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“Possibly than we wish to, my lord.” Rathbone smiled very slightly. “Not than we need to. We have still reached no unarguable conclusion.”
“You are lawyers,” the judge said dryly. “You can argue any conclusion on earth! However, proceed, Sir Oliver, but do not waste our time. If you appear to be talking for the sake of it I shall sustain Mr. Fowler’s objection—indeed, I shall object myself.”
Rathbone bowed with a smile. “I shall endeavor not to be tedious or irrelevant, my lord,” he promised.
The judge looked skeptical.
Rathbone faced the surveyor when he had been duly reminded of his previous oath and had restated his professional qualifications. “Mr. Whitney,” he began, “you have already told us that you surveyed both the originally intended route for the railway of Baltimore and Sons from London to Derby and the route now taken. Is there a significant difference in cost between the two?”
“No, sir, not significant,” Whitney replied.
“What do you consider significant?” Rathbone asked.
Whitney thought for a moment. “Above a few hundred pounds,” he replied at length. “Hardly as much as a thousand.”
“A lot of money,” Rathbone observed. “Sufficient to buy several houses for an ordinary family.”
Fowler rose to his feet.
The judge waved him down again and looked at Rathbone. “If you are intending to reach any conclusion, Sir Oliver, you have diverted further than the railway in question. You would be better occupied justifying your own circuitous journey.”
There was a titter from the crowd. This, at least, was mildly entertaining. They were happy to see Rathbone baited; he was better game than the accused, who had long since lost any sympathy they might have felt for him.
Rathbone took a deep breath and steadied his temper. He acknowledged the judge’s remark and turned again to the witness stand. “Mr. Whitney, would it be technically possible to commit a far greater fraud than the one suggested here, one worth several thousands of pounds, by this same means of diverting a proposed route?”
Whitney looked startled. “Yes, of course it would. This was only a slightly greater length, a few hundred yards. One could do far more to make money.”
“For example?” Rathbone asked.
Whitney shrugged. “Buy land oneself, prior to the rerouting, and then sell it back at an inflated price,” he answered. “Many things, with enough imagination and the right contacts. Choose a stretch where a lot of construction was necessary, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, even long cuttings, and take a percentage on materials—the possibilities are numerous.”
“My lord!” Fowler said loudly. “My learned friend is simply showing that the accused is incompetent even at fraud. That is not an excuse.”
There was open laughter in the room. No one pretended not to be amused.
When it had died down Rathbone turned to him. “I am attempting to prove that he is innocent of murder,” he said politely, but with an underlying anger. “Why is it that you seem unwilling to allow me to do that?”
“It is circumstances that are preventing you, not I,” Fowler returned to another rustle of laughter.
“Your circumstances!” Rathbone snapped. “Mine not only allow me to, they oblige me to.”
“Mr. Fowler!” the judge said very clearly. “Sir Oliver has a point. Unless you have some objection of substance in law, will you cease from interrupting him, or we are likely to be here indefinitely!”
“Thank you, my lord,” Rathbone said ironically. Hester believed that he was, in fact, spinning out time, but she had no idea what for. What, or whom, was he expecting? She felt the first sudden shiver of hope.
Rathbone looked up at Whitney. “You have given us examples of other ways in which a more efficient fraud could be perpetuated. Have you knowledge of any such fraud—I mean a specific circumstance?”
Whitney looked slightly puzzled.
“For example,” Rathbone assisted him, “in Liverpool almost sixteen years ago? The company involved was Baltimore and Sons. There was a falsification of a survey, the grid references were changed . . .”
Fowler stood up again.
“Sit down, Mr. Fowler!” the judge commanded. He looked at Rathbone sternly. “I presume you have facts, Sir Oliver? Be careful you do not slander anyone.”
“It is a matter of record, my lord,” Rathbone assured him. “A man named Arrol Dundas was convicted of the crime, and unfortunately died in prison of jail fever. But the details of the crime were made public at the trial.”
“I see. The relevance to this present case may easily be guessed, nevertheless we require you to prove it.”
