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“You conducted the case brilliantly,” Ballinger said. “And there is nothing even remotely questionable about it. I don't understand what it is that could disturb you now.” The moment he spoke, he realized his mistake. It allowed Rathbone the opening he would otherwise have had to create.
Rathbone smiled very slightly. “I was naturally very careful not to ask Phillips directly if he was guilty. I behaved as if he were not, as I was obliged to, but I find myself more and more convinced that in fact he did murder that child …” He saw Ballinger wince, and ignored it. “And probably others as well. I know that the River Police are still investigating him, in the hope of building a different case, and I have no doubt at all that they will be a great deal more careful the second time.”
Ballinger shifted very slightly in his chair.
“If they do bring another case,” Rathbone continued, “is your client going to wish you to deal with it again? Or, if I may put it more plainly, is this debt of honor now satisfied, or does it stretch to defending Jericho Phillips indefinitely, whatever the charge?”
Ballinger flushed a painful color, and Rathbone felt guilty for having placed him in such a situation. It was going to make friendship between them impossible. He had already crossed a boundary that could not be forgotten. This man was his wife's father; the price was high.
“If you cannot answer for him, which would be perfectly understandable, perhaps proper,” he continued, “then may I speak to him myself?” It was what he had wanted from the outset. The anonymity of the man who would pay to defend Phillips had always troubled him. Now, with so much darker a picture emerging of Phillips's trade, it disturbed him even more. “Who is he?”
“I am afraid I cannot tell you,” Ballinger replied. There was no wavering in him, not an instant of uncertainty. “The matter is one of complete confidentiality, and, to be professional, I cannot tell you. Certainly I shall convey to him your concern. However, I think it may be premature. The River Police have not arrested Phillips or laid any new charge. Naturally they are distressed at the failure of their case, and at the ensuing suggestion that the late Commander Durban was of questionable competence, even of conduct not always becoming to his office.” He moved his hands in a slight gesture of regret. “It is most unfortunate for their reputation that their new man, Monk, seems to be cut from the same cloth. But we cannot alter the law to suit the weaknesses of those who administer it. I am sure you would be among the first to agree.”
He smiled very slightly; the warmth was on his lips but not in his eyes. “Your own words in defense of the law still ring in my mind. It must be for all, or it is eventually for no one. If we build either reward or punishment on our own likes, loyalties, or even sense of outrage, then justice is immediately eroded.” He shook his head, his gaze direct, candid. “The time will come when we ourselves are disliked or misunderstood, or strangers, different from our judges in race or class or creed, and if their sense of justice depends upon their passion rather than their morality, who is to speak for us then, or defend our right to the truth?” He leaned forward. “That is more or less what you said to me, Oliver, here in this room, when we spoke of this very subject earlier. I have never admired any man's honor more than I did yours, and still do.”
Rathbone had no answer. His emotions were intensely troubled, and his mind was utterly wrong-footed, off balance as a runner who is tripped, and suddenly finds his own speed his enemy. It flashed into his mind to wonder if the person who had paid to have Phillips defended not only wanted it, but far more than that, needed it. Was he one of Phillips's clients, who could not afford to have him found guilty? Who, exactly, did Phillips cater to? Considering Rathbone's fee for his services, a man of very considerable means indeed. He felt a sharp stab of guilt for that. It was a sizable amount of money, and now it felt dirty in his hands. He could buy nothing with it that would bring him pleasure.
Ballinger was waiting, watching and judging his reactions.
Rathbone was angry, first with Ballinger for knowing so well how to use him, then with himself for being used. Then another thought occurred to him, which was painful, halting his emotions with an icy hand. Was the man a friend of Ballinger's? A man he had possibly known in his youth, before this desperate twist of hunger had imprisoned him in loneliness, shame, deceit, and then terror? Does one ever quite forget the innocence one has known in the past, the times of greater hope, unforced kindness, among boys before they became men? Or the debts incurred then?
Perhaps it was even worse than that? It would be a double pressure, a debt compounded, if it were his other son-in-law, Margaret's sister's husband. It could be. All ages and types of men were subject to hungers that tortured and in the end destroyed both the victim and the oppressor in their grip.
