AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes?” Ravenswood asked.
Where was Rathbone in all of this? He had not said a word yet.
“Whose body I found floating in the river,” Monk said. “She had already approached me about errors in the ledger and made a second appointment to speak with me, which she did not keep because she was dead.”
“And you are suggesting a connection?” Ravenswood asked.
Monk realized he had been led into springing Rathbone’s trap too early.
“You are looking for me to do your job for you,” Monk said a little tartly. “You ask me why I had not arrested Roger Doyle. Perhaps I should say only that Superintendent Runcorn arrested Mr. Exeter instead.”
“Indeed. And I shall be asking him, in due course, to testify. Let us for now go back to the evening of the tragedy on Jacob’s Island, if you please.” It was not a request, however much it might have sounded like one. Ravenswood was very much in control of events. “You say you were attacked?”
“Yes.”
“And Mr. Exeter was also attacked, as far as you could tell?”
“He was. There were marks on his face, his clothes were filthy as if he had fallen in the mud several times, and there was blood on his head and hands.”
“Were any other of your men attacked?”
“Yes, all of them were, except the two left to mind the boats.” Monk could hear the anger in his own voice. The whole affair still hurt: the pain of failure, the grief of Kate’s death, and through it all the corroding misery of betrayal.
“So, the kidnappers took the money and killed the woman they had held hostage? A tragic outcome all around.”
“Yes. And how the devil you think Exeter himself caused this, or ever had any part of it except in misjudgment, I cannot imagine.”
“And you, too, Commander Monk. Did you not perhaps trust a man you should not have? How did it happen? How did the kidnappers know exactly where you would be, how you would come to the place they specified, how you would position your men, so they could overpower them one by one, unless someone told them that information?”
Monk forced out the words, and for an instant he hated Ravenswood for his smooth, gentle face as he spoke of such horror. “I don’t know. I’ve searched the past, the family, and the circumstances of every man who was there, and I don’t know!”
“You appear certain that Mr. Exeter is not guilty, and yet there is still a key element of this case that escapes you, is there not?” Ravenswood shook his head. He looked at the judge. “My lord, I have no more questions for this witness. After the luncheon adjournment I wish to call the police surgeon to give evidence as to the manner of Katherine Exeter’s death.”
The judge adjourned the court accordingly. Monk left the stand feeling miserable, as if he had somehow failed again, although he could not think of any answer he could have given differently.
* * *
—
THE AFTERNOON WENT QUICKLY. The police surgeon’s testimony was clinical, and yet the matter-of-fact way he described Kate Exeter’s wounds somehow made them more terrible. There was no horror in his voice, only an intense pity. In the rigidity of his body, he clearly felt a rage that any of this should happen to a living person, a sentient being capable of laughter, tenderness, and fear. He made her special as he described her wounds, and yet universal in the terror and destruction—the blood, the flesh, and the pain that could have been anyone’s.
Monk walked out into the cold, already darkening afternoon beside Hester. He had not seen Hooper. He was not here because he was to testify the next day, and so was not allowed to attend in case anything he heard might influence him.
And he had not seen Rathbone, because he would no doubt be weighing the evidence of the day and preparing for tomorrow. He had not challenged anything so far, but what was there to contend? All the evidence had been only a matter of fact. He would not have wished the surgeon’s testimony to be any longer than absolutely necessary. Monk had looked at the faces of the jurors and seen indelible horror. They were helpless to relieve any of it. It was fact, already passed into history. To have made light of it would be an offense against life itself. But justice was their domain, and they would want someone to pay. If they acquitted Exeter, then who would it be? Doyle?
But the police had charge of Exeter. Would actions, the need for someone to balance the scales for Kate, outweigh judgment or mercy for the husband who mourned her?
Monk and Hester went home by hansom, over Blackfriars Bridge. It was too cold to take a ferry over the water. They rode, both lost in their own silence, until they were at the door, and Monk brought in more coal and built up the fire. Hester had left a stew on at the back of the stove, and she brought it to the front, heated it up a little more, and served it in big bowls. They ate, and finally they spoke.
“I didn’t expect Ravenswood to be…so gentle,” Monk said at last. “I expected to be attacked more.”
“He attacked, William,” she said quietly. “You just didn’t recognize it, until it was a little too late to alter your response.” She hesitated a moment. “Not that there was anything you should have said differently.”
“Oliver didn’t do anything!”
“There really wasn’t anything he could do, without seeming desperate,” she pointed out. “If you attack every little thing, it looks as if you don’t know where you’re really going.”
That was true, and yet he felt as if they weren’t really fighting. He wondered if Exeter felt the same, that Rathbone had let him down and wasn’t as clever as his reputation suggested. Monk looked at Hester. Were the same thoughts going through her mind? “Does he believe him?” he asked.
