The Sins Of The Wolf Part 22

Rathbone winced at Monk's abruptness, but he shared his emotion. He would tie Kenneth into a knot he'd never undo, if only he had the chance. d.a.m.n the differences between English and Scots law. Frustration churned inside him so violently he found it hard to keep still. He did not blame Monk for his restlessness or his manner.

Argyll leaned back in his chair, resting his fingertips together and staring at Monk without anger. "I'll be better at it, Mr. Monk, if you can find me cause to have those company books examined. I think young Mr. Kenneth may very well have embezzled a bawbee here and there to keep his mistress...but we'll need more than a suggestion if we are to say that to the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh."

"I'D get it for you," Monk said grimly.

Argyll raised his black eyebrows. "Legally, if you please. It will be no use to us otherwise."

"I know that," Monk said between his teeth. "There won't be a mark on him, nor will he have cause for a complaint of any sort. Just do your part."

Rathbone winced again.

Monk shot another glance at Argyll, then without speaking again opened the door and went out.

Hester had pa.s.sed the journey from London to Edinburgh in the guard's van, in a state which was certainly not sleep, or anything like the rest that sleep should bring, and yet it had all the qualities of a dream. There was no sense of direction, she could as easily have been traveling south as north, and this time there was no footwarmer. She was manacled to the wardress, who sat rigid with anxiety, her face set like iron. Every time Hester closed her eyes she expected to see Mary Farraline when she opened them again, and hear her soft, cultured Highland voice with the Edinburgh intonation recounting some memory from the past, filled with humor and enjoyment.

She was the last to disembark from the train, and by the time she and the wardress stepped out onto the platform, most of the other pa.s.sengers were moving towards the gates up into the street.

The police escort was there, four large constables holding truncheons and looking nervously from left to right.

"Come on, Latterly," the wardress said sharply, yanking at Hester's manacled hands. "No dithering around, now!"

"I'm not going to escape!" Hester said with wry contempt.

The wardress gave her a filthy look, and it was several seconds before Hester realized why. Then as the constables closed in around her, and there was an angry shout from a few yards away, suddenly she understood. They were here not to prevent her escape but to protect her.

A woman screamed.

"Murderess!" someone yelled hoa.r.s.ely.

"Hang 'er!" another shouted out, and a surge of bodies buffeted the constables and they lurched forward, unwittingly almost knocking Hester off her feet.

A dozen yards away a newsboy was calling out about the trial.

"Burn her!" a voice shouted quite clearly and chillingly, a woman's voice, shrill with hatred. "Burn the witch! Put her to the fires!"

Hester felt herself chilled as if by ice. It was terrifying to feel such a pa.s.sion thick in the air, it was a kind of madness. There was no reasoning with it, no logic, no pity. She had not even been tried yet.

A missile flew past her cheek and clattered against the carriage door.

"Now then, now then!" another constable's voice said with rising panic barely suppressed. "Move along. You got no business here. Move along or I'll have to take you in charge for disturbing the peace. You let the courts do their job. Time enough then for hanging. Move along...."

"Don't stare there, stupid!" The wardress tugged at Hester again, bruising her wrists where the manacles dug into her.

"Come on, miss, we can't stand about here," the largest constable said, more gently. "We got to keep you safe."

Hurriedly and awkwardly, still pushed and heaved by the crowd, now sullen, they made their way off the platform and up to the street.

They were driven in a closed van straight to the prison, where more wardresses awaited her, their faces hard, eyes angry.

She said nothing, asked no questions, and pa.s.sed into the cell in silence, her head high, her thoughts islanded from them. She remained there until the middle of the afternoon, when she was escorted to another small room, bare but for a wooden table and two hard wooden chairs.

There was a man already there, tall and broad-shouldered, and to judge from his gray hair and beard and from the lines around his mouth, he was nearer sixty than fifty, but there was a quality of intense vitality in him which dominated the room, even though he remained motionless.

"Good afternoon, Miss Latterly," he said with courtesy, the irony of which reflected in his dark eyes. "I am James Argyll. Lady Callandra has retained me to represent you, since Mr. Rathbone cannot appear before the bar in Scotland."

"How do you do," she replied.

"Please sit down, Miss Latterly." He indicated the wooden chairs, and as soon as she had taken one, he took the other. He was watching her with curiosity and some surprise. She wondered with self-mockery what he had expected of her-perhaps a big, rawboned woman with the physical strength to carry wounded men off the battlefield, like Rebecca Box, the soldier's wife who had dared the shot and walked alone onto the field between the lines to bring back the fallen across her shoulders. Or maybe he had envisioned a drunkard, or a s.l.u.t, or an ignorant woman who could find no better employment than emptying slops and winding bandages.

Her heart sank, and she found it difficult to control her sense of despair so it did not show in her face or spill in tears down her cheeks.

"I have already spoken with Mr. Rathbone," Argyll was saying to her.

With a tremendous effort she mastered herself and looked back at him calmly.

"He has told me that Miss Nightingale is prepared to testify for you."

