by Anne Perry
He called Dr. Riley, who spoke quietly and in surprisingly simple language of Leighton Duff’s terrible wounds and the death he must have suffered.
“And the accused?” Goode asked, standing in the middle of the floor like a great crow, his arms dangling in his gown. His aquiline face with its pale eyes reflected vividly the horror and the sense of tragedy he felt unmistakably deeply.
Hester had liked him ever since first meeting him in the Stonefield case. Staring around the courtroom, more to judge the emotion of the crowd than to note who was present, she was lent a moment’s real happiness to see Enid Ravensbrook, her face smoothed of its earlier suffering, her eyes gentle and bright as she watched Goode, a smile on her lips. Hester looked more closely, and saw there was a gold wedding band on her hand, not the one she had worn earlier, but a new one. For an instant Hester forgot the present ache of fear and tragedy.
But it was brief. Reality returned with Riley’s answer.
“He was also very severely injured,” he said quietly.
There was barely a sound in the room. There were faint rustles, tiny movements, a sigh of breath. The jurors never took their eyes from the proceedings.
“A great deal of blood?” Goode pressed.
Riley hesitated.
No one moved.
“No …” he said at last. “When a person is kicked and punched there are terrible bruises, but the skin is not necessarily broken. There was some blood, especially where his ribs were cracked. One had pierced the skin. And on his back. There the flesh had been ripped.”
There was a gasp of indrawn breath in the room. Several of the jurors looked very white.
“But Sergeant Evan said that the accused’s clothes were soaked in blood, Dr. Riley,” Goode pointed out. “Where did that come from, if not from his injuries?”
“I assume from the dead man,” Riley replied. “His wounds were more severe, and there were several places where the skin was broken. But I am surprised he bled so badly.”
“And there were no wounds on the accused to account for such blood?” Riley pressed.
“No, there were not.”
“Thank you, Dr. Riley.”
Rathbone rose. It was a forlorn hope, but he had nothing else. He must try anything, no matter how remote. He had no idea what Monk would produce, and there were always the possibilities that involved Arthur and Duke Kynaston.
“Dr. Riley, have you any way of knowing whose blood it was on Rhys Duff’s clothes?”
“No, sir,” Riley answered without the least resentment. The smooth expression of his face suggested he had no conviction in the matter himself, only a sadness that the whole event should have happened at all.
“So it could belong to a third, or even a fourth, person, whom we have not yet mentioned?”
“It could … were there such a person.”
The jury looked bemused.
The judge watched Rathbone anxiously, but he did not intervene.
“Thank you.” Rathbone nodded. “That is all I have to ask you, sir.”
Goode called Corriden Wade, who reluctantly, pale-faced, his voice barely audible, admitted that Rhys’s injuries could not have produced the blood described on his clothes. Not once did he look up to the dock, where Rhys sat motionless, his face twisted in an unreadable expression, a mixture of helpless bitterness and blazing anger. Nor did Wade appear to look towards the gallery, where Sylvestra sat next to Eglantyne, both of them watching him intently. He kept his eyes undeviatingly on Goode, confirming that the events of the night of Rhys’s father’s death had rendered Rhys incapable of communication, either by speech or by writing. He was able only to nod or shake his head. Wade expressed the deepest concern for Rhys’s well-being and would not commit himself to any certainty that he would recover.
Goode hesitated, as if to ask him further as to his knowledge of Rhys’s personality, but after the vaguest of beginnings, he changed his mind. There was nothing for him to prove but the facts, and to explore the growth of motive only opened the way for Rathbone to suggest insanity. Goode thanked Wade and returned to his seat.
Rathbone took his place. He knew Wade was as sympathetic a witness as he would get, apart from Hester, whom he could find no excuse to call. And yet he had nothing to ask Wade which would not do more harm than good. He needed something from Monk as desperately as he ever had, and he did not even know what to hope for, let alone to seek or to suggest. He stood in the middle of the floor feeling alone and ridiculous. The jury was waiting for him to say something, to begin to fight back. He had done nothing so far except make a gesture about the blood, one which he knew no one believed.
