by Anne Perry
Now he wanted to protect her from Gavinton, and Warne had set her in the center of the target—damn him!
She took the oath in a steady voice and stood facing Warne, ready to begin.
Warne, dark, haggard, and clearly nervous, moved forward into the center of the floor. He cleared his throat.
“Mrs. Monk, Mr. Drew has told us that you attended a service at Mr. Taft’s Church. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Just once?”
“Yes.”
He cleared his throat again.
“Why did you go? And why did you not return a second or third time? Was the service not as you had expected? Or did something happen while you were there that offended you to the degree that you did not wish to go again?”
Hester looked puzzled. Clearly Warne had not told her what he planned to say. Perhaps there had been no time.
Rathbone was so tense he had to move his position a little, consciously clench his hands then loosen them. Was Warne going to use her vulnerability to save his case against Taft?
Why not? Rathbone had done it to save Jericho Phillips, of all people! How could he now self-righteously blame Warne?
The jury was tense, staring at Hester, a mixture of sympathy and apprehension in their faces.
Hester answered, her voice even. It was too calm to be natural. “I went because Josephine Raleigh is a friend of mine, and she told me of her father’s distress,” she said. “I understood her desperation acutely because my father also was cheated out of money and found himself in debt. He took his own life. I wanted to see if there was anything at all I could do to prevent that happening to Mr. Raleigh.”
Now there was movement in the court. One of the jurors put up his hand to ease his collar. Another’s face was pinched with grief, or perhaps it was pity. Debt was not so uncommon.
In the gallery a few people craned forward, turned to one another, sighed, or spoke a word or two.
“How did you intend to do that, Mrs. Monk?” Warne asked curiously.
Hester moved her shoulders very slightly. “I had no clear plan. I wanted to meet Mr. Taft and listen to him preach.”
“To what purpose?”
“To see if there was any chance he would release Mr. Raleigh from his commitment,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “Also to see if Mr. Taft asked me for money, and how he worded it, whether I felt pressured or not, whether he did it in front of others to embarrass me if I refused.”
Warne looked curious, but the tension still gripped his body and his hands.
“And did he do any of those things?” he asked.
She smiled bleakly. “I admit I did feel pressured—yes—and it was all carefully wrapped under the preaching of Christian duty: the safe and comfortable should give to the cold, hungry, and homeless. One cannot argue with that and then kneel to pray.”
“Did you give, Mrs. Monk?”
“To the ordinary collection, yes. I did not give more than that.” There was a faint, bitter smile touching her lips.
“And did anyone make you feel guilty?” Warne pressed.
There was not a sound in the gallery.
“Mr. Drew tried,” she answered. “But I told him all the money I could spare already went to my clinic in Portpool Lane. The women there are not only hungry, cold, and homeless, they are also sick.”
“Why did you not go back to the church, Mrs. Monk?”
“Because I already understood the pressure Mr. Raleigh, and others, must have felt,” she replied. “There is an art to making other people feel as if they should give what they can to those less fortunate. I am not good at it myself. I am far too direct. But I enlist the help of those who are good at it, in order to keep the clinic going. I know very well how it is done. Please heaven, we do not coerce anyone to give more than they can, so putting themselves into debt. We ask small amounts, and only from those who, as far as we can tell, have more than sufficient.”
Gavinton stood up, puzzled.
“My lord, I am afraid Mrs. Monk is all very righteous in her work, and in raising funds for it. Different people have their own ways of … of doing good.” He said it in such a way it sounded like some secret vice. “But what has it to do with whether Mr. Taft is guilty of fraud, or innocent?”
Rathbone turned to Warne. “This is a somewhat circuitous route to wherever you are going. A little more direct, if you please, Mr. Warne.”
Warne bowed, his face carefully expressionless; then he turned back to Hester.
“Mrs. Monk, what did you do as a result of your visit to Mr. Taft’s Church?”
