by Anne Perry
Wasn’t that what lawyers did? Defend the client until the bitter end, as long as he didn’t actually admit his guilt to you and then lie on the witness stand?
“You didn’t do it?” he said.
“No, I didn’t,” Sidney replied.
“Have you any idea who did?”
“No. Do you think I haven’t racked my brain?”
“Or why?”
“That either. Is this against me, or did I just happen to be standing in the wrong place? Was it really a matter of ‘anyone will do’?”
Daniel frowned. “One hundred pounds doesn’t seem enough money over which to blame someone else. Wouldn’t buy you a house…well, not much of one.”
“It might be a way out of debt, if that’s what you owed,” Sidney suggested.
Daniel hesitated. This seemed the ideal time to bring in Rebecca Thorwood. There would never be a better one. “Or is it really about something else altogether?” he said quietly.
Sidney drew in his breath as if to ask what; then there was a sudden understanding in his face. “How do you know about that? You mean the Thorwood accusation in Washington? I didn’t do it! But you think someone is trying to get revenge on me for that? Won’t work. This money was taken while I was in Washington, before that event happened.”
“If it was taken,” Daniel said, watching Sidney’s face, his eyes, the tiny muscles in his jaw. He did not see guilt nor an actor planning out his reaction.
“I don’t understand,” Sidney replied. “If somebody thought I did that, and it seems as if the whole of Washington does, how would they backdate the embezzlement to imprison me now?”
“I don’t know.” Daniel was honest. “But how could they do it anyway? Make it look as if you had taken the money?”
The little color there was drained out of Sidney’s face. He pushed his hair back again, as if the manacles were not there. “I don’t know what to do. It’s coming at me from all sides. I wouldn’t believe me, if I were you. Tobias Thorwood swears he saw me coming out of his daughter’s bedroom after assaulting her and stealing a diamond pendant. He couldn’t have, because I wasn’t there. I didn’t attack Rebecca. Actually, I rather liked her. I thought she was…different. Individual. A bit young, perhaps, but…” He stopped. “I wasn’t there!” he repeated hopelessly. “I didn’t take the diamond. I don’t have it, and I didn’t sell it or give it away or lose it. But half of Washington was baying for my blood because Thorwood swore I did. He’s an important man. Very wealthy, from an old family, as Washington goes. Ridiculous, isn’t it? The Sidneys go back long before Queen Elizabeth. It’s a hell of a name to live up to. I’ve done just about the worst job possible. I’m glad my mother’s dead. I never thought I’d say that…” He choked to a stop.
There were a few moments of silence.
In spite of his confusion and his loyalty to Patrick and Jemima, Daniel felt a surge of pity for this man, only a little more than his own age. “I’ve got a father who has done brilliantly,” he said, following what Sidney had said about his own name. “They tease me at the office and call me Pitt the Younger, who, in case you have forgotten, was British Prime Minister before he was my age. Went up to Cambridge at fourteen, entered Parliament at twenty-two, was Prime Minister by twenty-four! And I’m twenty-five already, and what have I done?”
Sidney smiled. It was crooked and rueful, but it held a brief moment of understanding.
“Why did you use diplomatic immunity to run away?” Daniel returned to the subject. “That makes you look guilty. Wouldn’t the embassy stand behind you and get a decent lawyer? If you didn’t do it, they might even find proof of that.”
Sidney looked down at the scarred table. “I can see that now. But ‘might have’ isn’t much assurance when they are howling for you to be flogged. The thing grew legs. It started out that I thought the best thing I could do for myself and for the embassy was to get out and hope the whole story died down. Tobias Thorwood might change his mind about the identification and maybe Rebecca would finally say that she was mistaken, and it wasn’t me.”
“Did she say it was you?”
“They say she did, but maybe it was only her father. Hardly matters now: I did run away. My career is ruined. The Foreign Office wouldn’t even look at me to sweep the floors now. I don’t expect any government office would.”
“Even if you were found not guilty?” Daniel asked.
“Not guilty of what? Embezzlement? That’s possible. But I still ran away from Washington, instead of facing the charge of assault like a man.”
“Did you think you’d get a fair trial?”
“No, not with Thorwood saying he’d seen me. His recognition would stand because we were acquainted. Anyway, that’s not an excuse. Half the villains on earth say it’s not fair! It’s the oldest complaint in the world.” He said this with a bitter disgust on his face.
Daniel heard pain in his voice, and fear, but not self-pity. It would not be fair if Sidney did not have the best possible defense. Apparently, he had no one who would support him, no family, and the embassy certainly would not. Where would he find the means for a good lawyer?
Nothing was turning out as Daniel had expected. Sidney was not the opinionated, arrogant man he had assumed.
“We’ll do everything we can about the embezzlement.” He made the rash promise; even while he was saying the words he had no idea how to fulfill them. Worse than that, he was putting himself in the position of opposing both Patrick and Jemima. How had what seemed at first a simple crusade turned into a many-tentacled disaster?
“Thank you,” Sidney said quietly. “Please…please come back and tell me if you can find anything?” He was attempting to put hope in his voice, and it was painful to watch.