"Oh?" Her heart leapt and without warning hope came back with a ridiculous pain. All sorts of things that she held dear seemed possible again, things for which she had already endured the parting, at least in her mind: people, sights, sounds, even the habits of thinking of tomorrow, having time for which to plan. She found her body shaking; her hands on the table trembled and she had to grip them so hard the nails dug into the flesh to keep them still enough that he would not see. "That must be good...."

"Oh it is excellent," he agreed. "But showing the qualities of your character will not be sufficient if we cannot also show that someone else had both the opportunity and the motive to murder Mrs. Farraline. However, in discussing the matter with Mr. Monk..."

It was absurd how mention of his name made her stomach turn over and her breath catch in her throat.

He continued as if he had noticed nothing.

"... it seems as if Mr. Kenneth Farraline may have tampered with the company books in order to finance his affair with someone whom the family obviously consider unsuitable. How unsuitable and why, and how deeply he is entangled with her, whether there is a child or not, just what hold she has over him, we have yet to learn. I have dispatched Mr. Monk posthaste to uncover that. If he is as excellent as Mr. Rathbone a.s.sures me, it should not take him above two days. Though I confess I wonder why he has not made it his business to learn it before now."

Her heart was tight in her throat. "Because unless you can prove that he has embezzled from the company, the fact that he has a mistress is irrelevant," she said gravely. "A great many men do, especially young, well-bred men who have no other involvements. In fact, I would hazard a guess it is more common than not."

His eyes widened in momentary surprise, then in undisguised admiration for her candor and her courage. He was a man whose admiration was not easily stirred.

"Of course you are right, Miss Latterly. And that is my task. It will require some legal endeavor to obtain audit for the company books, and I propose to put Mr. Hector Farraline in the witness-box in order to obtain it. Now if you please, we shall go through the order of the witnesses Mr. Gilfeather will call for the prosecution and what we may expect them to say."

"Of course."

He frowned. "Have you attended a criminal trial, Miss Latterly? You speak almost as if you are familiar with the procedure. Your composure is admirable, but this is not the time to mislead me, even in the name of dignity."

A flicker of amus.e.m.e.nt crossed her face. "Yes, Mr. Argyll, I have attended several, in the cause of my occasional a.s.sistance to Mr. Monk."

"a.s.sistance to Mr. Monk?" he questioned. "Is there something of importance I have not been told?"

"I don't think it is of importance." She pulled a slight face. "I cannot imagine that the jurors, or the public, would find it respectable, and certainly not mitigating."

"Tell me," he demanded grimly.

"I first met Mr. Monk when he was investigating the murder of a Crimean officer named Joscelin Grey. Because of Mr. Grey's involvement with my late father, I was able to give Mr. Monk some a.s.sistance," she explained obediently, although she found her voice shaking. Funny how memory made that time now seem so dear. The quarrels dimmed into episodes which now seemed almost amusing. She could no longer feel the anger or the contempt she had for him then.

"Continue," Argyll pressed. "You speak as though it were not a single instance."

"It wasn't. I used my nursing experience to obtain a position with Sir Basil Moidore when Mr. Monk was investigating the death of Sir Basil's daughter."

Argyll's black eyebrows rose. "In order to a.s.sist Mr. Monk?" he said with unconcealed amazement. "I had not realized your devotion was so deep."

She felt a tide of color burn up her face.

"It was not a devotion to Mr. Monk," she said tartly. "It was the desire to see some sort of justice done. And it was my devotion to Lady Callandra which made me obtain a position in the Royal Free Hospital in order to learn more of the death of Nurse Barrymore. And the fact that I had known her in the Crimea, and formed a considerable regard for her. I became involved with General Carlyon's death because I was asked to by his sister, who is a friend of mine." She looked him very directly in the face, defying him to doubt her.

An almost imperceptible touch of color stained his cheeks, but there was still amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes.

"I see. So you are indeed very familiar with the rules of evidence and the procedure of trial?"

"I...I think so."

"Very well, forgive me for having seemed to patronize you, Miss Latterly."

"Of course," she said graciously. "Please continue."

The following day Monk spent from dawn until slightly before midnight investigating Kenneth Farraline and writing his findings to give to James Argyll, a pursuit which he believed to be largely pointless.

Rathbone had a wretched day. There was almost nothing he could accomplish. He had never cared so much about the outcome of a case, or been so helpless to influence one. A dozen times he almost set out to see Argyll again, and each time he resisted with difficulty, telling himself it would serve no purpose at all. But it was only the sting to his pride of running around after another barrister, particularly when it was the one taking his place, and the certainty that Argyll would read his nervousness like a billboard, that finally stayed him.

He knew that Callandra Daviot would be in Edinburgh for the trial, which began on the next morning, so she would have to come up on that day's train, unless she had already traveled and was here before him. By midafternoon he was at his wit's end and had paced the floor uselessly ever since picking without appet.i.te over what should have been an excellent luncheon.

Late in the evening he was tired, but unable to relax sufficiently to retire. There was a knock on the door of the room he had taken. He whirled around.

