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“We’ll never know.” He pursed his lips. “But it does shed a different light on it. It explains how he had no idea why she appeared to be in love with him.” He frowned. “It also means he was less than honest with me. He must have known what she referred to.”
“Less than honest!” she exploded, waving her hands in the air.
“Well, he should have told me he gave her some hope, however false, of being admitted to study medicine,” he replied reasonably. “But perhaps he thought the jury would be less likely to believe that.” He looked confused. “Which would make less of a motive for him. It is curious. I don’t understand it.”
“Dear God! I do!” She almost choked over the words. She wanted to shake him till his teeth rattled. “I read the rest of the letters myself—carefully. I know what they mean. I know what hold she had over him! He was performing abortions, and she had detailed notes of them—names of the
patients and days, treatments—everything! He killed her, Oliver. He’s guilty!”
He held out his hand, his face pale.
She pulled the letters out of her bag and gave them to him.
“It’s not proof,” she conceded. “If it had been, I’d have given them to Lovat-Smith. But once you know what it means, you understand it—and what must have happened. Faith Barker knows it’s true. The chance to study and qualify properly is the only thing Prudence would have cared about enough to use her knowledge like that.”
Without answering he read silently all the letters she had given him. It was nearly ten minutes before he looked up.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “It isn’t proof.”
“But he did it! He murdered her.”
“Yes—I agree.”
“What are you going to do?” she demanded furiously.
“I don’t know.”
“But you know he’s guilty!”
“Yes … yes I do. But I am his advocate.”
“But—” She stopped. There was finality in his face, and she accepted it, even though she did not understand. She nodded. “Yes—all right.”
He smiled at her bleakly. “Thank you. Now I wish to think.”
He called her a hansom, handed her up into it, and she rode home in wordless turmoil.
As Rathbone came into the cell Sir Herbert rose from the chair where he had been sitting. He looked calm, as if he had slept well and expected the day to bring him vindication at last. He looked at Rathbone apparently without seeing the total change in his manner.
“I have reread Prudence’s letters,” Rathbone said without waiting for him to speak. His voice sounded brittle and sharp.
Sir Herbert heard the tone in it and his eyes narrowed.
“Indeed? Does that have significance?”
“They have also been read by someone who knew Prudence Barrymore and herself had nursing experience.”
Sir Herbert’s expression did not alter, nor did he say anything.
“She writes in very precise detail of a series of operations you performed on women, mostly young women. It is apparent from what she wrote that those operations were abortions.”
Sir Herbert’s eyebrows rose.
“Precisely,” he agreed. “But Prudence never attended any of them except before and afterwards. I performed the actual surgery with the assistance of nurses who had not sufficient knowledge to have any idea of what I was doing. I told them it was for tumors—and they knew no differently. Prudence’s writings of her opinions are proof of nothing at all.”
“But she knew it,” Rathbone said harshly. “And that was the pressure she exerted over you: not for marriage—she would probably not have married you if you had begged her—but for your professional weight behind her application to attend a medical school.”
“That was absurd.” Sir Herbert dismissed the very idea with a wave of his hand. “No woman has ever studied medicine. She was a good nurse, but she could never have been more. Women are not suitable.” He smiled at the idea, derision plain in his face. “It requires a man’s intellectual fortitude and physical stamina—not to mention emotional balance.”
