Acceptable Loss

by Anne Perry

  IN THE MORNING HE went to see Arthur Ballinger in Newgate Prison. He had to wait some little time before at last Ballinger was brought to see him. In the gray light he looked tired, and for the first time Rathbone was acutely aware of how afraid he was. Pity twisted inside Rathbone for Margaret, and he wished he had been gentler with her, but he did not know now how to retrace his steps.

  “Oliver!” Ballinger said sharply. “Why are you here? I thought it was going well?”

  “It is,” Rathbone replied. Why did this man make him feel so uncomfortable? He had spoken to scores of clients in circumstances like these, both the guilty and the innocent. He cleared his throat. “I need to know if you wish to testify yourself or not. You don’t need to make up your mind until Monday morning, but you must give it very serious consideration.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because it will give Winchester the opportunity to cross-question you, and I can’t protect you from anything he says, nor can I foresee what it might be. Don’t underestimate him. As it is, I believe we have a very good chance of a verdict of not guilty, because there is more than reasonable doubt.”

  “Doubt?” Ballinger said unhappily. “Reasonable doubt is the same as saying they believe I am guilty but they can’t prove it. I need ‘not guilty,’ Oliver, with certainty.” He took a breath. “I need them to believe that someone else killed that wretched creature.”

  “They will say ‘not guilty,’ ” Rathbone assured him. “And you cannot be charged again. It is finished.”

  “In court, perhaps, but not in the public mind. There I am still ruined. For God’s sake, man, can’t you see that?” Ballinger controlled the panic rising in his voice with obvious difficulty. “Saying that the case was inadequate is not enough.” He fixed Rathbone with an intense gaze. “I need them to know that they had the wrong man, Oliver. I need that! There is another man out there that the police should be pursuing. I imagine it is Rupert Cardew. They must go after him as diligently as they did after me. I don’t give a damn if his father is a decent man that everyone admires, or how sorry for him they might feel. My family is decent too.”

  He hesitated for several seconds, and Rathbone was about to speak again when Ballinger seemed to reach some decision, and continued. “And you have no idea what good I’ve done that I don’t boast about, or seek reward for. But that won’t stay anyone’s hand, or their tongues.”

  Rathbone looked at him and felt profoundly sorry for him. He was right. The talk, the suspicion, would remain, the belief that somehow he had escaped justice. He would be saved from the punishment of the law, but not of society.

  “Are you sure you want to, Arthur?” he said gently. “This case is still very lightly balanced. Emotions are high. Don’t ever mistake Winchester for a fool because he occasionally makes people laugh. He will go for your throat if he has the chance.”

  “Then, I won’t give him the chance,” Ballinger said bitterly. “Rupert Cardew is a dissolute and violent young man, and he should answer to the law like anyone else. Parfitt was a scab on the backside of humanity, but Hattie Benson was simply an ignorant young woman who made her living in the only way she could imagine. She had little alternative but the match factory, or a sweatshop somewhere. Whoever killed her should hang for it, and I can see that in the jurors’ faces, even if you can’t.”

  Rathbone knew that he was right, but he was still afraid of the risk. It seemed brutal to warn Ballinger, but it would be a betrayal of Rathbone’s duty not to.

  “You would be safer to leave it as it is,” he said gently. “I have to tell you that. The risk is considerable.”

  “What does ‘considerable’ mean?” Ballinger said sharply.

  “The balance is with us now, but not heavily. That could alter. They could hear something, the mood could change on an attitude, an answer they don’t understand, a witness saying something …”

  “I’ll take that chance. I will not leave that courtroom with the world believing I am guilty but I escaped because I had a good lawyer.”

  “There is a chance you could be found guilty.” Rathbone said it, and the words all but choked him. “Sometimes it depends on a thing as trivial as a like or dislike. It’s skill and chance as well as justice. For heaven’s sake, Arthur, you know that!”

  “Are you advising me against trying to clear myself?”

  Rathbone hesitated. He was not sure. If it were he and he knew himself innocent, the practicality of not seeking more than to escape the noose might not be enough for him. He might believe more deeply than at an intellectual level that truth would prevail. Would he insist on fighting, or would he be cautious, careful, willing to settle for the lesser prize?

  Perhaps he would. Monk would not. Hester wouldn’t even consider it. She would always fight for the best, the ultimate—win, lose, or draw—he had no doubt of it. But was she wise?

  More to the point, would she do that when giving medical treatment to someone unable to make their own decision, lacking the strength or the knowledge and depending upon her? No. He knew the answer without even considering. She would not take the risk with someone else’s life.

  But she would cut off a gangrened limb rather than let the patient’s whole body become infected and die.

  “Oliver!” Ballinger said sharply.

  “I think you should find another way of clearing yourself. Perhaps do all you can to help Monk, or anyone else, to prove who it was and bring them to trial. It will be slower, but—”

  “No,” Ballinger said firmly. “I will do it now. I won’t subject my family to this horror any longer. And for God’s sake, you can’t expect me to leave my fate in the hands of William Monk!”

  “But—”

  “Are you refusing to take my instructions, Oliver?”

