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“Have you ever seen him before?” Rathbone asked Melisande.
“Yes,” she answered with a catch in her voice. “I saw him coming out of the mews that serves the home where I live at the moment, and also served that of Mr. James Havilland.”
“When did you see this man?”
“On the night of Mr. Havilland’s death.”
“At any other times?”
“No. Never.”
“You have seen him just once before today, and yet you are certain it is the same man?”
“Yes.” Now she did not waver at all.
Rathbone could not afford to let it go so easily. “How is it that you are so sure?” he persisted.
“Because of his face in general, but his teeth in particular,” she replied. She was now even paler, and she held tightly to the rail as if she needed its support. “Superintendent Runcorn moved the man’s lips so I could see his teeth. I am confident enough to swear under oath that it is the same man.”
Runcorn relaxed and eased his body back into the seat, letting out his breath in a long sigh.
“Thank you, Mrs. Ewart,” Rathbone said graciously. “I have nothing further to ask you. I appreciate your time and your courage in facing what must have been extremely unpleasant for you.”
Dobie stood up and looked at Melisande, then at the jury. Straightening his gown on his shoulders, he sat down again.
Rathbone then played a desperate card, but he had no choice, for he had to show purpose and connection. He called Jenny Argyll.
She was dressed in full mourning and looked as if she were ready to be pronounced dead herself. Her movements were awkward. She looked neither to the right nor to the left, and it seemed as if she might falter and crumple to the ground before she made it all the way to the top of the steps. The usher watched her anxiously. Even Sixsmith jerked forward, his face suddenly alive with fear. The guards beside him pulled him back, but not before Jenny had looked up at him. Now her eyes were burning, and it seemed as if she might actually collapse.
Alan Argyll had yet to testify, so he was not in the court. Had he any idea of the net closing around him?
Rathbone spoke to Jenny, coaxing from her the agonizing testimony he had wanted so badly only a few days earlier.
“You wrote the letter asking your father to go to his stable at midnight, in order to meet someone?”
“Yes.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Whom was he to meet?”
She was ashen. “My husband.”
There was a gasp around the entire room.
“Why in the stable?” Rathbone was asking. “It was a November night. Why not in the house, where it was warm and dry and refreshment could be offered?”
Jenny Argyll was ashen. She had to force her voice to make it audible. “To…to avoid an interruption by my sister. It was to be a secret meeting.”
“Who asked you to write the letter, Mrs. Argyll?”
She closed her eyes as if the terror and betrayal were washing over her like the black water that had burst through the sides of the tunnel and engulfed the navvies deep underground. “My husband.”
In the dock something indefinable within Sixsmith appeared to ease, as if he smelled victory at last.
Rathbone allowed a moment’s terrible silence, then he asked the last question. “Did you know that your father was to be killed in that stable, Mrs. Argyll?”
“No!” Now her voice was strong and shrill. “My husband told me it was to be a meeting to try to persuade my father that he was wrong about the tunnels, and to stop the navvies and toshers from making any more trouble!”
“As Mr. Sixsmith has told us,” Rathbone concluded, unable to resist making the point. “Thank you, Mrs. Argyll.”
