A Sudden, Fearful Death

by Anne Perry

  “Next time you haven’t a case, you try nursing,” she snapped back. “See if you can do it all—and detect at the same time. You’re no earthly use to anybody except as a detective—and what have you found out?”

  “That Geoffrey Taunton has a violent temper, that Nanette Cuthbertson was here in London and had every reason to hate Prudence, and that her hands are strong enough to control a horse many a man couldn’t,” he said instantly.

  “We knew that ages ago.” She turned away. “It’s helpful—but it’s not enough.”

  “That is why I’ve come, you fool. If it were enough, I wouldn’t need to.”

  “I thought you came to complain….”

  “I am complaining. Don’t you listen at all?” He knew he was being totally unfair, and he went on anyway. “What about the other nurses? Some of them must have hated her. She was arrogant, arbitrary, and opinionated. Some of them look big enough to pull a dray, never mind strangle a woman.”

  “She wasn’t as arrogant as you think …” she began.

  He laughed abruptly. “Not perhaps by your standards—but I was thinking of theirs.”

  “You haven’t the first idea what their standards are,” she said with contempt. “You don’t murder somebody because they irritate you now and then.”

  “Plenty of people have been murdered because they constantly nag, bully, insult, and generally abuse people,” he contradicted her. “It only takes one moment when the temper snaps because someone cannot endure any more.” He felt a sudden very sharp anxiety, almost a premonition of loss. “That’s why you should be careful, Hester.”

  She looked at him in total amazement, then she began to laugh. At first it was only a little giggle, then it swelled into a delirious, hilarious surge.

  For an instant his temper flared, then he realized how much he would rather not quarrel with her. But he refused to laugh as well. He merely waited with a look of resigned patience.

  Eventually she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, most inelegantly, and stopped laughing. She sniffed.

  “I shall be careful,” she promised. “Thank you for your concern.”

  He drew breath to say something sharp, then changed his mind.

  “We never looked very carefully into Kristian Beck. I still don’t know what Prudence was going to tell the authorities when he begged her not to.” A new thought occurred to him, which he should have seen before. “I wonder what particular authority she had in mind? The governors—or Sir Herbert? Rathbone could ask Sir Herbert.”

  Hester said nothing. Again the look of weariness crossed her face.

  “Go back to sleep,” he said gently, instinctively putting his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go and see Rathbone. I expect we’ve got a few days yet. We may find something.”

  She smiled doubtfully, but there was a warmth in it, a sharing of all the understanding and the emotions that needed no words, past experiences that had marked them with the same pains and the same fears for the present. She reached out and touched his face momentarily with her fingertips, then turned and walked back into the dormitory.

  He had very little hope Sir Herbert would know anything about Kristian Beck, or he would surely have said so before now. It was conceivable he might tell them which authority something ought to be reported to, the chairman of the Board of Governors, perhaps? Altogether the case looked grim. It would rest in Rathbone’s skill and the jury’s mood and temper. Hester had been little help. And yet he felt a curious sense of happiness inside, as if he had never been less alone in his life.

  At the earliest opportunity the following day Hester changed her duties with another nurse and went to see Edith Sobell and Major Tiplady. They greeted her with great pleasure and some excitement.

  “We were going to send a message to you,” the major said earnestly, assisting her to a chintz-covered chair as if she had been an elderly invalid. “We have news for you.”

  “I am afraid it is not going to please you,” Edith added, sitting in the chair opposite, her face earnest. “I’m so sorry.”

  Hester was confused. “You found nothing?” That was hardly news sufficient to send a message.

  “We found something.” Now the major also looked confused, but his questioning look was directed at Edith. Hester only peripherally noticed the depth of affection in it.

  “I know that is what she asked,” Edith said patiently. “But she likes Dr. Beck.” She turned back to Hester. “You will not wish to know that twice in the past he has been accused of mishandling cases of young women who died. Both times the parents were sure there was nothing very wrong with them, and Dr. Beck performed operations which were quite unnecessary, and so badly that they bled to death. The fathers both sued, but neither won. The proof was not sufficient.”

  Hester felt sick. “Where? Where did this happen? Surely not since he’s been with the Royal Free Hospital?”

  “No,” Edith agreed, her curious face with its aquiline nose and wry, gentle mouth full of sadness. “The first was in the north, in Alnwick, right up near the Scottish border; the second was in Somerset. I wish I had something better to tell you.”

  “Are you sure it was he?” It was a foolish question, but she was fighting for any rescue at all. Callandra filled her mind.

  “Can there be two surgeons from Bohemia named Kristian Beck?” Edith said quietly.

  The major was looking at Hester with anxiety. He did not know why it hurt her so much, but he was painfully aware that it did.

  “How did you find out?” Hester asked. It did not affect the reality of it, but even to question it somehow put off the finality of acceptance.

  “I have become friends with the librarian at one of the newspaper offices,” Edith replied. “It is her task to care for all the back copies. She has been most helpful with checking some of the details of events referred to in the major’s memoirs, so I asked her in this as well.”

  “I see.” There seemed nothing else she could pursue. That was the missing element, the thing Prudence was going to tell the authorities—only Beck had killed her before she could.

