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Now Claudine was surprised.
Hester leaned forward. “Why would one of Phillips's victims pay to have him defended and able to continue with his blackmail?”
“Because he also provides the pornography to which this wretched creature is addicted,” Claudine replied without hesitation.
“True,” Hester agreed. “But when Phillips was in custody, who went to this man and told him to pay for Phillips's defense? Phillips would hardly have sent for him, or the man's secret would be out, and he would have destroyed his power over him.”
“Oh!” Claudine was beginning to understand. “There is someone else with power who, for his own reasons, wishes Phillips to be safe and to continue to profit. One has to assume that if Phillips were found guilty, this man's loss would overall be greater than his gain.”
Hester winced. “Very direct. You've seized the point admirably. I am not sure how much we can succeed until we know who that person is. I am afraid that he may be someone we will not easily outwit. He has managed to protect Phillips very well up until now, in spite of everything either Durban or we could do.”
Claudine was chilled. “You surely don
't think Sir Oliver was black mailed, do you?” She felt guilty even for having the thought, let alone asking. She knew the heat burned her face, but it was too late to retreat.
“No,” Hester said without resentment. “But I wonder if he wasn't manipulated into defending Phillips, without realizing what it really meant. The trouble is, I don't know what I can do now to reach Phil lips. We're all so …”—she sighed—”so … vulnerable.”
Claudine's mind was racing. Perhaps she could do something. In her time here in the clinic she had learned about sides of life she had not previously even imagined in nightmare. She understood at least something of the people who came and went through these doors. In clothes and manners they were different from the Society women she knew, and in background and hopes for the future; in health, ability, and the things that made them laugh or lose their temper. But in some ways they were also heartbreakingly the same. Those were the things that twisted inside her with a warmth of pity, and all too often of helplessness.
She finished her tea and excused herself without saying anything more about it, and went to see Squeaky Robinson, a man with whom she had a most awkward relationship. That she spoke to him at all was a circumstance that had been forced upon her, at least to begin with. Now they had a kind of restless and extremely uneasy truce.
She knocked on his door; heaven only knew what she might find him doing if she went in without that precaution. When he answered she opened it, walked through, and closed it behind her.
“Good morning, Mr. Robinson,” she said a little stiffly. “When we have finished talking I will fetch you a cup of tea, if you would like it. First I need to speak with you.”
He looked up warily. He was wearing the same rumpled jacket as usual, and a shirt that had probably never felt an iron, and his hair was standing up at all angles from where he had obviously run his fingers through it in some degree of frenzy.
“Good,” he said immediately. “Say what yer ‘ave to. I'm thirsty.” He did not put his pen down but kept it poised above the inkwell. He wrote all his figures in ink. Apparently he did not make mistakes.
Her temper flared at his dismissiveness, but she kept it under control. She wanted his cooperation. A plan was beginning to take shape in her mind.
“I would like to have your attention, if you please, Mr. Robinson,” she said carefully. “All of it.”
He looked alarmed. “Wot's ‘appened?”
“I had thought you were as aware of it as I, but perhaps you are not.” She sat down uninvited. “I shall explain it to you. Jericho Phillips is a man who …”
“I know all about that!” he said tartly.
“Then you know what has happened,” she responded. “It is necessary that we conclude the matter, so that we can all get back to our own business without the distraction of his behavior. He is causing Mrs. Monk some distress. I would like to be of assistance.”
A look of total exasperation filled his face, raising his wispy eyebrows and pulling the corners of his mouth tight. “Yer got no more chance o’ catching Jericho Phillips than yer ‘ave o’ marryin’ the Prince o’ Wales!” he said with barely concealed impatience. “Get back ter yer kitchen an’ do wot yer good at.”
“Are you going to catch him?” she said frostily.
He looked uncomfortable. He had expected her to be deeply affronted and lose her composure, and she had not. That gave him a surprising and inexplicable satisfaction. It should have infuriated him.
“Well, are you?” she snapped.
“If I could, I wouldn't be sittin’ ‘ere,” he retorted. “Fer Gawd's sake, fetch the tea.”
She sat without moving. “He takes and keeps small boys to be photographed performing obscene acts, is that so?”
He blushed, annoyed with her for embarrassing him. She should have been the one embarrassed. “Yes. Yer shouldn't even be knowin’ about such things.” That was a definite accusation.
“A lot of use that's going to be,” she told him witheringly “I assume he does it for money? There could be no other reason. He sells these pictures, yes?”
“O’ course ‘e sells them!” he shouted at her.