Or was it Mrs. Ballinger's brother, or one of her sisters’ husbands? The possibilities were many, all of them harsh and full of entangled obligations and pities, loyalties too complex to untangle, and where words did nothing whatever to ease shame or despair.
Without warning, Rathbone's anger was overtaken by pity. He searched for something to say, and before he found it, there was a tap on the door, but it did not open. It had to be the maid.
Ballinger rose to his feet and went to the door. A low voice spoke with the deferential tones of a servant. Ballinger thanked him and turned back to Rathbone.
“I'm sorry, but I have an unexpected visitor. A client who needs urgent help, and I cannot put him off. Anyway, I think I have explained my position, and there is nothing further I can add. I apologize.” He stood as if waiting to usher Rathbone out, and the invitation to leave was implicit.
Rathbone stood up. He had no idea who this new client was, and the fact that Ballinger did not introduce him was not remarkable. Business with one's attorney could be sensitive. In fact, if one called personally on a Saturday morning, then it was at the very least extraordinary and unexpected.
“Thank you for your courtesy in receiving me, without notice,” he said with as much grace as he could muster.
“Not at all,” Ballinger replied. “Were there not an emergency, it would have been a pleasure to offer you tea, and to speak longer.”
They shook hands, and Rathbone went out into an empty hall. Whoever had called to see Ballinger had been shown into another room, at least until Rathbone had left. It flashed into his mind to wonder, with some discomfort, if it was someone he would have recognized. It was not a pleasant thought.
As he was riding home in a cab, a certain degree of anxiety would not leave his mind. If Phillips had among his clientele men with the money to pay Rathbone's fee, and to call on Ballinger uninvited on a Saturday morning, what else could they do, if pressured with sufficient threat of exposure?
Not that he knew that Ballinger's guest this morning had anything to do with Phillips, but the possibility would not leave his mind. Ballinger had made clear that the client was someone to whom he owed loyalty, whatever the nature of his client's problem.
Rathbone was troubled as he rode through the bustling Saturday streets with their tall, elegant facades, their carriages with matched pairs, the horses’ coats gleaming, footmen in perfect livery, fashionable ladies. Who else could Jericho Phillips call upon, if he felt threatened by Monk's continuing investigation? And what power might such men have, and be willing to use, to save their reputations?
And, colder and closer to him than that, whose side would Margaret be on, if any of it came into the open, or at the very least, into family hostility? Her father of a lifetime, or her husband of a year? He did not wish to know the answer to that. Either would be painful, and he hoped profoundly that she would never be put to that test. And yet if she were not, wouldn't he still wonder?
Monk took a brief respite over the weekend. He and Hester walked in the park, climbing the slow rise and standing close to each other on the top in the sun. They stared down at the brilliant light on the river below them, watching the boats ply up and down, like long-legged flies, oars
dipping and rising. Monk knew exactly the sound the water would make off the blades, if he were close enough to hear it. From this distance, the music drifted in snatches and the breeze was cool, rustling the leaves, mellowing the sharp smell of the tide with the sweetness of grass.
But Monday was different. He was met by Orme on Princes Stairs, on his own side of the river, even before he got on the ferry to take him over to the Wapping Police Station. His uniform was immaculate, but his face was weary, as if even at seven in the morning he had already worked long and exhaustingly.
“Morning, sir,” he said, standing to attention. “I've a ferry here for you, if you like?”
Monk met his eyes and felt a tightening in his stomach, a slow clench into a knot. “Thank you,” he acknowledged. “Have you learned something since I was in?” He followed Orme to the edge of the dock-side and down the steps to where the ferry was rocking gently in the wash of a passing lighter. They stepped in, and the ferryman set out for the farther bank.
“Yes, sir,” Orme said quietly, dropping his voice so they would not be overheard above the creak of the oars and the hiss of the water. “I'm afraid charges've been laid against Mr. Durban, though he's dead an’ not here to face them or tell them the truth. And if you ask me, that's a coward's way of getting at a man you didn't ‘ave the courage to face in life.” His voice shook with indignation, and far more powerful than that, a deep, unconcealable pain.
