he wished to, and had come to the regrettable conclusion that it required considerable forethought and some skill and nerve to steal medicines on a regular basis. The apothecary was very careful, in spite of his unkempt appearance and erratic sense of the absurd. Better opportunities occurred when a junior doctor was hurried, confused by a case he did not understand, or simply a little careless. Rathbone formed the opinion that in all probability Phillips was perfectly aware of what Cleo had been doing, and why, and had either deliberately connived at it, or at the very least had turned a blind eye. Against all his training, he found himself admiring the man for it, and quite intentionally ceased looking for evidence to support his theory.

Consequently, it was after seven o’clock by the time he went looking for Sergeant Robb, and was obliged to ask for his address at home in order to see him.

He found the house quite easily, but in spite of Michael Robb’s courtesy, he felt an intruder. A glance told him he had interrupted the care of the old man who sat in the chair in the center of the room, his white hair brushed back off his brow, his broad shoulders hunched forward over a hollow chest. His face was pale except for two spots of color on his cheeks. The sight of him gave a passionate and human reality to the work Cleo Anderson was prepared to risk so much for. Rathbone was startled to find himself filled with anger at the situation, at his own helplessness to affect it, and at the world for not knowing and not caring. It was with difficulty that he answered Michael Robb in a level voice.

"Good evening, Sergeant. I am sorry to intrude into your home, and at such an uncivil hour. If I could have found you at the police station I would have."

"What can I do for you, Sir Oliver?" Michael asked. He was courteous but wary. Rathbone was of both a class and a profession he was unused to dealing with except in court, where the duty of their offices prescribed the behavior for both of them. He was acutely conscious of his grandfather sitting, tired and hungry, waiting to be assisted. But he was by nature, as well as occupation, a gentle-mannered man.

"I have undertaken to defend Mrs. Anderson against the charge of murder," Rathbone replied with a faint, self-deprecating smile. He could not pretend to anyone he hoped for much success, and he did not wish Robb to think him a fool. "The question of theft is another matter."

"I’m sorry," Michael said, and there was sincerity in his face as well as his voice. "1 took no pleasure in charging her. But I can’t withdraw it."

"I understand that. It provides the motive for the murder of Treadwell."

"Are you talking about Cleo Anderson?" the old man interrupted, looking from one to the other of them.

Michael’s face tightened, and he shot Rathbone a look of reproach. "Yes, Grandpapa."

Rathbone had the strong impression that if Michael could have escaped with a lie about it he would have done so to protect the old man from knowledge which could only hurt. Had he any knowledge how much he also was compromised? Did he guess the debt he owed Cleo Anderson?

The old man looked at Rathbone. "And you’re going to defend her, young man?" He regarded Rathbone up and down, from his beautifully made boots and tailored trousers to his coat and silk cravat. "And what’s an officer-type gentleman, with a title an’ all, doing defending a woman like Mrs. Anderson, who in’t got two pence to rub together?" He cared about Cleo too much to be in awe of anyone. His faded eyes met Rathbone’s without a flicker.

"I don’t want payment, Mr. Robb," Rathbone answered. "I undertook it as a favor to a friend, Mrs. Monk. I believe you know her...." He saw the flash of recognition and of pleasure in the old man’s face, and felt a warmth within himself. "And I am continuing out of regard for Mrs. Anderson herself, now that I have met her."

Michael was looking at him with anxiety. Rathbone knew what he feared, perhaps better than he did himself. He feared the same thing, and even more keenly. He did not have to look at the cabinet shelf in the far corner to be aware of the medicines that first Cleo had brought, and now he was terrified Hester would continue to bring. There was no point in asking her not to, and he was in no position to forbid her—he doubted even Monk would succeed in that. Altogether, it would be wiser not to try. It would provoke a quarrel and waste time and energy they all needed to address the problem rather than fight each other. The chances of success in dissuading Hester, in his opinion, did not exist.

He preferred, for legal reasons, as well as his own fast-vanishing peace of mind, not to know what was in that cabinet or how it got there.

Michael half glanced at the cabinet, then averted his gaze. If the thought came to his mind, he forced it away. Just now he was too torn by his needs to allow himself to think it.

"So you’re going to stand up an’ speak for her?" the old man asked Rathbone.

"Yes, I am," Rathbone replied.

The elder Robb screwed up his face. His voice was hoarse, whispering. "What can you do for her, young man? Be honest with me."

Rathbone was candid. "I don’t know. I believe she took the medicines. I don’t believe she murdered Treadwell, even though he was blackmailing her. I think there is something of great importance that we have not imagined, and I am going to try to find out what it is."

"That why you came to speak to Michael?"

"Yes."

"Then you’d best get on with it. I can wait for me supper." He turned to his grandson. "You help this fellow. We can eat later."

"Thank you," Rathbone acknowledged the gesture. "But I should feel more comfortable if you were to continue as you would have. I think I passed a pie seller on the corner about a hundred yards away. Would you allow me to fetch us one each, and then we can eat and discuss at the same time?"