Should he ask Wade about the deterioration of Rhys’s character, and lay grounds for a plea of insanity … at least in mitigation? He thought that was what Sylvestra wanted. It was the only defense which was comprehensible for such an act.
But it was not a defense in law, not for Rhys. He might be evil, acting from a different set of moral beliefs from anyone else in this crowded room, but he was not insane in the sense that he did not understand either the law or the nature of his acts. There was nothing whatever to suggest he suffered delusions.
“Thank you, Dr. Wade,” Rathbone said with confidence he was far from feeling. “I believe you have known Rhys most of his life, is that correct?”
“I have,” Wade replied.
“And been his physician, when he required one?”
“Yes.”
“Were you aware of there being a serious and violent disagreement with his father, and if so, over what subject?”
It was a question which Wade would find extremely difficult to answer in the affirmative. If he admitted it, it would seem incompetent that he had not done anything to forestall this tragedy. It would seem like wisdom after the event, and Sylvestra would see it as a betrayal, as indeed so might some of the jury.
“Dr. Wade?” Rathbone prompted.
Wade raised his head and stared at him resolutely.
“I was aware of a certain tension between them,” he answered, his voice stronger, full of regret. “I thought it the normal resentment a son might have for the discipline a father naturally exerts.” He bit his lip and drew in a deep breath. “I had no idea whatever it would end like this. I blame myself. I should have been more aware. I have had a great deal of experience with men of all ages, and under extreme pressure, during my service in the navy.” A ghost of a smile touched his mouth and then vanished. “I suppose closer to home, in people for whom one has affection, one is loath to recognize such things.”
It was a clever answer, honest and yet without committing himself. And it earned the jury’s respect. Rathbone could see it in their faces. He would have been wiser not to have asked, but it was too late now.
“You did not foresee it?” he repeated.
“No,” Wade said quietly, looking down. “I did not, God forgive me.”
Rathbone hesitated on the brink of asking him if he thought Rhys insane, and decided against it. No answer, either way, could help enough to be worth the risk.
“Thank you, Dr. Wade. That is all.”
Goode had already established the violence of the fight and the fact that Leighton Duff and Rhys had been involved, and there was no reason to suspect anyone else’s being there. He called the Duff household servants, deeply against their will, and obliged them to testify to the quarrel the evening of Leighton Duff’s death and to the time both men had left the house. At least he spared Sylvestra the distress of testifying.
All the time Rhys sat propped up in the dock, his skin ashen pale, his eyes seeming enormous in his haggard face, a prison warder on either side of him, perhaps more to support than to restrain him. He did not look capable of offering any resistance, let alone an attempt to escape.
Rathbone forced himself to put the thought of his client out of his mind. He must use intelligence rather than emotion. Let anyone else feel all the compassion they could, his brain must be clear.
The
re seemed no way of casting the slightest doubt, reasonable or unreasonable, on Rhys’s physical guilt, and he was struggling without a glimmer of hope to think of any mitigation.
Where was Monk?
He dared not look at Hester. He could imagine too clearly the panic she must be feeling.
Through the afternoon and the next day Goode brought on a troop of witnesses who placed Rhys in St. Giles over a period of months. Not one of them could be cast doubt upon. Rathbone had to stand by and watch. There was no argument to make.
The judge adjourned the court early. It seemed as if there was little left to do but sum up the case. Goode had proved every assertion he had made. There was no alternative to offer, except that Rhys had been whoring in St. Giles and his father had confronted him, they had quarreled and Rhys had killed him. Goode had avoided mentioning the rapes, but if Rathbone challenged him that the motive for murder was too slender to believe, then he would undoubtedly bring in the beaten women, still bearing their scars. He had said as much. It was only Rhys’s desperate condition which stayed his hand. Fortune had already punished him appallingly, and the conviction for murder would be sufficient to have him hanged. There was no need for more.
