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“Did you think you’d get a fair trial?”
“No, not with Thorwood saying he’d seen me. His recognition would stand because we were acquainted. Anyway, that’s not an excuse. Half the villains on earth say it’s not fair! It’s the oldest complaint in the world.” He said this with a bitter disgust on his face.
Daniel heard pain in his voice, and fear, but not self-pity. It would not be fair if Sidney did not have the best possible defense. Apparently, he had no one who would support him, no family, and the embassy certainly would not. Where would he find the means for a good lawyer?
Nothing was turning out as Daniel had expected. Sidney was not the opinionated, arrogant man he had assumed.
“We’ll do everything we can about the embezzlement.” He made the rash promise; even while he was saying the words he had no idea how to fulfill them. Worse than that, he was putting himself in the position of opposing both Patrick and Jemima. How had what seemed at first a simple crusade turned into a many-tentacled disaster?
“Thank you,” Sidney said quietly. “Please…please come back and tell me if you can find anything?” He was attempting to put hope in his voice, and it was painful to watch.
“I will,” Daniel promised.
CHAPTER
Nine
DANIEL AND KITTERIDGE sat in Kitteridge’s office and looked at the pile of papers in front of them.
“Is the clerk waiting for them?” Daniel asked dubiously.
“You could wager your life’s salary he is,” Kitteridge said, pulling his face into an expression of disgust.
Daniel grunted. “At this moment, that may not be very much. Marcus will not be pleased with me. Beneath his nonsense talk and his eccentricity, he’s very patriotic, you know. He expects me to get Sidney off!”
Kitteridge looked up from the paper he was studying. He gave a slightly sideways smile. “Of course he does. We are taking on the desperate case of a fellow countryman, not to mention the reputation of all British diplomats in Washington by association.”
“And losing?” Daniel said. “Because it looks as though we may. Do you suppose Marcus would ever admit that Sidney is guilty, even if it is proven in the end? Or even if he does, that his firm will go down as the one that couldn’t get him off?”
“He wouldn’t want us to ‘get him off,’ as you obliquely put it. Such delicacy isn’t clever, it’s disgusting! And if he is guilty, I don’t want you to get him off. Neither do you. It was your blasted brother-in-law who brought this case here in the first place! Otherwise, we would never have known about it, unless we’d seen it in the newspapers. It would all be someone else’s problem.”
“And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride!” Daniel added.
“What?”
“It’s all completely irrelevant now.”
“Yes,” Kitteridge said firmly. “The prosecution’s clerk is waiting in the front office, guzzling tea and biscuits. And he’ll stay there until you return these papers to him. He’ll count them all and see you haven’t given any changelings! He’s put his mark on all of them!”
“You make him sound illiterate.”
“He has to make sure you don’t put in any ringers!” Kitteridge explained.
“He takes me for a complete idiot!”
Kitteri
dge raised one eyebrow. “Do you think that could possibly have anything to do with you taking on this case…perhaps?”
“They are all over the place,” Daniel said, looking hopelessly at the receipts, IOUs, papers of transfer. “All sorts of things: paper, ink, postage stamps, biscuits, hiring cars, there’s one here for hiring a chauffeur to drive to the Hamptons. Very expensive. Theater. What some people will pay to see! Absolute—”
“Are all the signatures genuine?” Kitteridge interrupted him.
“Slight variation,” Daniel replied. “Not much. But I don’t suppose anybody writes the same all the time. I know I don’t.”
“You only have to write ‘Pitt’ on this. Be glad you don’t have to write ‘Kitteridge.’ Keep on looking through them,” Kitteridge said. “We haven’t much else. So far, they’re pretty damning. He seems to have signed away a hell of a lot of money for goods no one else ever saw. Did you look up the Hamptons? Who are they? Are they British or American? Looks a bit like brokers.”
“They are a place,” Daniel answered. “Very rich and very exclusive.” He touched several receipts. “These look to be car trips there on the weekends, and so on.”
