“It ought to be,” Hil said, earning more cheers from the gallery. “What about her size? She is a petite woman. How could she have attacked a man of Enderby’s size without sustaining injuries of her own? And why have you not questioned Mr. Unger, the watchman? I have. He told me some very interesting things, including the fact that he informed Inspector Vickery and yourself, Mr. Burns, that he saw another suspicious character in Ludgate the night of the murder, leaving The Bull and Mouth.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Where is Mr. Unger?” demanded Sir Robert.
“Here,” cried a voice from the gallery. Wiley shoved the watchman to the front of the crowd. Unger was raising his hand. “Here, sir.”
“You are dismissed, Sir Hilary,” Sir Robert said.
“I am not done questioning the witness!” exclaimed Mr. Burns.
“I will remain,” Hil said, “if further questions are warranted.”
Mr. Unger was ushered over to the witness stand as Hil stepped down. He smiled at Hil. “Well done,” he whispered.
“State your name, sir,” Sir Robert told him.
“As I am not to usurp your authority, sir, may I respectfully request that you not usurp mine. As crown prosecutor, I believe it is my duty to question the crown’s witnesses.”
“I thought you had forgotten, since we’ve been waiting on Mr. Unger so long,” Sir Robert drawled. “Might I remind the prosecutor that if I do not feel he is adequately doing his job, then as magistrate it is my job to rectify that, no matter how irregular the remedy is.”
“This trial has enough irregularities to have an inquiry called by the high court,” Mr. Burns protested.
“Do not place any wagers on that, Mr. Burns,” Sir Robert said in a hard voice. “Either interrogate your witness, or I will.”
Hil maintained a neutral facade, but inside he was crowing. The more unpleasant Mr. Burns made himself, the better for their side.
“State your name,” Mr. Burns said. Some members of the crowd chuckled, because he was just repeating what the magistrate had said, after he’d reprimanded Sir Robert for taking over. Mr. Burns maintained a stern visage and refused to look at the gallery.
“Mr. Charles Unger,” he said. “Watchman in the Ludgate district.”
“Please relate where and when you saw the prisoner on the evening of April fourth.”
“I saw her skittering past me on Blackfriars Road,” he said. “It was late evening, or early morning as you will, around four.”
“Can you describe her appearance and manner, please.”
“Well, she was dressed like a boy,” Unger said, “just as she was when she was arrested. And she was running. Well, walking fast, I mean, looking behind her. I knew she was running from someone. Didn’t see anyone after her, but you don’t always.”
“Was she near The Bull and Mouth, where Mr. Enderby was staying, and where he was killed?”
“Not far from there, two streets over by alley. She came from that direction.”
“When asked if you’d seen anything suspicious by the inspector, what was your first response?”
Mr. Unger hesitated a moment. “I told you about her first.” Very clever of Burns, Hil thought. No matter what Unger says after this, he’s admitted his first thought was of Eleanor.
“No more questions, sir,” Mr. Burns told Sir Robert.
“No more questions?” Sir Robert replied incredulously. He turned to Roger. “Mr. Templeton, I sincerely hope you have questions.”
“I do, sir, I do,” Roger replied, taking hold of a piece of paper that Lyttle was still scribbling on, and pulling it out from under his pen. “You say she came from the direction of The Bull and Mouth,” he began, reading from the paper. He looked up and smiled at Mr. Unger, and Hil could see that even the weathered old watchman was not unaffected by the force of his good looks and charm. “Did you actually see her at The Bull and Mouth?”
“No, sir,” Mr. Unger said with relief. “I did not.”
“Did she tell you she was at The Bull and Mouth?” Roger hammered away.
“No, sir, she did not.”
“Did she emerge from an alley whose only egress was directly into The Bull and Mouth?” Hil had to suppress a smile. Roger was going to beat the horse dead, apparently.
“No, sir, she did not,” Mr. Unger said. “Just came skittering down the alley, as I said. But it ended about three or four buildings down from the inn, I think, not directly across.”
“I see,” Roger said, looking meaningfully at the jury. “So you cannot, with any authority, say she was most definitely at The Bull and Mouth that evening.”
“No, sir, I can’t.”
