The William Monk Mysteries

by Anne Perry

  “Can you?”

  He took a deep breath and met her eyes.

  “Yes—Ican.”

  She stared at him, exhausted beyond emotion.

  “Ican,” he repeated.

  9

  THE TRIAL OF ALEXANDRA CARLYON began on the morning of Monday, June 22. Major Tiplady had intended to be present, not out of cheap curiosity; normally he shunned such proceedings as he would have an accident had a horse bolted in the street and thrown and trampled its rider. It was a vulgar intrusion into another person’s embarrassment and distress. But in this case he felt a deep and personal concern for the outcome, and he wished to demonstrate his support for Alexandra, and for the Carlyon family, or if he were honest, for Edith; not that he would have admitted it, even to himself.

  When he put his foot to the ground he was well able to bear his weight on it. It seemed the leg had healed perfectly. However, when he attempted to bend it to climb the step up into a hansom, he found, to his humiliation, that it would not support him as he mounted. And he knew dismounting at the other end might well be even worse. He was both abashed and infuriated, but he was powerless to do anything about it. It obviously needed at least another week, and trying to force the issue would only make it worse.

  Therefore he deputed Hester to report to him, since she was still in his employ and must do what she could for his comfort. He insisted this was crucial to it. She was to report to him everything that happened, not only the evidence that was given by each witness but their manner and bearing, and whether in her best judgment they were telling the truth or not. Also she was to observe the attitudes of everyone else who appeared for the prosecution and for the defense, and most particularly the jury. Naturally she should also mark well all other members of the family she might see. To this end she should equip herself with a large notebook and several sharp pencils.

  “Yes Major,” she said obediently, hoping she would be able to fulfil so demanding an assignment adequately. He asked a great deal, but his earnestness and his concern were so genuine she did not even try to point out the difficulties involved.

  “I wish to know your opinions as well as the facts,” he said for the umpteenth time. “It is a matter of feelings, you know? People are not always rational, especially in matters like this.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said with magnificent understatement. “I will watch expressions and listen to tones of voice—I promise you.”

  “Good.” His cheeks pinkened a trifle. “I am most obliged.” He looked down. “I am aware it is not customarily part of a nurse’s duties …”

  She hid a smile with great difficulty.

  “And it will not be pleasant,” he added.

  “It is merely a reversal of roles,” she said, allowing her smile to be seen.

  “What?” He looked at her quickly, not understanding. He saw her amusement, but did not know what caused it.

  “Had you been able to go, then I should have had to ask you to repeat it all to me. I have no authority to require it of you. This is far more convenient.”

  “Oh—I see.” His eyes filled with perception and amusement as well. “Yes—well, you had better go, or you might be late and not obtain a satisfactory seat.”

  “Yes Major. I shall be back when I am quite sure I have observed everything. Molly has your luncheon prepared, and …”

  “Never mind.” He waved his hands impatiently. “Go on, woman.”

  “Yes Major.”

  She was early, as she had said; even so the crowds were eager and she only just got a seat from which she could see all the proceedings, and that was because Monk had saved it for her.

  The courtroom was smaller than she had expected, and higher-ceilinged, more like a theater with the public gallery far above the dock, which itself was twelve or fifteen feet above the floor where the barristers and court officials had their leather-padded seats at right angles to the dock.

  The jury was on two benches, one behind the other, on the left of the gallery, several steps up from the floor, and with a row of windows behind them. On the farther end of the same wall was the witness box, a curious affair up several steps, placing it high above the arena, very exposed.

  At the farther wall, opposite the gallery and the dock, was the red-upholstered seat on which the judge sat. To the right was a further gallery for onlookers, newsmen and other interested parties.

  There was a great amount of wooden paneling around the dock and witness box, and on the walls behind the jury and above the dock to the gallery rail. It was all very imposing and as little like an ordinary room as possible, and at the present was so crowded with people one was able to move only with the greatest difficulty.