  Then another thought occurred to her, even uglier. Was it possible Callandra already knew? Was that why she had looked so haggard lately? She was racked with fear—and her own guilt in concealing it.

  Edith and the major were both looking at her, their faces crumpled with concern. Her thoughts must be so transparent. But there was nothing she could say without betraying Callandra.

  “How are the memoirs going?” she asked, forcing a smile and a look of interest which would have been genuine at any other time.

  “Ah, we are nearly finished,” Edith replied, her face filled with light again. “We have written all his experiences in India, and such things in Africa you wouldn’t dream of. It was quite the most exciting thing I have ever heard in my life. You must read them when we have finished….” Then something of the light drained away as the inevitable conclusion occurred to all of them. Edith had been unable to leave the home which stifled her, the parents who felt her early widowhood meant that she should spend the rest of her life as if she were a single woman, dependent upon her father’s bounty financially, and socially upon her mother’s whim. She had had one chance at marriage, and that was all any woman was entitled to. Her family had done its duty in obtaining one husband for her; her misfortune that he had died young was one she shared with a great many others. She should accept it gracefully. The tragedy of her brother’s death had opened up ugliness from the past which was far from healed yet, and perhaps never would be. The thought of returning to live in Carlyon House again was one which darkened even the brilliance of this summer day.

  “I shall look forward to it,” Hester said quietly. She turned to the major. “When do you expect to publish?”

  He looked so deep in anxiety and concentration she was surprised when he answered her.

  “Oh—I think …” Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly. His face was very pin
k. “I was going to say there is much work to be done, but that is not true. Edith has been so efficient there is really very little. But I am not sure if I can find a publisher willing to take it, or if I may have to pay to have it done.” He stopped abruptly.

  He took another deep breath, his face even pinker, and turned to Edith with fierce concentration. “Edith, I find the thought of concluding the work, and your leaving, quite intolerable. I thought it was writing about India and Africa which was giving me such pleasure and such inner peace, but it is not. It is sharing it with you, and having you here every day. I never imagined I should find a woman’s company so extremely … comfortable. I always considered them alien creatures, either formidable, like governesses and nurses, or totally trivial and far more frightening, like ladies who flirt. But you are the most … agreeable person I have ever known.” His face was now quite scarlet, his blue eyes very bright. “I should be desperately lonely if you were to leave, and the happiest man alive if you were to remain—as my wife. If I presume, I apologize—but I have to ask. I love you so very dearly.” He stopped, overcome by his own audacity, but his eyes never left her face.

  Edith looked down at the floor, blushing deeply; she was smiling, not with embarrassment but with happiness.

  “My dear Hercules,” she said very gently. “I cannot think of anything in the world I should like so much.”

  Hester rose to her feet, kissed Edith gently on the cheek, then kissed the major in exactly the same way, and tiptoed outside into the sun to walk back toward more suitable transport to the Old Bailey and Oliver Rathbone.

  11

  BEFORE HE COULD BEGIN the case for the defense, Rathbone went to see Sir Herbert again to brief him now that he would be called to the witness stand.

  It was not a meeting he looked forward to. Sir Herbert was far too intelligent a man not to realize how slender his chances were, how much depended on emotion, prejudices, sympathies; certainly intangibles that Rathbone was well skilled in handling, but frail threads from which to dangle a man’s life. Evidence was unarguable. Even the most perverse jury seldom went against it.

  However, he found Sir Herbert in a far more optimistic mood than he had feared. He was freshly washed and shaved and dressed in clean clothes. Except for the shadows around his eyes and a certain knack of twisting his fingers, he might have been about to set off for the hospital and his own professional rounds.

  “Good morning, Rathbone,” he said as soon as the cell door was closed. “This morning is our turn. How do you propose to begin? It seems to me that Lovat-Smith has far from a perfect case. He has not proved it was me. Nor can he ever; and he has certainly not proved it was not Taunton or Beck, or even Miss Cuthbertson, let alone anyone else. What is your plan of action?” He might have been discussing an interesting medical operation in which he had no personal stake, except for a certain tightness in the muscles of his neck and an awkwardness in his shoulders.

  Rathbone did not argue with anything he had said, even though he doubted it had the importance Sir Herbert attached to it. Quite apart from any motives of compassion, for all practical reasons it was most important that Sir Herbert should maintain his appearance of calm and assurance. Fear would convey itself to the jury, and they might very easily equate fear with guilt. Why should an innocent man be afraid of their judgment?

  “I shall call you to the stand first,” he said aloud, forcing himself to smile as if he had every confidence. “I shall give you the opportunity to deny having had any personal relationship with Prudence at all, and of course to deny having killed her. I would also like to be able to mention one or two specific incidents which she may have misunderstood.” He watched Sir Herbert closely. “Simply to say in a general way that she daydreamed or twisted reality will not do.”

  “I have been trying to remember,” Sir Herbert protested earnestly, his narrow eyes on Rathbone’s. “But for Heaven’s sake I can’t remember trivial comments passed in the course of business! I can’t remember being more than civil to her. Of course I passed the odd word of praise—she more than warranted it. She was a damned good nurse.”

