Slaves of Obsession wm-11

by Anne Perry

  It was a difficult night. The tension made sleep difficult, in spite of exhaustion. Monk had been up and down the river all day, and intended to resume the day after as well, determined to find something. Hester did not ask him for an account of progress; she needed to keep hope alive, for Judith’s sake.

  On Friday Rathbone called Lyman Breeland to the stand. This was the most dangerous gamble of the whole defense, but he had no choice. Not to have called Breeland would have demonstrated his fears, not only to Deverill but more important, to the jury. Deverill would have made the most of it in his summing up.

  Above all Rathbone would have liked to separate Merrit from Breeland in the jurors’ minds, even in the legal charge, but that was morally impossible. He had already done too much with the watch. He had undertaken to defend Breeland, and he must do so to the very best of his ability.

  Standing in the witness-box with shoulders squared and chin high, Breeland swore that he would tell the truth, and gave his name and his rank in the Union army.

  Rathbone drew from him the bare facts of his journey to England and the reason for it. He did not ask him why he was prepared to go to such lengths in his cause; he knew Breeland would tell them anyway, spontaneously and with a passion that would ring through whether they wanted to believe him or not.

  “And you presented yourself to Daniel Alberton in the hope of purchasing the guns you needed?” Rathbone asked, meeting Breeland’s eyes and willing him to keep his answers brief. That they might also be respectful was beyond his hope, in spite of his efforts to convince Breeland that antagonizing everyone now might cost him his life, the balance was so fine. Breeland had replied simply that he was innocent and that should be enough.

  Rathbone had dealt with martyrs before. They were exhausting, and seldom open to reason. They had a single view of the world and did not listen to what they did not wish to hear. In some ways their dedication was admirable. Perhaps it was the only way to accomplish certain goals, noble ones, but it left a trail of wreckage behind. Rathbone had no intention that Merrit Alberton should be part of Breeland’s destruction.

  Breeland agreed with unexpected brevity that he had indeed gone to see Alberton in hope of purchasing guns, and when he had met with resistance and learned that the reason for it was a commitment to Philo Trace, he had done all in his power to change Alberton’s mind by convincing him of the Union’s morally superior cause.

  “And during this time you made the acquaintance of Miss Merrit Alberton?”

  “Yes,” Breeland agreed, a flicker of warmth at last lighting his face. “She is a person of the deepest compassion and honor. She understood the Union cause and espoused it herself immediately.”

  Rathbone would have wished he had phrased it in more romantic terms, but it was better than he had foreseen. He must be careful not to lead Breeland so his emotions seemed coached.

  “You found you had in common the most important values and beliefs?”

  “Yes. My admiration for her was greater than I had expected to feel for any woman so young and so unacquainted with the actuality of slavery and its evils. She has an extraordinary gift for compassion.” His face softened as he said it and for the first time there was something like a smile on his lips.

  Rathbone breathed a sigh of relief. The jurors’ expressions relaxed. At last they saw the human man, the man in love, with whom they could identify, not the fanatic.

  He did not look at Merrit, but he could imagine her eyes, her face.

  “But in spite of all both you and Miss Alberton could do to change his mind,” he continued, “Mr. Alberton did not agree to go back on his word to Mr. Trace, and sell you the guns instead. Why did you not simply go to another supplier?”

  “Because he had the finest modern guns available immediately, and in quantity. I could not afford to wait.”

  “I see. And what plans did you make as a result of this, Mr. Breeland?”

  Breeland sounded slightly surprised.

