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“Did you have any idea of Miss Franken’s personal life, Mr. Doyle?”
Doyle’s eyebrows shot up. “Good heavens, no! As far as I know, and of course I inquired, her reputation was as a very respectable young woman. A little…bookish…to attract the attention of most men, if you know what I mean?”
“She lacked the opportunity to misbehave?” Ravenswood’s face was difficult to read, but Hooper thought he disapproved of the unkindness of the remark.
“I…I meant the temptation did not easily come her way,” Doyle recovered himself. “Perhaps she preferred books.” Then he must have realized that a perfect excuse to explain her death had been offered him, and he had refused it. He drew breath quickly. “I really did not take much notice of her personal affairs. Perhaps I should have done. The honest answer is that I don’t know.”
“But she was clever with figures?”
“Yes. Very.”
“Is it possible she was better acquainted with Mr. Exeter than you were aware?”
This time, Doyle did not miss the opportunity. “I suppose it is.”
Hooper listened as the afternoon wore on, but he could see nothing deeper than the lawyers moving cautiously, testing each other. The only drama lay in the minds of the audience in the gallery, possibly in the tense and watchful jurors, and of course in the minds of the witnesses and of Harry Exeter, sitting white-faced and haggard in the dock.
The day finished with the forensic accountant that Runcorn had employed, who gave details no one understood of the figures in the bank’s ledgers. He was able to show that there had been both licit and illicit movement of funds, and that a good deal of money had disappeared from Katherine’s trust over the years. It could have been invested, but badly, because there had been no yield. Mr. Doyle’s own account had also grown considerably since the week after Kate Exeter’s death. Mr. Latham’s records were unavailable to be checked, but that was about to be rectified.
Mr. Doyle’s personal accounts were also examined. Rathbone pushed this but could only make Doyle look greedy, and certainly opportunistic, if not worse. It raised the first natural doubt of Exeter’s guilt.
Hooper was able to report this to Monk when he saw him in the early evening at the Wapping Police Station.
“Haven’t you found anything?” he asked when he had finished.
Monk looked exhausted, and there was no energy coming from him to indicate he had a new idea to work on. The question was a matter of form.
“No. I’ve been looking further into Lister’s associates. Someone must know who killed him, but they’re very quiet indeed. Some people suggested they’ve gone to sea, to one of the big European ports. There’s always labor needed there.”
“Not many where strangers are welcome,” Hooper pointed out. “More likely to stay at sea. That is, if they’re seamen in the first place. Any idea at least of their names?”
Monk shook his head.
“And enemies who might be behind it all?” Hooper asked. “With Doyle or not?”
“No,” Monk said flatly. “I’ve got men on it; so has Runcorn. We found a certain amount of dislike, envy, grievances over shared investments gone wrong, but they all seem to have taken it as the fortunes of business. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Either Exeter is not hated as much as he fears, or his enemies have been better at hiding it than I can uncover.”
They spoke a li
ttle longer and moved to memories of past times: of Orme and the house he had been going to build by the riverside, down the estuary a bit. They had both been thinking of the old loyalties, people who had been part of their lives. They were grieving not only for Orme, but for all the old memories and safeties that he represented. It gave some comfort; there were things that, for a moment at least, could not be tarnished by the present and what was going on at the Old Bailey.
* * *
—
HOOPER RETURNED TO THE trial the next day. Ravenswood had not finished presenting his case for the prosecution. Hooper knew from the focus of the jurors that Rathbone was going to have an uphill battle to win them over. But if any man on earth could do it, he could. Hooper had watched him win seemingly impossible cases before. So far, he had questioned hardly any of the evidence. Hooper looked at him sitting quietly in his seat at the front of the court, in his lawyer’s white wig and black gown. He looked comfortable, biding his time. Please heaven, he was!
Ravenswood called Runcorn.
Runcorn crossed the floor and went up the steps to the witness stand. He was big, solid, heavy. He was quite a good-looking man in a long-nosed and solemn sort of way. He looked humorless, but Hooper knew he was not, only because he had seen him with the wife he adored—who was socially immeasurably above him, but also wise enough to recognize his worth—and with the baby daughter he could still hardly believe was real.
Runcorn swore to his identity and rank in the police.
Ravenswood asked about his being called to where the body of Bella Franken had been pulled out of the river. Runcorn replied with very little detail, but in spite of his best efforts to keep his feelings to himself, his deep sense of both pity and outrage marked his features and rang through his voice. Anyone listening might have imagined he saw, for a moment, his own wife or daughter used in such a way, and he could not bear it.
“You saw her pulled out of the river?” Ravenswood questioned.
“No, sir. Her body was already out of the water when I arrived.”
