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“I don’t think I can succeed,” he said honestly. “And I wouldn’t charge for failure,” he lied. He avoided Hester’s eyes although he could feel her gazing at him, feel the warmth as if it were sunlight, hot on his cheek. “Please don’t hope. It is very unlikely. I’ll simply try.”
“Thank you, Mr. Monk,” Martha said as levelly as she could. “It is very good of you … indeed.”
He stood up. It was not good at all, it was idiotic. Next time he saw Hester, he would tell her just how ridiculous it was in the plainest terms.
“Save your thanks till I bring you something useful,” he said rather less generously. He felt guilty now. He had done it for Hester, and he would never be able to help this woman. “Good day, Miss Jackson. It is past time I was leaving. I must report to Sir Oliver. Good night, Hester.”
She stood up and moved closer to him, smiling. “I shall accompany you to the door. Thank you, William.”
He shot her a glance which should have frozen her and seemed to have no effect whatever.
6
RATHBONE WENT INTO COURT on Monday morning with not a scrap more evidence than he had possessed on the previous Friday afternoon. He had spoken with Monk and listened to all he could tell him, but it offered nothing he could use. Thinking of it now, he had given Monk an impossible task. It was foolish of him to have allowed himself to hope, but sitting at his table in the half-empty courtroom, he realized that he had.
The gallery was filling only slowly. People were not interested. They had no feeling that the case was anything but the rather shabby emotional tragedy Sacheverall had made it seem and, to be frank, Rathbone had been unable to disprove. If Melville were hiding any excuse, no whisper of it showed.
Rathbone looked sideways at him now. He was sitting hunched forward like a man expecting a blow and without defense against it. There seemed no willingness to fight in him, no anger, even no spirit
. Rathbone had seldom had a client who frustrated him so profoundly. Even Zorah Rostova, equally determined to pursue a seemingly suicidal case, had had a passionate conviction that she was right and all the courage in the world to battle her cause.
“Melville!” Rathbone said sharply, leaning forward to be closer to him.
Melville turned. His face was very pale, his eyes almost aquamarine colored. He had a poet’s features, handsome yet delicate; the fire of genius in him was visible even in these miserable circumstances, a quality of intelligence, a light inside him.
“For God’s sake,” Rathbone urged, “tell me if you know something about Zillah Lambert! I won’t use it in open court, but I can make Sacheverall speak to his client, and they might withdraw. Is it something you know and her father doesn’t? Are you protecting her?”
Melville smiled, and there was a spark of laughter far behind the brilliance of his eyes. “No.”
“If she’s worth ruining yourself over, then she won’t let you do this,” Rathbone went on, leaning a little closer to him. “As things are, you can’t win!” He put his hand on Melville’s arm and felt him flinch. “You can’t avoid reality much longer. Today, or tomorrow at the latest, Sacheverall will conclude his case, and I have nothing to fight him with. Just give me the truth! Trust me!”
Melville smiled, his shoulders sagging, his voice low. “There is nothing to tell you. I appear to have given you an impossible case. I’m sorry.”
He got no further because Sacheverall came across the floor, looking at them with a faint curl to his lips, his head high, a swagger in his walk. He was even more satisfied with himself than he had been when they adjourned. He sat down in his chair, and the moment after the clerk called the court to order. It was still half empty.
McKeever took his place.
“Mr. Sacheverall?” he enquired. His face was almost devoid of expression, his mild blue eyes curious and innocent. If he had come to any conclusions himself he did not betray them in his manner.
Sacheverall rose to his feet. He was smiling. There was satisfaction in every inch of him. Even his floppy hair and protruding ears seemed cavalier, a mark of individuality rather than blemishes.
“I call Isaac Wolff,” he said distinctly. He half turned towards Melville, then resisted the temptation. It was a sign of how sure he was of himself. Rathbone recognized it.
“Who is Wolff?” he said under his breath to Melville.
“A friend,” Melville replied without turning his head.
“Of whose? Yours or Lambert’s?”
“Mine. Lambert has never met him, so far as I know.” His voice was so soft Rathbone had to strain to hear it.
“Then why is Sacheverall calling him?” Rathbone demanded. Sacheverall was not bluffing. He showed that in every inch of his stance, his broad shoulders, the angle of his head, the ease in him.
“I don’t know,” Melville answered, lifting his eyes a little to watch as a tall man with saturnine features walked across the open space of the floor and climbed the steps of the witness-box. He faced the court, staring at Sacheverall. His eyes seemed black under his level brows, and his thick hair, falling sideways over one temple, was as dense as coal. It was a passionate, compelling face, and he stared at Sacheverall with guarded dislike. No one could mistake that he was there against his will.
“Mr. Wolff,” Sacheverall began, relishing the moment, “are you acquainted with Mr. Killian Melville, the defendant in this case?”
“Yes.”
