by Anne Perry
“I’m sorry,” Rathbone said. “The photograph is for you to do with as you think fit. You may need some time to decide, which is why I felt it necessary to disturb you with it tonight. I’m sorry. I debated whether to come to you at all, or if I should take the decision out of your hands by not showing it to you, but it has a strong bearing on the value of the evidence in the case against Taft, and I believe the decision must be yours.”
“I don’t understand.” Warne looked deeply unhappy. “What decision? What is this photograph? Is it of Taft? Who took it?”
Rathbone was bitterly aware that he was about to increase Warne’s unhappiness a hundredfold.
“Before I pass it to you I would like to retain your services as my legal counsel,” Rathbone said. How ridiculous the words sounded, in the circumstances, and yet it was critical that he pursue this course of action. “It is to protect you, as well as me,” he added.
Warne stared at him, uncomprehending.
Rathbone reached into his pocket and pulled out five guinea coins. “Please?”
Warne nodded, his eyes never leaving Rathbone’s face, but he took the coins and set them on the table.
“I now represent you legally.”
Rathbone held out the brown envelope.
Warne took it and after a moment’s hesitation, opened the flap and picked out the stiff paper of the photograph. He stared at it, blinked, then his face reflected vividly the wave of revulsion that must’ve welled up inside him. His paramount emotion seemed to be acute distress.
Rathbone wished he had not made this choice. He had done the wrong thing, and it was too late to take it back. Now he was as chilled as if his heart had stopped pumping blood around his body.
Warne looked up at him, his eyes unreadable.
“Where in God’s name did you get this? Did someone send it to you?”
There was no possible way out of this. He must plunge through it—with the truth.
“My father-in-law owned these photographs, about fifty of them. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. I defended him, partly because of family obligation, partly because anyone at all is worthy of a defense, as Gavinton has been at pains to remind me. And in the beginning I believed he was innocent. Only too late did I discover that he was not.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He always blamed me for not having defended him adequately. As a bitter irony he bequeathed me these damnable pictures.”
Warne stared at him, blinking.
Rathbone knew he should not go on, making bad even worse, but he heard his own voice as if it belonged to someone else and he had no control over it.
“He told me that to begin with he used one of them to force a corrupt judge to make an industrialist clean up his factory’s waste, which was spreading cholera in a poor area of the city. It saved the lives of hundreds of people. And cholera is a vile way to die.”
Warne winced as if he had felt a wave of that pain himself.
“He went on using them,” Rathbone continued. “For a while it was always to force justice where it would otherwise be denied. Then he began to do it for less clear-cut reasons. In the end he was thoroughly corrupt. I hesitated whether to give you this or not. You will notice the date on it—after Drew joined Taft’s Church. You can see from it that Robertson Drew is very far from being the minister of Christ that he professes to be. He has slandered at least three good men, and probably the finest woman he is ever likely to meet. If the jurors were aware of his nature, I think they would attach a very different weight to his testimony than they do now.”
“Indeed,” Warne replied, his voice little above a whisper.
“Do whatever you think just,” Rathbone told him. “If you believe the man is telling the truth, then the picture is irrelevant. I know Mrs. Monk, and I know Squeaky Robinson. Squeaky is a devious sod and has been on the wrong side of the law most of his life, but I trust him to keep the books of the Portpool Lane clinic. I think he knows fraud when he sees it and knows how to find it—the places where a man who has always been honest would never think to look. If he says Taft is crooked, then I believe he is. And if you are able to take a little time to look more closely at Hester Monk, you will find she has more courage and honor than many a decorated army officer and has done more to help the poor and outcast of society than Taft can have ever imagined.”
Warne almost smiled.
“I imagine much of what Gavinton said was aimed at you. He seems to have studied your past cases, and your personal friendships, quite closely.”
Rathbone felt his lips curl in a sneer. “A great deal more closely than he has some of the personal friendships of Robertson Drew, from the look of it.” Then he looked at Warne’s eyes. “But none of that has anything to do with the fact that, in spite of the financial evidence, you have failed to convince the jury that Abel Taft is a fraud and a manipulator of innocent and vulnerable people who trust him because he says he comes in the name of Christ. They believe him because they would not lie about such a thing themselves, and they find it impossible to believe that anyone else would. Perhaps they don’t want to. No one wants to acknowledge himself a fool, and maybe a decent man wants even less to admit that the faith he placed in his church was hideously false.”
“Most of all in front of his neighbors, and aloud, where they can remind him of it again and again,” Warne added. He held the photograph in one hand, by his fingertips, as if touching it soiled him. “Would you use this?”
Rathbone thought for several moments before replying. “I don’t know,” he admitted at last. “If I did, I would be tormented by it forever. And if I didn’t, then everything that Taft gets away with from now on is at my door, whether I want to own it or not. Every innocent man defrauded of his money or his trust is one more victim I could have prevented, had I not placed my own peace of mind first.”
“Damn you,” Warne said quietly. There was no enmity in his voice, just fear and exhaustion, and a touch of revulsion, for the picture, for the choice he now had.