  “Where have you been?” Monk demanded furiously. “You’re late.”

  She was torn between snapping back and gratitude to him for thinking of her. The first would be pointless and only precipitate a quarrel when she least wanted one, so she chose the latter, which surprised and amused him.

  The Bill of Indictment before the Grand Jury had already been brought at an earlier date, and a true case found and Alexandra charged.

  “What about the jury?” she asked him. “Have they been chosen?”

  “Friday,” he answered. “Poor devils.”

  “Why poor?”

  “Because I wouldn’t like to have to decide this case,” Monk answered. “I don’t think the verdict I want to bring in is open to me.”

  “No,” she agreed, more to herself than to him. “What are they like?”

  “The jury? Ordinary, worried, taking themselves very seriously,” he replied, not looking at her but straight ahead at the judge’s bench and the lawyers’ tables below.

  “All middle-aged, I suppose? And all men of course.”

  “Not all middle-aged,” he contradicted. “One or two are youngish, and one very old. You have to be between twenty-one and sixty, and have a guaranteed income from rents or lands, or live in a house with not less than fifteen windows—”

  “What?”

  “Not less than fifteen windows,” he repeated with a sardonic smile, looking sideways at her. “And of course they are all men. That question is not worthy of you. Women are not considered capable of such decisions, for heaven’s sake. You don’t make any legal decisions at all. You don’t own property, you don’t expect to be able to decide a man’s fate before the law, do you?”

  “If one is entitled to be tried before a jury of one’s peers, I expect to be able to decide a woman’s fate,” she said sharply. “And rather more to the point, I expect if I come to triad to have women on the jury. How else could I be judged fairly?”

  “I don’t think you’d do any better with women,” he said, pulling his face into a bitter expression and looking at the fat woman in front of them. “Not that it would make the slightest difference if you did.”

  She knew it was irrelevant. They must fight the case with the jury as it was. She turned around to look at others in the crowd. They seemed to be all manner of people, every age and social condition, and nearly as many women as men. The only thing they had in common was a restless excitement, a murmuring to one another, a shifting from foot to foot where they were standing, or a craning forward if they were seated, a peering around in case they were to miss something.

  “Of course I really shouldn’t be ’ere,” a woman said just behind Hester. “It won’t do me nerves any good at all. Wickedest thing I ever ’eard of, an’ ‘er a lady too. You expec’ better from them as ought ter know ’ow ter be’ave their-selves.”

  “I know,” her companion agreed. “If gentry murders each other, wot can yer expec’ of the lower orders? I ask yer.”

  “Wonder wot she’s like? Vulgar, I shouldn’t wonder. Of course they’ll ’ang ’er.”

  “O’ course. Don’t be daft. Wot else could they do?”

  “Right and proper thing too.”

  “’Course it is. My ’usband don’t always control ’isself, but I don’t go murderin’ �
��im.”

  “’Course you don’t. No one does. What would ’appen to the world if we did?”

  “Shockin’. And they’re sayin’ as there’s mutiny in India too. People killin’ an’ murderin’ all over the place. I tell yer, we live in terrible times. God ’isself only knows what’ll be next!”

  “An’ that’s true for sure,” her companion agreed, sagely nodding her head.

  Hester longed to tell them not to be so stupid, that there had always been virtue and tragedy—and laughter, discovery and hope—but the cleric called the court to order. There was a rustle of excitement as the counsel for the prosecution came in dressed in traditional wig and black gown, followed by his junior. Wilberforce Lovat-Smith was not a large man, but he had a walk which was confident, even a trifle arrogant, and full of vitality, so that everyone was immediately aware of him. He was unusually dark of complexion and under the white horsehair wig very black hair was easily visible. Even at this distance, Hester could see with surprise as he turned that his eyes were cold gray-blue. He was certainly not a handsome man, but there was something compelling in his features: sharp nose, humorous mouth and heavy-lidded eyes which suggested sensuality. It was the face of a man who had succeeded in the past, and expected to again.

