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“Not as I ever saw. She were very quiet. Didn’t bother no one.”
“Who else might know more about her?”
“I dunno. Mebbe Mrs. ’Iggins up at number twenty. I seen ’em talking once or twice.”
“Do you know if she worked anywhere?”
“In’t none o’ my business. I can’t ’elp yer.” She held the child tighter and moved to close the door.
“Thank you.” Monk stepped back and he and Orme turned away. There was nothing further to ask her.
CHAPTER 2
“Sir Oliver?” the judge said inquiringly.
Oliver Rathbone rose to his feet and stepped to the center of the courtroom floor. It was almost like an arena; he was surrounded by the gallery behind him, the jury on his left in their two rows of high seats, and the judge in front in the great carved chair, mounted as if it were a throne. The witness stand was almost above him, up the steps in its own little tower.
He had stood here in major trials for most of his adult life, as one of England’s most brilliant lawyers. Usually he felt intensely about a case, whether he was acting for the defense or the prosecution. Often the battle was for a man’s life. Today he was committed to the defense because it was his job-but he was still uncertain in his own mind if the accused was guilty or not. That gave him a rare feeling of emptiness. He could put no passion into this work, no fierce care for the sake of justice. He would be no more than competent, and that was far from enough to satisfy his nature.
But very little had been going well lately. The things that mattered seemed to have slipped beyond his control ever since the Ballinger case, and all the miserable decisions that had led to the final split between his wife, Margaret, and himself.
He concentrated on the witness, making himself recall the details of his testimony and one by one attack each point that was vulnerable, forcing the man to contradict himself so the jury would think him devious and unreliable.
He succeeded. This was the last witness of the day and the court was adjourned. Rathbone rode home in a hansom cab and arrived comparatively early. It was one of those calm, still evenings of deepening winter when the storms are all yet to come. It was not cold enough for frost. As he stepped out of the cab and paid the driver, there was no bite in the air. The last of the neighbor’s chrysanthemums were still heavy with bloom, and their earthy smell was sweet as he passed them.
A year ago he would have been happy to be home with this extra time to spend. But that was before the whole business of the barges on the river with their obscene pleasures, their abuse of children, and their final descent into murder.
He and Margaret had been happy before all that-in fact increasingly so with each passing week. There had been tenderness, an understanding between them that filled all kinds of longings he had hardly acknowledged he felt earlier in his life.
Now, as he went in through the front door and the butler took his hat and coat, he felt the heavy silence in the house.
“Good evening, Sir Oliver.” The man was polite as always.
“Good evening, Ardmore,” Rathbone replied automatically. The butler, and the cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Wilton, might be the only people whose voices he would hear until he left his house again tomorrow morning. The soundlessness would grow thick and oppressive, almost like another presence in the home.
It was absurd. He was becoming maudlin. Silence had never bothered him when he was single, which had been a long enough time. In fact, back then he had found it rather pleasant after the constant noise of his chambers, or the courtroom. An occasional dinner with his friends, especially Monk and Hester, had been all the companionship he wished for-apart, of course, from visiting his father out at Primrose Hill. But just at the moment Henry Rathbone was traveling in Europe-Germany, to be precise-and he would be there until well into the new year.
Oliver would have liked to see him this evening. His father was still his dearest friend, as he had always been. But one did not visit friends with one’s own emptiness; right now, there was no interesting problem to challenge Henry with, not even any specific loss or difficulty for which to seek his comfort. Just a sense of having failed. And yet, Oliver did not know what he would have or could have done differently.
He sat in the beautiful dining room that Margaret had designed. As he ate his dinner he went over it all yet again in his mind.
If he had fought harder to prove Ballinger’s innocence, even if he had been able to think of some trick, honest or dishonest, surely it would have made no difference to the eventual verdict? All it would’ve done was tarnish his sense of honor.
But Margaret had never seen it that way. She believed that Rathbone had put his ambition before loyalty to his family. Ballinger was Margaret’s father, and regardless of the evidence, she would not believe his guilt.
Was it better or worse that he had been murdered in prison before he could be hanged?
She had blamed Rathbone for that, too, believing that some sort of appeal could have been made, and Ballinger would have lived.
That was not true, though. There had been no grounds for appeal, and Rathbone, at least, knew that Ballinger had been guilty. In the end, privately between the two of them, Ballinger had admitted it. Rathbone could remember the arrogance in Ballinger’s face as he had told the full story. In his own mind, Ballinger felt his actions were justified.
Rathbone ate mechanically, pushing the roast beef and vegetables around the porcelain plate and tasting little. It was an insult to Mrs. Wilton, but she would never know. He would thank her exactly as if he had thoroughly enjoyed it. The staff were all trying so hard to please him. It was touching and a little embarrassing. They saw him more clearly than he would have wished. It was said that no man was a hero to his valet; that acute perception seemed to extend to the butler and the housekeeper as well. It might even extend to the maids and the footman for all he knew.
Now that Margaret was gone, he had too large a staff, but he could not bring himself to let any of them go-not yet, anyway. Was that for their benefit? Or was it a refusal on his part to accept the situation as final?
His mind returned to Ballinger, and that last interview they had had together. Had Ballinger been justified, a little, in the very beginning? Clearly he believed so. The descent had come after that.
Or had the first step been wrong, and the rest always bound to follow?
