Triple Jeopardy

by Anne Perry

  She put up her hand and touched Patrick’s cheek, very gently. “If it was me in that position, I hope I would try to make the decision imagining I knew the price and what it might do, whether he pays it or not. I don’t know whether she’s thought it out.”

  “But you do believe her?” he insisted. “You don’t think she let him in?”

  “No, of course I don’t. But I know she knew him, and really quite liked him. That’s why it hurts so much.”

  Patrick bent forward and kissed her.

  At least temporarily she forgot about Rebecca, even though she knew that had been his intention. She would start worrying about whether anything would come of the issue tomorrow.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  THE NEXT MORNING Daniel walked into the office of fford Croft and Gibson with a sense of urgency. He had not slept well after the evening at home, seeing Jemima again and finding all the old familiarity little changed. Under the new wife and mother, and all the responsibility that that brought, the old Jemima was still there, just lightly covered: the sense of joy, of adventure, the curiosity that he knew so well.

  But this morning, the weight of Patrick’s story about Sidney’s crime lay heavily upon him. The revolting nature of it was bad enough, but the injustice of his escape by claiming diplomatic immunity was worse. It was cowardly, deeply offensive, but legal. There were reasons for this immunity to exist. Diplomats in foreign countries were highly vulnerable. They could be blamed for offenses of which they were innocent, but easily convicted—in a sense, held to ransom. It was up to them to behave in such a manner that they were above suspicion. No country could afford to have its diplomats blacken their reputation.

  Not only did Rebecca Thorwood deserve better, but Daniel also wanted Philip Sidney punished for embarrassing and disgracing Britain and the diplomats who represented it, in America or anywhere else. It scorched him, and he longed either to find a way to disprove it or, regrettably far more likely, to see Sidney punished, even if it had to be accomplished obliquely.

  “Morning, Impney,” he said to the chief clerk.

  “Good morning, sir,” Impney replied with a deferential nod. “Mr. fford Croft is not in yet. Would you like a pot of tea, sir? I can have it ready in five minutes.”

  Daniel thought for only a second. “No, thank you, Impney. Is Mr. Kitteridge in?”

  “Yes, sir. If I might say so, there is no one with him yet. He has about half an hour before his first appointment.”

  Daniel gave him a warm smile. “Thank you, Impney, you are a jewel.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Impney replied gravely, but his eyes were bright.

  Daniel went straight to Kitteridge’s office and knocked on the door. He put his hand on the knob and then hesitated. It would be a bad start to asking Kitteridge’s advice if he walked in without waiting for an answer. He knocked again.

  “Bring it in, Impney!” Kitteridge said from inside.

  Daniel opened the door and went in, closing it behind him. “Good morning.”

  Kitteridge looked up from his desk, faintly surprised. The senior barrister was a few years older than Daniel, comfortably into his thirties. He had an odd face: not handsome, but lit by a very obvious intelligence. His hair was well cut, but still unruly, as if it did not quite fit his head. It was when he stood that one could see his unusual height. He was even taller than Daniel, who was over six foot, but in contrast to Daniel, Kitteridge had no grace at all. He seemed to be all elbows and knees.

  “Pitt! Sorry. I was expecting Impney with the mail. What is it? You look full of…what?”

  Daniel walked over to the chair on the other side of Kitteridge’s desk and sat down. “I’ve got something of a dilemma.”

  Kitteridge gave a twisted little smile, but it was out of amusement rather than any sort of condescension. That misunderstanding Daniel no longer had, not since the Graves case. “So, you want to share it with me?” Kitteridge asked.

  A few months ago, Daniel would have been put off by that remark, but he had seen another side of Kitteridge, or perhaps “glimpsed” would be a better word. It was there, and then gone again, self-protective. “Yes,” he agreed. He considered Kitteridge a friend, but definitely a senior friend in the law and in the company, at least for now. “I need your advice,” he began.

  “Legally?”

  “And morally. I think I know what the answer is, morally,” Daniel replied.

