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“So you say.” Wingfield managed by the inflection of his voice to patronize a man he physically had to look up at. “And you are willing to come here in his coat, and swear, in front of Mr. Justice Lyndon, that the coat you are wearing is the same one you took off the corpse of Mr. Blount, who was both drowned and shot first?”
“?’E could ’a drowned by accident,” Tucker pointed out. “An’ ’e weren’t shot until Mr. McNab got a hold of ’im. I reckon ’e did that so ’e ’ad a reason to call Mr. Monk in.”
“And I reckon that Mr. Monk’s dubious friends up and down the riverbank are lying to gain credit with the River Police, which they will expect to be repaid in kind!” Wingfield snapped back at him.
Tucker was insulted. He gripped the rail and leaned forward, his face pinched with anger. “If I wanted ter do that, Mister, I’d’ave said I saw McNab shoot the corpse. An’ yer got no right ter call me a liar when I’m tellin’ the sworn truth.”
“You wouldn’t know the sworn truth if it bit you!” Wingfield said almost under his breath, but the closer members of the jury must have heard him, as he returned to his seat.
Rathbone hesitated, then rose to his feet and stepped forward.
“Mr. Tucker, have you ever been convicted of lying, to anyone?”
Beata closed her eyes and held her breath.
“No, sir,” Tucker said firmly. “Willis ’as. That’s why Dr. Crow said as it should be me as comes ’ere, wearin’ the coat so you could see it yourself.”
Rathbone let out a sigh. “Thank you, Mr. Tucker. As far as I am concerned, you are free to go.”
Mr. Justice Lyndon smiled with bleak humor. “I would take that chance, Mr. Tucker, if I were you. Keep warm in your dead man’s coat. It’s a shame to waste a good garment.”
Tucker thanked him and made his escape.
“My lord, I have one more witness only,” Rathbone said, glancing at the tall windows and the fading sun beyond them. “I believe I can be brief.”
“Then call your witness, Sir Oliver,” Lyndon replied.
“I call Miriam Clive to the stand.”
There were several moments of hesitation. People craned their necks round to watch. Then there was a gasp of indrawn breath as she appeared. Until now, for most of the court, she had been a creature of legend. Finally they saw her, and she met all their expectations. She had always been beautiful, but with her face pale with fear and her head high she was breathtaking. As if she were going to her own execution, she walked up the aisle between the rows, not once glancing to either side. She crossed the open space of the floor and mounted the steps. She swore to her identity, and that she would tell the truth, all of it, and nothing else. Then she faced Rathbone as she would have the headsman with the ax already in his hand. She was dressed in a burgundy so dark it was almost black, and her luxuriant hair was drawn away from her face to emphasize her high cheekbones and her marvelous eyes.
Even Rathbone was impressed. Beata saw it in his very slight hesitation. She was barely aware that her own hands were so tightly clenched they hurt. What would Miriam say? She had been waiting for years for this chance to damn Aaron!
Beata tried to remember what she had said, and what she had only thought to say. Did Oliver even believe her? Could he imagine, here in midwinter London, in the Old Bailey, what the heat of summer and gold had been like in the wild country of California twenty years ago? Gold fever was another world!
“Mrs. Clive,” Rathbone began graciously, “I believe your first marriage was in California, before the gold rush of 1849?”
Wingfield was on his feet immediately. “This is irrelevant, my lord. Sir Oliver is wasting time again!”
“You opened the door to the past in San Francisco, at that time, Mr. Wingfield.” Lyndon turned to Miriam. “You may answer the question, Mrs. Clive.”
“Yes, it was.” Her voice was almost expressionless. She was fighting to keep her emotions in control. Beata knew that, because she knew Miriam. Did she look vulnerable to the court, the jury, as if she barely kept from breaking? Or did they see her as rich and beautiful…spoiled by fate? How far that was from the truth. Her beauty had not been a blessing.
“To Piers Astley, who was very tragically killed in 1850?” Rathbone continued.
She cleared her throat. “Yes. He was shot to death in a saloon bar, about forty miles outside San Francisco.”
“Was it a brawl of some kind? An accident?”
“No. It was in one of the back rooms, and he was alone with the man who murdered him,” she replied. Now the emotion in her voice was raw and no one could have failed to hear it.
Rathbone kept his voice calm and level. “If you were not there, Mrs. Clive, how do you know this?”
Again the room was utterly silent.
“Witnesses,” she said simply. “To the fact, not as to who fired the shot.”
“I see. Do you know who it was?”
