Well, at least the accuser was no likelier than the prisoner to make a good impression with the jury. Mr. Cutler, perhaps striving for an air of sophistication, had no sooner taken his place in the witness box than he produced a silver toothpick and began to employ it, with an occasional flourish, in between giving his account of what had transpired.
“She took my ring, what had a value of three shilling.” Cutler held up his denuded left hand as though to make a more emphatic proof. “Besides that, she took all the money I had on my person. Three pound in bank notes and eight shilling in coins.”
“All the money you had.” George Kersey, arguing for the prosecution today, was one of those barristers who believed every bit of testimony could be improved by a turn in his own voice. In this case, admittedly, he might be right.
“A ring, too, what were worth three shilling.” The accuser now rested his ringless hand on the box’s railing, where the jury might have a good view of it if they should need further reminding of that detail. “I woke to find all of it gone, and when I said I know she robbed me, she wouldn’t give back but two shilling and sixpence.”
“Two shillings and sixpence, which were taken from you, without your knowledge or consent.” Kersey strode away from the witness box and spun to face Mr. Cutler again, the dramatic swirl of his robes coinciding with knowledge or consent. A hundred such frills and devices a barrister perfected, in order to frame pertinent points for the jury’s benefit without addressing the men directly. Couldn’t fault the fellow for that. If theatrics had no place, the jury would simply read over the briefs to arrive at a verdict.
“No, I never give my consent, nor give her any money, nor promised any neither. She stole it, without my knowledge, by thievery.” He bit down on the toothpick and rocked his weight back onto his heels.
Here, indeed, was the crux of the case: Miss Watson claimed Mr. Cutler had paid six shillings for the pleasure of her company and then demanded his money back the next morning. Mr. Cutler maintained the company had been freely given. Miss Watson’s seemed the more credible of the two tales, which point would, one hoped, help the jury to also credit her in the much murkier matter of the three pounds, some shillings, and vanished ring.
And he could do a bit to help with that, too.
“Mr. Cutler,” he said when Kersey had concluded his questioning—with a fine, stylish stalking sort of return to the table and a fluid descent into his chair. “The arresting constable has stated that the prisoner had fourteen shillings and sixpence upon her at the time of apprehension, and no ring.” He might have made a show of looking up the amount in his brief. He wasn’t above the occasional flourish himself. But his opponent having so clearly staked out the theatrical territory today, he’d likely do better to adopt a contrasting style.
So he stood, hands clasped behind his back, at right angles to the witness box, all his attention presumably leveled on the man therein while still presenting a clear view of his profile to the rows where the jury sat. “In keeping with your allegations, oughtn’t he to have reported three pounds, five shillings, and sixpence? And a ring?”
“Not if she hid all but the coins what were reported.” Cutler saluted with his toothpick, in the manner of a fencer who’d just scored a hit.
“Indeed. But that seems an odd thing for her to do. To hide some of her ill-gotten gains, and keep the rest about her.” A brief pause, for the jurors to consider this fact. “Also, the constable searched her room, according to his report, and didn’t find any additional money. Nor any ring.” Now came the time to dispense with scruple. He tilted his head. “A wedding ring, was it?”
On the left periphery, Kersey shot to his feet. As well he ought. “That point is not material to the issue at hand.”
“Please confine yourself, Mr. Blackshear, to questions touching directly on the matter of whether or not the prosecutor was robbed by the prisoner. We are not here to consider his personal morality, or lack thereof.” Nearly as good as a wink, the wry tone in which the honorable justice Scholyer delivered this reprimand. Surely some among the jury would read that for tacit approbation, and surely some would feel at liberty to pass private judgment on Cutler in consequence. Never mind that these men might pay but imperfect tribute to their own marriage vows. A seat in the jury box had a way of scrubbing a man’s conscience clean, and leaving him free to condemn other men’s lapses at will.
Nick bowed his head, half twisting to direct his acquiescence to the judges’ bench, and maintained the posture until Kersey had sunk back into his seat.
