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Jenny was forced to fill the silence. “Who on earth would do that?”
“Someone who wished to discredit her,” Hester repeated. “Rose had been looking into the matters your late father was investigating, just to make certain that there was no danger of serious accident, and—”
“My father was disturbed in his mind!” Jenny said abruptly. “There was no danger at all. The machines my husband’s company uses are the best there are. It is skill that has improved them, which is why they are faster, not that they are taking less care.” The color was high in her face, her eyes brilliant. “This whole terrible charge has arisen only because of my father’s…I don’t like to use the word, but it was hysteria.”
Hester could almost believe her, but for the man Melisande Ewart had seen leaving the mews. “And that is why you wrote to your father asking him to meet your husband in the stables?” she said, allowing doubt into her voice. “And poor Mr. Sixsmith is facing a charge of murder?”
Jenny’s voice was half strangled in her throat. “It isn’t murder! It’s…it’s just bribery. And even that is nonsense. My husband will see that he is cleared of that. Mr. Dobie is a marvelous lawyer.” Her hands were now clenched hard in her lap, knuckles shining.
“Will he?” Hester asked. “Do you believe that, Mrs. Argyll? Why on earth would he? Who else could have hired the man who shot your father?”
A succession of wild emotions crossed Jenny’s face: confusion, terror, hatred.
Hester leaned towards her, hating the fact that she had to be the one to do this. “Someone hired that man to kill your father, and so in a way your sister, too. Can you live with not telling the court that your husband made you write a letter asking your father to be in his stables that night? Can you go forward into the future looking at your husband across the dinner table every evening, across the bed, knowing that both of you allowed Aston Sixsmith to hang, when you of all people could have proved his innocence?”
The tears were running down Jenny’s face. “You have no idea what you’re asking!” she gasped. “No idea!”
“Perhaps not,” Hester admitted. “But you do. And if you are honest, you know what it will cost—not only yourself and your children but Mr. Sixsmith as well—if you do not. Do you wish to explain that to your children, or live with it yourself?”
“You are ruthless!” Jenny choked on the words.
“I’m honest,” Hester replied. “Sometimes they seem like the same thing. But I take no pleasure in it. You can still see at least that your father is buried with honor and his name cleared.”
Jenny sat motionless, her hands locked together. The lamplight, necessary even at midday, bleached her skin of all color.
“The truth can be very sharp,” Hester added. “But it makes a cleaner wound than lies. It will not fester.”
Jenny nodded very slowly. “Please do not come back,” she whispered. “I will do as you say, but I cannot bear to see you again. You have forced me to look at a horror I believed I could avoid. Allow me to do it alone.”
“Of course.” Hester rose to her feet and walked slowly to the door. She knew that the servants would let her out into the street, where Morgan Applegate’s carriage would be waiting to take her home.
That same morning Monk went across the river as the light was dawning in the drifting rain. He went first to Wapping station simply to ascertain that no crisis had arisen demanding his attention, then he took a hansom westwards to the Old Bailey to see Rathbone.
“Drunk!” Rathbone said incredulously. “Rose Applegate?”
“And unforgivably frank,” Monk added.
Rathbone swore, which was an extremely rare occurrence. “We are losing this case, Monk,” he said miserably. “If I’m not extremely careful, I shall end up convicting Sixsmith whether I wish to or not, and Argyll will walk away free. The thought makes me seethe, but even if I destroy half the decent men around Argyll—the navvies, the foremen, and the bankers, as well as Sixsmith himself—I still can’t be sure of getting him. If Rose Applegate could have persuaded Argyll’s wife to testify to anything that would have made her father’s story more believable, we might shake him.”
He sighed and looked at Monk, the dread of failure burning visibly inside him. It was in the nature of his profession to gamble on his own skill, and he could not always win. But when it was another man who was going to pay, it clearly cut to the bone of his self-belief. It was a pain he was evidently not used to, and his confusion was naked for a moment in his eyes.
Monk wished he could help Rathbone, and knew it could not be done. There are places each man walks alone, where even friendship cannot reach. All he could do was wait, and be there before and after.
“I’ll go back to looking for the assassin,” he said, turning to go.
“If you don’t find him in the next couple of days, it won’t matter,” Rathbone told him. “I’d rather let Sixsmith go and drop the case altogether than convict an innocent man.” He smiled thinly. “My foray into prosecution is not conspicuously successful, it seems!”
Monk could think of nothing to say that was not a lie. He gave a very slight smile and went out, closing the door softly.
He was within half a mile of the Wapping station when Scuff appeared out of the gloom. The boy was soaking wet and looking inordinately pleased with himself. He ran a couple of steps to keep up with Monk. “I done it!” he said without the usual preamble of greeting.
Monk looked at him. His small face was glowing with triumph under its outsize cap. Monk had still not managed to tell him it needed a lining. “What did you do?” he asked.
Scuff’s expression filled with disgust. “I found where the killer lives, o’ course! In’t that wot we gotter do?”
Monk stopped, facing Scuff on the footpath. “You found out where the man who shot Mr. Havilland lives?” The thought was overwhelming. Then he was furious. “I told you not even to think about it!” His voice cut across the air, harsh with fear. A man who would shoot Havilland in his own stables would not think twice about strangling an urchin like Scuff. “Don’t you ever listen?” he demanded. “Or think?”
Scuff looked confused and deeply hurt. This was seemingly the last thing he had expected. Monk suddently realized that the boy must have clutched his achievement to himself all the way there, expecting Monk’s praise and happiness, only to find the prize dashed out of his hand.