There was no need for more words. Silently Rathbone took his leave and went out into the night. He walked toward the main road. He had left the photograph behind him, but he felt, if anything, even more heavily weighed down.
CHAPTER
6
THE FOLLOWING DAY THE trial resumed. Rathbone had slept badly, his dreams full of chaos. Now he sat in the high-backed chair and watched the proceedings, feeling as if the air in the room were as thick as that before an electric storm. His chest was tight and his neck so stiff that he could barely turn from side to side.
The gallery was less than full but the atmosphere was heavy. There was going to be no dramatic end. As far as the law was concerned, all was well, but as drama it had failed. Taft was clearly going to be found “not guilty,” which meant that everything was going to remain as it had been. It was not worth watching. Those left now were the few with a personal interest in the outcome.
Felicia Taft looked more composed than in earlier days. Perhaps she knew that the worst was past. And yet she did not look happy. If she were exhausted, one could hardly blame her. The pallor of her face, the droop in her expression might be no more than that. She had endured all she was able to. With the end in sight, she had allowed herself to relax.
Gavinton was jubilant. He all but strutted out onto the floor. Abel Taft was on the witness stand again. He was not smiling exactly, but it was as if he felt he no longer had anything to fear, or to apologize for.
Rathbone was so tense his whole body ached. No matter how he moved in the seat, the tension did not let up. He feared he had left it too late. Even with the photograph, there was nothing Warne could do. What was it Rathbone ever imagined he might accomplish anyway? Did he think Warne would show the photograph to the jury and tell them this was the man they were believing rather than the witnesses he had so carefully mocked and belittled?
He could see Gethen Sawley sitting in the gallery, stubborn, white-faced, his body hunched for
ward as he waited for the ultimate defeat. Why was he here? Why was he punishing himself by watching as Drew and then Taft picked him apart, humiliating him gently, acting as if they were reluctant to say each word.
John Raleigh was still here too, dignified and silent, waiting for his ruin to be complete.
Rathbone could not see Bicknor, but he was probably here somewhere.
What did they expect? Did the desperation of their faith make them think there would be some miracle to make the trial just after all? Rathbone wished that he had the power to produce that miracle for them.
What a horrible irony. Gavinton was asking Taft once again if he believed in Robertson Drew, so the last thing he left in the jurors’ minds was the image of Taft as an innocent, trusting man. Nothing was his fault. Because Drew was not charged, in a sense he was invulnerable.
Was Warne going to use the photograph? How would he introduce it? Had he even brought it?
Gavinton was handing over the witness to Warne.
Warne rose to his feet. He looked haggard. There were dark shadows on his face, as if he had not shaved, but as he moved and the light caught him it was clear it was only the hollows of his cheeks. He had probably been up all night pacing the floor, wondering what to do with the terrible picture.
Warne regarded Taft cautiously, but no politeness in his words could mitigate the intense dislike in his face.
“Mr. Taft, it seems you are ill served in your congregation, and indeed by everyone except Mr. Drew,” he observed. His voice was gravelly with strain. “Would it be fair to say that that is because your congregation is self-selecting? They come because they have tried other churches, and possibly found them wanting? Your message is the one they wish to hear, for whatever reason or hunger of their own?”
“Yes, you might say that,” Taft agreed. There was no visible tension in his body, no strain in his voice. If he were the least afraid he was a master at concealing it.
“Do you ever turn anyone away?” Warne inquired.
“Of course not.” Taft made the question sound ridiculous. “The doors of any church are always open. We would ask someone to leave only if he was causing turmoil or distress among the rest of the congregation. I’m pleased to say that hardly ever happens.” He gave a slight shrug, and his expression was rueful. “Once or twice someone did take too much to drink. Sober, he would be welcomed back.”
“Very commendable,” Warne said drily. “It is easy to see how, in these circumstances, you quite often take in the emotionally unstable, and those not to be relied upon. Such people will make errors of judgment, misunderstand, even on occasion do things that are morally, or even legally, wrong.”
Taft’s expression tightened so slightly it was barely visible. “That is unavoidable,” he conceded.
Warne continued to stare at him. “But your friends, your associates in the ministry, and most particularly those who deal with money and the charities you help—you will choose these with great care and diligence, I imagine? You will, with the utmost discretion, of course, find out all you need to know about their financial honesty, and competence, and their moral character?”
There was a rustle of awakened interest in the gallery, a stiffening of attention in the jury.
Taft frowned. “Of course,” he agreed.
Warne nodded. “Exactly. To do less would be irresponsible.”
“Indeed it would,” Taft said a little sharply.
“And I assume you take the same care with the charities to which you give this exceedingly generous amount of money?” Warne went on.
Taft swallowed, hesitated a moment, then answered. “I do the best I can, Mr. Warne. There is no way in which I can make inquiries regarding their staff. I do not always know them, and they change, but they are good and honorable people who give of their own time freely.”
Warne nodded. “Quite so. But you have never had cause to doubt either their honesty or their competence?”
“No, never.” Taft’s voice was losing a little of its smoothness.
Warne gave a slight gesture of denial.
