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Rathbone looked across at the jury to see their reaction. There was a stirring of interest, no more. They were inexperienced in courtroom tactics. They did not understand Sacheverall’s confidence and were only half convinced of it.
“Well acquainted, sir?” Sacheverall’s voice was gentle and he smiled as he spoke.
A flicker of annoyance crossed Wolff’s eyes and mouth but he did not allow it into his words.
“I have known him for some time. I do not know how you wish me to measure acquaintance.”
Sacheverall held up his hand in a broad gesture. “Oh! But you will, Mr. Wolff, you will. It is precisely the point I am coming to. Give me leave to do it in my own way. How did you meet Mr. Melville?”
The judge glanced towards Rathbone, half inviting him to object that the question was irrelevant. Rathbone knew there was no point in doing so. To challenge would only show Rathbone’s desperation. He shook his head momentarily and McKeever looked away again.
“Mr. Wolff?” Sacheverall prompted. “Surely you recall?”
Wolff smiled, showing his teeth. “It was some years ago, about twelve. I’m not sure that I do.”
It was not the answer Sacheverall had wished. Rathbone could tell that from the sharp way he moved his arm back. But he had opened the way for it himself.
“Was it a social occasion, Mr. Wolff, or a professional one?”
“Social.”
“You have recalled it, then?”
“No. We have no professional concerns in common.”
Rathbone rose to his feet, more as a matter of form than because he thought it would actually affect Sacheverall’s case. The tension was becoming palpable. Beside him at the table, Melville was rigid.
“My lord …”
“Yes, yes,” McKeever agreed. “Mr. Sacheverall, if you have a point to this, please come to it. Mr. Wolff has conceded that he is acquainted with Mr. Melville. If there is something in that which bears upon his promise to marry Miss Lambert, then proceed to it.”
“Oh, a great deal, my lord,” Sacheverall said impassively. “I regret to say.” He swung around to face the witness-box. “Are you married, Mr. Wolff?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been?”
“No.”
McKeever frowned. “Mr. Sacheverall, I find it hard to believe that this is indeed your point.”
“Oh, it is, my lord,” Sacheverall answered him. “I am about to make it.” And disregarding McKeever, he swung back to Wolff, on the stand. “You live alone, Mr. Wolff, but you are not a recluse. In fact, you have a close and enduring friendship, have you not … with Mr. Killian Melville?”
Wolff stared back at him unflinchingly, but his face was set, his eyes hard.
“I regard Mr. Melville as a good friend. I have done for some time.”
Rathbone knew what Sacheverall was going to say next, but there was no way in which he could prevent it. Any protest now would make it worse, as if he had known it himself and therefore it must be true. He felt hollow inside, a strange mixture of hot and cold.
“Is that all, Mr. Wolff?” Sacheverall raised his eyebrows very high. “Would you not say an intimate friend, with all the subtle and varied meanings that word can carry? I use it advisedly.”
There was a hiss of indrawn breath in the gallery. One of the jurors put his hand to his mouth, another shook his head, his lips compressed into a thin line. A third was pale with anger.
McKeever cleared his throat but said nothing.
Rathbone looked at Melville. His eyes were hot with misery and his fair skin was flushed. He was staring straight ahead. He refused absolutely to look back at Rathbone.
“You may use what word you like, sir,” Wolff replied steadily, his voice thick. “If your implication is that my relationship with Killian Melville is of an unnatural kind, then you are mistaken.” There was a rush of sound in the gallery, exclamations, sudden movement, a cry of disgust. A journalist broke a pencil and swore. “The acts lie in your imagination, and nowhere else,” Wolff continued more loudly to be heard. “I am under oath, and I swear to that. I have never had an intimate relationship with another man in my life, nor can I imagine such a thing.” This time the noise was louder, sharper voices. Someone shouted an accusation, another an obscenity.
