Twenty-One Days

by Anne Perry

  ‘Did your father know?’ Daniel said. He would not ask if Arthur did. She would lie to protect him anyway, and Daniel would look the other way.

  ‘No.’

  It was just one word, but that was all it needed. Graves was innocent after all – at least of murder. It sat with the ease of truth in Daniel’s mind, but with the pain of intolerable injustice.

  ‘Then I can’t let him hang for it,’ he said miserably.

  ‘And neither can you,’ Miriam said as if it were a certainty. ‘It would weigh on you for the rest of your life.’

  Sarah jerked her head up and glared at Daniel. ‘I can’t let him come back here, either, and beat her again, or Arthur! And what would they do to my mother? I can’t prove it was an accident! They wouldn’t believe me, even if I swore to it on a stack of Bibles. We are illegitimate, Arthur and I. If we were out on the street, who would look after him? Who would pay for his medicine? I won’t let you do that, just because my father is . . . is a bigamist and . . .’ She bent her head onto Miriam’s shoulder and sobbed quietly, trying to choke back her anger and despair, and at last, failing. Miriam tightened her arms around her and let her weep.

  What could Daniel do? And he must do something! He must find Ebony, tell the truth to someone. Marcus fford Croft? They could not hang Russell Graves. He was not guilty of murdering Ebony. But dear God, he was guilty of much else! This was not justice.

  Blackwell? Could he help?

  But he would not use the law. Daniel knew him well enough to be certain of that.

  Kitteridge? He would use the law – and it would be useless.

  Miriam might be the only one. She might use science, and somehow or other prove the truth that Ebony was not guilty, though not perhaps totally innocent either. He looked at her now, holding Sarah in her arms. He was as sure as he could be of anything that she would do all she could, regardless of the law, and of the risks.

  But as Ottershaw, the fingerprint expert, had said, the jury will seek for ways to return the verdict they want! One that appealed to their sense of justice. Perhaps Daniel could prove that Winifred’s death had been an accident? The burning was another thing. But Winifred had been dead when it happened. Ebony had grasped the chance to escape, ignore Winifred’s existence, and hope that Graves would hang for it – or perhaps she had not thought that far? But then Sarah and Arthur would be left with their father’s name, or his money. Not ideal – but survival, at least!

  ‘Sarah,’ he said quietly.

  She turned and looked at him.

  ‘Take us to your mother, and we will put this right.’ He was making wild promises he wished to keep for her, although had no idea if he could. ‘You must do this, for Arthur’s sake, as well as your own. He was no way at fault, but he will not survive alone. Don’t leave him. It will take a lot of courage, but to run away will make it worse.’ He hesitated a moment, then plunged even further. ‘I will have to save your father from the gallows, but I will see him in prison for bigamy.’ Please heaven she had told him the truth, or he might well be in deep trouble himself.

  Slowly, she raised her head and looked at him. ‘I will,’ she said almost immediately. ‘I will take you to her.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  When they were left alone, Miriam turned to Daniel, her face white and unshed tears in her eyes. She straightened her shoulders and deliberately made an effort to keep the emotion from her face.

  ‘We have an hour at most to make up our minds,’ Miriam said.

  She seemed to include herself in the problem, and he was relieved he would not have to ask her.

  ‘We . . . I . . . have no choice—’ he began.

  ‘We always have a choice,’ she interrupted him. ‘At some point . . .’

  ‘We don’t have one here,’ he contradicted her, but quietly. It was an admission, not a victory. ‘Only in how we do it. We have to know if this woman is Ebony, or not. We know the dead woman is not her. You proved that.’

  She winced so slightly that he barely saw it, but it cut him because he saw the pain behind it, and he knew he was not meant to. For the first time, she looked away from him.

  ‘Science is safe,’ she said very quietly. ‘Perhaps not to the intellect. It can force you to look at all sorts of things you might not wish to. That can destroy your grandiose ideas of who mankind is. It can confuse us as much as enlighten, sometimes. But it does not touch the heart . . . That’s a silly expression – you don’t feel with your heart! What do you feel with? Your imagination? Where are your emotions? Everywhere! You see someone’s pain, and it doesn’t leave any part of you untouched.’