“Were there any other suspicious characters who were seen at The Bull and Mouth that evening?” Roger asked after glancing down at Lyttle’s notes again.
Unger nodded. “Yes, sir. Saw a gentleman who was dressed in ladies’ clothes. Actually saw him before I saw her.” He pointed to Eleanor. “That’s what made me pay attention to her, you see. I thought it must be some sort of party or lark, dressing up as what you ain’t.”
“Please describe the man you saw.” Roger looked very grave, and eyed the jury with alarm, as if the man were one of them. They shifted uneasily in their chairs. “I beg you, do not leave out any detail, no matter how small.”
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Unger said, equally as grave. “He was about five foot five, maybe a little taller, but not much more than me. A thin man, too, not an ounce of fat on him. Wore a flowered dress with a little cape over it. Slightly worn, looking the worse for wear. I thought—” He broke off and cleared his throat after glancing at the gallery. “Well, I made some assumptions from her—I mean his—clothing at first glance, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. Go on,” Roger encouraged him.
“I realized after just a few seconds it weren’t no dove,” Unger continued. “Walked funny, unsteady on his feet, but not like he was drunk. Like his shoes were too small. And with big steps, not like a woman walks, all dainty.” The crowd guffawed at that. “Anyways,” Unger said, clearly offended, “he kept looking back, too, and he was clutching his little reticule, not carrying it like a lady does, but like a satchel of sorts. He had it clutched in his fist.” Mr. Unger made a fist with his meaty hand to demonstrate. “He had on a bonnet, but I could tell his hair was short under it, like hers. No wig. And he didn’t seem jolly, as if he’d been to a party. He was very furtive and suspicious, like. He hurried past me and I let him go.” He shrugged. “There was no reason to stop him, no hue and cry behind him, just like her.”
“Why did you not think of him first?” Roger asked. Hil had to give Roger credit. He jumped right into the murky questions the jury was asking themselves, rather than ignore the obvious. It was another bold move.
“I saw her last, didn’t I? Forgot about him at the moment. But I did tell them about him after, when my mind was clearer. And then they told me there were witnesses who saw the lady arguing with the deceased earlier that night, and so I assumed they’d gotten the culprit.”
“I see,” Roger said. “Upon examination, the court has heard testimony that Mrs. Enderby was in fact never seen arguing with the deceased.”
“Well she wasn’t exactly seen at the scene of the crime, either,” Mr. Unger said flatly. “Lot of almosts, but no exactlys.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself, Mr. Unger,” Roger agreed with a thankful smile he shared with the jury. When some of them smiled back at him, Hil wanted to weep for joy. This jury would never convict her. Never.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
After Mr. Unger stepped down, Roger entered some drawings as evidence. Mr. Unger had identified the man in the drawings, the one who’d pushed Hil on Leicester Street, as the same man he’d seen dressed as a woman. Roger then called on Eleanor again. “We have already heard from the prisoner,” Mr. Burns rushed to protest.
“Nevertheless, I shall allow it,” Sir Robert said.
“Of cours
e,” Mr. Burns said sarcastically, then sat down with an irritated flip of his robe.
“Mrs. Enderby,” Roger asked gently, “did you kill your husband?”
Eleanor shook her head. She was quite choked up, all of a sudden. She recognized what was going on. Roger was trying one last time to sway the jury in her favor. This was it, then. “No, I did not,” she managed to say with a slight catch in her voice.
“Do you know who did?” he asked.
“No, I do not,” Eleanor told him with a shake of her head.
“How long had it been since you’d last seen him before he attacked you at the opera?”
“Nearly a year. A little over eleven months, to be exact.”
“And you had no contact with him during that time? You did not return to Derbyshire?”
“No, I did not. I did not want to have contact with him ever again. That was the purpose of running away from him. I simply wanted to be gone from him, forever.”
“Did you at any time since your marriage attempt to injure or kill the deceased?”
“No!” she denied vehemently. “I did not. It is quite obvious that I would not have been the victor in a physical match between the two of us.”
Mr. Burns looked as though he was going to say something, but closed his mouth and shook his head instead.
“What was the purpose of your visit to Sir Hilary the night of April fourth?”