“I went to see Mr. Robinson, who keeps the accounts for me at the clinic,” she answered, her voice low and a little hoarse. “I asked him if he knew of any way of determining if all the money raised by Mr. Taft actually went to the causes he claimed it did. Mr. Robinson told me that he would endeavor to find out, and then later gave me the results of his inquiries.”
Gavinton was on his feet again.
“My lord, the court is already aware of all this. Mr. Warne is wasting our time. We know who Mrs. Monk is, and something of her past interference in cases she believed deserving. I am sorry to embarrass her; no doubt she is a well-intentioned woman, but past cases have made it tragically evident that she is also undisciplined.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “She comes with incomplete evidence, interpreted by her emotions, no doubt out of compassion, but nevertheless, emotions are not evidence. You yourself are only too aware of this. Tactless as it may be of me to remind you, but when you were a prosecutor, my lord, you totally destroyed her on the stand. Your friendship for her did not prevent you from doing your duty, however repugnant to you.”
Rathbone waited for Warne to fight back and was met with silence. He felt the heat burn up his own face. What in hell was Warne doing? He had left Rathbone no choice.
“Mr. Gavinton is right, Mr. Warne,” he said between his teeth. “This seems to be both repetitive and irrelevant. If you have anything of use to ask Mrs. Monk, please do so. If not, then release her and prepare to present your closing argument.” The case was lost. Warne was not going to use the photograph. Perhaps in a way that was a relief. This attempt to humiliate Rathbone was Warne’s way of expressing his revulsion at the fact that he had been shown the photograph at all.
“Yes, my lord,” Warne said dutifully. “I shall come more immediately to the point. I apologize if I appeared to be … meandering.” He looked at Hester. “Mrs. Monk, my learned friend has made more than one reference to the unfortunate case of Jericho Phillips, in which you gave evidence that was less than sufficient for the jury to find him guilty. Mr. Gavinton seems to feel that it somehow detracts from the value of your testimony now. Mr. Drew has spoken at length of the moral and emotional”—he hesitated, looking for the right word—“fragility of the witnesses against Mr. Taft. He has as much as said that they are lightly balanced, prone to misunderstanding and exaggeration, and therefore not to be trusted. He has included you in that category. I feel it is only right that you should have the opportunity to give any testimony that would refute that, and restore your good name—and of course your reliability as a witness.”
Rathbone stiffened. What on earth was Warne trying to do? It was too late for this.
Hester said nothing. From her expression she had no idea what she could say or do that would matter now. She had been here a couple of times, but she probably knew from Josephine Raleigh, who had been here every day, that the case had already been lost. Reputations were destroyed beyond rebuilding.
Warne smiled at her, but it was sadly, as if he were apologizing for something.
“Mrs. Monk, I regret having to remind you of what can only be a painful memory for you, but much has been made of your failure to testify against Jericho Phillips with sufficient clarity of thought to secure his conviction. Sir Oliver Rathbone appeared for Phillips at that time and pretty well destroyed you on the stand.”
“I remember,” Hester sai
d a little huskily. She was very pale.
Rathbone racked his mind for anything he could say to stop this.
Gavinton sat with a slow smile spreading across his face, unctuous and satisfied.
“Why were you so … careless in your preparation to testify? Surely you wished Phillips to be found guilty?”
“Of course I did.” Her voice was charged with emotion now, and her shoulders were high and awkward.
There was nothing Rathbone could do to help her.
“I was careless,” she went on suddenly. “I was so certain he was guilty that—”
“Guilty of what, Mrs. Monk?” Warne interrupted her.
“Guilty of using children,” she said sharply. “Boys unwanted by their families, orphans or ones whose parents couldn’t look after them, all of them between five years and eleven or twelve years old. He imprisoned them on his riverboat and had the men who frequented the boat pose for pornographic photographs, which he later used to blackmail them—”
Warne held his hand up again to stop her.
“I find it highly unbelievable that anyone would allow themselves to be photographed if they were engaging in such horrible acts, Mrs. Monk. You are stretching the limits of credibility.”
