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Rathbone smiled. ‘Most men who do not sleep in the same bed as a wife cannot prove their whereabouts at two or three o’clock in the morning. Did anyone see Rand, or a man who could have been Rand, in the neighbourhood?’
‘Not so far,’ Juster conceded. ‘No one at all has been seen, but quite clearly someone had been there. The woman didn’t strangle herself.’
‘You make a nice argument for a jury,’ Rathbone agreed. ‘Is there anything at all to indicate that it was Rand? Something he left there? Something found in his home, his office, his laboratory? Mud-stained clothes? A footprint in the ground? Mud on his boots?’
‘Miss Radnor was found in the ditch beside the road,’ Juster said impatiently. ‘There would be no occasion for her killer to go off into the ditch himself. And he had the means. She was strangled. Any man of average strength with two hands could have done it. And before you ask for more than that, she put up no struggle. There is plenty of evidence of that in the state of her clothes, and her body. She did not run, and she did not fight until the last few moments, when she realised what he had already begun to do. It was no stranger who followed her or crept up on her. There is plenty of evidence, which, if properly presented, can lead to no other conclusion.’
‘Could she have had a lover who quarrelled with her?’ Rathbone was still testing the case, looking for the arguments the defence would use.
‘I’ve looked for one, but found nothing at all to suggest she has had a suitor of any kind in the last three or four years. In fact, since her father’s health began to fail, and he didn’t travel so much but stayed at home, she has been constantly at his side.’
‘A secret lover?’ Rathbone persisted.
Juster gave a sharp little laugh. ‘Secret from Bryson Radnor? What do you think are the chances of that? He controlled her life. That I can call abundant evidence to prove, if I have to.’
‘It begins to look like a better case,’ Rathbone agreed, and saw Juster’s immediate satisfaction. ‘Don’t want it too much,’ he warned, his voice gentler.
Juster faced him squarely, his dark eyes bright. ‘And you are precisely the man to warn me about taking short cuts with the law, or allowing my own sense of what is right or wrong to guide my actions, ignoring the niceties of the legal system.’
Rathbone knew exactly what he meant, and the barb had been a long time in coming. Indeed, he was surprised, considering how harsh he had been with Juster, that it had been so long.
‘Of course I am,’ he agreed with painful honesty. ‘I have done what I am warning you not to do, and paid the price for it. You, of all men, know that. Is it a pattern of behaviour you wish to emulate?’
Juster blushed. ‘Actually, I would very much like to emulate both your skill and your passion,’ he said with sudden humility. ‘But if I don’t learn from the price you paid for that, then I am a fool. I mean to prepare this case against Hamilton Rand with the utmost care, diligence not only in every detail, but in all the moral and emotional aspects as well. And I would be profoundly grateful if you would help me, for the sake of justice, if not for the excitement of the battle.’
He leaned across the desk again, keen face earnest. ‘You and I know that Rand kidnapped Hester Monk because she was useful to him, and because if he left her behind, she would tell people what he was doing. But whether she wishes to press charges or not, there is no question what he did to those children.’
Rathbone started to speak.
Juster held up his hand. ‘I know! I know . . . we could not prove that the money he gave the parents was payment to get himself off any subsequent charge of kidnapping the children. And the parents, poor devils, needed it far too badly to admit to knowing much. It stood between them and the starvation of their children. They would rather have food and be thought to sell their children than keep their reputation and watch the smallest ones cry from hunger until they haven’t the strength to cry any more. God help me, so would I! My point, Sir Oliver, is that we know the man is evil. He escaped us before because of Radnor’s dramatic entrance. After that even an eye witness couldn’t have got us a conviction. People are terrified of disease or injury where a victim bleeds to death. He holds out the hope of a cure. You can’t win over hope. But this is different. This is the wilful and deliberate murder of a young woman—’
‘Why?’ Rathbone interrupted again. ‘Why did he kill her? You have to provide that motive! If you haven’t got an eye witness and you haven’t got physical evidence, then you must have an overpowering reason.’
‘Because now that her father is well again, she doesn’t need Rand any more,’ Juster pointed out. ‘We don’t know what else she learned when she was in that cottage. She wasn’t locked up like Hester. She was there of her own will, and when Rand and Hester were caring for Radnor, she had
the run of the house. She had to. What did she learn when she was there, that now she could tell anyone?’
‘Such as what?’ Rathbone asked, but the idea was too powerful to dismiss.
‘Where the bones came from that Monk and his man dug up in the orchard, for example,’ Juster suggested quietly. ‘They were human bones. Some were very small . . . the bones of children.’
‘They could have been anybody.’ Rathbone tried to keep his voice level, reasonable, but the horror and the pity strained him beyond control. They were somebody’s children, whatever they died of. Why were they not in a churchyard, a grave in hallowed ground, like other dead children of the village?
Juster saw his face, and he did not waste words on answering.
‘Will you help me?’ His mouth twisted in that odd, wry smile of his. ‘To keep me within the law, if nothing else!’
Rathbone sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better do that. I owe you a debt of considerable gratitude. I would certainly like to see Rand put away, but fairly.’
Juster nodded. That was good enough.
The second trial of Hamilton Rand opened to a courtroom so packed that no one could move in the gallery without jostling his neighbour. People stared at the witness box or the judge, Patterson again, because there was no room to turn their backs to stare across at the jury. Still less was there room to crane their necks to look up at the dock where Hamilton Rand sat between two gaolers. He seemed to be looking beyond the court to some distant sight that only he could see.
He was charged this time with the murder of the woman who had been his co-defendant in the previous trial when both were charged with kidnap, and – by default – been found not guilty.
Juster began his prosecution very carefully, laying the scene piece by piece, as Rathbone had counselled him to do. He opened by calling as his first witness the man who had found the body while riding his horse early in the morning. The animal had smelled something that had disturbed it and had stopped in the middle of the road, unwilling to go on.
The man described his actions, and what he had found. He had then ridden back at some speed to ask a neighbour’s assistance to guard the body, and send for the police. He had not touched the dead woman, except to assure himself that she was cold, and beyond human help.