  He had barely taken his place when there was another murmur of excitement as Rathbone came in, also gowned and wigged and followed by a junior. He looked unfamiliar to Hester, lately used to seeing him in ordinary clothes and informal in his manner. Now he was quite obviously thinking only of the contest ahead on which depended not only Alexandra’s life but perhaps the quality of Cassian’s also. Hester and Monk had done all they could; now it lay with Rathbone. He was a lone gladiator in the arena, and the crowd was hungering for blood. As he turned she saw the familiar profile with its long nose and delicate mouth so ready to change from pity to anger, and back to wry, quick humor again.

  “It’s going to begin,” someone whispered behind her. “That’s the defense. It’s Rathbone—I wonder what he’s going to say?”

  “Nothing ’e can say,” came the reply from a man somewhere to her left. “Don’t know why ’e bothers. They should ’ang ’er, save the government the money.”

  “Save us, more like.”

  “Ssh!”

  “Sshyereelf!”

  Monk swung around, his voice vicious. “If you don’t want a trial you should vacate the seat and allow someone who does to sit in it. There are plenty of slaughterhouses in London if all you want is blood.”

  There was a gasp of fury.

  “’Ow dare you speak to my wife like that?” the man demanded.

  “I was speaking to you, sir,” Monk retorted. “I expect you to be responsible for your own opinions.”

  “Hold your tongue,” someone else said furiously. “Or we’ll all be thrown out! The judge is coming.”

  And indeed he was, splendid in robes touched with scarlet, white wig only slightly fuller than those of the lawyers. He was a tallish man with a broad brow and fine strong nose, short jaw and good mouth, but he was far younger than Hester had expected, and for no reason that she understood, her heart sank. In some way she had imagined a fatherly man might have more compassion, a grandfatherly man even more again. She found herself sitting forward on the edge of the hard bench, her hands clenched, her shoulders tight.

  There was a rising wave of excitement, then a sudden silence as the prisoner was brought in, a craning forward and turning of heads on the benches behind the lawyers, of all except one woman dressed entirely in black, and veiled. Beneath the gallery in the dock the prisoner had been brought in.

  Even the jury, seemingly against their will, found their eyes moving towards her.

  Hester cursed the arrangement which made it impossible to see the dock from the gallery.

  “We should have got seats down there,” she said to Monk, nodding her head towards the few benches behind the law-“yers” seats.

  “We?” he said acidly. “If it weren’t for me you’d be standing outside.”

  “I know—and I’m grateful. All the same, we should still try to get a seat down there.”

  “Then come an hour earlier next time.”

  “I will. But it doesn’t help now.”

  “What do you want to do?” he whispered sarcastically. “Lose these seats and go out and try to get in downstairs?”

  “Yes,” she hissed back. “Of course I do. Come on!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll end up with nothing.”

  “You can do as you please. I’m going.”

  The woman in front swung around. “Be quiet,” she said furiously.

  “Mind your own business, madam,” Monk said, freezing calm, then grasped Hester by the elbow and propelled her out past the row of protesting onlookers. Up the aisle and outside in the hallway he maintained silence. They went down the stairs, and at the door of the lower court he let go of her.

  “All right,” he said with a scathing stare. “Now what do you propose to do?”

  She gulped, glared back at him, then swung around and marched to the doors.

  A bailiff appeared and barred the way. “I’m sorry. You can’t go in there, miss. It’s all full up. You should ’a come earlier. You’ll ’ave ter read about it in the papers.”

  “That will not be satisfactory,” she said with all the dignity she could muster. “We are involved in the case, retained by Mr. Rathbone, counsel for the defense. This is Mr. Monk,” she inclined her head slightly. “He is working with Mr. Rathbone, and Mr. Rathbone may need to consult with him during the course of the evidence. I am with him.”

