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It was about twenty minutes later that the door opened and Mercy Blackwell came in. Her hair was piled loosely instead of coiled, but it was still elegant, perhaps more so because it was natural rather than artifice. She was wearing a robe of deep violet purple, but no particular shape.
‘So, we are hunting,’ she said, as if it were something she did regularly and found no disturbance being got up out of bed to take part. There was no mention of it being in the middle of the night. ‘Show me where.’ She sat down as Daniel scrambled to his feet out of the most basic manners.
‘Are you sure?’ he said, and immediately felt foolish. There was no accepted way in which to conduct themselves in such circumstances.
She did not bother to answer him.
‘Start here, if you please.’ He gave her a pile of pages. ‘We are looking for—’
‘Yes, I know. Roman told me,’ she interrupted him. ‘Scandals concerning certain people, and particularly those that can be disproved. First, we must find every reference to their name, then see what stories can be given the lie. It might be a good idea to see other people that are condemned, even obliquely. You never know who might be a useful ally. Shall I write down their names, and the page numbers on which they are mentioned? It looks as if we have a long list, and a short time.’ She gave him a dazzling smile, then went immediately to Daniel’s notes.
Blackwell himself came in ten minutes later with a pot of tea on a tray, with mugs, a jug of milk, and a plate with several slices of rich fruitcake. He said nothing to interrupt either Mercy or Daniel. He poured the tea, and then as each took a mug and cake, he joined them in their labours.
Daniel was intensely grateful to them for this, but he did not know how to say so, more than he already had, and there was no time or effort to waste on trying.
It was easy reading, most of the time, but Daniel made notes of the names mentioned in connection with anyone he knew, or knew about. He gradually began to realise how much was innuendo: inference rather than fact. It drew the reader in like quicksand. First a little extra temptation to that area, a little suggestion of scandal, or illicit romance, the odd joke or two, and then he found himself turning the pages more and more rapidly in contemplation of a name turning up again, more interestingly.
Twice he caught himself racing to find another reference to a woman cleverly described, not literally, but only by the effect she had on certain men. People were f
ascinated by her laughter. No matter how often she laughed, they turned towards her. She moved with a grace that made others look awkward. Men straightened their shoulders and stood more elegantly when she was present. Daniel turned page after page to see who she was. He had to read further to know, forgetting to note all the names as he went.
He forced himself to go back and be more diligent. He hated doing it, but Graves knew the weaknesses of human nature, and how to mask ugliness as ordinary frailty, how to make observation seem like familiarity rather than intrusion.
Daniel looked across at Blackwell. He, too, was bent over his pages, and his hand was writing notes almost automatically. Was that also how he saw it? Weaknesses, that in compassion should be covered rather than exposed? Daniel had seen both humour and compassion in him, but did not know him well enough to know what aroused one more than the other in a frailty observed.
How did his father deal with weaknesses in others, vulnerabilities? He knew the answer to that. He had overheard enough discussions of cases to know that he rarely exposed them if he could avoid it, and when he did, it hurt him.
Was that what Graves considered weakness in Daniel, too?
It was a deeper question than he had thought at first. What was weakness? Where was the line between weakness and compassion? A judgement call? The division where it exposed only yourself, and the place where others were hurt? There was a judgement call too, most of the time. It looked as if, to Graves, it was where danger to yourself met profitability. What was the risk to him? Of course, there was also the pleasure in malice and revenge. It did not always come at a price. Was, for him, the judgement call the weighing of price against pleasure?
Another hour went by. To Daniel, words were beginning to waiver on the page. He rubbed his eyes, found that they still blurred.
‘Enough,’ Mercy said quietly, watching him. ‘Go to bed and we will wake refreshed, or at least better than we are now, and I will make us breakfast. Bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade, hot tea.’ She stood up slowly, as if her back were stiff. She moved her shoulders a little.
Daniel rose to help her, but he was too late.
‘You are asleep,’ she told him briskly. ‘Go to bed. Top of the stairs, first door to the right. Bathroom is next after that. Don’t argue with me. I haven’t time for it. Or the strength. Good night.’
‘Good night, Mercy,’ he said obediently. ‘Thank you.’
‘You saved Roman’s life. What did you expect me to do?’ she replied. ‘Go to bed!’
Daniel slept soundly, although he had not expected to, and woke up to find the room full of sunlight, and Mercy standing beside his bed, fully dressed and her hair wound up like usual, the white streak blazing.
‘Breakfast in fifteen minutes,’ she said. ‘I expect you at the table, washed and shaved, and dressed of course. Then we will continue to work.’ She did not wait to see if he was going to answer.
They worked the rest of the morning and all afternoon. No one mentioned that the last day was fast approaching on which they could hope to get their appeal before a judge in time to get a stay of execution. No one needed to say that they did not want to let Graves be hanged.
Daniel felt that they had to have a plan ready for the next morning. That was going to mean a hard day followed by a hard night.
In the middle of the afternoon, he reached the end of his pile, and Blackwell reached the end of his ten minutes later.
Mercy looked up. ‘Well?’ she asked.
Daniel felt defensive. The book was principally about Victor Narraway, with major digressions about people he had known, and letters that were personal and had little to do with his career. But it was cruel. There was more than one interpretation of most events, and Graves had always chosen the one that fitted his own estimate of Narraway as greedy, vain, and in the end always self-serving. So many stories that he had found skirted the edge of slander, but never tipped over. Daniel felt as if all the defence somehow made more of the fault rather than less. If there were nothing wrong, why would anyone leap to offer an excuse? It drew more attention to the lapse and made most people consider it in the light of the assumption that it required defending.
‘Clever,’ Mercy said quietly. ‘But not infallible, I think.’