  ‘I know. The law is safe, when it stays on paper. It seems elegant and quite refined. When actually it is about as delicate as a sledgehammer at times. And as soon as you fix one part, you break another. But we still can’t let Graves hang if Ebony is alive. If I could think of a way to untangle this legally, and not leave Sarah with the weight of guilt for it, believe me, I would!’

  She met his eyes again, but it was a second or two before she spoke. ‘You would . . . wouldn’t you!’ She said it with surprise.

  ‘It’s academic. You can’t unknow anything.’

  ‘What if it isn’t provable whether it is Ebony or not?’ she asked.

  He smiled. ‘It’s provable,’ he said with certainty. ‘Her children will look like her, not overtly, but in little ways, gestures, tone of voice, an understanding before the sentence is finished. Arthur’s colouring, the way Sarah holds her head. But quite apart from that, she will not be able to hide her feelings for them.’

  A shadow passed over Miriam’s face, almost too slight to see, and yet it left its mark in her eyes. ‘You are close to your mother?’

  He was surprised. ‘Yes. If you saw us together, you would know. I am built like my father, but my colouring is hers, and . . . I don’t know exactly, but little things. My sister, Jemima, is more like her. The way she walks, certain gestures, things that make her laugh . . .’ He stopped because he saw that the pleasure, the longing he felt when he spoke of the likenesses in his family was not echoed in Miriam’s face. He knew that the subject had touched a wound.

  ‘I hardly remember my mother,’ Miriam said. ‘She died when I was very young. And we don’t have any pictures of her. I don’t look much like my father, so I suppose I must look like her. The only things I know about her are that she had red hair, and that my father loved her very much. He couldn’t bear the idea of marrying again, even to provide me with a mother. And that’s a miserable thing to do to a woman – marry her without loving her, in order for her to look after your child!’

  There were so many things Daniel knew about his mother, he could not think of them all at once. There had never been a day in his life from which she had been completely absent, within memory, or effect, something learned from her, something she had given him, a joke shared, even a quality to rebel against! What could he say large enough to be of any meaning?

  Miriam must have seen his difficulty. She smiled. ‘Then you will recognise Ebony, even if I don’t. Everything hangs on that. Can we persuade her to give herself up? If I had been treated as she had, I might be very afraid to come back. If we save Graves – and we have to – can we save her, too?’ Her face shadowed. ‘And there is the question of the book as well. What can we promise her, honestly?’

  His mind leaped ahead. ‘I’m not sure. Even if Graves hanged, that wouldn’t stop it being published. We have to discredit him. At least show his stories are not true. There’s too much to do . . .’

  She gave a tight little smile. ‘Then we had better hurry and get this part of it over with. Really, we have no choice in this.’ She stopped. She closed her eyes for a moment in intense concentration. ‘If this is really Ebony we’re going to meet, then we have to save Graves.’ She shook her head slowly, as if denying something to herself. ‘What if Sarah is wrong, and Ebony did kill Winifred on purpose? How do we protect her and not betray Sarah’s trust? And she does trust u
s, or she wouldn’t take us to Ebony—’

  ‘We left her no choice,’ Daniel interrupted her.

  She stared at him. ‘That’s not enough. She could simply have refused. If she has to choose between her father hanging or her mother, she’ll choose her father. She hates him, and she’s afraid of him, not only for herself, but for Arthur, too – and, if it comes to that, for Falthorne, who’s been loyal to her ever since she was born. We have to be careful, Daniel – and very clever.’

  ‘I know,’ he acknowledged. ‘I hate it! But we have to save him, or at any rate, save Sarah from the horror of deliberately having let him hang for a crime we all know he did not commit. There will be no coming back from that.’

  Miriam frowned. ‘There’s always a way back, I think. But it might be a very hard one.’

  ‘I want to put Graves somewhere where there is no way back!’ he said, the anger burning hot inside him. ‘And there’s no time to wait.’

  She held out her hand. ‘I know . . . I know.’ As she started towards the door, they heard footsteps in the hallway outside.

