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“You helped him pack?” he asked.
“Naturally. I had only a few things myself.” Again the tiny smile touched her face. She must have been thinking back now on her own hasty departure, in the name of love and principle, with only what she could put into a bag she could carry in her hand. He tried to imagine what precious things gathered in her short lifetime she had had to leave behind. And apparently she had done it without serious regret. He thought how deeply, how unselfishly, she must love Breeland. It hurt him with surprising force that he might be utterly unworthy of it. When he spoke his voice had more anger in it than he had intended.
“And who was this note from? I presume it was signed?”
“Yes, of course,” she said indignantly. “He would hardly have acted upon it, leaving everything, had he not known who sent it.”
“Who did?”
Color deepened in her face, and there was a moment’s confusion as she realized how much depended upon the truth of the issue, and that she thought, after all, not knew it.
“It was signed by Mr. Shearer,” she said defiantly. “Of course in light of the … murders …” She gulped. She seemingly could not bring herself to say her father’s name in this connection. Her chin came up. “But when we got to Euston Square the guns were there, already loaded onto a wagon. Lyman never left me for more than a few moments, and that was after the guns were delivered, and he paid Shearer the money. He had written authority to accept on my father’s behalf, and it was all perfectly in order. I … I was so happy my father had at last seen the justice of what Lyman was fighting for and changed his mind.”
“But you did not think to return home and tell him so?”
Misery filled her eyes. “No,” she answered very quietly. “I loved Lyman and still wanted to go with him to America. I … I was still angry that my father had taken so long to see what had been plain to me from the beginning. Slavery is wicked. Treating a human being like a possession can never be right.”
He did not know what to think. The story made no sense, and yet he did not think she was lying to him. She believed what she said. Had Breeland somehow duped her? If he had not murdered Alberton himself, then had he employed someone else to do it? Perhaps this man Shearer? “Tell me about your journey north to Liverpool and what happened there,” he instructed.
“How can it matter?” She was puzzled.
“Please do so,” he insisted.
“Very well. Lyman showed me to a carriage where I was reasonably comfortable and told me to wait for him while he spoke to the guard. He returned in about ten minutes, and shortly after that the train pulled out.”
“Who else was in the carriage?” he interrupted.
“How can it matter? No one I know. I did not speak to them. An old man with a lot of whiskers. A woman with a dreadful hat, quite the ugliest I have ever seen, red and brown. Why would anyone wear red and brown together? I don’t know who else. It’s all unimportant.”
“Where did the train stop?” he pressed.
Obediently she described the journey in its monotonous details.
He wrote down her answers in rapid, almost illegible notes.
“And in Liverpool?”
She told him of Breeland’s trouble in having the guns stored temporarily, of finding space on a ship bound first for Queenstown in Ireland, then for New York. With every new fact she spoke of, the pictures became more real, the more he was convinced her story was told from experience rather than imagination.
“Thank you,” he said at last. “You have been very patient, Miss Alberton, and you have helped greatly in your defense.”
“I will not allow you to defend me at Lyman’s expense!” she said quickly, leaning forward across the table, her face flushed. “Please understand that. I shall dismiss you, or whatever it takes, if …”
“I understood you when you first told me, Miss Alberton,” he said calmly. “I shall not do so; you have my word. I cannot promise what the court will do, and I have never promised to anyone what a jury will do. But for myself, I can answer absolutely.”
She sank back. “Thank you, Sir Oliver. Then I shall be very glad if you will act for me and … and do what you can.”
He rose to his feet, feeling a twist of pity for her, almost like a physical spasm. She was so young, a child, trying to behave like a woman, trying to keep a dignity she was so close to losing. He wished profoundly he could have comforted her, that either her mother or father were here, even that Breeland was … damn him. But all he could do to help her was to remain formal, keep the fierce control she depended upon.
“I shall return to tell you how I am progressing,” he said carefully. “If you do not see me for a few days, it is because I am working on your behalf. Good day, Miss Alberton.” He turned a little quickly, not waiting to look at her as the tears spilled from her brimming eyes.
Rathbone was driven to see Lyman Breeland by curiosity as well as by duty, but it was still not a task he expected to find either easy or pleasant.
He was received in a room markedly similar to the one in the women’s section of the prison, with the same bare lime-washed walls, simple table and two wooden chairs.
In some ways Breeland was exactly what Rathbone had expected: tall, lean, a hard body used to exercise. One would have judged him a man of action. “Military” was the first thing that came to mind because of his upright bearing and a certain pride in him, even in these crushing circumstances. He was dressed in a plain shirt and trousers an inch or two short for him. Presumably they were borrowed. He would have left the battlefield at Manassas in his dirty, bloodstained uniform.
But Breeland’s face surprised Rathbone. Without realizing it he had formed preconceptions in his mind, expected to see a man of readable passions, an arresting face in which one could see zeal and loyalty and a will that overrod