He lifted his chin, none too hurriedly, and brought his gaze around to settle, for a thoughtful twelve seconds, on the prisoner in her box. She showed her teeth three times in that span: once to him, once to the judges, and once to the jury. He’d have a few words for Stubbs, when this was done.
A smart flick of attention back to the witness box. “Mr. Cutler, how much money do you have on your person at this moment?”
Up came Kersey again, but this time Nick didn’t wait for him to speak. “I wish to examine the detail of Mr. Cutler’s recalling, to the shilling, how much money he had on him on the night in question.” He addressed the bench directly. Not so much as a glance at the opposing counsel. “If he demonstrates a like knowledge of what money he carries today, that will tell us one thing. If he cannot supply the figure, that may tell us something else.”
It wouldn’t, of course, tell them whether or not Miss Watson had committed the alleged crime. But in these cases—two conflicting stories and no real evidence to support either one—a scattershot attack on the prosecutor’s credibility could tip the scales just the necessary amount.
“I’ll allow the question. Be seated, please, Mr. Kersey.” Justice Scholyer issued a curt nod. On the right periphery, one juror sat straighter and another edged forward in his seat.
You couldn’t always pick out the precise point in a trial when momentum went one way or the other. But when you could—when you felt that first inkling that things hereafter were going to fall out in your favor; when you sensed the twining of luck with your own talent and preparation—a keen awareness vibrated straight through your frame, all the way out to your fingers and toes.
Nick angled his face again toward the witness box, where the witness’s knuckles stood out pale on the hand that now clutched at the railing. “If you please, Mr. Cutler.” Calm, quiet, and matter-of-fact. No lilt of triumph. “How much money do you have?”
“TRULY, I don’t understand the wigs.” Sebastian leaned near to mutter, since their neighbors in the gallery were all rapt and silent. “I suppose they think to look august, but instead they merely look quaint. As though they’d all been shut up in here for the past thirty or forty years and never knew the fashions had changed.”
“It’s a matter of tradition.” Kate spoke behind her hand. “And I’ve always thought Papa looked distinguished in his wig.”
“He’s of an age to carry it off. A younger man cannot. Mr. Blackshear looks like a dandiprat.”
Viola, at Sebastian’s far side and happily engrossed in the trial, waved a hand to hush her too-talkative siblings.
So Kate said nothing more on the matter of wigs or who looked well in them. But the truth was that Mr. Blackshear on the courtroom floor had a way of making you forget to notice what he wore. He could be down there in a frock coat and red-heeled shoes, and you’d remark only his poise, his reined-in passion, his magnet-like gift for holding a whole room’s attention in the palm of his hand. No wonder Papa had thought of him first, when the letter had come from Lord Barclay.
Another pinch of shame attending the memories of last night: she’d neglected to congratulate him. So eager had she been to bask in her own triumph that it hadn’t even occurred to her to ask him what he’d learned from the baron’s letter, over port, and what he thought might come of this opportunity. Probably he would have liked to tell all about it, if he’d had an interested listener instead of one so overwhelmingly concerned with hersel
f.
“What a sordid case this is.” Sebastian never could keep still for two minutes together. “It’s a pity the accuser isn’t someone of note. I could make a grand comical caricature of the robbery scene, and Tegg might buy it from me and sell prints.”
Had her family made an agreement to be as conspicuous as possible … What was that line from Pride and Prejudice? A well-dressed man in the row ahead of theirs threw a look over his shoulder, his brow quirking in reprimand or perhaps disdain.
“Hush,” she whispered to her brother. “Try to attend to the trial.” No point in repeating, for the thousandth time, her wish that he’d aim his talents at some higher target than the front window of Tegg’s. He’d shared a womb with Viola, after all, and absorbed his own dose of whatever queer political humor had infused his twin. Likely he was already thinking of ways he might represent the robbery tableau as a metaphor for some issue of the day.
