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“No, thank you, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Hillyer?”
Hillyer rose to his feet. “Thank you, Your Honor.” He turned to Miriam. “Miss fford Croft, did your inquiries uncover anything at all to indicate who killed Miss Trelawny? I mean proof, not speculation.”
“No, sir…only how brutally, and for what reason.”
That was clearly not the answer that Hillyer had wanted, but he could not refuse it now. He had invited it himself. “Why? And not guesses, please. I do not want anything for which you have not powerful evidence.”
Miriam smiled briefly. “A buyer had been most persistent in his attempts to purchase the house. He had visited the island at least twice. He was present over the time of her death. I believe he is still trying, and now Miss Thorwood, who has inherited the property, is the focus of his attention.”
“Proof
?” Hillyer repeated.
Miriam faced him without her expression changing at all.
Daniel knew the instant before she answered that she was going to say what they had concluded. If he had said it, it would have been dismissed, but Hillyer had asked her. He had walked into the snare set for him.
“I believe Mr. Sidney has that,” Miriam replied, “only he does not know it. He has not put the pieces together. It is imperative to the would-be buyer that he does not, that Mr. Sidney’s reputation be completely destroyed and he be imprisoned for whatever crime they can blame him, before he understands what those pieces are and how they complete the puzzle.”
Once again there was silence, except for indrawn breath, and somewhere at the back of the gallery, a man stifling nervous laughter, perhaps at Hillyer’s discomfort.
The judge closed his eyes and took a very deep breath.
Hillyer shot Daniel a look of exasperation.
“Mr. Pitt!” the judge said loudly. “I will not have my courtroom made into a theater of the fantastic. Bring me some tangible proof of this…this pile of supposition, fancy stories, and horror! Or give me your closing argument and we will let the jury decide if Mr. Sidney is provably guilty of anything, apart from almost unbelievable clumsiness and misfortune.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Daniel replied. “Thank you, Miss fford Croft. I call Sir Thomas Pitt.”
“What?” Hillyer demanded. “What are you…?”
Daniel did not answer.
Thomas Pitt came to the stand, climbing the steps easily and facing the court. He was immaculate in black, even elegant. He swore to his name and the fact that he was head of Special Branch.
Daniel could feel the sweat break out on his body as he faced his father and drew in his breath to question him on the stand.
“Sir Thomas…” His voice almost choked in his throat. In his mind he had tried a dozen ways of beginning this. All of them seemed inadequate now: too direct, not direct enough, giving away information that should be secret. He began again. “Sir Thomas, England has always been highly dependent on its navy for its defense.” He must come quickly to the point, or either Hillyer or the judge would stop him. “It was founded by King Alfred well over a thousand years ago, and has saved us often since then. But is it vulnerable to submarines? Modern ships that move and survive totally beneath the surface of the sea, and come in for supplies in very deep-water harbors, such as the one lying close to the island of Alderney, by the land owned by the late May Trelawny. And now by Miss Rebecca Thorwood.”
There were gasps of alarm and sudden understanding around the room. Even the jurors looked pale. They all stared at Thomas Pitt on the witness stand.
“Yes,” Pitt answered. “Submarines, carrying torpedoes that can sink even a battleship, or any cargo ship carrying food or other supplies, are the greatest invention in naval warfare, certainly in my lifetime. I would guess since the time of Admiral Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. I would judge that they might be an even greater threat to our lives than the invention of ironside ships, or the power of steam.”
“Then the neglect of deep-water harbors, where these things can hide on our own outlying islands, must be avoided?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, or the use of them could be obtained by our potential enemies, at the cost of treason and murder,” Pitt replied.
“Thank you, Sir Thomas, that is all I have to ask. The ruin of one young man at the British Embassy in Washington is a price hardly worth mentioning.” Daniel said it deliberately, knowing how his father would reply.
“The fairness of the law is always worth mentioning,” Pitt said.
“Yes, sir.” Daniel turned to Hillyer.
Hillyer rose to his feet and looked at Thomas Pitt for several seconds, then declined to ask him anything.
The judge glanced at the clock, then at Daniel. “How many more witnesses do you have, Mr. Pitt?”