Eleanor hesitated. This was airing her personal feelings in a public forum, and she was embarrassed. The name she’d put to her feelings was new, and it seemed a sacrilege to discuss her love of Hilary here, one of the most profane places she had ever been. “I went to say good-bye.”
“Why?” She glared at Roger but he merely stared at her, silently ordering her to answer the question.
“Because I had fallen in love with him, and didn’t wish to leave London without telling him so,” she confessed, her head hanging down, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “It was thoughtless of me and unfair to both of us. I couldn’t marry. I was living a fictional life, turning a blind eye to the inevitable result. Perhaps it would have been better to leave without reconciling after our argument, but I have learned to be selfish over the last year, and couldn’t bear to leave without seeing him again.”
“Why leave at all?” Roger asked quizzically. “With your family here to protect you, friends to stand up for you, surely there was no need.”
Eleanor stared at him in genuine confusion. “You know that’s not true. He was legally my husband. He would have gone to the authorities and dragged me back to Derbyshire and locked me up again, and no one could have done a thing. The law was on his side.”
Many of the women in the gallery were shouting their agreement and support. Eleanor could hear Harry’s voice among them. Sir Robert quieted them all with a stern glance.
“And to keep that from happening, you were going to run again, just as you had before,” Roger said. “You didn’t kill Enderby the first time, and you didn’t do it this time, either.” He turned to the jury. “Eleanor Enderby, despite her unhappiness, despite her turbulent and often violent history with the deceased, had never, by her word and the testimony of witnesses, raised a hand against her husband. She was a woman on the run, yes, but running was what she knew, and what she was ready to do again. Not murder. Not kill.” He shook his head and turned back to Eleanor. “Thank you, Mrs. Enderby.”
“Mr. Burns?” Sir Robert asked, indicating Eleanor.
Mr. Burns slowly stood and faced Eleanor. “Since we are rife with speculation today, Mrs. Enderby, let us do a bit more. What is the one thing that could have happened that would make your life easier? No more running, the freedom to marry Sir Hilary, perhaps even reclaim your real name?”
Eleanor didn’t hesitate. She knew what he wanted and was loath to give it to him, but to prevaricate would diminish her earlier testimony in the eyes of the jury. “The death of Jacob Enderby,” she replied.
Mr. Burns smiled. “Thank you. No more questions.”
Sir Robert turned to the jury. “There will be no more witnesses. You will be given the time to deliberate. But keep in mind that the prisoner must have been proven guilty of the crime with which she was charged, which is the murder of Mr. Jacob Enderby. The facts in the case are murky. She has admitted to deserting her husband, assuming a false identity, and engaging in an adulterous affair, all of which are questionable acts, but not at issue here. Your job is to determine if any of that is relevant to the charge, the murder of Mr. Jacob Enderby.”
Sir Robert paused and sighed audibly. “While it was against my better judgment initially to spend more time on what appeared to be a clear-cut case, I am now thankful that Mrs. Enderby’s counsel forced us to examine the facts more closely. I can only hope that you, the jury, will spend whatever time is needed to see that justice is carried out here today.”
Eleanor closed her eyes and prayed for the same thing.
* * *
Hil was surprised when the jury returned in less than an hour. He’d expected them to take their time with a verdict, at least make a show of it, one way or the other. He was gripping the rail so tightly his knuckles were white. Beside him, Harry was shaking and looked white as a ghost. She was leaning heavily on Alasdair and Julianna. Hil had never appreciated his old friends as much as he did now. The Sharps, Lyttle, even the Earl of Throckton and his sister Lady Anne were here to support Hil and Eleanor, a fact that the newssheets had picked up on immediately. He owed them all.
Eleanor stood alone in the dock, separate from her family and friends, a place that ought to shame her, but instead she looked proud and strong standing there, the embodiment of innocence, at least to his eyes. That is, until she turned and met his gaze and he saw the terror that lurked there. It took every ounce of strength he had not to vault over the railing again and run to her.
The jury looked quite solemn as the bailiff came over and whispered in the magistrate’s ear. Sir Robert turned to the crowd. “Because Mrs. Enderby could not be placed at the scene of the crime and was never actually seen arguing with or threatening Mr. Enderby,” he said, “the jury finds her not guilty.”