  The bailiff looked over her head at Monk. “Is that true, sir?”

  “Certainly it is,” Monk said without a flicker, producing a card from his vest pocket.

  “Then you’d better go in,” the bailiff agreed cautiously. “But next time, get in ’ere a bit sooner, will you.”

  “Of course. We apologize,” Monk said tactfully. “A little late business, you understand.”

  And without arguing the point any further, he pushed Hester inside and allowed the bailiff to close the doors.

  The court looked different from this level, the judge’s seat higher and more imposing, the witness box oddly more vulnerable, and the dock very enclosed, like a wide cage with wooden walls, very high up.

  “Sit down,” Monk said sharply.

  Hester obeyed, perching on the end of the nearest bench and forcing the present occupants to move up uncomfortably close to each other. Monk was obliged to stand, until someone graciously changed places to the next row and gave him space.

  For the first time, with something of a start, Hester saw the haggard face of Alexandra Carlyon, who was permitted to sit because the proceedings were expected to take several days. It was not the face she had envisioned at all; it was far too immediate and individual, even pale and exhausted as it was. There was too much capacity for intelligence and pain in it; she was acutely aware that they were dealing with the agonies and desires of a unique person, not merely a tragic set of circumstances.

  She looked away again, feeling intrusive to be caught staring. She already knew more of her much too intimate suffering than anyone had a right to.

  The proceedings began almost straightaway. The charge had already been made and answered. The opening speeches were brief. Lovat-Smith said the facts of the case were only too apparent, and he would prove step by step how the accused had deliberately, out of unfounded jealousy, murdered her husband, General Thaddeus Carlyon, and attempted to pass off her crime as an accident.

  Rathbone said simply that he would answer with such a story that would shed a new and terrible light on all they knew, a light in which no answer would be as they now thought, and to look carefully into both their hearts and their consciences before they returned a verdict.

  Lovat-Smith called his first witness, Louisa Mary Furnival. There was a rustle of excitement, and then as she appeared a swift indrawing of breath and whisper
of fabric against fabric as people craned forward to see her. And indeed she presented a spectacle worth their effort. She was dressed in the darkest purple touched with amethyst, dignified, subdued in actual tones, and yet so fashionably and flamboyantly cut with a tiny waist and gorgeous sleeves. Her bonnet was perched so rakishly on her wide brushed dark hair as to be absolutely dashing. Her expression should have been demure, that of an elegant woman mourning the shocking death of a friend, and yet there was so much vitality in her, such awareness of her own beauty and magnetism, that no one thought of such an emotion for more than the first superficial instant.

  She crossed the space of floor in front of the lawyers and climbed the flight of steps up into the witness box, negotiating her skirts through the narrow rails with considerable skill, then turned to face Lovat-Smith.

  She swore as to her name and residence in a low, husky voice, looking down at him with shining eyes.

  “Mrs. Furnival”—he moved forward towards her, hands in his pockets under his gown—“will you tell the court what you can recall of the events of that dreadful evening when General Carlyon met his death? Begin with the arrival of your guests, if you please.”

  Louisa looked perfectly composed. If the occasion intimidated her in any way, there was not the slightest sign of it in her face or her bearing. Even her hands on the witness box railing were quite relaxed.

  “The first to arrive were Mr. and Mrs. Erskine,” she started. “The next were General Carlyon and Alexandra.” She did not glance at the dock as she said it.

  Lovat-Smith was talking to Louisa.

  Alexandra might not have been present for any emotional impact Louisa showed.

  “At that time, Mrs. Furnival,” Lovat-Smith was saying, “what was the attitude between General and Mrs. Carlyon? Did you notice?”

  “The general seemed as usual,” Louisa replied levelly. “I thought Alexandra very tense, and I was aware that the evening might become difficult.” She allowed the ghost of a smile to cross her face. “As hostess, I was concerned that the party should be a success.”