  “None. I confess, I was very angry with his blindness. He seemed incapable of seeing that there was a far greater issue at stake than one man’s business reputation.” The hard edge had returned to his voice and he directed his attention entirely towards Rathbone. Merrit seemed to have gone from his mind. He leaned a little forward over the rail of the witness-box. “He could see nothing but the narrow view, his own word and what Philo Trace thought of him. He was a man without vision. No matter what I told him of the evils of slavery.” He waved his hand in a small dismissive gesture. “And all your gentlemen here have no idea what a cancer of the human soul it is when you have seen human beings treated with less dignity than a good man treats his cattle.” His voice rang with the fire of his anger; his face burned with it. Rathbone could easily see why Merrit had fallen in love with him. What was less easy to see was what tenderness or patience he could give her in return, what laughter or tolerance or simple joy in daily life, what gratitude for little things-above all, perhaps, what forgiveness for failing and understanding of its needs. He had no compassion for weakness.

  But Rathbone was in his middle forties; Merrit was sixteen. Perhaps she had years ahead before she would come to realize the value of such things. Now Breeland was a hero, and heroes were what she wanted. She knew his vulnerabilities and loved him the more for them. She did not see his limitations.

  “We have heard that you quarreled with Mr. Alberton on the night of his death, and on leaving his house you told him that you would win in the end, regardless of what he might do. What did you mean, Mr. Breeland?”

  “Why, that the Union cause was just and in the end would prevail against any ignorance or self-interest,” Breeland replied clearly, as if the answer should have been obvious. “It was not a threat, simply a statement of the truth. I did not harm Mr. Alberton, as God is my judge!”

  Rathbone kept his voice calm, almost matter-of-fact, as if he had barely heard Breeland’s denial or the passion in him.

  “Where did you go after you left Mr. Alberton’s house?”

  “Back to my rooms.”

  “Alone?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you make any agreement with Miss Alberton that she would follow you?”

  Breeland opened his mouth to respond instinctively, then changed his mind. Perhaps Breeland remembered Rathbone’s warnings about the sympathies of the jury. “No,” he said gravely. “I had no wish to come between Miss Alberton and her family. My intentions towards her were always honorable.”

  Rathbone knew that he was on dangerous ground, full of pitfalls. He wished he could have avoided asking at all, but the omission would be so glaring it would have done more harm.

  “You went to your rooms. Mr. Breeland, had you, for any reason, taken back from Miss Alberton the watch you gave her as a keepsake?”

  Breeland did not hesitate. “No.” His gaze was unflinching.

  Rathbone had not meant to look at the jury, but in spite of himself he did. He saw the coldness in their faces. They believed Breeland, but they did not like him for it. In some subtle way he had enlarged a gulf between himself and Merrit. Her loyalty was to him; his was to his cause. It was not what he had said which jarred; it was the manner in which he said it, and perhaps it was also what he did not say.

  “Have you any idea how the watch came to be in Tooley Street?” Rathbone asked.

  “None at all,” Breeland responded. “Except that it was not dropped by either Miss Alberton or myself. She arrived at my apartments at about half-past nine, and remained there with me until we both left a little before midnight, when the note came from Shearer that Mr. Alberton had changed his mind and was willing to sell the guns to the Union after all. Then we left together and went to the Euston Square station, and from there to Liverpool.” He summed up the entire story in a few sentences, leaving Rathbone less to draw from him than he had intended, but it was spontaneous and spoken with such force that perhaps it was better than a carefully guided response would have been.


  “Were you surprised by the note from Shearer?” Rathbone began, then was aware of Deverill rising to his feet. “I apologize, my lord,” he said quickly. “The note that purported to come from Shearer?”

  “I was amazed,” Breeland conceded.

  “But you did not doubt it?”

  “No. I knew the justice of my cause. I believed that Alberton had at last realized it himself, and that the issue of freedom from slavery was far greater than the business dealings, or the reputation for honor, of any one man. I admired him for it.”

  There was total silence in the room. Rathbone felt as if a kind of darkness had descended over him. He drew in his breath with difficulty. Breeland had in a few moments laid bare his philosophy and shown them an indifference to the individual which was like a breath of ice, a road whose end could not be known.

  Rathbone looked at the jury and saw that they did not yet perceive the fullness of what Breeland had said, but Deverill did. Victory was in his eyes.

  Rathbone heard his voice in the high-ceilinged room as if it were someone else’s, echoing strangely. He must continue, play it out to the very last word.