“Phillips ran a club for wealthy and influential men,” she told him, her voice now sharp with distress. “Men whose ordinary lives no longer gave them the thrill of danger they hungered for. The price of membership in the club was to have the photographs taken. It also ensured that none of the other members would betray the club or one another—they were all in the same situation.”
“Very clever,” Warne said bitterly. “I can see why the whole matter angered you to the point that you lost your sense of judgment. But in order to obtain a conviction you had to prove that a crime had taken place and that the person accused was responsible. Where did you slip up in this?”
Gavinton stood up again. “My lord, that is irrelevant.” He sounded weary, as if his patience had been tried to the utmost. “We all know that Mrs. Monk did indeed fail in that endeavor. I do not contest it. There is nothing to be gained by repeating the miserable affair, and Mrs. Monk herself can only be embarrassed by it. Mr. Warne is wasting our time.”
Rathbone felt the sweat trickling down his body. Looking at Gavinton it was clear that he had no idea that Drew was in one of those photographs. Obviously Hester did not either. Was Warne somehow going to bring it in? He could not do so legally without first showing the evidence to the defense.
When Rathbone started to speak his mouth was dry, and he had to clear his throat before he could force his voice to make a sound.
“Mr. Warne? The defense stipulates to Mrs. Monk’s distress in the earlier case and the fact that the whole issue was so repugnant to her that she failed to present adequate evidence of Phillips’s guilt in the eyes of the law. What is your purpose in raising the subject again? Jericho Phillips is dead, and his crimes have nothing to do with this case.”
“I did not raise the subject, my lord,” Warne said smoothly, his dark eyes fixed on Rathbone’s. “It was my learned friend who brought it up, to discredit Mrs. Monk. He suggested she was overemotional, her judgment warped by her horror at that time, to the degree that her testimony even now is still unreliable. I want to show the court that that is not so. I believe I have that right.”
“My lord—” Gavinton began.
Rathbone did not even look at him. “Mr. Warne,” he said quietly, “you are trying our patience. If you can show that Mrs. Monk is a reliable witness and we should take what she says more seriously, then do so. But briefly, please.”
“Yes, my lord.” Warne looked again at Hester. “Mrs. Monk, you spoke of photographs that Mr. Phillips used to blackmail the otherwise respectable gentlemen who were members of the club that indulged in pornography and the sexual abuse of small boys. I think we all find that not only obscene but also, as my learned friend said, highly unbelievable.”
Rathbone could hardly breathe. Warne was going to do it. Had he shown the photograph to Gavinton, as the rules of evidence required? If he had not, then Gavinton could ask for a mistrial and Rathbone would have to grant it. Was that what Warne intended to do? Why? It would not ensure a conviction.
“Yes …” Hester was saying uncertainly. “It sounds unbelievable. But the photographs do exist.”
“Indeed,” Warne replied, his voice almost devoid of expression, his face now pale. “I believe I might have one such photograph. Have you ever been on Jericho Phillips’s boat yourself?”
Hester was gripping the edge of the rail to the witness box, her knuckles white. “Yes …” Her voice was a whisper, but it was perfectly audible in the silence of the courtroom, where it seemed no one else was even breathing.
Gavinton was on his feet, but wearily, no tension or sense of outrage in him, not even of apprehension.
“My lord, the prosecution has not passed over this piece of evidence to the defense. I ask that it be ruled inadmissible—on grounds of irrelevance, if nothing else. I withdraw my remarks as to the unlikeliness of their existence.”
Warne was tense, his body awkward as he stared unblinkingly back at Rathbone.
“My lord, the remarks have been heard by the jury, they cannot simply be withdrawn. I have a right to prove my witness’s truthfulness.”
“You do, Mr. Warne,” Rathbone agreed, hating having to meet Warne’s eyes. “But the defense also has the right to see the evidence.”
With a faint, bleak smile Warne passed the photograph across to Gavinton.
Gavinton took it casually, glanced at it with a look of boredom, then his body jerked and his face went so white Rathbone was afraid he was going to faint.
In the courtroom there was total silence. No one in the gallery moved. The jurors were frozen in their seats, staring at Gavinton.
