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finish, York cut him off.
“Your objection is overruled, Mr. Brancaster. Please sit down, and do not interrupt again unless you have some point of law to make.”
Brancaster sat down as commanded. If he was annoyed he did not show it. Perhaps he had not expected to be upheld. He had succeeded in breaking Wystan’s rhythm, and Warne had regained his self-control. That might have been all he had wished for.
“I repeat my question, Mr. Warne,” Wystan said.
“It isn’t necessary, sir,” Warne interrupted him. “I was upset when I thought I would lose the case. I always am if I believe profoundly that the accused is guilty and that if not found so, will almost certainly continue to commit the same crime against more people.”
York leaned forward. “You could not know that, Mr. Warne. Please stick with the facts.”
Brancaster was on his feet. “My lord, with the greatest respect, Mr. Warne did not say the accused would reoffend, he said such was his belief and the reason he was upset at the prospect of an acquittal.”
York drew in his breath, then changed his mind and let it out again. But Rathbone knew from his face that he would not forget. Brancaster might have the jury on his side at the moment, and certainly the gallery, but he had irrevocably alienated the judge. It was a very risky tactic indeed. He must be desperate even to have considered it.
Wystan took up the thread again.
“Up to the point of your showing the photograph to the witness, Mr. Warne, did you believe you were losing?”
“Yes, I did,” Warne admitted.
“So this was a last, desperate attempt to win?”
“I would not have chosen the word ‘desperate,’ but I had no other tactic,” Warne conceded.
“And this obscene photograph, why did you not use it before?” Wystan pressed on. “In fact, why did you not show it to the defense, as the law requires? Were you afraid that if they looked into its provenance they would find it far from satisfactory? In fact sufficiently unsatisfactory that it could be excluded from evidence?”
“No, I did not!” Warne said sharply.
“Then why did you not produce it before, as you should have?”
Rathbone had seen the question coming. It was like watching a train crash, but so slowly that you could see the wheels spin and the carriages rear up before they toppled over and the sound of breaking glass reached your ears.
“I did not have it before,” Warne replied.
“Indeed?” Wystan affected surprise. “How did you come by it, then, in what appears to have been the middle of the night, Mr. Warne?”
“Sir Oliver Rathbone gave it to me.” Warne might have considered lying, or protesting privilege and refusing to answer, but it was clear that the truth was known, and it would add weight to the apparent misdeed if he gave the information only when forced to. Perhaps it was better to do it now, with some dignity.
If the jurors had known or guessed before, they still looked stunned. With Warne’s admission it became an irrefutable fact.
“Sir Oliver Rathbone gave it to you,” Wystan repeated. “Sir Oliver, the judge presiding in the case.”
“I have said so.” Warne was grave, the anger barely showing in his eyes and slight stiffness of the shoulders.
“And I assume you asked him where he had obtained this extraordinary piece of … of pornography? He is not a man you know to be accustomed to collecting such things, is he?”
There was a loud rustle of movement around the gallery; several people gasped or spoke. The jurors looked as if they were embarrassed and would have preferred to be anywhere else. No one even glanced toward Rathbone.
“He told me it had fallen into his hands, very much against his will, along with a large number of others similar,” Warne replied. “He had not yet disposed of them. Only on looking at the face of the witness had he begun to see a resemblance to one of the photographs, and that very night gone to see if he was indeed correct. He had looked at them only once before, at the time of receiving them, and preferred not to look again. But it definitely was the same man who had stood in court and sworn as to his righteousness and honesty of character. To say that he had perjured himself is something of an understatement.” He drew in his breath to add something more, but Wystan cut him off.
“So you accepted the photograph, but instead of contacting the counsel for the defense that evening, or even the following morning, you sprang this piece of obscenity on him in open court?” Wystan’s contempt was like a breath of freezing air in the room.
Warne blushed. “Yes, I did. I had hoped not to have to use it at all. It was only when the witness went on and on about his own moral and intellectual superiority and I saw the jury accept it that I showed him the photograph. Not the jury. They never saw it. All they saw was the witness ashen pale and shaking, and they realized that he had lost all his arrogance. He then changed his entire testimony.”
“You amaze me!” Wystan said with grating sarcasm. “And Sir Oliver, who of course knew exactly what was in the photograph, playacted the innocent and pretended he knew nothing of it. Did he not demand to see it, Mr. Warne?”
“Mr. Gavinton demanded to see it,” Warne replied. “I think that might have been the first time he realized just what kind of a man his witness was. Of course he also demanded that we should speak with Sir Oliver in his chambers. We did so, and the picture was never shown to the jury, or referred to again.”