“I will,” Daniel promised.
CHAPTER
Nine
DANIEL AND KITTERIDGE sat in Kitteridge’s office and looked at the pile of papers in front of them.
“Is the clerk waiting for them?” Daniel asked dubiously.
“You could wager your life’s salary he is,” Kitteridge said, pulling his face into an expression of disgust.
Daniel grunted. “At this moment, that may not be very much. Marcus will not be pleased with me. Beneath his nonsense talk and his eccentricity, he’s very patriotic, you know. He expects me to get Sidney off!”
Kitteridge looked up from the paper he was studying. He gave a slightly sideways smile. “Of course he does. We are taking on the desperate case of a fellow countryman, not to mention the reputation of all British diplomats in Washington by association.”
“And losing?” Daniel said. “Because it looks as though we may. Do you suppose Marcus would ever admit that Sidney is guilty, even if it is proven in the end? Or even if he does, that his firm will go down as the one that couldn’t get him off?”
“He wouldn’t want us to ‘get him off,’ as you obliquely put it. Such delicacy isn’t clever, it’s disgusting! And if he is guilty, I don’t want you to get him off. Neither do you. It was your blasted brother-in-law who brought this case here in the first place! Otherwise, we would never have known about it, unless we’d seen it in the newspapers. It would all be someone else’s problem.”
“And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride!” Daniel added.
“What?”
“It’s all completely irrelevant now.”
“Yes,” Kitteridge said firmly. “The prosecution’s clerk is waiting in the front office, guzzling tea and biscuits. And he’ll stay there until you return these papers to him. He’ll count them all and see you haven’t given any changelings! He’s put his mark on all of them!”
“You make him sound illiterate.”
“He has to make sure you don’t put in any ringers!” Kitteridge explained.
“He takes me for a complete idiot!”
Kitteri
dge raised one eyebrow. “Do you think that could possibly have anything to do with you taking on this case…perhaps?”
“They are all over the place,” Daniel said, looking hopelessly at the receipts, IOUs, papers of transfer. “All sorts of things: paper, ink, postage stamps, biscuits, hiring cars, there’s one here for hiring a chauffeur to drive to the Hamptons. Very expensive. Theater. What some people will pay to see! Absolute—”
“Are all the signatures genuine?” Kitteridge interrupted him.
“Slight variation,” Daniel replied. “Not much. But I don’t suppose anybody writes the same all the time. I know I don’t.”
“You only have to write ‘Pitt’ on this. Be glad you don’t have to write ‘Kitteridge.’ Keep on looking through them,” Kitteridge said. “We haven’t much else. So far, they’re pretty damning. He seems to have signed away a hell of a lot of money for goods no one else ever saw. Did you look up the Hamptons? Who are they? Are they British or American? Looks a bit like brokers.”
“They are a place,” Daniel answered. “Very rich and very exclusive.” He touched several receipts. “These look to be car trips there on the weekends, and so on.”
“That could be what he spent the money on. You’ll have to follow it up. Ask Sidney.” Kitteridge bent back to his papers and continued reading, his eyebrows brought together as he tried to see some pattern in them.
“How did we get them?” Daniel asked, ignoring his own pile. “I mean, how are they in England at all?”
Kitteridge stared at him. “The prosecution brought them. You know that.”
“Yes, but how did they get them?” Daniel persisted. “Who went through and compiled this enormous pile of evidence, I wonder, searching out Sidney’s signature?”
Kitteridge blinked. “That is a very good question. I assume someone at the embassy discovered the money missing, and when they looked harder, they concluded it was Sidney who took it.”
“Or it wasn’t, and they blamed him for it because he’s in enough trouble. Isn’t it an excellent time to get rid of a little more trouble and put it on his plate?” Daniel suggested.
Kitteridge bit his lip. “Are you hoping someone else is responsible for attacking Rebecca Thorwood as well? Someone that Tobias mistook for Sidney? Or are you suggesting Tobias is shielding this person, for some reason of his own?”
Daniel was startled. “No. That makes no sense. Who? And why would he protect the man who attacked his own daughter?”
“The papers?” Kitteridge repeated.
“They were handed over by a young man at the British Embassy called Morley Cross. They had to tell us that in order to validate them,” Daniel pointed out.
“When?” Kitteridge asked pointedly.
“What?”
“When did this young man from the embassy get these papers? How? How did they get over here so quickly? After Sidney came, and before Patrick?”
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. If you’d just help me find the exceptions…”
“Oh, I don’t mind clerking for you,” Kitteridge said sarcastically. “I’ve got nothing else to do…except my own case! I forgot to mention that.”
“If I’m in doubt, I’ll ask Impney to take a look,” Daniel went on, as if Kitteridge had not spoken.
“Exactly when did these papers get to England, and how?” Kitteridge persisted. “You’ve got to get a time line on these, that’s the real validation.” His face looked bleak. “And I’m afraid it’s possible your brother-in-law is somehow involved…”
“With the British Embassy, to set up Sidney for embezzlement to bring about a resolution of the theft and assault accusation?” Daniel said incredulously. “He’s Irish American, for heaven’s sake. Everything that’s ever been wrong with Ireland is England’s fault.”