  “No. I am advising you, but in the end I will do as you wish.” He felt like a coward saying it, as if in some oblique way he had betrayed Ballinger, but he had no choice.

  They spoke only a little longer, and he left. Outside, a fine rain soaked him thoroughly before he was able to get a hansom, and it perfectly suited his mood.

  He was unable to let the matter go. He went straight to Portpool Lane, to the clinic, on the chance that—in spite of the fact that it was Saturday—Hester might be there. He might learn more about exactly what had happened to Hattie Benson. He felt guilty as he walked in through the familiar, shabby entrance. One of the girls who had seen him before greeted him cheerfully.

  He was guilty because he wished to see Hester, even if she was abrasive, unsympathetic, or told him things he would prefer not to know. There was something clean, even astringent, about her beliefs. He could not remember a time in all their friendship when she had tried to manipulate him. Heaven knows there had been some uncomfortable times, some quarrels, many differences of opinion. He had thought her outrageous, and he had said so. She had thought him pompous, and had said that too. But they had been honest, not only in word but in intent. Just at the moment, he would welcome that.

  He realized, as he spoke to Squeaky Robinson—who lived here and so was always around—that he also felt a different guilt. This one was edged with acute discomfort; he was afraid of what he might learn here.

  “Upstairs,” Squeaky said, pointing a finger over his shoulder. “Can’t leave it alone. Should be at home, that one. But the boy’s off with Monk, boating or some such.”

  “Thank you,” Rathbone said quickly, and walked on past him before he could be ensnared in conversation. He went up the stairs two at a time, in spite of their narrowness. He knew every turn and creak, every unevenness, and did not miss his step.

  He found Hester making beds in one of the larger rooms, which was unoccupied. She heard the creak of the door as he pushed it wider, and turned to see him, surprise widening her eyes.

  “Oliver?” She dropped the sheet, and it fell on the bed in white folds, and he smelled the pleasant cleanliness of fresh cotton. “Is something wrong?” She looked at him more closely. �
��What is it?”

  There was no point in trying to approach it obliquely, with her, of all people. “I need to know more about how Hattie Benson left here, and anything else you can tell me about her.”

  She studied his face. “Why?”

  That was the one response he had not foreseen. “What do you mean, why? She was going to testify. Then she left here and was found later that day floating in the river. She was unquestionably murdered, and almost as certainly by whoever murdered Parfitt. You know all this.”

  “If I knew who killed her, Oliver, I would say so, whoever it was,” she replied. “I have the confidences of no one, and no loyalties other than to pursue the truth. I had a duty to protect her, and I failed. I have no duty to protect whoever killed her. You might have.” She did not fill in the rest of the thought; it was unnecessary.

  It made him hesitate for a moment. “I … I believe the only way I can best serve my client is by knowing as much of the truth as I can,” he said slowly. “You may find it hard to believe it was Rupert Cardew who killed her, but if it was—and it is possible—it would not only gain an acquittal for Arthur Ballinger, but it would restore his reputation, without which he is ruined.” He hesitated again, seeking a way of saying what he had to more gently. There was none. “And I appreciate that an acquittal for Ballinger means that Monk was wrong, and you cannot separate your emotions from that. I wouldn’t ask you to.”

  “It’s loyalties again,” she said with a twist of irony in her smile. “Yours is to Ballinger, because he is Margaret’s father. Mine is against him, because that would make William wrong. But it’s hardly the same depth of importance, is it?” It was not a question so much as a reproof. “Do you think I would see an innocent man hanged rather than have my husband shown up in a mistake? What would that make me? Or him?”

  “Nor would I see a guilty man go free because he is my father-in-law,” he responded.

  “He is your client,” she corrected him. “That binds you to give him the best defense you can, unless you actually know that he is guilty. Then you would have a problem with which I could not help you. But you don’t know that, or you wouldn’t be here asking me about Hattie.”

  “Don’t chop logic with me, Hester,” he pleaded. “You don’t know who is guilty either, or you would have told Monk and it would be all finished, except for the sentencing.”

  A sudden, deep compassion filled her face. He did not immediately understand it. Then he realized what his own words had been—“all finished, except for the sentencing,” not “except for the trial.” Some part of him feared that Ballinger was guilty, and she had seen that.

  “I have to know, Hester,” he said, his throat dry. “He wants to testify. I need to know what to prepare for. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Oh.” There was a finality in her voice, an intensity of emotion that made him suddenly afraid.

  “What is it?” he said. “You know how she went. You would have insisted on finding out. Tell me.”

  Her face was pale, her eyes terribly, blazingly direct. He knew that whatever the truth was, it was going to hurt one of them. The only question was which one, and how much.

  “Margaret took her to the door,” Hester said quietly. “There she met another woman, who was well spoken and wore ordinary clothes, at least an ordinary shawl, but had excellent-quality and most unusual leather gloves, hand-tooled with a little design above the wrist.”

  Rathbone felt as if he had been punched. The shock left him without breath. “It can’t be,” he said after a moment regaining his voice. “You must be wrong. Who said Margaret took her to the door? Someone is lying.”

  “It was Margaret herself, Oliver. She doesn’t deny it. She was afraid Rupert Cardew had paid Hattie to lie for him, and she wanted to prevent her from doing that.”

