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Hester stayed another half hour, but as a matter of companionship. They talked of nothing important, carefully avoiding speaking of the case, or of love and loss. Judith showed her around the garden, vivid with color as the roses began their second flush. It was warm even in the shade, the heavy perfume of flowers dreamlike. It made Monday’s opening of the trial harsher by contrast, as if this were so soon to end. For a long time neither of them spoke. Platitudes would insult the reality.
Monk went to see Breeland on Saturday. He had not found enough to help Rathbone beyond hope, doubt, issues to raise. He would continue seeking during the trial, but he was beginning to fear that there was no proof to find that Merrit was innocent. It might end in being no more than a matter of judgment.
There was one question to ask Breeland, the answer to which would do him no injury, so Monk had no hesitation in asking it.
Breeland was brought into a small square cell. He looked pale and thinner than when Monk had last seen him. His face had hollows around the eyes and a certain leanness to the cheeks where the muscles showed tight-clenched. He stood stiffly, looking at Monk with resentment.
“I have already told you everything I have to say,” he began before Monk had spoken at all. “You brought me back to stand trial and to prove my innocence. I assume your friend Rathbone will do his duty, although I have little confidence in his belief in my innocence. I trusted you, Monk, but I now fear my trust may have been misplaced. I think you would be pleased enough to see me hang, as long as Miss Alberton is acquitted and you are paid your fee for rescuing her. I apologize if I accuse you unjustly. I hope I do.”
Monk searched the smooth, chiseled face and saw no surface emotion, no fear, no weakness, no doubt in his own courage to face the ordeal now only two days away. He should have admired it. Instead it filled him with a strange fear of his own. He was not certain whether Breeland’s demeanor was more than human, or less. He could see none of his own vulnerabilities reflected there.
“I accept your apology,” he said coolly. “Certainly I would like Miss Alberton acquitted, and I admit I don’t give a damn whether you hang or not … provided you are guilty … whether you actually fired the gun doesn’t matter. If you corrupted Shearer, or anybody else, into doing it for you, that’s all the same to me. If you didn’t, and it had nothing to do with you, then I’ll fight as hard to clear you as I would any man.”
There was no flash of humor in Breeland’s face, not even the ghost of recognition of irony. Monk had a sudden thought that Breeland did not perceive himself except as a hero, or a martyr. Human foibles and absurdities eluded his grasp. Monk saw a vision of an endless desert of existence, always on the grand scale, stripped of the laughter and trivia that bring proportion to life and are the measure of sanity.
Poor Merrit.
He pushed his hands into his pockets. “How many guns did you buy?” he asked casually. “Exactly.”
“Exactly?” Breeland repeated, his eyebrows lifted. “To the gun? I didn’t count them. There was hardly time. I assumed every crate was full. Alberton was a stubborn man, with limited views and no moral or political understanding, but I never doubted his financial integrity.”
“How many guns did you pay for?”
“Six thousand. And I paid him the agreed amount per gun.”
“You paid Shearer?”
“I already told you that.” Breeland frowned. “For that amount of money you could build several streets’ worth of four-bedroom houses in any part of London. It seems obvious to me that Shearer double-crossed Alberton, shot him and the guards in a manner to make it look as if it were Union soldiers who did it, sold the guns to me, and escaped with the money. I am innocent, and Rathbone will be able to demonstrate that.”
Monk made no reply. Breeland was perfectly correct. Monk did not care whether he hanged or not … not at this moment.
10
On the following Monday the trial began of Lyman Breeland and Merrit Alberton, jointly accused of the Tooley Street murders. Oliver Rathbone was as well prepared as he was able to be, given the information he possessed. From what Monk had told him, he believed Breeland had not committed the crimes himself, but assuring the jury that he had not instigated them, and profited from them knowing what had occurred, was quite another matter. And Rathbone was aware of having a client who would not naturally elicit the sympathy of the jury.
He had spoken to both Merrit and Breeland on the Friday before. He had weighed whether to suggest to Breeland a softer manner, more expression of humility, even of regret for the tragedy of Alberton’s death, but he formed the belief that it would be a wasted attempt, perhaps even produce a pattern of behavior that was obviously false.
Now as the court was called to order and the proceedings began, Rathbone looked up at Breeland’s face in the dock, expressionless, staring straight ahead as if he had no interest in the people assembled there, no regard or respect for them, and Rathbone wished he had made some effort to warn him how dearly that could cost.
Merrit, on the other hand, looked young and frightened, and very vulnerable indeed. Her skin was pale, blue-shadowed around her eyes, and her hands were clenched on the rail so hard it would be easy to think she was holding on to it to save herself from falling. As Rathbone watched her, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chi
n a little, and looked up at Breeland. Very tentatively she reached out her hand and touched his arm.
The shadow of a smile moved his lips, but he did not speak to her. Perhaps he did not wish the court to witness any emotion in him. Perhaps he felt that love was a private thing, and he would not share it with those who had come to stare, and to judge.
Rathbone was acutely conscious of Judith Alberton, as were most of the people in the court. There was a beauty in her carriage, and in what could be glimpsed of her features. He saw people nudge each other as she came in, and several men were unable to keep the admiration, or the interest, from their expressions.
Rathbone wondered if she was accustomed to being stared at, or if it made her uncomfortable. She looked at Merrit, who was still turned towards Breeland, then across at Rathbone. It was only a glance before she sat down, and he could not see her eyes through the veil. He only imagined the desperation she must be feeling. All the help anyone could give her could not cross the barrier of loneliness she must face, the fear of what these days would bring.
Hester was beside her, dressed in dark and pale grays, the light catching her fair skin and a little white lace at her throat. He would have recognized the curve of her cheek anywhere, and the individual way she carried her head. The greatest beauty in the world did not catch his breath that way with the ache of familiarity, the memory of so many shared struggles for victory over ignorance and wrong. Winning had mattered, of course it had, the causes had always been worth the fight, but he realized how good the battles themselves had been. This was another one, but they were not together in it as they had been in the past. Monk was between them in a new way.
He saw Breeland stiffen and a look of extraordinary dislike fill his face. Rathbone followed his glance. A slender, dark-haired man had entered the courtroom and was making his way towards a vacant seat on the edge of the aisle in the public gallery. He moved with an unusual grace and made no sound at all, taking a place where it was unnecessary to excuse himself to anyone. His remarkable eyes studied Judith Alberton, even though she was in front of him and he could not have seen her face.
Rathbone wondered if this was Philo Trace. He knew it was not Casbolt, since they had already met.
Opposite him, across the aisle, Horatio Deverill was rising to open his case. He was a tall man, slender in his youth but now thickening around the middle. His once-handsome features were slightly coarsened but still full of power and character. But it was his voice which commanded attention and forced one to listen. It was rich, idiosyncratic, with perfect enunciation. Many a jury had been mesmerized by it. When he spoke, no one’s attention wandered.
“Gentlemen,” he began, smiling at the jurors, sitting upright and self-conscious in their high, carved seats. “I shall tell you about a heinous and terrible crime. I shall show you how an honorable man, much like yourselves, was conspired against to be robbed, and then murdered, in order to gain guns for the tragic conflict which is even now being fought out in America, brother against brother.”