Michael hesitated only a moment, glancing at the old man and seeing his flash of pleasure at the prospect, then he accepted.

Rathbone returned with the three best pies he could purchase, wrapped in newspaper and kept hot, and they ate together with mugs of tea. Michael was the police officer in charge, and it was his duty to gather evidence and to present it in court. A few years earlier he would also have risked being sued for false arrest had the case failed, not as witness for the Crown but in a personal capacity, and faced jail himself could he not pay the fine. Even so, he seemed as keen as his grandfather to find any mitigating evidence he could for Cleo Anderson.

Old John Robb was convinced that if she had killed Treadwell, then he had thoroughly deserved it, and if the law condemned her, then the law was wrong and should be overturned. His faith that Rathbone could do that was fueled more by hope than realism.

Michael did not argue with his grandfather. His desire to protect him from more pain was so evident Rathbone was greatly moved by it.

Nevertheless, when he left as dusk was falling, he had learned nothing that was of help to him. Everything simply confirmed what he already knew from Hester. He walked briskly along the footpath in the warm evening air, the smells of the day sharp around him: horse manure, dry grass and dust from the Heath, now and then the delicacy of meat and onions or the sharpness of peppermint from one peddler or the other. There was the sound of a barrel organ playing a popular song in the distance, and children shouting.

He hailed the first hansom that passed him and gave the driver his address, then instantly changed his mind and directed him instead to his father’s home in Primrose Hill.

It was almost dark when he arrived. He walked up the familiar path with a sense of anticipation, even though he had taken no steps to ensure that his father was home, let alone that it was convenient for him to call.

The sweetness of mown grass and deep shadow engulfed him, and a snare of honeysuckle so sharp it caught in his throat almost like a taste. As he walked around the house and across the lawn to the French doors, he saw that the study light was on. Henry Rathbone had not bothered to draw the curtains and Oliver could see him sitting in the armchair.

Henry was reading and did not hear the silent footsteps or notice the shadow. His legs were crossed, and he was sucking on his pipestem, though as usual the pipe itself had gone out.

Oliver tapped on the glass.

Henry looked up, then as he recognized his son, his lean face filled with pleasure and he beckoned him in.

Oliver felt the ease of familiarity wash over him like a warmth. Unreasonably, some of his helplessness left him, although he had not even begun to explain the problem, let alone address it. He sat down in the big chair opposite his father’s, leaning back comfortably.

For a few moments neither of them spoke. Henry continued to suck on his empty pipe. Outside in the darkness a nightbird called and the branches of the honeysuckle, with its trumpet-shaped flowers, waved in the slight wind. A moth banged against the glass.

"I have a new case," Oliver said at length. "I can’t possibly win it."

Henry took his pipe out of his mouth. "Then you must have had a good reason for taking it ... or at least one that appeared good at the time."

"I don’t think it was a good one." Oliver was pedantic, as his nature inclined. He had learned exactness from Henry, and he never measured what he said to him. It was part of the basis of their friendship. "It was compelling. They are not the same."

Henry smiled. "Not in the slightest," he agreed.

"Monk asked me to," Oliver added.

Henry nodded.

"There was a moral imperative," Oliver said, justifying the choice. He did not want his father to think it was because of Monk, still less because of Hester.

"I see. Are you going to tell me what it is?"

"Of course." Oliver moved and crossed his legs comfortably. He gave a succinct outline of the cases against both Cleo Anderson and Miriam Gardiner, then he waited while Henry sat deep in thought for several moments. Outside it was now completely dark except for the patch of luminous moonlight on the grass just short of the old apple tree at the end of the lawn.

"And you assume that this woman Cleo Anderson did not kill the coachman," Henry said at last. "Even in a manner for which there might be some mitigating circumstances—or possibly a struggle in which he died accidentally?"

Oliver thought for a moment before answering. The truth was that that was exactly what he had accepted. Cleo had said she was not present, and he had believed her. He still did.

"Yes. Yes, I am assuming that," he agreed. "She never denied taking the medicines. I have no proof of exactly how she did it, or any of the circumstances. I have deliberately avoided finding them."

Henry made no comment. "How is Monk involved?" he asked instead.

Rathbone explained.

"And Hester?" Henry asked, his voice gentle.

Oliver had not forgotten how fond his father was of Hester, nor his unspoken desire that Oliver should marry her. He sometimes feared Hester’s regard for him was at least in part the affection she had for Henry and the desire to belong to a family in which she could know the safety her own had not given her. Her father had shot himself after a financial disgrace visited upon him at the end of the Crimean W_ar by a man who had traded upon their friendship in order to cheat. Hester’s mother had died shortly afterwards, largely of grief. Hester had spoken of it only once, unless she had done so more often to Henry when Oliver was not there, perhaps needing to share the burden.

This was a topic of conversation he was dreading. He had deliberately avoided it as long as possible, even to the extent of not coming to Primrose Hill but meeting his father in the City, where private conversations were too liable to interruption. Now it could no longer be deferred.

