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Detail by detail McNab described the knowledge gained by the Customs service and the Wapping Station of the River Police concerning the schooner that was coming upriver with the smuggled guns.
Wingfield did not interrupt him except here and there, reluctantly and to clarify an issue, a time, a state of the tide. It was a good tactic. It made McNab seem uninvolved personally, and it emphasized all the points that were most telling.
“And who knew this exact time and place of the gun smuggling, Mr. McNab?” Wingfield asked gravely.
“I heard just before we left, sir,” McNab answered. “Mr. Pettifer arranged it. I don’t know if he told anyone else. He said to me that he didn’t.”
“And what happened, Mr. McNab?”
“The river pirates boarded the schooner, from the downriver side of the smugglers, within seconds of the River Police coming up the side and boarding from the west, the darker side.”
“One would presume that was the natural side to board?” It was a question for the jury’s benefit.
“Yes, sir. No one would be looking for pirates that way, at that time.”
“Indeed. And what happened, Mr. McNab?”
Would Rathbone object that McNab had not been there, and could only know from other people’s reports? There was no point. It would make Rathbone look to be out of control, grabbing at anything he thought could distract the jury from the increasingly obvious truth.
“There was a very nasty gun battle going three ways, sir,” McNab answered. “The schooner crew were locked below deck and breaking their way out through the hatch. The River Police were on the decks, and the pirates were swarming up the east side of the hull and onto the deck. They could then take advantage of the fact the River Police had locked the crew below and spent most of their ammunition, shooting at them as they tried to break out. And effectively they were marooned there because their own boats had gone when the pirates attacked. They were outnumbered and outgunned.”
“A desperate situation,” Wingfield said gravely. “What happened? How is it that Mr. Monk, and indeed Mr. Hooper, are still alive?”
“They were badly wounded,” McNab said, nodding his head slowly. “And one of them, Mr. Orme, Mr. Monk’s longtime friend and mentor, the man who brought him into the force, was killed. Very bad business. He bled to death.” He spoke with reverence, as if it were a grief to him also. “Mr. Monk did everything he could to save him, but he could not stop the bleeding. Mr. Hooper was injured also. In fact he is not long back on full duty. Mr. Laker, another young man of Mr. Monk’s, was badly hurt, too.”
“And this was all brought about by Mr. Pettifer’s betrayal to the river pirates?” Wingfield said with amazement. “Why was he not hanged for such a heinous act?”
“No, sir, he was not responsible. But for a time, before we could investigate it thoroughly, it did look like it.”
“Then whose fault was it?”
McNab bent his head in apparent sadness.
“A series of mischances, sir. The river pirates have men all over the place. Someone was not careful enough. I’m afraid it happens.”
“So Mr. Monk, convinced, as you yourself were for a while, that it was Mr. Pettifer, had a very powerful reason to hate him?” Wingfield said in the silence that followed.
Monk sat in the dock with his fists clenched, his teeth clamped so hard his whole head ached. He had never thought it was Pettifer. He knew damned well that it was McNab himself. And he knew why!
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid he did,” McNab said. “He also believed that Mr. Pettifer both drowned and shot Blount. Which of course he didn’t! But Mr. Monk became obsessive about it. That is why I believe he was determined to catch Owen himself. He thought there was some huge plan to rob one of the warehouses along the river. Blount was a forger, and Owen an expert in explosives. He thought they were planning, with a couple of other men, to rob Mr. Clive’s warehouse.”
“And were they?”
McNab was perfectly straight-faced. “Not that we are aware of, sir. Anyway, Blount is dead and we have good evidence that Owen escaped to France, thanks to Mr. Gillander’s assistance.”
Wingfield pursed his lips. “You said that Mr. Monk became obsessive about Mr. Pettifer, and his part in the fiasco of the battle with the gun smugglers. Can you give us an example of what you mean, so the court understands? Obsessive is a powerful word. It conjures up visions of unnatural behavior.”
McNab considered for a moment, as if he had been unprepared for this particular question. “Yes, sir,” he said at last. “He has gone over the evidence a number of times, at least four, and sent two of his own men, Mr. Hooper and Mr. Laker, to check on my personal movements leading up to the event.”
“Perhaps he is checking to see if he made any errors himself?” Wingfield suggested. “Or possibly that his own men did? He must carry a profound sense of guilt for Mr. Orme’s death, on top of his natural grief for a man who did so much for him.”
“He was looking for my men’s errors,” McNab said with contempt. “He knew it was Mr. Pettifer who was going after Owen because of the questions he asked my men about Blount. He got it into his head that there was some large conspiracy involving them, with two other people with high skills, and that Mr. Pettifer was the connection between them. It was frankly ridiculous!”
“Are you certain of this, Mr. McNab?”
McNab nodded. “Yes, sir. Mr. Aaron Clive knew about it because Mr. Monk thought it could have been a robbery planned against Mr. Clive’s warehouse, very near Skelmer’s Wharf. Mr. Gillander was part of it, too, at least in Mr. Monk’s mind.”
“I see. And who else has any proof of this…conspiracy?”