  “Did you show the note to Miss Alberton?”

  “No. I had no reason to. It was important to pack up my few belongings and leave as quickly as possible. He had allowed us very little time to get to the Euston Square station.” Breeland was quite unaware of there having been any change. Nothing was altered in him, not the set of his shoulders, his hands gripping the rail, the confidence in his voice. “I told her what it said, and she was overjoyed … naturally.”

  “Yes … naturally,” Rathbone repeated. Detail by detail he took Breeland through the ride to the station, a description of the place, of the guards, of Shearer himself, of the train and all the passengers in the carriage they shared. It coincided with Merrit’s description so honestly he began for a moment to feel hope again. All the events and people were recognizable as the same she had seen, and yet with a sufficiently different perception, a different use of words, that it was clear they were not copied from each other, or rehearsed.

  He even noticed a couple of jurors nodding, candor in their expressions, acceptance. Perhaps they too had made the journey from Euston to Liverpool and knew the truth of what Breeland was saying.

  In the afternoon he took him more briefly through the voyage across the Atlantic and his short stay in America.

  Deverill interrupted to ask if any of this was relevant.

  “I do not doubt, my lord, that Mr. Breeland bought the guns for the Union army, or that he believes unequivocally in its cause. It is not difficult to see why any man might wish to abolish slavery in his own land, or any other. Nor do we doubt that he fought at Manassas, probably bravely, as did many others.” He lowered his voice. “That he would pay any price whatever for Union victory is only too tragically clear. That he should sacrifice others to it is the substance of our charge.”

  “It is not my aim to prove that,” Rathbone argued, knowing he was telling less than the truth, and that Deverill knew it also. “I wished to show that his treatment of Miss Alberton was always honorable and quite open, even when Monk and Trace were in Washington, because he knew he was innocent of any crime and had no cause to fear them.”

  Deverill smiled. “I apologize. You were so far from it I had not realized that was your aim. Please continue.”

  Rathbone was foundering, and they both knew it. But he could not now retreat. He took Breeland through his confrontation on the battlefield with Monk and Trace, and his acceptance of returning to England.

  “You offered no resistance?”

  “No. Many men can fight the physical battle in America,” Breeland answered. “Only I can answer here for my actions, and fight the moral cause by persuading you here in England that our cause is just and our behavior honorable. I bought guns openly and paid a fair price for them. The only person I deceived was Philo Trace, and that is the fortune of war. He would expect it of me, as I would of him. We are enemies, even if we treat each other politely if we chance to meet in London. We are not barbarians.”

  He cleared his throat. “I am not afraid to answer for my acts before a court of law, and I wish you to think of my people as the just and brave men they are.” He lifted his chin slightly, staring straight ahead of him. “The time will come when you will have to choose between the Union and the Confederacy. This war will not cease until one side has destroyed the other. I will give everything I have, my life, my freedom if necessary, to ensure that it is the Union that wins.”

  Rathbone looked up at Merrit and saw the flash of pride in her face, and that it cost her an effort. He thought he also saw a deepening shadow of loneliness.

  There was a very slight murmur of applause from somewhere in the back of the court, instantly hushed.

  Deverill’s smile widened, but there was also a flicker of uncertainty in it. He wanted the jury to think he was confident, perhaps that he perceived something they did not. It was a game of bluff and double bluff.

  Rathbone could play it too. At the moment it was all he had.

  “I cannot imagine that there is any man here who does not share your sentiments,” he said very clearly. “It is not our war, and we grieve for your country, and we hope profoundly that some better solution may be found than the slaughter of armies and the ruin of the land. We have no desire to take the freedom of an innocent man who is serving his people in such a cause.” He bowed very slightly, as if the battle against slavery were the question at issue.

  His achievement was short-lived. Deverill rose to cross-examine Breeland, swaggering very slightly into the center of the floor. He began with a broad, dramatic gesture.