  He went forward and together they found Sarah was waiting for them, already dressed in her outdoor clothes.

  ‘I am ready,’ she said a little uncertainly.

  ‘Have we far to walk?’ Miriam asked.

  ‘Perhaps a mile, or a little more,’ Sarah replied, glancing at Miriam’s feet to see if her boots were up to such use. She apparently decided that they were. ‘Please will you follow me?’

  They went out of the front door and walked in the bright May noon down the street and through the main shopping area of the large village. London was expanding rapidly until it was almost seamless. Nevertheless, there was a distinct centre with shops, churches, and a few very handsome residences, and offices of various sorts. Sarah nodded to several people, but did not stop to speak. Her situation was almost uniquely uncomfortable.

  At the far side of the village, the streets led to open land, farm buildings, a few pigs and goats in fields, and here and there, cows. Sarah walked more slowly; she seemed uncertain. Had she lost her way, or was she about to change her mind about leading them to Ebony?

  Miriam shot a quick glance at Daniel, and then moved forward to catch up with Sarah and linked her arm with hers. It looked loosely held, but Daniel had a feeling it was tighter than it appeared.

  Sarah was dragging her feet.

  She stopped outside an old wooden gate, took a deep breath, then pushed it open. Miriam followed immediately after her, and Daniel caught up with them. They walked across the grass and towards the front door of a cottage, and a woman in a plain brown dress opened the door and came out onto the step. She looked hard at Sarah, then shifted her gaze to Daniel, then to Miriam.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Wilson,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘They are friends, and have come to help. Where is my mother?’

  Mrs Wilson turned and looked into the passage behind her. Slowly, another figure emerged. It was a woman of medium height and very slender build. She looked tired and frightened, and her skin was very pale. Daniel knew who it must be because of her jet-black hair and eyes so dark they seemed to be hollows in her head. Even though their colouring was so different, there were echoes of Sarah in the bones of her face, the shape of her mouth, even the delicacy of her hands. And the recognition between them no one could have missed.

  ‘Mother, they worked out that you are alive, and these people are here to help you . . . help us. We don’t have a choice any more.’ Sarah’s voice was strained as if her throat were parched.

  Daniel could feel her fear as if it were his own.

  Miriam stepped forward. ‘Ebony.’ She could not now call her Mrs Graves! ‘There is only one way forward for any of us. You cannot let him hang. Sarah cannot. It would haunt her the rest of her life, even if she got away with it. Don’t make her do this.’

  Daniel looked from Ebony to Sarah and saw the desperation in Sarah’s face. Then he looked at Ebony again, as her shoulders sagged and all the will drained out of her.

  Sarah saw it, too. ‘Don’t . . .’ she began, and then stopped.

  Ebony turned to Daniel. ‘What do you want me to do?’ It was a question, not a surrender. She was not yet giving him anything.

  Again, it was Miriam who answered. ‘Let us go inside, if Mrs Wilson will be gracious enough? I’m a doctor. I may be able to prove the ill use you have been subject to, and Sarah also.’

  ‘Broken bones heal in time,’ Ebony said bitterly. ‘They ache in the cold and wet, but you can’t see that. And anyway, a man may beat his wife. It’s not against the law. Or his child. That’s not illegal either.’

  ‘But you are not his wife,’ Miriam pointed out.

  Ebony flinched. ‘I thought I was,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘He can go to prison for bigamy,’ Daniel spoke for the first time. ‘As much as seven years. A lot can happen in that time. And Winifred will not be his heir. I don’t know what may be said, but for now we must stop his being hanged. That must be done now, or the rope will be around your neck, and Sarah’s, for the rest of your lives. Arthur’s too, if he knew about it.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘And Falthorne’s, if he helped you. He did, didn’t he? Can you let this weigh on his soul for the rest of his life? And it will!’

  Ebony put up her hands to cover her face. Her shoulders were rigid, but she did not weep. Perhaps she was exhausted beyond even that. She looked cornered, and too tired to fight any more. But neither would she yield.