Rathbone left the courtroom feeling he had been defeated without offering even the semblance of a fight. He had done nothing for Rhys. He had not begun to fulfill the trust Hester and Sylvestra had placed in him. He was ashamed, and yet he could think of nothing to say which would do Rhys the slightest service.
Certainly he could harass witnesses or object to Goode’s questions, his tactics, his logic, or anything else; but it would serve no purpose except to give the effect of a defense. It would be a sham. He knew it; Hester would know it. Would it even be of comfort to Rhys? Or offer him false hope?
At least he should have the courage to go to Rhys now, and not escape, as he would so much rather.
When he reached Rhys, Hester was already there. She turned as she heard Rathbone’s step, her eyes desperate, pleading for some hope, any hope at all.
They sat together in the gray cell below the Old Bailey. Rhys was in physical pain, muscles clenched, broken hands shaking. He looked hopeless. Hester sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders.
Rathbone was at his wits’ end.
“Rhys,” he said tensely, “you have got to tell us what happened. I want to defend you, but I have nothing with which to do it.” His own muscles were knotted tight, his hands balled into fists of frustration. “I have no weapons. Did you kill him?”
Rhys shook his head, perhaps an inch in either direction, but the denial was clear.
“Someone else did?”
Again the tiny movement, but definitely a nod.
“Do you know who?”
A nod, a bitter smile, trembling-lipped.
“Has it anything to do with your mother?”
A very slight shrug of the shoulders, then a shake. No.
“An enemy of your father’s?”
Rhys turned away, jerking his head, his hands starting to bang on his thighs, jolting the splints.
Hester grabbed his wrists. “Stop it!” she said loudly. “You must tell us, Rhys. Don’t you understand? They will find you guilty if we cannot prove it was someone else, or at least that it could have been.”
He nodded slowly but would not face her.
There was nothing left but the violence of the truth.
“They will hang you,” Rathbone said deliberately.
Rhys’s throat moved as if he would say something, then he swung away from them again, and refused to look at them anymore.
Hester stared at Rathbone, her eyes filled with tears.
He stood still for a minute, then another. There was nothing to say or do. He sighed, then left. As he was walking along the passage he passed Corriden Wade going in. At least Wade might be able to offer some physical relief, or even a draft of some sort strong enough to give a few hours’ sleep.
Farther along he encountered Sylvestra, looking so distraught she seemed on the verge of collapse. At least she had Fidelis Kynaston with her.
Rathbone spent the evening alone in his rooms, unable to eat or even to sit at his fire. He paced the floor, his mind turning over one useless fact after another, when his butler came to announce that Monk was in the hall.
“Monk!” Rathbone grasped at the very name as if it had been a raft for a drowning man. “Monk! Bring him in … immediately!”
Monk looked tired and pale. His hair dripped and his face was shining wet.
“Well?” Rathbone demanded, finding himself gulping air, his hands stiff, a tingling in his arms. “What have you?”
“I don’t know,” Monk answered bleakly. “I have no idea whether it makes things better or even worse. Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in Seven Dials, and then later in St. Giles.”
Rathbone was stunned. “What?” he said, his voice high with disbelief. It was preposterous, totally absurd. He must have misunderstood. “What did you say?”
“Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in both areas,” Monk repeated. “I have several people who will identify him, in particular a cabby who saw him in St. Giles on the night before Christmas Eve with blood on his hands and face, just after, one of the worst rapes. And Rhys was in Lowndes Square at a quiet evening with Mrs. Kynaston, Arthur Kynaston and Lady Sandon and her son.”
Rathbone felt a sense of shock so great the room seemed to sway around him.
“You are sure?” he said, and the instant the words were off his tongue he knew how foolish they were. It was plain in Monk’s face. Anyway, he would not have come with such news were he not certain beyond any doubt at all.