Gavinton gulped, having difficulty finding his voice. “My … my lord … this evidence is …” He stopped and put his hand up to his throat as if his collar were choking him.
Rathbone’s mind raced. He must avoid a mistrial. Warne might even find himself unable to prosecute again. Without this evidence Gavinton would win.
Rathbone leaned forward. “Mr. Gavinton, would you like a brief adjournment to consider this evidence, which appears to have disturbed you intensely?”
Gavinton swallowed, and choked on his own breath.
“If I may intrude, my lord,” Warne said politely. “Perhaps we might discuss it in your lordship’s chambers?”
Rathbone adjourned the court amid a hum of excitement and confusion, and five minutes later he, Warne, and Gavinton were in his chambers with the door closed; the usher had been told not to disturb them, regardless of the circumstances.
“Mr. Gavinton?” Rathbone asked with as blank a face as he could manage.
Gavinton was still holding the photograph.
“It is obscene, my lord,” he said, still speaking with difficulty.
“So I had assumed,” Rathbone replied. Trying to remain expressionless, he turned to Warne. “You clearly intended to show it to Mrs. Monk; did you also intend the jury to see it?”
Warne hesitated. He was saved from an immediate answer by Gavinton’s interruption.
“You can’t! She may be gullible with more goodwill than sense, but she’s a decent woman. This picture is vile—it’s repulsive.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Warne snapped. “She’s an army nurse, you fool! She’s seen men dismembered on the battlefield! She saw the original boat with its cargo of imprisoned and tortured children—the real ones, alive, terrified, half starved, and bleeding. What is it you imagine she can see in this photograph that she hasn’t already seen? Except perhaps the face of someone she recognizes?”
“Recognizes?” Rathbone said quietly. “Who is in this picture, Mr. Gavinton?”
Gavinton closed his eyes. When he answered his voice was hoarse and no more than a whisper.
“Mr. Drew, my lord.”
Rathbone
held out his hand. Gavinton gave him the photograph. Rathbone took it and looked at it, not that he needed to; every sordid detail was already imprinted on his brain.
He cleared his throat. “Indeed it is,” he agreed. “It is obscene, as you say, and it is quite clearly Mr. Robertson Drew. I imagine, Mr. Gavinton, that you object to this being put into evidence to show Mr. Drew’s character as very far indeed from what it seems. However, you repeatedly held him up as an honorable man. Mr. Warne has the right to question that, and rebut it if he can—which, it is now abundantly clear, he is able to do. Upon what grounds do you protest, other than that you apparently did not know that your star witness, who so protected your client’s virtue, is somewhat short of virtue himself?”
The air in the room was electric, like that in the half second between lightning and thunder.
“I was given no warning of it!” Gavinton protested.
“I received it only late yesterday evening,” Warne told him. “I agree, I should have told you before court this morning. I accept censure for that.” He looked at Rathbone, then back at Gavinton. “But I will not accept the suppression of it. You called Mrs. Monk’s character into question, on the word of Drew. I call Mrs. Monk to defend herself and at the expense of Drew. Is there something unjust in that?”
“Where the devil did you get this … this filthy thing?” Gavinton demanded, the color returning to his face in a wash of scarlet.
“That is privileged information,” Warne replied smoothly. “But if you wish to have it authenticated, then of course you must do so.”
“It could be … some trick!” Gavinton was still struggling.
“I do not believe that,” Warne answered. “But I may be able to obtain the original plate, if you feel that is necessary.”
“You’re bluffing!” Gavinton was all but shouting now.
“No, I am not,” Warne snapped, lowering his voice with effort. “But if you wish to take that chance, then do so. However, I think you might be better served by consulting with Mr. Drew on the matter. He will know beyond question that the picture is genuine, and he may wish, quite voluntarily, to be more truthful in his testimony regarding Mrs. Monk’s reliability as a witness, and the strength and honesty of her general character. He may also prefer to be more moderate in some of the rather condemnatory remarks he made about the weaknesses or gullibility of the various other witnesses.”