"Come in!" he shouted, striding towards the doorway and almost being struck as the door opened and Callandra appeared in the entrance, followed immediately by Henry Rathbone, Rathbone's father. Of course he had told his father of the whole affair before he could read of it in the newspapers. The elder Rathbone had met Hester on several occasions and had formed a fondness for her. The sight of his tall, slightly stooped figure now, with his ascetic face and benign expression, was ridiculously comforting. And at the same time it awoke in the younger man emotions of both dependence and fierce protection he would rather not have been burdened with in the circ.u.mstances.

"Please excuse me, Oliver," Callandra said briskly. "I realize it is late, and I am possibly interrupting you, but I could not contain myself until morning." She came in as he stepped back, smiling in spite of himself. Henry Rathbone followed immediately after, searching Oliver's face.

"Come in," Rathbone invited, closing the door behind him. He very nearly said that they were not interrupting anything at all, then pride prevented him from such an admission. "Father! I had not expected you. It is good of you to have come."

"Don't be absurd." Henry Rathbone dismissed it with a shake of his head. "Of course I came. How is she?"

"I have not seen her since the night before she left London," Rathbone replied. "I am not her barrister here in Edinburgh. They will only allow Argyll in now."

"So what are you doing?" Callandra demanded, too restless to sit in either of the large armchairs available.

"Waiting," Rathbone answered bitterly. "Worrying. Racking my brain to think of anything we have left undone, any possibilities we could still pursue."

Callandra drew in her breath, then said nothing.

Henry Rathbone sat down and crossed his legs. "Well, pacing the floor is not going to help. We had better approach the matter logically. I presume there is no possibility this poison was administered accidentally, or intentionally by Mrs. Farraline herself? All right, there is no need to lose your temper, Oliver. It is necessary to establish the facts."

Rathbone glanced at him, smothering his impatience with difficulty. He knew perfectly well that his father did not lack emotion or care, indeed he felt painfully; but his ability to suppress his feelings and concentrate his brain irritated him, because he was so far from that kind of control himself.

Callandra sat down on the other chair, staring at Henry hopefully.

"And the servants?" Henry continued.

"Ruled out by Monk," Rathbone replied. "It was one of the family."

"Remind me again who they are," Henry directed.

"Alastair, the eldest son, the Procurator Fiscal; his wife, Deirdra, who is building a flying machine ..."

Henry looked up, awaiting an explanation, his blue eyes mild and puzzled.

"Eccentric," Rathbone agreed. "But Monk is convinced she is otherwise harmless."

Henry pulled a face.

"Eldest daughter Oonagh McIvor; her husband, Baird, who is apparently in love with his sister-in-law, Eilish, and is taking books from the company for her to use in her midnight occupation of teaching a ragged school. Eilish's husband, Quinlan Fyffe, married into the family and into the business. Clever and unappealing, but Monk knows of no reason why he should have wished to kill his mother-in-law. And the youngest brother, Kenneth, who seems our best hope at the moment."

"What about the daughter in London?" Henry asked.

"She cannot have been guilty," Rathbone reasoned with a sharp edge to his voice. "She was nowhere near Edinburgh or Mary, or the medicine. We can discount her and her husband."

"Why was Mary going to visit her?" Henry asked, ignoring Rathbone's tone.

"I don't know. Something to do with her health. She is expecting her first child and is very nervous. It's natural enough she should wish her mother to be there."

"Is that all you know?"

"Do you think it would matter?" Callandra asked urgently.

"No, of course not." Rathbone dismissed it with a sharp flick of his hand. He stood leaning a little against the table, still unwilling to sit down.

Henry ignored his reply. "Have you given any thought as to why Mrs. Farraline was killed at that precise time, rather than any other?" he asked.

"Opportunity," Rathbone replied. "A perfect chance to lay the blame on someone else. I would have thought that was obvious."

"Perhaps," Henry agreed dubiously, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair and pressing his fingertips together in a steeple. "But it seems to me also very possible that something provoked it at this precise time. You do not kill someone simply because a good opportunity presents itself."

Rathbone straightened up, at last a tiny spot of instinct caught inside him.

"Have you something in mind?"

"Surely it is worth giving close examination to anything that happened within three or four days immediately before Mrs. Farraline set out for London?" Henry asked. "The murder may have been an opportunist act after years of desire, but it may also have been precipitated by something that happened very shortly before."

"Indeed it may," Rathbone agreed, moving away from the table. "Thank you, Father. At last we have another avenue to explore. That is, if Monk has not already done it and found it empty. But he said nothing."

"Are you sure you cannot see Hester?" Callandra asked quickly.

"Yes I am sure, but I shall be in court, of course, and I may be permitted a few moments then."

"Please ..." Callandra was very pale. Suddenly all the emotion they had been trying so hard to smother beneath practical action, intelligence and self-control poured into the silence in the warm, unfamiliar room, with its anonymous furnis.h.i.+ngs and smell of polish.

Rathbone stared at Callandra, then at his father. The understanding between them was complete; all the fear, the affection, the knowledge of loss hanging over them, the helplessness were too clear to need words.