"Hester seems very well," he answered expressionlessly. At least he thought he had, but judging by Henry’s face, perhaps he deluded himself. "Of course, she is deeply concerned for this nurse, both personally and in principle," he added, feeling the warmth rush up his cheeks.

Henry nodded. "I can imagine that she is consumed with her usual fire." He did not say anything about Oliver’s motives for accepting what seemed a hopeless case. He was the only person who induced Oliver to make explanations of himself where none had been asked for.

"It matters!" Oliver said urgently, leaning forward a little. He looked at Henry, at his lean and slightly stooped form, his hair very gray, and imagined what he would feel if he had been a soldier or a sailor instead of a mathematician, if he were broken in body, bewildered and alone, unable to afford the care he needed, stripped of the dignity of old age and left only with its helplessness. It was so painful it caught his breath. Now the battle was for John Robb, for Henry, for all those affected by injury and age, or who would be in time to come. "It matters far more than any one person," he said passionately. "More than Cleo Anderson or even than Hester— or winning for its own sake. If we allow this injustice without doing all we can against it, what are we worth?"

Henry regarded him gravely, all the humor gone from his eyes. "Very little," he said quietly. "But emotion will not win for you, Oliver. It is an excellent driving force, the best, and it will keep your courage high. Anger at injustice has righted more wrongs than most other things, and it is one of the great creative forces in a civilized society." He shook his head. "But in order not to replace one enemy with another, albeit innocently intended, you must use your intelligence. You told me that you are certain that both Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Gardiner are lying to you. You cannot go into court without knowing at least what the lie is—and why they are telling it at the risk of their own deaths. The reason must be a very powerful one indeed."

"I know that," Oliver agreed. "And I have racked my brain to think what it could be."

"Is it the same reason for each?"

"I don’t even know that."

Henry sat thoughtfully, elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers steepled together. "I assume that you warned each of them that not only her own life, but the life of the other, rests upon the verdict. Therefore they each have a compelling reason for not telling you the truth. From what you say it seems possible that Mrs. Anderson does not know it, but certainly Mrs. Gardiner does. Why would a woman hang for a crime she did not commit?" He looked very steadily at Oliver. "Only because the alternative to her is worse."

"What could be worse than hanging?" Oliver asked.

"I don’t know. That is what you must find out."

"The hanging of someone you love..." Oliver said, as much to himself as to Henry.

"Is Lucius Stourbridge guilty?" Henry asked him.

"I don’t know," Oliver replied. "I don’t know why he could kill either Treadwell or his own mother."

"Treadwell is easier," Henry said thoughtfully. "The man may have threatened Mrs. Gardiner, or threatened the marriage, either through Mrs. Anderson or in some other way. He was a blackmailer. Much is possible. It is far more difficult to think of any motive for Lucius to have killed his mother."

"I’ve searched for one," Oliver admitted. "I’ve found nothing."

"It would be extraordinary if the two murders were not connected," Henry pursued, drawing his brows together. "What elements do they have in common?"

"Treadwell himself, and Miriam Gardiner," Oliver replied, "and the nature of the attacks."

"And the unknown," Henry added. "One must always include the possibility of a factor we have not considered, perhaps something outside our knowledge entirely. From what you have told me so far, it seems this may be the case here. Proceed with logic, eliminate what is impossible, and then examine what is left, no matter how ugly it may be. I have a feeling, Oliver, that this case may stretch your compassion to its limits and require more of you than you had thought to give. I am sorry. I appreciate that this is not easy for you, especially considering Hester’s involvement in it."

"Her involvement makes no difference!" As soon as the words were on his lips he knew that they were untrue, and quite certainly that Henry knew it also, but it was difficult to withdraw them.

Henry shook his head so minutely it was barely a movement at all.

"It makes no difference to the issues," Oliver amended. What he really meant—the aloneness, the knowledge of having held something precious and having let it slip through his fingers because he would not commit his passions fully enough, the regret—was all there between them, unsaid. Henry knew him well enough that truth was not necessary and lies were not only impossible but damaging. Henry understood as well as he did that Hester made all the difference in the world to the way he felt about it, to know he would continue to fight regardless of what he himself might lose in reputation, self-esteem or money.

Henry was smiling. Oliver knew in that moment that he approved. Much as he revered the law himself, and understood the dedication of a man to his chosen field, to his principles that superseded any individual, he also understood that to do all these things without caring was a kind of death to the heart. He would rather Oliver fought because he cared, and lost, than won with all the rewards but without belief.

They sat in silence for another half hour or so, then Oliver rose and took his leave. Henry strolled with him down the lawn in the darkness, heavy with the scent of wet grass, to look at the moonlight reflected on the leaves in the orchard, then walked back up again towards the road.

It did not need to be said that tomorrow Oliver must begin to prepare a sensible case to defend his clients and to look for whatever alternative was so hideous Miriam Gardiner would rather hang than have it revealed.

And if Oliver found it, where did his loyalty lie then? To Miriam or to the truth?

But after they had parted and Oliver walked towards the main thoroughfare he felt a strength restored inside him, a balance returned. He had faced certain lies and no longer allowed them to govern him.