Monk did not bother to answer. He sat down uninvited, close to the fire. He was still shivering and he looked exhausted.
“I don’t know what it means,” he continued, staring past Rathbone at the empty chair opposite him, but mostly at something he could see within his own mind. “Perhaps Rhys was not involved in that rape, but he was in some or all of the others,” he said. “Perhaps not. Certainly Leighton Duff did not follow his son in any sense of outrage or horror at what he had done, and then in righteous indignation confront him with it.” He turned to Rathbone, who was still standing on the same spot. “I’m sorry. All it means is that we have misunderstood the motive. It doesn’t prove anything else. I don’t know what you want to make of it. How is the trial going?”
“Appallingly,” Rathbone replied, at last moving to the other chair and sitting down stiffly. “I have nothing to fight with. I suppose this will at least provide ammunition with which to open up the whole issue as to what happened. It will raise doubts. It will certainly prolong the trial.…” He smiled bitterly. “It will shake Ebenezer Goode!” A well of horror opened up inside him. “It will shatter Mrs. Duff.”
“Yes, I know that,” Monk replied very quietly. “But it is the truth, and if you allow Rhys to be hanged for something of which he is not guilty, none of us can then undo that, or call him back from the gallows and the grave. There is a certain kind of freedom in the truth, whatever it is. At least your decisions are founded on reality. You can learn to live with them.”
Rathbone looked at him closely. There was at once pain and the beginning of a kind of peace in Monk’s face which he had not seen before. Monk’s weariness held within it the possibility of rest.
“Yes,” Rathbone agreed. “Thank you, Monk. You had better give me the names of these people, and all the details … and, of course, your account. You have done very well.” Deliberately, he blocked from his mind the thought of having to tell Hester what he now knew. It was sufficient for the night that he should work out his strategy for Rhys.
Rathbone worked until six in the morning, and after two hours’ sleep, a hot bath and breakfast, he faced the courtroom again. There was no air of expectation. There were even some empty seats in the spectators’ gallery. The trial had degenerated from high drama into simple tragedy. It was not interesting anymore.
&nb
sp; Rathbone had had messengers out all night. Monk was in court.
In the dock, Rhys looked white and ill. He was obviously in physical pain as well as mental turmoil, although there was now an air of despair about him which made Rathbone believe he no longer hoped for anything except an end to his ordeal.
Sylvestra sat like a woman in a nightmare, unable to move or speak. Beside her on one side was Fidelis Kynaston, on the other Eglantyne Wade. Rathbone was pleased she would not be alone, and yet possibly having to hear the things she was going to in the company of friends would be harder. One might wish to absorb such shock in the privacy of solitude, where one could weep unobserved.
Yet everyone would know. It was not as if she could cover it, as one can some family secrets. Perhaps better she heard it in court than whispered, distorted by telling and retelling. Either way, Rathbone had no choice in the matter. He had not told Sylvestra what he expected to uncover that day. She was not his client, Rhys was. Anyway, he had had no time, no opportunity to explain to her what it was he knew, and he could not foresee what his witnesses would testify; he simply had nothing to lose on Rhys’s behalf.
“Sir Oliver?” the judge prompted.
“My lord,” Rathbone acknowledged. “The defense calls Mrs. Vida Hopgood.”
The judge looked surprised, but he made no remark. There was a slight stir of movement in the crowd.
Vida took the stand looking nervous, her chin high, her shoulders squared, her magnificent hair half hidden under her hat.
Rathbone began immediately. He was hideously unsure of her, but he had had no time to prepare. He was fighting for survival and there was nothing else.
“Mrs. Hopgood, what is your husband’s occupation?”
“ ’E ’as a fact’ry,” she replied carefully. “Wot makes shirts an’ the like.”
“And he employs women to sew these shirts … and the like?” Rathbone asked.
In the gallery someone tittered. It was nervousness. They could not be any more highly strung than he was.