  ‘Mr Graves is still in prison,’ Daniel told her softly ‘You can safely come home. Miriam will take you to a machine that she has that can show pictures, through your skin, to tell if the bones were broken, and prove you were beaten. Scars, too. It can even prove they happened over a period of time.’

  Ebony put her hands down and stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘There is a lot we can do,’ he hurried on. ‘But it has to be done carefully, and quickly. It is not too late to appeal, and if Mr Graves is executed we will all be guilty of his murder.’

  ‘We have to go back to him?’ She spoke in low, grating voice; it was all she could do not to refuse.

  ‘No. Back to the house, your house. He’s in prison, and I will do everything possible to see that he is charged and found guilty of bigamy. But you will have to answer for not coming forward and saying you were alive.’ He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was appallingly difficult to say, but it was necessary. To put it off would be dishonest, and lose her trust irrevocably.

  ‘And you’ll have to testify as to who Winifred was, and how she died,’ he went on. ‘And that you deliberately disfigured her so she would be mistaken for you . . . knowing that Russell Graves could very well be hanged for it.’

  ‘Will they send me to prison? What about Sarah and Arthur? They knew nothing about it at all!’

  Daniel would have known from the timbre of her voice, the fear in her eyes that she was lying. He did not need Sarah’s admission. He preferred not to know about Arthur.

  ‘Ebony, Sarah helped you—’

  ‘No! Sarah knew nothing about it!’ Her voice was shrill and she shook her head vigorously.

  ‘You used silk, and linseed oil, from Arthur’s paint supplies—’

  She looked at Sarah, and then forced herself to look at Daniel again. ‘No!’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ Miriam insisted. Her voice was steady and calm. Ebony would not have heard the pain in it, but Daniel did. ‘She was dead. You didn’t hurt her. You just disguised her as yourself. You put your clothes on her. And her clothes in your wardrobe. It was a way for you to escape at last.’

  ‘Sarah didn’t . . .’

  ‘I know,’ Daniel took over again. ‘You did that all by yourself. Or were you going to tell me that Mr Falthorne helped you?’

  The struggle in her face was obvious. It was painful to watch.

  ‘I can help you, but I have to know the truth.’ Was he making more rash promises he was not able to keep? ‘Ebony,
if you lie the court will know it! Do you want to be hanged for killing Winifred?’

  ‘I didn’t kill her!’ Her voice was desperate now. ‘She came at me, screaming, clawing. I pushed her away. She was trying to get at my face, my eyes. I pushed her and she fell backwards over her own skirts and hit her head on the hearthstone. I swear!’

  ‘Then help me prove it! For Sarah and Arthur’s sake, if not your own!’ Daniel begged. But he wanted her freed as well, and Graves proved a liar and totally discredited, and imprisoned long enough to break him. ‘Please!’

  She stared at him, searching his eyes, looking for hope, belief that she could trust him. She couldn’t believe, but she was tired of fighting, and there was no one else to turn to. ‘All right. But Sarah had nothing to do with it! You’ve got to prove that!’

  Daniel glanced at Miriam, but she shook her head, just a fraction, as he had known she would.

  He did not tell Ebony that it was not true, and he knew it. One problem at a time. There was no other, better answer.

  Miriam held out her hand. Wearily, too exhausted to fight any more, Ebony took it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was now little over a week before Russell Graves would hang, if they did not launch an appeal against his conviction, which, since Ebony was not dead, would not be difficult to substantiate.

  Miriam had taken the X-rays of both Ebony and Sarah, and was satisfied that they were clear and accurate.

  ‘See,’ Miriam said in her laboratory in the cellar, as she pointed to the X-ray machine’s pictures of Ebony. ‘The bones here have been broken also, and here, and here, in the wrist.’

  ‘Could it have been an accident?’ Daniel hoped profoundly that it could not.

  ‘Hardly one accident,’ Miriam murmured. ‘See how they are differently shaded? This one on the wrist is plain? The other one is duller white, and this one is the whitest of all, that means it is older. It was healed a long time ago. I would estimate it is sixteen or seventeen years old. There are others there, in the left leg, and another in the right foot. And three ribs. There are no two made at the same time. And nobody has that many accidents.’