“They are not of the emotionally uncertain nature of your own well-meaning parishioners—”
He was not allowed to finish. Gavinton shot to his feet.
“My lord, Mr. Taft is not accountable for the morality or errors of any charity he might donate to. And may I point out that the emotional fragilities of his own parishioners have extended to false accusation, but in no case whatever, in any circumstances at all, to the misuse of money.”
Rathbone was caught. He could feel his stomach knot and his breath catch in his throat. Was Warne about to introduce the photograph at last? He had just maneuvered Taft into endorsing Drew once again, swearing he knew him and all his motives and activities.
Rathbone felt the sweat prickle on his body, and in the heat of the room, the color flush in his face.
“Mr. Warne …” he began, and then had to stop and take a deep breath and cough. “Mr. Warne, you seem to be stating the obvious. Is there a question or purpose in what you are saying? Mr. Taft has already very thoroughly, several times over, sworn to the honesty, diligence, and general virtue of Mr. Drew. He has also sworn that this is from his personal knowledge, not hearsay or a charitable judgment. What is your purpose in raising this yet again?”
“I wish to give Mr. Taft every opportunity to clear himself of these charges,” Warne said demurely. “If in some way the fraud were—”
“There has been no fraud proved, my lord!” Gavinton cut across him. “My learned friend is—”
“Yes, Mr. Gavinton,” Rathbone in turn interrupted him. “He is wasting time. You wasted a good deal of it yourself.” He turned to Warne. “I think we have established to the jury’s satisfaction that Mr. Taft trusted Mr. Drew in all things both moral and financial and that he did so after a long personal acquaintance and with all due care and foresight in making certain that his good opinion was based upon fact, not upon convenience or friendship.” He looked at Taft. “Is that a just and true assessment, Mr. Taft?”
“Yes, my lord.” Taft could do nothing but agree.
Rathbone studied his face to find even a shadow of reluctance, and saw nothing. If he had any idea of danger, he was a master at concealing it. Or was he so supremely arrogant that the possibility of his own failure never entered his mind?
Rathbone looked at Warne and could not read him either. Warne looked like a man facing impossible odds, preparing for the bitter taste of defeat and yet still seeking some last-minute escape. Perhaps that was exactly what he was. Perhaps he despised Rathbone for having even kept the photograph, let alone descending to its use. Perhaps, Rathbone thought, he had earned Warne’s lifelong contempt for no purpose at all, and Warne would rather lose the case than filthy his hands with such a ploy.
“My lord,” Warne said gravely, “much of the evidence in this case seems to be believed or discarded based on the reputation for honesty and for soundness of judgment of the person offering it. It does seem, regrettably, as if some of the Crown’s witnesses against Mr. Taft are less reliable than I had supposed. My learned friend has been able to expose them as such.”
Gavinton smiled and acknowledged the somewhat backhanded compliment.
“If your lordship will allow, one witness who seems to be central to the pursuit of the case and who therefore has had her reputation for judgment, and even for emotional stability, severely questioned has not actually been called to the stand. May it please the court, I would like to call Hester Monk as a witness in rebuttal to the testimony that Mr. Taft has given.”
“You have no question for Mr. Taft?” Rathbone said in surprise. What did Warne hope to achieve with Hester? If he called her, then Gavinton would also be able to cross-examine her. The whole miserable episode of her misjudgment in the Phillips case would be exposed in more detail. She would appear to be a highly volatile woman whose compassion had drowned her judgment and allowed a blackmailer, child pornographer, and murderer to escap
e justice.
Because Rathbone was the man who had defended Phillips and crucified Hester on the stand, he himself would not emerge from it well—in law, yes, but not in the eyes of the jury.
Gavinton was on his feet, smiling.
“I have no objection whatever, my lord. I think it would well serve the cause of justice. I hesitated to subject Mrs. Monk to such an ordeal again. She can barely have forgotten the humiliation of the last time, but I confess it would seem just.” He turned his satisfied smile on Warne.
Rathbone felt the control slipping out of his hands, like the wet reins of a carriage when the horses bolt.
They were waiting for his answer. He could not protect Hester. If he ruled against her testifying he would expose himself without helping her. In fact, it might even make it appear as if she had something further to hide.
“Very well,” he conceded. “But keep it to the point, Mr. Warne.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Warne instructed the usher to call Hester Monk.
There was silence as Hester came into the room, except for the rustle of fabric and creak of stays as people in the gallery turned to watch her, fascinated by this woman both Drew and Taft had described so vividly, and in “praise” so worded as to be moving from condescension into blame.
She was slender, almost a little too thin for fashionable taste, and she walked very uprightly across the open floor and climbed the steps to the witness stand. She did not look at Rathbone, at the jury, or up at the dock.
Rathbone watched her with a strange, disturbing mixture of emotions, which were far more powerful than he had expected. He had known her for more than a decade, during which he had fallen in love with her, been angered, exasperated, and confused by her, and had his emotions thoroughly wrung out. At the same time he had admired her more than any other person he knew. She had made him laugh, even when he did not want to, and she had changed his beliefs on a score of things.