  A flicker of humor crossed Kitteridge’s face. “Which means the exact opposite. You are sure you know the answer morally. You don’t know how to accomplish it legally.”

  Daniel took a deep breath. “Yes, exactly,” he admitted. He decided to go on before Kitteridge interrupted. He wanted to engage Kitteridge’s sense of outrage before coming to legal difficulties. “A British diplomat in Washington is accused of breaking into the bedroom of the daughter of a distinguished family. He assaulted her physically, tore her nightclothes, stole a valuable diamond necklace off her neck, and then escaped, but not before her father came to her screams. He saw the intruder and recognized him; they had met socially.”

  Kitteridge was looking far more interested now, but he did not interrupt.

  “The intruder’s name is Philip Sidney and he ran—”

  “Sidney?” Kitteridge said in surprise. “You mean that? Philip Sidney?”

  “Yes. You know him?”

  “Not personally. Hardly my social sphere.” There was rich amusement in Kitteridge’s face, but also a noticeable trace of regret.

  “You think well of him?” Daniel leaped to the conclusion.

  “I did,” Kitteridge admitted. “If this is true, that rather shatters it. Pity.”

  “Tobias Thorwood, the father, swears the intruder was Sidney, and his daughter, Rebecca, bears it out, shaken as she was. He really knocked her about a bit, and ripped the necklace off her violently enough to tear her skin. He escaped back to the British Embassy and immediately claimed diplomatic immunity. Then he left the country.”

  “Horrible,” Kitteridge said, pulling his face tight with distaste and unmistakable sadness. The disillusion clearly hurt him.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “So, what do you want to know?” Kitteridge said, suddenly more sharply. “What is there to say? He took diplomatic immunity and escaped. He was not charged, therefore not found guilty. You would be betraying him if you said anything, and you couldn’t possibly prove it, especially over here. Sorry, Pitt, but if he did it, he’s got away. To his shame and I suppose our embarrassment.”

  “What if he committed a crime on British soil, and was charged with it?” Daniel asked.

  Kitteridge’s eyes narrowed. “You mean after he arrived back here? How long ago did all this happen? He must be crazy!”

  “No, not here, but technically on British soil, like at the embassy in Washington.”

  “Is that very likely?” Kitteridge clearly did not believe it.

  Actually, neither did Daniel. “Maybe not. But if he did?” he pressed.

  “Connected to the assault and the theft of the diamond? Does he have the diamond? Has he tried to sell it? That would be pretty convenient.”

  “No,” Daniel admitted. “I know he took it, but I don’t think anyone knows what he did with it.”

  “You know he took it?” Kitteridge said with a lift of his eyebrows. “You mean you know, or that Mr. Thorwood told you?”

  Daniel winced. “My brother-in-law told me that Tobias Thorwood told him that Sidney took it.”

  Kitteridge blinked. “Your brother-in-law?” His eyes narrowed. “Daniel, what else have you left out? What exactly is this all about?”

  Daniel realized how incoherent he had been, trying to draw Kitteridge in before telling him the more doubtful parts of the story. It had been instinctive rather than deliberate. Now he was annoyed with
himself for being so clumsy. “Sorry,” he said seriously, mostly sorry to have done this so badly. “Patrick and Jemima are visiting from Washington. He’s police out there. Irish-American.”

  “Ah, I begin to see,” Kitteridge said, shaking his head. “And he is outraged.”

  “Aren’t you?” Daniel challenged him.

  “If it’s true, yes. And embarrassed.”

  “Don’t we have to do something about it?” Daniel asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think there is anything you can do,” Kitteridge said with genuine regret. “I’d like to think the diplomatic service would get rid of him, and make sure that it becomes well known as to why.”

  “Yes, so would I,” Daniel agreed fervently. “But Tobias Thorwood can’t accuse him without any proof, not publicly. It has to come out in court. Otherwise, no newspaper is going to publish it. Sidney would have him for libel. And who knows what he would say about Rebecca?”

