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“Thank you, Miss Latterly. Please remain where you are. My learned friend will no doubt wish to question you also.”
“Indeed I will.” Gilfeather rose to his feet with alacrity. But before he could begin, the judge adjourned the court for luncheon, and it was afternoon before he could launch his attack. And attack it was. He advanced towards the witness stand with flying hair an aureole around his head. He was a large man, shambling like a newly awoken bear, but his eyes were bright and gleaming with the light of battle.
Hester faced him with her heart beating so violently her body shook and her breath caught in her throat so she feared she might choke when she was forced to speak.
“Miss Latterly,” he began smoothly. “The defense has painted a picture of you as a virtuous, heroic and self-sacrificing woman. Because of the circumstances which bring you here, you must give me leave to doubt the total accuracy of that.” He pulled a small face. “People of the sort depicted by my learned friend do not suddenly stoop to murder, especially the murder of an old lady in their trust, and for the gain of a few pearls set in a pin. Would you agree?
“In fact,” he went on, looking at her with concentration, “I presume the burden of his argument to be that it is inconceivable that a person should change her nature so utterly, therefore you could not be guilty. Is that not so?”
“I did not prepare the defense, sir, so I cannot speak for Mr. Argyll,” she said levelly. “But I imagine you are correct.”
“Do you agree with the hypothesis, Miss Latterly?” His voice was sharp, demanding an answer.
“Yes sir, I do, although at times we may misjudge people, or fail to read them aright. If it were not so, we should never be taken by surprise.”
There was a ripple of amusement around the room. One or two men nodded in appreciation.
Rathbone held his breath in an agony of apprehension.
“A very sophisticated argument, Miss Latterly,” Gilfeather conceded.
She had seen Rathbone’s face, and knew why he had stared at her with such pleading. She must make amends.
“No sir,” she said humbly. “It is merely common sense. I think any woman would have told you the same.”
“That is as may be, ma’am,” Gilfeather said. “However, you will appreciate why I shall endeavor to disprove their high estimation of you.”
She waited in silence for him to do so.
He nodded, pulling a very slight face. “Why did you go to the Crimea, Miss Latterly? Was it like Miss Nightingale, in answer to a call to serve God?” He invested no sarcasm or condescension in the question, his voice and his expression were innocent, but there was a waiting in the room, a readiness for disbelief.
“No sir.” She kept her voice low and her tone as gentle as lay within her power. “I intended to serve my fellow men in a way best suited to such skills as I possessed, and I believed it would be a fine and daring thing to do. I have but one life, and I had rather do something purposeful with it than at the end look back and regret all the chances I had missed, and what I might have made of myself.”
“So you are a woman to take risks?” Gilfeather said with a smile he could not hide.
“Physical ones, sir, not moral ones. I think to stay at home, safe and idle, would have been a moral risk, and one I was not prepared for.”
“You draw a fine argument, madam.”
“I am fighting for my life, sir. Would you expect anyone to do less?”
“No madam. Since you ask, I expect you to use every art and argument, every subtlety and persuasion that your mind can devise or your desperation conceive.”
She looked at him with loathing. All Rathbone’s warnings rang in her head as clearly as if he were saying them now, and her emotion overrode them all. She was going to lose anyway. She would not do it without honesty and what dignity was possible.
“You make it sound, sir, as if we were two animals battling for mastery of each other, not rational human beings seeking to find the truth and serve our best understanding of justice. Do you wish to know who killed Mrs. Farraline, Mr. Gilfeather, or do you merely wish to hang someone, and I will do?”
For a moment Gilfeather was startled. He had been fought with before, but not in these terms.
There was a gasp and a sigh of suspended breath. A journalist broke his pencil. One of the jurors choked.
“Oh God!” Rathbone said inaudibly.
The judge reached for his gavel, and mistook the distance. His fingers closed on nothing.
In the gallery Monk smiled, and his stomach knotted inside him with grief.
“Only the right person will do, Miss Latterly,” Gilfeather said angrily, his hair standing on end. “But all the evidence says that that is you. If it is not, pray tell me who is it?”