  He shook his head, refusing to believe it. “But Hattie was strangled and put in the river!” He was almost shouting. “You can’t imagine that Margaret had any hand in that. It isn’t possible.”

  Hester touched him, just gently, a hand on his arm. He could feel the slight warmth of her through the fabric of his jacket. “Of course I don’t think she had any willing or knowing part in it,” she agreed. “She took Hattie to the door and persuaded her to leave. Someone else met her there. I would guess it was Gwen, but I can’t be certain. That second woman took her to a house in Avonhill Street in Fulham, less than a mile from Chiswick.”

  “Somewhere she would be safe,” he said quickly. “She must have left it herself, and run into one of Parfitt’s men. Margaret couldn’t know that would happen.”

  “Of course not,” Hester agreed, but there was no light in her face, no relief from the sadness. “And the landlady said a man was with her. He called himself Cardew.”

  “And you weren’t going to tell me?” he said incredulously. “You just said you have no duty of loyalty to anyone, only to the truth.” That was definitely an accusation. It was hard to believe Hester, of all people, to be such a hypocrite. And she hadn’t had to tell him of her loyalties: she had just proved where they lay by keeping the information about Cardew quiet. He felt more deeply betrayed than he had thought possible. He realized with a jolt of surprise how profoundly he had still cared for Hester, perhaps idealized her. It brought a sting to his eyes and his throat. Too much that he loved was melting under his hand, and slipping away.

  “Do you really believe that Margaret and Gwen were working in cooperation with Rupert Cardew to murder the one witness who could have saved him, and thus condemned their father?” she asked.

  “No, of course not! They …” He stopped.

  “Yes? They what?” She waited.

  “Perhaps she wasn’t going to save him?” he replied. “Maybe Cardew paid her to lie, and she wouldn’t go through with it. He realized that, and that’s why he killed her.”

  “With Margaret’s help?” Hester’s eyebrows rose in disbelief, but there was no triumph in her face. “And Gwen’s? Can you imagine what Winchester will make of that idea on the stand?”

  She was right. It was unbelievable.

  “Did you really want to know that, Oliver?” Her voice broke into his nightmare. “If you did, then I apologize for not telling you. I made a wrong judgment, and I’m sorry. I know that you have to act honestly. I thought it would be impossible for you if you knew that.”

  He felt dizzy, as though the room were whirling around him. She was right—of course she was right. But he did know now. The terrible thing was that he could believe it. He remembered Margaret’s face as she looked at her father. She obeyed him without thought, without judgment. He was part of the life she had always known, the fabric of her beliefs, the order in everything.

  That was natural. Perhaps Henry Rathbone was the cornerstone of Rathbone’s own life. He could not think of any values, any thought or idea that they had not shared with each other over the years. Their trust was so deep, it had never needed expressing. It was as sure as sunrise; it was the safety that reassured all other doubts, so he never feared an endless fall.

  “Oliver?”

  He heard her voice, but it was a moment before he could recall himself to the present, the small room in the clinic, the bed with the clean sheet on it, and Hester looking at him.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked anxiously.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I suppose you are certain of all this?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was gentle. “Margaret told me herself, when I faced her with it. She didn’t evade it. She didn’t say it was Gwen, though. That I deduced by going out and asking people in the streets. I found a peddler who saw Hattie with another woman, and described her. I found the hansom they took to Fulham, right to the house. I took the same cab to the same house, and spoke to the woman who owns it. There might be one chance in a hundred that I’m wrong. It was another woman who looked just like Hattie, at the same time on the same day. And another Mr. Cardew rented the place for her. And our Hattie turned up de
ad later that day, in the river just a mile away.”

  “One chance in a hundred?” he said bitterly. “Perhaps in a million.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Did this landlady see Cardew’s face?” It was a desperate last throw. Rathbone knew how he sounded even asking.

  “No. He stood well back in the shadows, and he had a heavy coat on, and a hat. He could have been anyone.”

  He could think of nothing to say, nothing that eased the increasing pain inside him.

  “Thank you … I …”

  Hester shook her head. “I know. Winchester won’t call me, and you shouldn’t. I can’t testify to anything firsthand. Do whatever you feel is the right thing.”

  “The right thing!” The words escaped with a wild bitterness. “For God’s sake, what is that?”

  “Do you believe Ballinger is guilty?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I suppose I fear it. It will be a kind of hell if he is.” He meant it: he was not exaggerating the horror he saw in his own imagination.

  She looked at him steadily. “Would you have Rupert Cardew hanged to save him, because he is your family and Rupert isn’t? If you would, Oliver, then what is the law worth? What if Lord Cardew felt the same way, and would have anyone else hanged, guilty or innocent, as long as his own son didn’t have to face himself and his deeds? Would you accept that? Is that really what you believe—one law for your family, another for anyone else?”

  “What about loyalty, what about love?” he asked.

  “What have you left to give, if you have already given away yourself?”

  “Hester …”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t always like it, but I can’t believe anything different. It doesn’t mean you stop loving. If you could care only for those who are good all the time, we would none of us be loved. I’m sorry.”