  “You have a point,” Kitteridge nodded. “So, what is left for you to ask me? You seem to have got it all thought out. It’s wretched. But you can’t bring the man to answer the law here, for a crime that he may or may not have committed in Washington, and for which he sought and got diplomatic immunity.”

  “No one will know about his crime, except if there was someone who advised him to leave, and I presume now has helped him. But even if someone has offered Sidney help, he may not know what Sidney did. He might even think he’s innocent.”

  “He might even be innocent, Pitt! No proof, no crime, in law. And from what you’ve said so far, there is no accusation, except what Tobias Thorwood has said, and if he has any sense, not publicly!”

  Daniel had come to ask Kitteridge what he thought of what Patrick had suggested, or at least implied, but now he was undecided about it. Was he in a way betraying something Patrick had not intended? Suddenly the idea of bringing Sidney to court on some other charge and then confronting him with the theft and assault in Washington looked far-fetched and bizarre.

  “Pitt!” Kitteridge said sharply. “Are you planning something about this? Don’t be a quixotic idiot. You don’t have anything but what your brother-in-law told you—Patrick, is it? Do you actually know anything at all about it?”

  “Jemima does. She knows Rebecca…”

  Kitteridge sat up straighter. “Jemima is your sister, I presume?”

  “Yes. Sorry if I didn’t say so.” Daniel was aware he was presenting this badly, letting emotion get in the way. He had seen clients do it, and he had expected better of himself.

  Kitteridge slumped again. “And you are afraid that Patrick is as quixotic as you are, and he may…help…the evidence along a bit?”

  Daniel was caught. That was exactly what he feared, but he was very loath to admit it to Kitteridge. It would be more or less going against his own family. But the fact was that he had never met Patrick before, and he had shared many cases, at one level or other, with Kitteridge. They had seen horror and tragedy, evil on many levels, courage, skill, and love, felt all the emotions that go with them, but that still did not make this completely all right. “I think…” he started out, then stopped.

  Kitteridge’s expression conveyed the complicated exactness of his feelings.

  “All right!” Daniel admitted. “Yes. I don’t know him. I’ve known Jemima always, but people change, especially girls, when they fall in love. Whether you believe Patrick or not, there’s no question at all that it was a wretched crime, and a cowardly way of getting out of answering for it.”

  “It seems he has been—” Kitteridge began.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Daniel lost his temper. “Stop being so…so like the vicar’s maiden aunt! It is disgusting! In every way. He has terrified Rebecca, confounded her father, and distressed her mother. And in case you have overlooked it, he has also shamed and disgraced us—Britain—in front of the Americans. We’ll all go down in people’s estimation for that.”

  Kitteridge looked startled. Then he began to laugh very quietly.

  Daniel’s voice turned to ice. “What is so amusing about that?” he said defiantly.

  “You are,” Kitteridge replied. “If your sister is anything like you, I look forward to meeting her.” Then the light and humor vanished from him. “Unfortunately, none of that is a legal argument. Which you ought to know as well as I do. For heaven’s sake, go and persuade her of it. Didn’t her husband, Patrick or whatever his name is, know that? Washington isn’t the Wild West. I know it’s actually very civilized, for a young country.” Kitteridge still looked grim, in spite of his flippant remarks.

  “Of course, it is,” Daniel agreed immediately, “but the underbelly of any city can be pretty rough. London is as bad as any.”

  “Brings some pretty revolting images to mind,” Kitteridge said with distaste. “But the Thorwood family is hardly the underbelly, nor is the British Embassy.”

  “You’re trying to evade the point!” Daniel accused.

  Kitteridge cast aside all pretense and became utterly serious. “Are you afraid that Sidney is going to escape punishment for his behavior, and thus blacken Britain’s reputation in Washington, and anywhere else that people know about it?” He drew a deep breath. “Or is your real fear that your brother-in-law is going to try to get round the law by creating false evidence to bring Sidney to trial here, for a made-up crime, so that you can expose the real one?”

  Daniel bit his lip. Kitteridge had read him precisely. “Yes, I suppose so, but I can’t let it go!”

  “You mean Patrick can’t?” Kitteridge amended.

