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Dobie looked confused. Suddenly, at the moment when he expected to be swept off his feet, the tide had turned and retreated before him with no apparent explanation.
He asked only one question. “It was your husband who asked this letter of you, Mrs. Argyll? Not Mr. Sixsmith?”
“That is correct,” she whispered.
He thanked her and excused her.
Monk looked at the judge, whose face was furrowed with puzzlement. It seemed that the prosecution and the defense had changed places, arguing each other’s case. Possibly he had understood what was happening, and as long as the law was not flouted nor brought into disrespect, he would leave the drama to play itself out. He adjourned the court for luncheon.
In the afternoon Monk and Runcorn were both there. Dobie called Alan Argyll to the stand, as Rathbone had fervently hoped he would. He had done all he could to make it virtually impossible for him not to.
Argyll walked across the floor white-faced and composed. He glanced upwards once towards the dock, but it was impossible to tell if his eyes met those of Sixsmith or not. Sixsmith was leaning forward again. Surely he must see freedom almost in his grasp.
But Argyll had not been in the court for his wife’s testimony. He did not know his grip over her was broken. He waited for Rathbone as if he thought he was still certain of victory. Perhaps he did not even see the open hostility on the jurors’ faces. He looked at Dobie without a tremor, and his voice was clear when he answered.
“No. I did not ask my wife to write
such a letter.” He even managed to affect surprise.
Dobie looked disbelieving. “There is no question that the letter existed, Mr. Argyll, or that your wife wrote it. She has admitted as much to this court. If not at your request, at whose would she do such a thing?”
Argyll paled. Monk could see, from the angle of his head and the way his hands gripped the rail in front of him, that he was suddenly frightened. He started to look up at Sixsmith, then forced himself not to. Was he beginning at last to understand?
“I have no idea,” he said with difficulty.
Dobie grew sarcastic. “One of your children, perhaps? Your sister-in-law? Or your brother?”
Argyll’s face flamed and his hands clenched on the rail. He swayed as if he might fall over. “My brother is dead, sir! Because Mary Havilland dragged him down with her! And you stand there and accuse him of…of what? How much courage does it take to accuse a murdered man? You disgrace the office you hold, and are a blemish to your profession!”
Dobie blanched, clearly embarrassed and momentarily at a loss to defend himself.
The judge looked from one to the other of them, then up at Aston Sixsmith, whose face was now expressionless. Lastly he looked at Jenny Argyll, who was ashen. Her gaze was fixed in the distance, as if she were held against her will by some inner vision, unable to tear herself from it.
Rathbone said nothing.
The judge looked at Dobie again. “Mr. Dobie, do you wish to rephrase your question? It seems inadequate as it is.”
“I will move on, with your lordship’s permission,” Dobie said, clearing his throat and looking again at Argyll. “James Havilland was in the stables alone at midnight. For whom else would he keep such an extraordinary appointment?”
“I don’t know!” Argyll protested.
“Have you ever seen this man they describe, whose teeth are apparently so uniquely recognizable? The man who, it is suggested, actually murdered your father-in-law?”
Argyll hesitated.
There was a faint cough in the gallery, a creak of whalebone stays, then silence.
Jenny Argyll looked up at Sixsmith. Their eyes met and lingered for a moment, then she turned away. What was it Monk saw in Sixsmith’s face? Pity for what she was about to lose? Forgiveness that she had not had the courage to do it before? Or anger that she had let him suffer right to the brink, and spoken up only when she had been forced to? His look was steady and unreadable.
Argyll swallowed. “Yes. As Sixsmith said, I wanted to hire someone to prevent the unrest among navvies regarding safety, and stop the toshers, whose territories were disappearing, from becoming violent and disrupting the excavations.” He drew in his breath. “We have to finish the new sewers as soon as possible. The threat of disease is appalling.”
There was a rustle of movement in the room.
Monk stared at the jury. There was unease among them, but no sympathy. Did they believe him?
“We are aware of this, Mr. Argyll,” Dobie answered, beginning to regain his composure. “It is not what you are doing that we question, only the methods you are willing to employ in order to accomplish them. You admit that you met this man, and that you gave Mr. Sixsmith the money to pay him for his work?”
The answer seemed torn from Argyll. “Yes! But to quell violence, not to kill Havilland!”