She clasped her hands in her lap and inclined a degree forward, imitating Vi’s posture that he might find proper examples of attention at both sides, and succumb to the influence. Down on the floor, Mr. Blackshear was giving way to the prosecutor’s counsel as Mr. Cutler slunk out of the witness box and yet another colorful personage stepped in to tell what she knew of the disputed events.
Mr. Blackshear resumed his seat with the careless grace of a man who felt no need to make an impression. That was a calculated move, she knew—a working barrister’s every breath and fidget had strategy behind it—but the attitude sat well on him. Even in the dandiprat wig, he projected a gravitas that must surely meet with many a lady’s taste.
With her own taste, in fact, at least a little. She’d never pretended to not find him handsome. Only he was something more than handsome, wasn’t he, here in the courtroom. For the length of the proceedings, his social standing was beside the point. He fashioned his own consequence here, and she had to admit he did it so capably as to—
Her interlaced fingers tightened as his gaze lifted suddenly to the gallery—but he didn’t see her. He exchanged some silent cryptic remark with the man over at the far left who must be the solicitor in the case, and cleanly retracted his glance to direct it toward the proceedings once more.
Well enough. His attention belonged on the courtroom floor. As did he. This was his sphere, and today’s experience of observing him only emphasized what she already knew: that that sphere overlapped very little with the one around which all her own hopes traced their orbit.
She unclasped her hands, flexing the fingers one by one to let out their tension, and steered her thoughts back to the drama of Cutler versus Watson.
“AN UNDERHANDED trick, that business of quizzing him on the contents of his pockets. I won’t soon forget it.” Kersey never took a defeat to heart, which was part of what made him a fine advocate, honorable opponent, and agreeable neighbor in Number Four Brick Court.
“To be sure, you won’t. I expect you’ll employ the trick yourself, now you’ve seen it so brilliantly executed.” Nick wheeled round a corner, evading the good-natured blow aimed at his midsection and nearly colliding with a portly man bound in the other direction. The halls of the Old Bailey after a day’s worth of trials could make Covent Garden look bucolic.
“Mind you, I still think your old girl did it.” Kersey had pulled off his wig and cap, and was raking his hair into romantic disarray as he walked. “My fellow was no saint, and it’s a good bet he overstated the amount of his loss, but as to the question of whether she emptied his coat pockets while he slept, I’d say it’s more than probable that— Good Lord.” His voice changed, lowered, came out a half whisper. “What’s a diamond like that doing in the criminal courts?”
Nick looked. There, descending the stairs from the upper gallery, was Miss Westbrook. And Miss Viola, he perceived a half second after, and the younger Mr. Westbrook, but she, inevitably, was the one who’d managed to step into that exact place where sunlight fell through the landing’s window to wreath her uncovered hair in gold. She paused for a moment, hand resting daintily on the balustrade, as if she was aware of her light—aware of all her preposterous beauty—and wanting to give observers a chance to commit her image to memory for use in some later artistic endeavors.
“She’s like a Botticelli angel, complete even to the halo,” Kersey whispered, right on cue.
“The blond girl, do you mean?” As though there could be any doubt.
“Who else in here could you possibly compare to an angel?” Another raking of hand through hair, this time effecting a more deliberate arrangement. “Look at her, Blackshear. Poised above the teeming rabble. She’d make a fine Persephone, wouldn’t she, pausing to pluck up her courage before her descent into the underworld.”
Oh, good God. If she wasn’t causing one man to forget himself and utter some foolish impropriety, she was reducing another to prating idiocy of this sort. “I think I shall break into your rooms and throw out whatever volumes of poetry you’ve been reading to tatters.” He smacked Kersey’s shoulder with the brief he still held. “I can assure you that’s neither angel nor goddess, but Charles Westbrook’s daughter. As is the one beside her, with spectacles. The young man behind them is Westbrook’s son. I suppose they must come and watch cases sometimes, since their father’s in the profession.” Though they’d never before come to see him. He’d got into a discussion last night with Miss Viola, however, over whether women oughtn’t to sit on juries when one of their sex was on trial, and he’d talked a bit about today’s case. She must have decided she’d like to see the proceedings for herself.
