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“Play on the fear of how deep the corruption is,” Brancaster replied, meeting Monk’s eyes. “Rathbone has told me that there is a deep cesspit here. We have a very reasonable argument on our hands: if he had gone to any authority with that photo, or any of the photos, they might simply have covered it all up, and possibly destroyed Rathbone in the bargain, just to avoid the monumental scandal.”
“But this is going to destroy Rathbone,” Monk pointed out.
Brancaster smiled a trifle wolfishly. “Precisely.”
Slowly a whole new picture opened up in Monk’s imagination: full of unguessable risks and pitfalls. It might be necessary to travel down that road to save Rathbone. Was it possibly also justified? It would be a final and terrible end to the whole issue of Ballinger’s photographs. Brancaster, Rathbone, and Monk himself could have no idea who they might bring down in the process because they could not know every man’s connections.
“Are you prepared to do that? Use the photographs in that way?” he asked, his voice catching in his throat.
Brancaster’s face was unreadable. “I’m thinking about it. Perhaps it’s time.” He gave a very slight shrug. “By the way, I’ve saved an important piece of information for last. Drew wants to have access to Taft’s house to get the papers pertaining to the church.”
Monk jerked his mind to attention. “No!” he said simply. “Not yet. He can have access eventually, but not yet.” Even if Drew’s request was innocent-which he doubted-he still wanted to go through the house himself before he allowed anything to be removed.
Brancaster nodded. “I thought you’d say that. I already told him so.”
Monk felt a very slight, inexplicable ease run through him. “Thank you. I’ve got to get into that house. And now that you told me this, I’m even more eager. The church papers can’t be all that important. There must be something there. And I’m going to look till I find it.”
CHAPTER 13
Oliver Rathbone had spent some of the most exciting and challenging hours of his adult life in a courtroom. It was where he excelled, where his victories and his defeats occurred. It was the arena for his skills, the battlefield where he fought for his own beliefs and other men’s lives.
Today it was utterly different, still as familiar as his own sitting room but as alien as a foreign country where the people had the faces of those you knew, but the hearts of strangers.
Brancaster had spoken to him briefly. It was too late to discuss tactics. It had been simply a word of encouragement. “Don’t lose heart. Nothing’s won or lost yet.” Then a quick smile and he was gone.
Rathbone had never seen the courtroom from the dock before. He was high up, almost as if in a minstrels’ gallery, except of course he had jailers on either side of him, and he was manacled. He was acutely aware of these things now as he looked down at the judge’s high seat, where he himself used to sit, and at his peers, the jurors, on their almost church-like benches-two rows of them!
The witness box was small, as a pulpit might be, and was reached by climbing a curving stair. He could see it all very clearly. It still looked different from before. But then it was different. Everything was. For the first time in his life he would have nothing to say, nothing to do until he was called by Brancaster. The trial was about his life, and he could do nothing but watch.
He could see Brancaster standing below him, his white lawyer’s wig hiding his black hair, his gown over his well-cut suit. They had planned and discussed every possible move, but all that was over now. Rathbone was helpless. He could not object, he could not ask any questions or contradict any lies. He had no way of contacting Brancaster until the luncheon adjournment, and perhaps not even then. He couldn’t lean forward and tell him the points he should make, alert him to errors or opportunities. His freedom or imprisonment, his vindication or ruin, hung in the balance, and he could not intervene, let alone take part. It was like something out of his worst nightmare.
Then he saw the prosecution on the other side. It was Herbert Wyst
an.
Rathbone had known him for years, appeared against him a number of times, and won more often than he had lost. Wystan would no doubt remember that now. It would not make any difference. He was a man who loved and respected the law. He would not care who won or lost. This, of course, was an excellent reason for prosecuting this case with passion. In his eyes, Rathbone had betrayed the very sanctity of the law he was sworn to uphold. For Wystan that would be a crime tantamount to treason.
Had Rathbone done that? He had certainly not intended to. Or at least, he had not intended to betray justice-it was just that justice and the law were not always the same thing. But he knew they were for Wystan. And they ought to have been for him.
Wystan’s hair was sandy gray, but now only his beard was visible, his wig hiding the rest of it. He had a long face, very rarely lit by humor.
The judge began with the formalities. For Rathbone, unable to move or to speak, every moment seemed surreal. Had it been like this for the people he had prosecuted? For those he had defended-people who were less familiar with court procedure than he was-had it all seemed like something happening on the other side of a window, almost in another world?
Had they trusted him to defend them? Or did they watch him as he now watched Brancaster, knowing that he was clever, even brilliant, but still only human. Did they sit here trying to keep themselves from being sick? Breathing in and out deeply, swallowing on nothing, throats too tight?
What did Brancaster think as he stood there, looking so elegant and clever? Was it a personal battle for him, a chance to win the unwinnable? Rathbone had always looked as suave and as confident as Brancaster did now; he knew that. But internally his stomach would churn, his mind racing as he balanced one tactic against another, wondering who to call, what to ask, whom to trust.
He breathed in and out again, counting up to four, and then repeating the exercise. His heart steadied.
He should have let Taft get away with it. He had been childish. It was impossible for every case to go the way he thought it should, to be just. His title had been “judge,” but his job had been only to see that the law was adhered to.
And that was perhaps the worst thing of all in this whole trial: the judge sitting in the high, carved seat, presiding over the entire proceedings, was Ingram York. How smug he looked, how infinitely satisfied. Was the irony of the situation going through his mind as he listened to the openings of the case? Did he think back to that evening at his own dinner table when he was congratulating Rathbone on the success of his first big fraud trial?
That seemed like years ago, but it was only months. How different the world had been then. In his arrogance Rathbone had thought it would get only better and better. The crumbling of his marriage had seemed his only loss then, the only thing in which he had seriously failed. And he had been coming to terms even with that and understanding that it was not his fault. He had cared deeply for her, or for the person he had believed her to be. And he had learned the bitter lesson, that anyone can love what they imagine another to be; real love accepts a person for what he or she truly is …
The formalities were droning on without him, voices echoing, figures moving like puppets.
He did not want to look for familiar faces. He dreaded seeing them, colleagues, men he had fought against across the courtroom. Would they pity him now? Or rejoice in his fall? This was almost beyond bearing, yet he could not sit here with his eyes closed. Everyone would know why.
