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Monk must have seen the pain in his face. He leaned forward a little across the scarred and stained table. “You’ve fought far too many cases for anyone to be impartial about you, and won too many of them. Don’t drown in self-pity now. You chose what you wanted to do, and you did it extremely well … well enough to have got yourself noticed by the winners, and the losers. It is too late for you to seek solace in anonymity. That door shut a long time ago.”
Rathbone had always known Monk had a ruthless streak, but this was the first time he could remember being at the painful end of it. And yet what use to him was a man who flinched at anything or who would step aside from the truth to save a temporary injury?
He had been robbed of a shield, but it was a worthless one, and perhaps he was stronger for the glimpse of reality.
Then the other thing that Monk had said reached him and he was forced to face it.
“I haven’t told my father yet. I wanted to have some kind of an answer before I did, so I could soften the blow, tell him what was behind it, and …” He stopped. There was no understanding in Monk’s face at all, only disgust.
“Rubbish!” Monk said curtly. “You’re not protecting him, you’re protecting yourself. You’re shutting him out from helping you because you don’t want to face his pain. Sort out your thoughts right now, and then tell him. To keep him out of this would be both cowardly and selfish. He might forgive you for it because he wouldn’t pile his anger on top of what you already have for yourself-but I would damn well be angry! And more to the point to you, so would Hester.”
Rathbone winced. Momentarily he wanted to lash back at Monk, hurt him just as much. But it was more than his own vulnerability that stopped him. He remembered Monk’s fears in the past. He too had spent time in prison, falsely accused, more falsely than Rathbone was now. He knew what it was like to have all judgment against you. He also knew that the only way out was to fight, to gather your wits and your courage and marshal your thoughts.
And yes, Rathbone must tell his father properly, before Henry heard it from someone else.
“I have nothing with which to write a letter,” he said, “and no one to send with it before news of my arrest will be in the newspapers …”
“I’ll tell him for you,” Monk replied. “But it might be better if I ask Hester to. She always got along well with Henry. He’ll know that if she’s on your side you’ll survive it, one way or another.”
Before Rathbone could reply the jailer returned and Monk was told that his time was up.
Rathbone was returned to his cell, weary and confused. He had wanted desperately to find some hope before his father found out what had happened. But Monk was right, of course. He would find out soon enough by seeing it in the newspaper, or else some busybody would tell him assuming he already knew, wanting to commiserate with him. The hurt of finding out the details from anyone except Rathbone himself would be the same: the shock, even the humiliation that he had not been told, would add to his father’s grief. Telling Henry would be worse for Rathbone than the arrest, the physical discomfort, and the indignity of this wretched prison, but it must be faced. Hester would share only the bare minimum, he knew. Then Henry would come, and by the time he did, Rathbone must be prepared with courage and a plan.
It was almost three hours later when he was called to the interview room again. Henry Rathbone was standing beside the table, tall and lean, though a little stooped now. His face was calm, completely composed, but the grief was unmistakable in his eyes.
The jailer was by the doorway, watching, his expression unreadable. It could have been respect or contempt, a prurient curiosity, or complete indifference.
Rathbone indicated the chair and Henry sat down in it. Rathbone took the other, with the table between them.
“Fifteen minutes,” the jailer warned, and went outside, clanging the door behind him and turning the key so the falling of the tumblers was audible.
“Hester told me what happened in court, and that you’d been arrested, but not much else,” Henry said immediately. “I assume it was you who gave the photograph of Robertson Drew to Warne?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Henry asked. “Why did you give it to Warne? What did you want him to do with it?”
That was the question Rathbone had known he would ask, and he had tried to prepare an answer.
“Because he was losing the case,” he said. “I meant him to do exactly what he did. Drew and Taft between them destroyed the credibility of every witness against them, even Hester. Taft was going to be acquitted and set free to do exactly the same thing again, vindicated and with an even wider audience to fleece, even more people whose faith he could destroy.”
“An evil man,” Henry agreed. “But were you sure that was the only way to deal with him?”
To anyone else Rathbone might have protested that it was, even that Drew deserved nothing but to be disgraced in front of the many people he had tried so thoroughly to destroy. However, he knew that was not the point now, and Henry would not be sidetracked.
“It was the only way I could think of at the time,” Rathbone replied. “And it was certain. Just raising a slight doubt wouldn’t have achieved anything. He’d been ruthless and the jury believed him.” He looked down at his hands on the table. “If you don’t lie yourself, you don’t have that instinctive feel for other people’s weaknesses. You can’t manipulate people’s faith or gullibility, so you can’t see when other people do it because i
t just doesn’t occur to you. Most of the parishioners were like that, and most of the jury.” He raised his head again and met Henry’s eyes. “For heaven’s sake,” he said urgently, “we pick our jurors from men of property, men who don’t know what it’s like to be poor, disadvantaged, ill educated, and on the border of survival. It’s supposed to be a jury of your peers, but by definition it isn’t.”
Memory of the trial was sharp in his mind. He could see Drew on the stand and hear his confident, slightly unctuous voice.
“Drew was very persuasive,” he went on. “If I hadn’t seen that photograph I might have believed him myself. And if he hadn’t savaged Hester, I might not even have looked for the photograph.”
Henry smiled very slightly. “And that was the turning point, not the reason?”
Rathbone thought for a moment. It was the turning point because without that there would have been no excuse for Warne to raise the picture in evidence at all. But was it also his reason for taking such a monumental risk with his own career? Would he have done exactly the same had Drew not attacked Hester? Had his mind really been totally focused on delivering justice only within this particular case? He had lain awake and thought hard about it before making his decision, but had he thought clearly? Had he been completely honest? With all the disgust, the outrage, did he even know how to be?
Would he have done it at all if he had been with Margaret still, comfortable and happy? Perhaps not.