  “Could you?”

  “I have to accept the inevitability. I have no choice,” he replied.

  Daniel stood up. He was more hurt than he had expected, disappointed in Kitteridge, because he had grown to like him, but even a little frightened because he needed help in his situation with Patrick and he felt out of his depth. “Accept it quite easily, it seems,” he said coldly, and went out the door, almost bumping into Impney carrying a tray of tea.

  “Sorry, sir,” Impney said, although it was in no way his fault.

  Daniel was ashamed of that. Young men, newly qualified in the law, seemed rather often to think they were superior to Impney, who, although a clerk and not a barrister, probably knew far more than most of them and carried it with more grace.

  “It was my fault,” Daniel said quickly. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. Probably because I really think I don’t know where I’m going!”

  “A difficult case, sir?” Impney inquired sympathetically. “Would you like to take your tea in the law library, sir? I might be able to point you to something there that could be of assistance. Mr. Kitteridge is very familiar with it, but I have been here even longer.” He gave a slight, knowing smile. He liked Kitteridge, but he was aware of his oddities as well. No doubt, in his quiet way, he was aware of everyone’s. He gave the word “devotion” a whole new meaning.

  “Yes. Thank you,” Daniel replied. “I have nowhere else to try, at least not yet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ten minutes later, Daniel was sitting in the library, a large comfortable room with walls lined with law books going back at least a century. The silence was peaceful and pleasant. But, other than that, Daniel felt that the library had nothing to offer. He was becoming aware of having behaved rather badly or, if not that, at least to no purpose, which amounted to almost the same thing.

  The door opened and Kitteridge came in, closing it behind him. He looked even taller than usual, like a scarecrow, minus the straw.

  “Does he expect you to do anything about it?” he asked without preamble. “Expect you to bail him out if he gets into trouble?”

  “What?”

  “This brother-in-law of yours,” Kitteridge said impatiently. He sat down in the chair opposite Daniel. “I’ve being trying to th
ink of anything…any legal way…of helping, and I can’t. I can’t afford you to get into trouble. We’ve taken long enough training you to be useful—I don’t want to lose you now.”

  Daniel smiled in spite of himself. “Graciously put, Kitteridge. You are all charm.”

  Kitteridge was quite aware of Daniel’s sarcasm. He knew his own awkwardness and hated it.

  Daniel was immediately sorry. “But as you pointed out, charm doesn’t always work.” He watched Kitteridge’s face and saw the shadow of pain disappear from his eyes.

  “I still haven’t any ideas,” Kitteridge replied. “But I’ll work on it.”

  Daniel thanked him quite sincerely, if not for any help, at least for the friendship.

  * * *

  —

  THAT EVENING, DANIEL went to visit Roman Blackwell. He was not at all sure if it was a good idea, but time was pressing, and Patrick would be looking for ways to trap Sidney. Blackwell was something of an adventurer, both inside and outside the law. Just before the Graves affair a few months ago, Daniel had rescued Blackwell from the gallows by proving him, against all the odds, innocent of a particularly mean-spirited crime. One of Blackwell’s greatest virtues was his generous and long-lasting gratitude, and in the Graves affair he had proved it.

  The law regarded Blackwell as a scoundrel. Daniel saw him as an inventive man with a strong, if individual, morality, but scant regard for the law.

  Blackwell was at home and welcomed Daniel into the richly colored and extremely untidy house he shared with his mother, Mercedes Blackwell, known as Mercy. It was an appropriate abbreviation, as long as you took into account her volatile temper and eccentric sense of right and wrong. She was fierce, sentimental, and outwardly afraid of nothing. Only in her fear for Roman’s life had Daniel seen that shell break.

  Now he followed Blackwell through the hallway, past the crowded coat stand, the paintings on the wall and the views of corners offered by many mirrors. The sitting room was the same, filled with mementoes of foreign travel and relics from other cultures. The colors were purple and crimson, and the room was extremely comfortable. In August, the fire grate was concealed by an elaborately framed tapestry screen.