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They filed back, their faces pale. They looked at no one, not at Argyll or Gilfeather, and what brought Rathbone’s heart to his mouth, not at Hester.
“Have you reached your verdict, gentlemen?” the judge asked the foreman.
“We have, my lord,” he replied.
“Is it the verdict of you all?”
“It is, my lord.”
“How do you find the prisoner, guilty or not guilty?”
“My lord, we find the case not proven.”
There was a thunderous silence, an emptiness ringing in the ears.
“Not proven?” the judge said with a lift of incredulity.
“Yes, my lord, not proven.”
Slowly the judge turned to Hester, his expression bitter.
“You have heard the verdict, Miss Latterly. You are not exonerated, but you are free to go.”
11
“WHAT DOES IT MEAN?” Hester asked intently, staring at Rathbone. They were in the sitting room of the lodgings Callandra had taken while in Edinburgh for the trial. Hester was to stay with her at least for this night, and the reconsideration could be made in the morning. Rathbone was sitting in a hard-backed chair, too charged with emotion to relax in one of the spacious softer ones. Monk stood by the mantelshelf, half leaning on it, his face dark, his brows drawn down in concentration. Callandra herself seemed more at ease. She and Henry Rathbone sat opposite on the sofa silently.
“It means that you are neither innocent nor guilty,” Rathbone replied, pulling a face. “It is not a verdict we have in England. Argyll explained it to me.”
“They think I am guilty, but they are not really quite sure enough to hang me,” Hester said with a catch in her voice. “Can they try me again?”
“It means they think you’re guilty, but they can’t damned well prove it,” Monk put in bitterly. He turned to Rathbone, his Up curled. “Can they try her again?”
“No. In that respect it is the same as a verdict of not guilty.”
“But people will always wonder,” Hester said grimly, her face very pale. She was perfectly aware of what it meant. She had seen the expressions of the people in the gallery, even those who were truly uncertain of her guilt. Who would hire as a nurse a woman who might be a murderess? The fact that she also might not was hardly a recommendation.
No one answered immediately. She looked at Monk, not that she expected comfort from him, but possibly because she did not. His face would reflect the worst she would find, the plain and bitter truth.
He stared back at her with such a blazing anger that for a moment she was frightened. Even during the trial of Percival in the Moidore case, she had never seen such a barely controllable rage in him.
“I wish I could say otherwise,” Rathbone said very softly. “But it is a very unsatisfactory conclusion.”
Callandra and Monk both spoke at once, but her voice was lost in his, which was harsh, furious, and immeasurably more penetrating. Whatever she said was never heard.
“It is not a conclusion. For the love of God, what is the matter with you?” He glared at them all, but principally at Rathbone and Hester. “We don’t know who killed Mary Farraline! We must find out!”
“Monk …” Rathbone began, but again Monk overrode him with a snarl of contempt.
“It is one of the family.”
“Baird McIvor?” Callandra asked.
“I have doubts,” Henry Rathbone began. “It seems …”
“Unsatisfactory?” Monk asked with sarcasm, mimicking Oliver’s earlier comment. “Very. No doubt they’ll find him ‘not proven’ also, if it ever gets to trial. At least I hope so. I think it was that sniveling little beggar Kenneth. He embezzled from the company books, and his mother caught him.”
“If he has covered his tracks, and from his confidence I have no doubt he has,” Oliver argued, “then we’ll never prove it.”
