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“He wouldn’t,” Wolff said simply. There was no doubt in his eyes, only a kind of bitter, powerful laughter.
“I believe you,” Rathbone acknowledged, and he spoke honestly. He surprised himself, but he felt no uncertainty at all that Melville would accept complete destruction before he would sink to saying something of Zillah Lambert he knew to be untrue. He was a man whose behavior in the whole affair was a succession of acts which did not have any apparent logical or emotional line of connection. Rathbone was assailed again with an overwhelming conviction that there was something, one powerful, all-consuming fact, which he did not know but which would explain it all.
Something eased in Wolff’s demeanor, something indefinable it was so slight. He was waiting for Rathbone to explain.
“Sacheverall is risking his client’s well-being as well as his own, so he has to be certain.” Rathbone crossed his legs and smiled up at Wolff, not in humor or even comfort, but in a certain sense of communication that they were in alliance against an attitude, a set of beliefs which they both found repellent but that was too delicate to be given words. “And he may guess or judge that Melville will not react with attack, but he will not judge it of me. He knows better. I too will behave in the interests of my client, not necessarily having sought his permission first.”
“Would you?” Wolff said quietly.
“I don’t know.” Rathbone smiled at himself. It was true; he did not know what he would reveal were Monk to discover anything. What he did know, without doubt, was that he would drive Monk to learn every jot there was to know: about Zillah Lambert, her father, her mother, and anyone else who could conceivably have any bearing on the case. “I don’t know if there is anything, but then neither does Sacheverall.”
Wolff let out his breath slowly.
“But I must know what they can learn about Melville,” Rathbone went on reluctantly. “Not what is true or untrue … but what witnesses can he call and what will they say?”
Wolff stiffened again and his voice was unnaturally steady. “That Melville and I are friends,” he replied without looking away. “That he has visited me here, sometimes during the day, sometimes in the evening.”
“Overnight?”
“No.”
Rathbone was not sure if there had been a hesitation or if he had imagined it. He was not even sure how much it mattered. Once an idea was sown in someone’s mind, without realizing it, memory became slanted towards what was believed. No deception need be intended, nevertheless it was carried out, and when a thing had been put into words it assumed a kind of reality. No one wanted to go back upon testimony. It was embarrassing. The longer one clung to it and the more often it was repeated, the harder it was to alter.
“Anything else?” Rathbone asked. “No more than that? Please tell me the truth, Mr. Wolff. I cannot defend Melville, or you, from what I do not know.”
But Wolff was as stubborn as Melville. He gave the same blank stare and denied it again.
“How long have you known Melville?” Rathbone pursued.
Wolff thought for a moment. “About twelve years, I think, maybe a little less.”
“Do you know why he changed his mind about marrying Miss Lambert?”
Wolff was still standing with his back to the window, but the light was shining on the side of his face, and Rathbone could see his expression clearly. There was no change in it, no shadow.
“He didn’t,” he replied. “He never intended to. He liked her. It was a friendship which he believed she shared in the same spirit. He was appalled when he realized both she and her family read something quite different into it.”
Rathbone could see there was no point in attempting to learn anything more from Wolff. He considered asking neighbors himself, but Monk would be far more skilled at it, and he had other things to do. He rose to his feet and excused himself, thanking Wolff for his time and warning him that their hopes of settling without returning to court were still negligible. He left feeling angry and disappointed, although he could not have named what he had hoped to find.
“What do you want me to discover?” Monk asked as they sat together over an excellent meal of roast saddle of mutton and spring vegetables. They were in one of Rathbone’s favorite hostelries; he had invited Monk to join him partly because it was a miserable case he was requesting him to follow, but largely because he felt like indulging himself in an undeniable pleasure, like good food, good drink, a roaring fire and someone to wait upon him with courtesy and a cheerful manner. This particular dining room offered all these things. It was bustling with life, and yet not overcrowded. They had been given a table out of the draft from the door and yet not too far into a corner and not near noisy companions.
“The worst they can find for themselves, or create out of confused and prejudiced observations,” he answered Monk’s question as the serving girl left a tankard of ale for them and he acknowledged it with thanks.
Monk helped himself to another crisp roasted potato. “I presume you have already spoken to this man Wolff and to Melville himself?”
“Of course. They deny it, but add very little.”
“Do you believe them?” Monk was curious, there was no decision or assumpti
on in his eyes.
Rathbone thought for a moment or two, eating slowly. The mutton was excellent.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “They are both lying about something. I feel it in Wolff, and I am certain of it in Melville, but I don’t know what. I am not at all sure it is that.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know!” Rathbone said sharply. “If I did, I wouldn’t need you!”
