AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Part of my job.”
Wingfield stood up. “My lord, we have already established all of this. My learned friend is wasting the court’s time.”
Rathbone looked at him with a flash of hope. “Then are you willing to agree that Mr. McNab himself, and with the assistance of Mr. Pettifer, very thoroughly investigated the entire possibility of a clever robbery planned against Mr. Aaron Clive and his warehouses and other premises along the riverbank?”
“Of course he investigated it,” Wingfield said. “And found nothing! Again, it is his job, and a courtesy to Mr. Clive that he was happy to afford.”
“Thank you.” Rathbone inclined his head in a tiny bow. “That would explain his frequent and private visits to Mr. Clive, and to Mrs. Clive, both at the warehouse and at their home.”
There was a hiss of indrawn breath around the room. Every man in the jury stiffened.
“Your point, Mr. Rathbone?” Mr. Justice Lyndon inquired with interest clear in his face.
Wingfield smiled. The jury was staring at Rathbone, and Wingfield and McNab relaxed visibly.
Monk felt a wave of fear run through him. Rathbone had no idea of a defense. He was fishing, and desperately.
Rathbone was still facing the judge. “My point, my lord, is that there is very much more to this case than has been apparent so far. It is something like an iceberg, with by far the largest part of it out of our view. I shall call witnesses who will tell us if Mr. McNab’s…shall we say extremely discreet…visits to Mrs. Clive at her home and their discussing events throw a very different light on the affair. I can, if necessary, call Mrs. Clive herself. The whole matter has roots far into the past, not only concerning the hanging of Mr. McNab’s unfortunate half brother.”
Now the court was electrified. In the witness stand McNab looked first one way, then the other, as if seeking escape. At least half the men and women in the gallery were staring at him.
Wingfield opened his mouth to protest, and then was uncertain as to what he meant to say.
Monk turned to the warden next to him. “I wish to speak to my lawyer. It is urgent.” What the hell was Rathbone playing at?
“I’ll see he’s told,” the warden replied. He was a fair man, and his attitude made it clear he had no particular affection for customs officers. He had said more than once that he liked his tobacco and resented the duty he paid on it.
“My lord!” Wingfield had decided on his action.
Lyndon looked at him.
“I would like to ask for an adjournment to speak to my witnesses, Mr. and Mrs. Clive, regarding this extraordinary claim from Sir Oliver. I believe he is wasting the court’s time, but I need to prepare to meet his…tactics, all the same.”
Rathbone made no objection, and the judge granted the request.
—
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER MONK was alone in the room where accused people were permitted to speak privately with their lawyers.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, fear almost choking his words. “If you question Clive, or Miriam, they’ll accuse me of having killed Piers Astley! And God help me, I don’t even know if I did. I can’t deny it.” He could hear the hysteria in his own voice, and it was slipping out of control. This was worse than when he had thought himself guilty of killing Joscelyn Gray. Gray had at least deserved it. He had perpetrated one of the most vile and destructive pieces of deception on the grieving families of the dead from the Crimean War. He had been beaten to death, but he had deserved to hang. Piers Astley had been, by all accounts, a particularly honorable man, not only respected but deeply liked by almost everyone who knew him.
And, unlike the time of Gray’s death, when Monk had little in his own life he cared for enough to mourn its loss, now he had everything on earth to live for. Above all he had Hester, a woman he loved with every part of himself. He had a home, a family, friends, a job that was worth doing, and people who trusted him. He wanted to live, with a fierce and consuming hunger, a passion! He wanted to be all that they believed of him.
Rathbone was pale, but he seemed more composed than he had any right to be. This was his professional face. Monk wanted to hit him.
“I am beginning to see a shape to this,” Rathbone said quietly. “Even the motive makes no sense—”
“I know that!” Monk snapped at him. “McNab couldn’t have known Pettifer would drown….”
“Be quiet and listen!” Rathbone ordered. “We haven’t time to waste. Of course he couldn’t. It was an opportunity he seized…brilliantly. Which means he must have had some other plan before that.”
Suddenly Monk saw a thread of light, as thin as spider silk. “And changed when he saw a better chance!” he said.
“Exactly,” Rathbone agreed. “I need to find that other plan, and trace it back, then show its foundations, how McNab built on it, and when and how he changed. I think Miriam Clive knows about it.”
“To do with Piers Astley? She won’t tell—”
“I don’t intend to give her a choice,” Rathbone said, cutting him off. “I believe that first plan was to make a fool of you, send you after this great robbery plot, which never existed. Done well enough, it would have made you look like a laughingstock. But then when Pettifer died, obligingly at your hand, McNab abandoned that and took up the idea of your revenging yourself on Pettifer for Orme’s death. It’s very neat. I may have to unravel the whole issue of Astley’s death and Miriam Clive’s plans to have you solve it in order to expose him.”