  Rathbone remained silent, pulling a very slight face.

  “Good God man!” Sir Herbert exploded, turning on his heel as if he would pace, but the walls of the cell confined him, bringing him up sharply. “Can you remember every casual word you pass to your clerks and juniors? It is just my misfortune I work largely with women. Perhaps one shouldn’t?” His tone was suddenly savage. “But nursing is a job best done by women, and I daresay we could not find reliable men willing and able to do it.” His voice rose a tone, and then another, and through long experience Rathbone knew it was panic just below the surface, every now and again jutting through the thin skin of control. He had seen it so often before, and as always he felt a stab of pity and another heavy drag of the weight of his own responsibility.

  He put his hands in his pockets and stood a trifle more casually.

  “I strongly advise you not to say anything of that sort on the stand. Remember that the jurors are ordinary people, and almost certainly hold medicine in some awe, and very little understanding. And after Miss Nightingale, who is a national heroine, whatever you think of her, her nurses are heroines also. Don’t appear to criticize Prudence, even obliquely. That is the most important single piece of advice I can give you. If you do, you can resign yourself to conviction.”

  Sir Herbert stared at him, his bright intelligent eyes very clear. “Of course,” he said quietly. “Yes, of course I understand that.”

  “And answer only what I ask you, add nothing whatever. Is that absolutely clear?”

  “Yes—yes, of course, if you say so.”

  “And don’t underestimate Lovat-Smith. He may look like a traveling actor, but he is one of the best lawyers in England. Don’t let him goad you into saying more than you have to in order to answer the question exactly. He’ll flatter you, make you angry, challenge you intellectually if he thinks it will make you forget yourself. Your impression on the jury is the most important weapon you have. He knows that as well as I do.”

  Sir Herbert looked pale, a furrow of anxiety sharp between his brows. He stared at Rathbone as if weighing him for some inner judgment.

  “I shall be careful,” he said at last. “Thank you for your counsel.”

  Rathbone straightened up and held out his hand.

  “Don’t worry. This is the darkest hour. From now on it is our turn, and unless we make some foolish mistake, we will carry the day.”

  Sir Herbert grasped his hand and held it hard.

  “Thank you. I have every confidence in you. And I shall obey your instructions precisely.” He let go and stepped back, a very slight smile touching his lips.

  As on every day so far, the court was packed with spectators and journalists, and this morning there was an air of expectancy among them and something not unlike hope. The defense was about to begin, there might at last be disclosures, drama, even evidence toward another murderer. Everyone’s eyes were to the front, the noise was not talking but the myriad tiny rustles and creaks of movement as one fabric rubbed against another, whalebone shifted pressure, and the leather soles of boots scraped on the floor.

  Rathbone was not as well prepared as he would have liked, but there was no more time. He must look as if he not only knew Sir Herbert was innocent but also who was guilty. He was acutely aware of the eyes of every juror intent upon him; every movement was watched, every inflection of his voice measured.

  “My lord, gentlemen of the jury,” he began with a very slight smile. “I am sure you will appreciate it is much easier for the prosecution to prove that a man is guilty of a crime than for the defense to prove he is not. Unless, of course, you can prove that someone else is. And unfortunately I cannot do that—so far. Although it is always possible something may emerge during the evidence yet to come.”

  The whisper of excitement was audible, even the hasty scratching of pencil on paper.

  “E
ven so,” he continued, “the prosecution has failed to demonstrate that Sir Herbert Stanhope killed Prudence Barrymore, only that he could have. As could many others: Geoffrey Taunton, Nanette Cuthbertson, Dr. Beck are only some. The main thrust of his argument”—he indicated Lovat-Smith with a casual gesture—“is that Sir Herbert had a powerful motive, as evidenced by Prudence’s own letters to her sister, Faith Barker.”

  His smile broadened a fraction and he looked squarely at the jury.

  “However, I will show you that those letters are open to a quite different interpretation, one which leaves Sir Herbert no more culpable than any other man might be in his position and with his skills, his personal modesty, and the other urgent and powerful calls upon his attention.”

  There was more fidgeting on the public benches. A fat woman in the gallery leaned forward and stared at Sir Herbert in the dock.

  Before Hardie could become restive, Rathbone proceeded to the point.

  “I shall now call my first witness, Sir Herbert Stanhope himself.”

  It took several moments for Sir Herbert to disappear from the dock down the stairs and reappear in the body of the court. Leaving his escort of jailers behind, he crossed the floor to mount the steps to the witness stand, walking very uprightly, an immaculately dressed and dignified figure. All the time there was a hush in the room as if everyone had held their breath. The only sound was the scratching of pencils on paper as the journalists sought to catch the mood in words.

  As soon as Sir Herbert reached the top of the steps and turned there was a ripple of movement as a hundred heads craned forward to look at him, and everyone shifted very slightly in their seats. He stood square-shouldered, head high, but Rathbone watching him felt it was assurance, not arrogance. He glanced at the jury’s faces and saw interest and a flash of reluctant respect.

  The clerk swore him in, and Rathbone moved to the center of the floor and began.