“A barrister’s daughter? Never say so. She ought to be a viscountess, at least.”
Trust me, she’s entirely in accord with you there. He kept that thought to himself. There’d been slights and misunderstandings enough between them last night. He wouldn’t go disparaging her to someone else.
Halfway down the stairs, they sighted him. Miss Westbrook did. Her gaze connected with his and he saw a mix of apprehension and purpose in her eyes. Ah, then, she’d come here with something to say to him. Apprehension kicked up in him, too. He didn’t want an apology if it would mean open reference to what he’d rather leave unmentioned.
On the other hand, he owed her an apology in his turn, and perhaps he’d find an opportunity. And he was still in fine spirits from his time on the courtroom floor. And Kersey had never met any of the younger Westbrooks. He hauled the man with him and met the three of them at the bottom of the stairs.
“Let us have your verdict, Miss Viola,” Nick said once he’d shepherded them all clear of the hallway traffic and done a round of introductions. “Would Miss Watson have been better served by a jury, perhaps even a judge and barristers, of her own sex?”
“You may be sure I pondered that very question throughout the trial.” She straightened her spectacles, using a forefinger to reverse their creeping down the slope of her nose. “And although you did win the prisoner her freedom, I cannot help observing that it was done primarily through encouraging the jurors’ predisposition to look with contempt upon a man of Mr. Cutler’s class, rather than by making a clear case for Miss Watson’s innocence. Not that you didn’t execute it all quite cleverly. But in a truly just system, regardless the sex of the jury, your tactic couldn’t succeed.”
“Viola!” Miss Westbrook colored. She brought her eyes, apparently with some effort, to him. “You argued very well, Mr. Blackshear. We’ve seen enough of Papa’s cases to know how barristers must attempt to influence a jury. We thought you gave your client a splendid defense.”
“Didn’t I just say so? I called him clever.” Miss Viola scowled at her sister, who was now glancing about as if to take a count of all the people who might possibly be witnessing this latest example of unseemly Westbrook outspokenness. “I only mean to say that I begin to think the inclusion of women is but one in a whole host of reforms that must be brought to our jury system. Why should people like Mr. Cutler and Miss Watson be subjected to the judgment of those who
view them as inferior, perhaps even comical creatures, and who can be easily swayed by a barrister’s appeals to their sense of their own superiority?”
“I should say.” Kersey was more than ready to approve these opinions of a lady he’d just met. “That trick with the wedding ring was particularly disgraceful, wasn’t it?”
Westbrook the younger chimed in with an assertion that Mr. Cutler and Miss Watson were at least a bit comical, deserving of justice though they might be. Miss Viola accused him of missing the point, Kersey contributed such remarks as might best fan the flames of the dispute, and Nick found himself suddenly superfluous to the conversation. He caught Miss Westbrook’s eye, through the vociferous knot of siblings and colleague, and shrugged one shoulder, smiling in what he hoped was a friendly but not overfamiliar manner.
She smiled back, with a long-suffering shake of her head, and the smile warmed him like a good swallow of brandy. Beneath the injudicious words and his doubts over what she knew of his circumstances, they did have a foundation of friendship that had persisted some years now. His earlier thoughts, as to her deliberate posing on the staircase, and her inflated opinion of her rightful station, felt more than ever unworthy of him.
And more unworthy yet, when, with an abruptness suggestive of hastily gathered courage, she wove around Miss Viola to stand at his side. “We thoroughly enjoyed watching you at trial. We thought you played your part impeccably.” Color still sat high in her cheeks. “Viola forgets herself sometimes, but she means no offense.”
“And I take none. I’ve been known to forget myself on occasion as well.” He kept his voice light, and smiled as he said the words, but left a long enough pause that she could not miss his meaning. Perhaps we can both simply forget the things we said last night, and be at ease with each other again? “I’m honored the three of you should have come to observe, and I know how to value your praise. If you’ve seen your father try cases, you know the standard against which I must measure myself.”
Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] Page 6
