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“Not yet, my lord,” Rathbone replied. “Mr. Gillander, did Mr. Monk speak to you about this conspiracy that, according to Mr. McNab, and Mr. Clive, he feared?”
“He told me about the possibility of a robbery, sir. But most pressingly he needed to find out who shot Mr. Blount, and if there was any connection between Mr. Blount and Mr. Owen, other than that both escaped from the custody of Mr. McNab’s men. He thought maybe there wasn’t.”
“There wasn’t?” Rathbone said with surprise. “Then he didn’t believe in the conspiracy?”
“No, I don’t think so. But it’s his job to be certain. He had to look into it, no matter how unlikely it was. After all, he’d look a fool if it were real and he hadn’t bothered.”
“Indeed he would,” Rathbone agreed. “And did he find anything?”
“Yes. Found a fellow in the Deptford area, hiding out in a stinking old warehouse, oozing down into the mud. He said Mr. Owen had got out of it to France, as fast as he could, because he was scared stiff of Mr. McNab. He also told us that it was Mr. Pettifer himself who drowned Mr. Blount.”
“Told us?” Rathbone asked, with raised eyebrows.
“Yes, sir. Commander Monk, and me,” Gillander explained.
“Drowned him?” Rathbone said, as if with surprise. “Who shot him?”
“Not certain, sir. Customs man, but could have been another one.”
“How interesting,” Rathbone murmured, almost as if to himself. “I begin to see sense in all of this.”
“That’s a great deal more than I do, my lord!” Wingfield protested. “What Sir Oliver tells us he sees, or thinks he begins to see, is neither here nor there. With respect, my lord, how long are we to endure this charade?”
“Until I say otherwise, Mr. Wingfield,” the judge snapped, but his patience was wearing thin also, and Rathbone had to be conscious of that.
“My lord,” Rathbone said meekly, “I will have a witness with crucial evidence on this tomorrow, but may I, in the meantime, call Lady York, widow of the late Mr. Justice Ingram York, to the stand? I regret that she has been in court throughout most of this case, and therefore already heard the evidence presented, but I have only just appreciated that she has evidence of her own knowledge that may clear up much.”
He had not wanted to call Beata but he was desperate for anything to play for time.
Wingfield threw his hand up in the air. “My lord, what on earth can the respectable widow of an eminent judge know of the stinking slums of Deptford, or what some drunken sot has to say on the drowning of an escaped forger? This is beyond preposterous.”
“Sir Oliver?” the judge asked skeptically.
Rathbone still looked a little pale, and he did not move with his usual grace. “I don’t imagine Lady York knows anything of Deptford, my lord. I did not mean to suggest that she did. But she does know a great deal about San Francisco in the gold rush days, since she lived there herself. And she has been acquainted with Miriam Astley, as she was then, and with Piers Astley, whose death seems to haunt these proceedings, and with Aaron Clive, the king of that society. She may also have had some knowledge of both Mr. Gillander in his youth, and of William Monk. I think the court may find her information pertinent in several ways.”
“Does Lady York still have the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Clive, Sir Oliver? And is she well enough, after her recent bereavement, to take the witness stand?”
“She still has the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Clive,” Rathbone answered. “Indeed, since her bereavement they are the only close friends she has visited regularly, in connection with the endowment of a chair at a university in the name of the late Sir Ingram York. And she is quite well.”
“Then proceed, but I warn you that if you are wasting the court’s time, I will not take an agreeable view of it. It may all be very dramatic, but this is not a theater, Sir Oliver, and a man’s life is at stake.”
“Just so, my lord. Thank you.”
Beata was conducted across the floor by the same usher to whom she had given the message. She took the stand and was sworn. She felt a trifle giddy. She had not realized that the steps up to the witness box were so narrow, or so steep. She did not resist the impulse to hold on to the rail in front of her. She knew she must have looked nervous.
“Lady York,” Rathbone began gently. She must not smile at him as if she knew him. She must appear impartial. “I believe you lived in San Francisco for some time, including a year of the gold rush that we are all familiar with, of 1849. Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“During that time, did you know some of the people now involved in this trial, specifically the accused, William Monk? Or Piers Astley, who was murdered in 1850? Or Fin Gillander, who owns the schooner Summer Wind, and the then Miriam Astley, and her present husband, Aaron Clive?”
“Yes, I knew all of them except William Monk. I knew him only by sight, and by reputation.”
“Indeed? And what was his reputation?”
“As a brave man, a good sailor, but not someone you wanted to cross. Though he was unusual in that he was looking for adventure, not gold. Rather like Fin Gillander.” Should she tell the whole truth? Rathbone had not asked her for it. But it was part of the story. She knew that now better than he did. “Except that Fin, like a lot of men, was in love with Miriam Astley. He was about twenty, and she was more than that, as was I. But it was quite hopeless, and he knew it, because she had never loved anyone else but her husband.”
“Her husband then, Piers Astley, or her husband now, Aaron Clive?”