There was a roar of approval from the gallery, but Hil heard one particular discordant note, a voice crying out an anguished “No!” He turned in time to see a young man lean over the rail and point at Eleanor. Then a woman screamed and the crowd tried to rush away from him, and Hil realized it was a gun pointing at her, not his hand.
“Eleanor,” he shouted. “Watch out!”
She didn’t ask for an explanation. She dropped to her knees and covered her head. The shot rang out, and Hil could see chips of wood from the rail around the prisoner’s dock fly up into the air. He was shoving at the crowd, trying to get to the man. “Weekes!” he yelled, and the young man turned hate-filled eyes to him, a look of panic flashing across his face when he realized he’d been recognized. The bailiff was almost upon him then, and instead of trying to get away, he vaulted over the rail and ran toward the guard. He threw his spent weapon in the guard’s face, a glancing blow that nonetheless caused the man to drop to his knees. Then he kept going—right up to Eleanor in the prisoner’s dock. He swung around the side with a hand tightly gripping the wooden spindles surrounding the dock, and leaped up the short steps. Once he was there with Eleanor, he grabbed her up off the floor and spun to face Hil. He held a knife to her throat.
“Not another step!” he screamed. “I’ll kill her.”
Hil froze, trapped on the other side of the rail, still in the gallery. The thundering of his heart in his ears was deafening. The shouts and screams around him faded as Eleanor and her attacker became his only focus. Wiley had gone over the rail shortly after Weekes, but he hadn’t gotten far. He froze as well.
“Let her go,” Roger demanded. “You cannot hope to escape under these circumstances.”
“I don’t want to escape,” Weekes spit out. “I want the bitch dead. I want him to pay.” He indicated Hil with a jerk o
f his head.
The crowd had realized now that Weekes no longer had a gun. They were crowding in again at Hil’s back, eager to see Eleanor’s blood spilled today, though they had been cheering at the not guilty verdict just a few moments ago.
“How dare you defame this court,” Sir Robert bellowed from the bench. “Unhand her at once.”
“Defame?” Weekes cried out. There was an edge of madness in his voice. “You did that, you and all the ones like you who transported my father. The lot of you can rot in hell with her.”
“Who was your father?” Hil called out desperately, feigning confusion. “If this is about him, shouldn’t we know his name?”
Eleanor was struggling with Weekes, kicking and twisting in his arms, her efforts impeded by the shackles she still wore. He shook her, never moving the knife, and she cried out, jerking her hand up to her neck. When she pulled it away there was a smear of blood running down her neck onto her dress.
“My father,” Weekes called out, “was an innocent man. But you accused him and this court accepted your word. He never stole from his employer, not one shilling, do you hear me? But you had him transported, leaving my mother alone and penniless. You ruined the lives of two good, innocent people. And I wanted you to see how that felt.” He grabbed Eleanor by the chin, jerking her head to the side so that Hil got a good look at the knife pressing into her throat. Eleanor was crying, clawing at his hands, but Weekes wouldn’t let go. “I wanted you to see someone you loved wrongly convicted of a crime they didn’t commit. As soon as I read about the two of you, I knew I’d found the perfect way to get my revenge.” Eleanor slipped as she struggled and the knife dug into her neck, cutting her again and the crowd gasped as several people shouted. Hil couldn’t discern their words; he didn’t care. Nothing mattered but Eleanor.
Weekes laughed. “I can see it in your face. You’re pathetic. The great Sir Hilary St. John. You thought you’d done it. You bought this jury and this judge, and you thought you’d saved her. And now you’re realizing there isn’t a thing you can do to save her. You are powerless. It’s a miserable, gut-wrenching feeling, isn’t it? Now you know! Now you know how all those people felt as they watched you ruin their lives and destroy their families. And it’s a feeling you’ll never forget.” Weekes shoved Eleanor down and she fell to her knees on the floor with a hard crack, unable to break her fall with her hands because of the knife against her throat. “You’ll see me slitting her throat in your dreams for the rest of your days.”
Devil in My Arms: A Loveswept Historical Romance (The Saint's Devils) Page 25
