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Jenkins stared at him.
Rathbone had to be as absolute as possible. There would be no going back and retracing his steps or he would sound desperate, and the jury would hear it.
“I imagine you are friendly or at least comfortable with most of your customers, Mr. Jenkins? They are decent people going about their business?”
“Yes … yes, course they are,” Jenkins agreed.
“So a woman behaving wildly, hysterically, would be extraordinary in your shop?”
Coniston rose to his feet.
Rathbone turned to him, carefully assuming a look of amazement and questioning on his face and in the angle of his head.
Coniston gave a sigh of exasperation, as if infinitely bored, and resumed his seat. None of this would be lost on the jury. But their concentration would have been momentarily broken, the emotion lessened.
“My learned friend appears not to have perceived the importance of my question, Mr. Jenkins,” Rathbone said with a smile. “Perhaps it is unclear to others as well. I am trying to show that your shop is a local service. You know all the women in the area who use your establishment to purchase their daily needs of tea, sugar, flour, vegetables, and so on. They are decent and civil people, feeling that they are among friends. A woman you have never seen before, and nobody else appears to know, and whose manner is hysterical and demanding, is highly unusual, and you would be likely to remember her, in fact be almost certain to. Is that correct?”
Jenkins now had no alternative but to agree. Perhaps Coniston, by interrupting, had unintentionally done the defense a favor? Rathbone did not dare to look at him to see. It would be obvious to the jury, and they would see gamesmanship behind it.
“I … I suppose I wo
uld,” Jenkins conceded.
“Then would you please look up at the dock and tell me if you are certain that the woman sitting there is the same woman who came into your shop and asked to know where Zenia Gadney lived? We have already heard that it was a woman tall and dark, who looked something like her, but there are thousands of such women in London. Are you sure, beyond doubt, that it was this woman? She swears that it was not.”
Jenkins peered up at Dinah, blinking a little as if he could not see clearly.
“My lord,” Rathbone looked up at Pendock, “may I have the court’s permission to ask the accused to rise to her feet?”
Pendock had no choice; the request was only a courtesy. He would have to explain any refusal, and he had no grounds for it.
“You may,” he replied.
Rathbone turned to the dock and Dinah rose to her feet. It was an advantage. Rathbone realized it immediately. They could all see her more clearly, and every single juror was craning his neck to stare. She looked pale and grief-ravaged, and in a way more beautiful than when she had been in her own home, surrounded by familiar things. She had not yet been found guilty in the law, even if she had by the public, so she was permitted to wear her own clothes. Since she was still in mourning for her husband, it was expected she wear black, and with her dramatic features and pale, blemishless skin the loveliness of her face was startling, as was the suffering in it. She was composed, as if she had no energy left to hope, or to struggle.
Jenkins gulped again. “No.” He shook his head. “I can’t say as it were ’er. She … she looks different. I don’t recall ’er face being like that.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jenkins,” Rathbone said, gasping with relief inside. “My learned friend may wish to question you, but as far as I am concerned, I appreciate your time, and you are free to go back to your business and your service to the community in Copenhagen Place.”
“Yes, sir.” Jenkins turned anxiously toward Coniston.
Coniston’s hesitation was only fractional, but it was there. At least one or two of the jurors must have seen it.
“Mr. Jenkins,” Coniston began gently, aware of the court’s sympathy with the shopkeeper. He was a man like themselves, probably with family to support, trying to do his best in a situation he hated. He was eager to be done with it and free to carry on with his quiet, hardworking life, complete with its small pleasures, its opinions that were not weighed and measured, its very limited responsibility.
Rathbone knew all this was going through Coniston’s mind, because it had gone through his own.
Coniston smiled. “Actually, Mr. Jenkins, I find I have nothing to ask you. You are an honest man in a wretched situation, placed there by chance, and none of your own doing. Your compassion, carefulness, and modesty are to be admired. Please accept my thanks also, and return to your business, which I’m sure must need you, most particularly this close to Christmas.” Coniston gave a very slight bow and walked back gracefully to his seat.
Pendock’s face was tense. He glanced at the clock, then at Rathbone.
“Sir Oliver?”
Rathbone rose to his feet.
“My next witness may testify at some length, my lord, and I believe Mr. Coniston is bound to wish to question some of his evidence quite closely.” He too looked at the clock. He would not like to have to admit that he could not locate Runcorn at this hour, but he would if Pendock forced him into it.
“Very well, Sir Oliver,” Pendock sighed. “The court is adjourned until tomorrow morning.”