  “Mr. Breeland, you speak with great passion about the Union cause. No one here could mistake your dedication to it. Would it be true to say you hold it dearer to you than anything else?”

  Breeland faced him squarely, with pride. “Yes, it would.”

  Deverill considered for a moment. “I believe you, sir. I am not sure I could be so wholehearted myself.…”

  Rathbone knew what was coming next. He even considered interrupting, diverting the jury for a few moments by pointing out that what Deverill had said was hardly a question, and not relevant to the case. But it would be delaying the inevitable. It would emphasize the fact that he had not wished Breeland to answer. He remained in his seat.

  “I think …” Deverill resumed, turning sideways to look up at Merrit. “I think that rather than declare the justice of my cause, and my own innocence, I should have been tempted to protest my love for a young woman who had given up everything-home, family, safety, even her own country-to follow me into a foreign land, at war with itself … and to expend my energy in doing all I could to see that she did not hang for my crimes, at the age of sixteen … barely yet a woman, on the verge of her life.…”

  The effect was devastating. Breeland blushed crimson. One could only guess what anger and shame consumed him.

  Merrit was white with misery. Perhaps never in her life again would she face such a terrible understanding, or humiliation.

  Judith bent her head slowly, as if a weight had become too much to endure.

  Philo Trace’s lips were twisted with a pity he could not reach across and express.

  Casbolt also stared at Judith.

  The jurors were torn as to whether they would look at Merrit or not. Some wished to grant her privacy by averting their gaze, as if they had unintentionally intruded upon someone caught naked in an intimate act. Others glared at Breeland in undisguised contempt. Two looked up at Merrit with profound compassion. Perhaps they had daughters her age themselves. There was no condemnation in their faces.

  Rathbone forced himself to remember that he was charged equally to defend Breeland and Merrit. He could not take advantage of this, and let Breeland hang to accomplish Merrit’s acquittal, but at that moment he wished he could.

  Deverill did not need to add more. Whatever the facts, and those he could
not shake, he had stifled any possible act of mercy. The jury would want to convict Breeland, not for the murders, but because he did not love.

  While Rathbone was struggling in the courtroom, Monk was trying to trace Shearer’s actions on the night of Alberton’s death and for the few days before. The only way to clear Breeland of the charge would be to prove that he had not conspired with Shearer. The times of the quarrel at Alberton’s home, the delivery of the note to Breeland’s rooms, and his arrival at the Euston Square station all made it impossible for him to have been at Tooley Street, but they did not prove that he had not either deliberately corrupted Shearer into committing the murders or at the least conspired with him and taken advantage of it.

  He began at Tooley Street again, with the surviving warehousemen. It was a dusty, warm day with scurries of wind making little eddies over the cobbles.

  “When did you last see Shearer?” Monk asked the man with the sandy hair to whom he had spoken before.

  The man’s face creased in concentration. “Not rightly sure. ’E was ’ere two days afore that. Tryin’ ter ’member if ’e was ’ere that day. Don’t think so. In fact I’m certain, ’cos we ’ad a nice load o’ teak in, an’ it weren’t anything as ’e ’ad ter be ’ere for. Dunno w’ere ’e was, but Joe might know. I’ll ask ’im.” And he left Monk standing in the sun while he did so.

  “At Seven Sisters, ’e was,” he said on his return. “Went up ter see a feller abaht oak. Can’t see as it’s got anything ter do wi’ guns.”

  Neither could Monk, but he intended to follow every movement of Shearer regardless. “Do you know the name of the company in Seven Sisters?”

  “Bratby an’ summink, I think,” Bert replied. “Big firm, ’e said. On the ’Igh Street, or just off it. What does it ’ave ter do with poor Mr. Alberton’s death? Bratby’s deals in oak an’ marble an’ the like, not guns.”

  “I’d like to know where Shearer was from then onward,” Monk said frankly. There was no point being evasive. “He was at the Euston Square station to pass over the guns to Breeland at just after half-past midnight, and no one has seen him since, for certain.”