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“He also suggested that she exaggerated her own medical abilities,” he went on. “And her stories of having performed surgery in the field were fairy tales.”
She turned and stared at him, confusion turning to anger.
“That is not so! She had as good a knowledge of amputation as most of the surgeons, and she had the courage and the speed. I’ll testify. I’ll swear to that, and they won’t shake me, because I know it for myself.”
“You can’t,” he answered, the flat feeling of defeat betrayed in his tone, even his stance.
“I damned well can!” she retorted furiously. “And let go of my arm! I can stand up perfectly well by myself! I’m tired, not ill.”
He kept hold o
f her, out of perversity.
“You can’t testify, because Lovat-Smith’s case is concluded,” he said through clenched teeth. “And Rathbone certainly won’t call you. That she was accurate and realistic is not what he wants to hear. It will hang Sir Herbert.”
“Maybe he should be hanged,” she said sharply, then immediately regretted it. “I don’t mean that. I mean maybe he did kill her. First I thought he did, then I didn’t, now I don’t know what I think anymore.”
“Rathbone still seems convinced he didn’t, and I must admit, looking at the man’s face in the dock, I find it hard to believe he did. There doesn’t seem any reason—not if you think about it intelligently. And he will be an excellent witness. Every time Prudence’s infatuation with him is mentioned, a look of total incredulity crosses his face.”
She gazed at him, meeting his eyes with searching candor.
“You believe him, don’t you?” she concluded.
“Yes—it galls me to concede it, but I do.”
“We will still have to come up with some better evidence as to who did it, or he is going to hang,” she argued, but now there was pity in her, and determination.
He knew it of old, and the memory of it, once so passionately on his behalf, sent a thrill of warmth through him.
“I know,” he said grimly. “And we will have to do it quickly. I’ve exhausted all I can think of with Geoffrey Taunton. I’d better follow what I can with Dr. Beck. Haven’t you learned anything more about him?”
“No.” She turned away, her face sad and vulnerable. The light caught her cheekbones and accentuated the tiredness around her eyes. He did not know what hurt her; she had not shared it with him. It pained him sharply and unexpectedly that she had excluded him. He was angry that he wanted to spare her the burden of searching as well as her nursing duties, and angriest of all that it upset him so much. It should not have. It was absurd—and weak.
“Well, what are you doing here?” he demanded harshly. “In all this time surely you have done more than fetch and carry the slops and wind bandages? For God’s sake, think!”
“Next time you haven’t a case, you try nursing,” she snapped back. “See if you can do it all—and detect at the same time. You’re no earthly use to anybody except as a detective—and what have you found out?”
“That Geoffrey Taunton has a violent temper, that Nanette Cuthbertson was here in London and had every reason to hate Prudence, and that her hands are strong enough to control a horse many a man couldn’t,” he said instantly.
“We knew that ages ago.” She turned away. “It’s helpful—but it’s not enough.”
“That is why I’ve come, you fool. If it were enough, I wouldn’t need to.”
“I thought you came to complain….”
“I am complaining. Don’t you listen at all?” He knew he was being totally unfair, and he went on anyway. “What about the other nurses? Some of them must have hated her. She was arrogant, arbitrary, and opinionated. Some of them look big enough to pull a dray, never mind strangle a woman.”
“She wasn’t as arrogant as you think …” she began.
He laughed abruptly. “Not perhaps by your standards—but I was thinking of theirs.”
“You haven’t the first idea what their standards are,” she said with contempt. “You don’t murder somebody because they irritate you now and then.”
“Plenty of people have been murdered because they constantly nag, bully, insult, and generally abuse people,” he contradicted her. “It only takes one moment when the temper snaps because someone cannot endure any more.” He felt a sudden very sharp anxiety, almost a premonition of loss. “That’s why you should be careful, Hester.”
She looked at him in total amazement, then she began to laugh. At first it was only a little giggle, then it swelled into a delirious, hilarious surge.
For an instant his temper flared, then he realized how much he would rather not quarrel with her. But he refused to laugh as well. He merely waited with a look of resigned patience.