“And everything that’s right, which is a lot, is its own,” Kitteridge finished for him. “I know, I’ve got a couple of Anglo-Irish cousins. Don’t know how that happened! Actually, I do. Their father is Irish, and you couldn’t meet a more delightful chap.” For a moment, Kitteridge’s smile showed unalloyed pleasure.
Daniel was fascinated. It was the first time in the year that Daniel had known him that Kitteridge had mentioned any family. He’d had the impression that they were all rather grim, sort of Evangelical churchmen out to save everybody’s soul, whether they wanted it or not. All for their own good, of course. “The papers have to have come from the British Embassy, directly or indirectly, since they are their records,” Daniel said, returning to the matter at hand. “So, this embassy man, Morley Cross, must have brought them himself or given them to someone to bring here. And since it takes a week to get from Washington to New York and then cross the Atlantic to London, it is someone who left at least a week before the London police got them and could be persuaded to bring a case. And that’s another thing! The police here recognized what they were, and acted on them?” The more he thought about it, the worse it became.
“Then you’d better start looking.” Kitteridge frowned. “It’s really the prosecution’s job to validate them. They need to show how they got here, who brought them, and why. But if you don’t know the truth, you can’t put them on the spot in court and show the jury they’re wrong. Just saying they’re wrong won’t help you. You’ve got to prove they can’t be right.”
“Or that there is somebody lying in order to get Sidney into trouble,” Daniel said reasonably.
Kitteridge met his eyes. “That, too. Sorry. But whatever the truth is, whether the papers are real or not—and so far they look real—you’ve got to find out for certain where they came from, who brought them to London, and why. It may be that Sidney did steal a hundred pounds from the embassy. Or someone else did. But remember, you’ll be talking to ordinary people, not bankers or financiers.”
“They’ll be—” Daniel started out.
“The jury!” Kitteridge interrupted. “Never forget that you are talking to the jury. If you don’t understand it, then they won’t, and there’s damn-all chance they will acquit. You do not have to rely on the prosecution tying himself in knots.”
Daniel knew Kitteridge was right.
“And before you can even think of the assault and the damned necklace, and anything else, you’ve got to get this straight,” Kitteridge went on. “They’ve got to think you know what you’re talking about, and right at this moment, you clearly don’t! This Morley Cross, the young man from the embassy who gave the papers to the police…”
“I don’t know if he actually brought them over himself. They’re being very tight-lipped about it. The earliest date I saw on any of the papers was three years ago.” Daniel thought back. “Why did it take them so long to spot it? Why did this Cross fellow bring it forward now? It looks a bit like waiting till a man’s down, then kicking him again. The jury won’t like that.”
“You’re going to bring that up?” Kitteridge said with a very twisted smile. “Clever! You’re going to tell him he was down because he had taken diplomatic immunity to run away from a charge of theft and assaulting a young woman in her bedroom? Not exactly a standard defense. But it would get the point Patrick Flannery wants you to make across very well. Judge won’t like it! And I daresay neither will the defendant. And what you will hate the most is how much Marcus will hate it. You could find yourself in a lot of legal trouble.” Kitteridge’s expression said very plainly what he thought of that. “It would be the end of your promising career!”
Daniel realized how very thoroughly he had tripped himself up and felt heat wash over his face. “Cart before the horse,” he admitted. “We’d have to use it as a last ditch…”
“Leave the farming analogies and get back to the law, unless you’ve got something constructive to say. Find out who Cross gave those papers to and why. Who knew about the embezzlement, when they found out, and how long they’v
e known. That should keep you busy for a while.”
Daniel hesitated only a moment. “Right. I’ll report. Maybe tomorrow.”
* * *
—
THE FIRST THING he had to do was probably going to be the worst, but there was no avoiding it. And the less he knew, the more likely he was to make a mistake. He felt very much that he would rather not know, but running away from it would only make it worse. At least if he had knowledge, he had some degree of choice.
Daniel arrived at Keppel Street a little after eleven in the morning; if Patrick and Jemima had gone out somewhere, it would be the perfect excuse for him to avoid facing his task. Was he looking for an excuse? It was irrelevant—Jemima was in and pleased to see him.
Cassie came over to him immediately. “Hello, Uncle Daniel. Are you arguing?” She was fascinated with the idea of being paid to argue something.
He looked at her eager face. Her concentration was total. She did not deserve a trivial answer. “Hello, Cassie,” he replied. “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Before you can make a really important argument, one you need to win because something that matters depends on it, you have to make sure you know as much as you can about it, and that what you think you know is actually right.”
“Oh. How do you do that?”
He thought for a moment. “Did you take the jam tarts from the pantry?”
She looked puzzled. “No…”
“But you’ve got jam on your face.”
“I had jam on my toast.”
Daniel looked up at Jemima, who nodded to him. “There, you see?” he said to Cassie. “If I argued that you did take the tarts, I would lose. Because I didn’t check that I was right!”
