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Drew was well primed. “Of course.” He bowed very slightly, his lips drawn tight in a gesture of distaste, as if he were actually reluctant to answer. “A year or two ago there was a case involving a most unpleasant man by the name of Jericho Phillips.” He enunciated each word carefully. “He was accused of using small orphaned children-all boys, so far as I k
now-in a riverboat he owned. He made obscene photographs of them.” His voice trembled with anger. “He even used some of them as child prostitutes, and then blackmailed his wretched clients. The worst of his crimes was the murder of an unknown number of these unfortunate boys when they rebelled, or reached an age when they were no longer to his clients’ taste.”
He waited a few moments for the horror of what he was describing to sink into the minds of the listeners and take shape, and then he continued, his voice a little lower, as if the horror of it all had crushed him.
“Mrs. Monk’s evidence was crucial to his trial.” A look of intense regret filled his face. “Unfortunately she was so carried away, so incensed at the brutality of the crime, and so sure in her own mind that Phillips was guilty, that she neglected to be certain of her proof. Her emotion was understandable to anyone, but courts deal in law, as they must, for the protection of both the innocent and the victims, and for those few who are assumed guilty but in fact are not.”
It was clever. It was a passionate defense for Taft, while appearing to be about Hester and an entirely different case. Rathbone was seething. The muscles in his body knotted and his jaw was tight, but there was nothing whatever that he could do about it.
From the look of anxiety in his eyes, Warne also knew what was coming next. The case would be familiar to many people. It had been headline news at the time, and what had followed had been even worse.
Drew gave a slight shrug. It looked like regret, almost an apology for so distressing the court. “Because of her ineptitude, her placing of heart before head,” he said softly, “Phillips was found not guilty, and set free. As was only to be expected, he continued on his path of repulsive crime. He was, of course, later apprehended and killed, but he did not face the law again, as he certainly should have. Once exonerated, he could never again be tried for that earlier crime.”
There was a murmur of distress in the gallery. Several jurors shook their heads sadly. One of them rubbed his hand across his face in a gesture of dismay.
“It was a brilliant lawyer who defended Phillips,” Drew went on, his voice now laden with irony. “He tied Mrs. Monk up in knots with the rope of her own making.”
He had not looked at Rathbone, but Gavinton did and smiled. He gave a very slight bow, almost too small for one to be sure it had occurred. Those in the gallery might have missed his implication, but most of the jurors would not. If they were curious, it would take only a question or two outside the courtroom and they would have the answer.
“Which, of course, was the lawyer’s duty,” Gavinton quickly added for good measure. He could not resist the temptation to preach as well. “If the law is not just to all of us, then it is not just to any, and we are all in danger. It would be a license to accuse anyone, and to crucify him for crimes he did not commit. Thank you, Mr. Drew.” He moved as if to return to his seat and then swung around to face the witness box again.
“I apologize. In my enthusiasm for the law I forgot to make clear the purpose of raising Mrs. Monk’s name. You say she came to your church? To one service?”
“Yes,” Drew agreed. “So far as I know she did not return.”
“Then what has she to do with this accusation against Mr. Taft? It is not she who is making this charge; it is the police.”
Drew smiled. “In Mrs. Monk’s clinic for street women she has a bookkeeper who, I hear, is gifted with figures. In the past he indulged in some very … creative … accounting when he ran the same buildings as one of the most profitable brothels in London. I doubt there is a form of financial fraud with which he does not have at least a passing acquaintance. His physical description answers exactly that of the man who called so mysteriously upon Mr. Sawley and handed him the papers from which he drew his conclusions about the funds of the church. I think the jury may well question Mrs. Monk’s reasons for visiting us, and exactly where Mr. Sawley obtained his information.”
“Indeed,” Gavinton said with gleaming satisfaction. “One might wonder what interested her in Mr. Taft, but unless she wishes to tell us I dare say we shall never know.”
“There is not far to look.” Drew’s smile was now unmistakably a sneer. “She has recently taken on a new young woman to assist her, by the name of Josephine Raleigh. She is the only daughter of the same John Raleigh who chose to give testimony against Mr. Taft last week. Regrettably he overestimated his finances and is now blaming Mr. Taft for it. We could have given him back some of his money, but we sent it on to the charity for which it was donated as soon as we could. It was no longer in our possession. It is very sad, but it was beyond our power to help.”
There was total silence in the room. The air was hot, almost stiflingly so. Rathbone felt as if there were nothing to breathe, and the sweat trickled down his body.
“And you believe this to be Mrs. Monk’s reason for asking her somewhat unusual bookkeeper to involve himself in Mr. Taft’s affairs?” Gavinton asked with sad understanding.
“I do,” Drew answered. “That she did so seems to be unarguable, and I can think of no other reason for it; she has never been to our church before, or since.”
“The one occasion you refer to, some eight or nine weeks ago?” Gavinton asked.
“That is so,” Drew agreed.
Rathbone waited in vain for Warne to object. It seemed he had been attacked completely on the blind side and had no idea what to challenge, or how. Please heaven that by the time he came to cross-examine Drew he would have some weapon for a counterattack. Gavinton had managed to raise considerable doubt as to the veracity of any of the evidence against Taft. In fact, he had made it look like the fabrication of a rather unbalanced woman, with the help of a frankly semi-criminal former brothel keeper.
There was a bitter irony to it that cut Rathbone deeply. It was exactly what he had done in defense of Jericho Phillips-who had been guilty of far more depravity than Abel Taft. A single look at Gavinton’s face showed that he was quite aware of it and that he savored it with relish.
The remaining part of the day Gavinton spent in going through the facts and figures in the accounts that condemned Taft. Drew had explanations for all of it. Gavinton was careful what he chose to ask about, but there was such a mass of information that the jury began to look glassy-eyed. Presumably that was Gavinton’s intention. You cannot convict a man if you do not understand the entirety of what he is supposed to have done.
Rathbone left for the day disturbed by his inability to do anything except watch and listen as Gavinton reversed the whole atmosphere and flavor of the case. He had begun the day backed into a corner from which it looked as if he had no escape; he had ended it having painted Hester as a hysterical and somewhat foolish woman with a habit of meddling in affairs that were really not her concern, at times to tragic results, and that in this case she had accused a good man of a criminal fraud of which he was entirely innocent.
Gavinton would call Taft tomorrow, as soon as Warne had had a chance to question Robertson Drew. Drew was supremely confident; it oozed out of him like sweat on a hot day. Rathbone imagined he could smell it in the air, oily and sickly sweat.
What could Warne attack? Rathbone had no doubt that Drew’s account of Hester’s involvement was accurate in all its main assumptions. He knew Hester well enough to believe that it was precisely what she would do. He wondered for a moment why she had not mentioned it at least one of the times they had met in the past month. Of course the bookkeeper clever enough and sufficiently well versed in fraud to understand Taft’s tricks was Squeaky Robinson. Rathbone had met Squeaky a few times and recognized the description. It was Rathbone who had tricked Squeaky out of the brothel buildings in Portpool Lane, the same buildings Hester had turned into the clinic. Squeaky had had a twisted and reluctant respect for Rathbone ever since. And if he was honest with himself, Rathbone had a certain respect for Squeaky also. That alone might answer why Hester had not burdened him with knowledge of the affair.
How like her!
Perhaps it would be unwise to see her. She might very well be called as a witness.
