A Sudden Fearful Death

chapter 9
The trial of Sir Herbert Stanhope opened at the Old Bailey on the first Monday in August. It was a gray, sultry day with a hot wind out of the south and the smell of rain. Outside the crowds pressed forward, climbing up the steps, eager to claim the few public seats available. There was an air of excitement, whispering and pushing, an urgency. Newsboys shouted promises about exclusive revelations, prophesies of what was to come. The first few heavy drops of rain fell with a warm splatter on oblivious heads.

Inside the wood-paneled courtroom the jury sat in two rows, their backs to the high windows, faces toward the lawyers' tables, behind whom were the few public benches. To the jurors' right, twenty feet above the floor, was the dock, like a closed-in balcony, its hidden steps leading down to the cells. Opposite the dock was the witness box, like a pulpit. To reach it one crossed the open space of the floor and climbed the curving steps up, then stood isolated, facing the barristers and the public. Higher still, and behind the witness box, surrounded by magnificently carved panels and seated on plush, was the judge. He was robed in scarlet velvet and wigged in curled white horsehair.

The court had already been called to order. The jury was empaneled and the charge had been read and answered. With immense dignity, head high and voice steady, Sir Herbert denied his guilt absolutely. Immediately there was a rustle of sympathy around the body of the court.

The judge, a man in his late forties with brilliant light gray eyes and a clean-boned, lean-cheeked face, flashed his glance around but refrained from speech. He was a hard man, young for such high office, but he owed no one favors and had no ambitions but the law. He was saved from ruth-lessness by a sharp sense of humor, and redeemed by a love of classical literature and its soaring imagination, which he barely understood but knew he held to be of immense worth.

The prosecution was conducted by Wilberforce Lovat-Smith, one of the most gifted barristers of his generation and a man Rathbone knew well. He had faced him frequently across the floor of the court, and held him in high regard, and not a little liking. He was of barely average height, dark-complexioned with a sharp-featured face and heavy-lidded, surprisingly blue eyes. His appearance was not impressive. He looked rather more like an itinerant musician or player than a pillar of the establishment. His gown was a fraction too long for him, indifferently tailored, and his wig was not precisely straight. But Rathbone did not make the mistake of underestimating him.

The first witness to be called was Callandra Daviot. She walked across the space between the benches toward the witness stand with her back straight and her head high. But as she climbed the steps she steadied herself with her hand on the rail, and when she turned to Lovat-Smith her face was pale and she looked tired, as if she had not slept well for days, even weeks. It was apparent that either she was ill or she was carrying some well-nigh-intolerable burden.

Hester was not present; she was on duty at the hospital. Apart from the fact that financially she required the employment, both she and Monk believed she might still leam something useful there. It was a remote chance, but any chance at all was worth taking.

Monk was sitting in the center of the row toward the front, listening and watching every inflection and expression. He would be at hand if Rathbone wanted to pursue any new thread that should appear. He looked at Callandra and knew that something was deeply wrong. He stared at her for several minutes, until well into the beginning of her evidence, before he realized what troubled him about her appearance even more than the gauntness of her face. Her hair was totally, even beautifully tidy. It was quite out of character. The fact that she was in the witness box did not account for it. He had seen her at far more important and formal occasions, even dressed before departing to dine with ambassadors and royalty, still with wisps of hair curling wildly out of place. It touched him with an unanswerable unhappiness.

"They were quarreling about the fact that the laundry chute was apparently blockedT' Lovat-Smith was saying with affected surprise. There was total stillness in the courtroom, although everyone in it knew what was coming. The newspapers had screamed it in banner headlines at the time, and it was not a thing one forgot. Still the jurors leaned forward, listening to every word, eyes steady in concentration.

Mr. Justice Hardie smiled almost imperceptibly.

"Yes," Callandra was offering no more than exactly what she was asked for.

"Please continue, Lady Callandra," Lovat-Smith prompted. She was not a hostile witness, but she was not helpful either. A lesser man might have been impatient with her. Lovat-Smith was far too wise for (hat. The court sympathized with her, thinking the experience would have shocked any sensitive woman. The jurors were all men, naturally. Women were not considered capable of rational judgment sufficient to vote as part of the mass of the population. How could they possibly weigh the matter of a man's life or death as part of a mere twelve? And Lovat-Smith knew juries were ordinary men. That was both their strength and their weakness. They would presume Callandra was an average woman, susceptible, fragile, like all women. They had no idea she had both wit and strength far more than many of the soldiers her husband had treated when he was alive. Accordingly he was gentle and courteous.

"I regret having to ask you this, but would you recount for us what happened next, in your own words. Do not feel hurried____________________"

The ghost of a smile crossed Callandra's mouth.

"You are very civil, sir. Of course. I shall tell you. Dr. Beck peered down the chute to see if he could discover what was blocking it, but he could not. We sent one of the nurses for a window pole to push down the chute and dislodge whatever it was. At that time..." She swallowed hard and continued in a hushed voice. "We assumed it was a tangle of sheets. Of course the window pole failed."

"Of course," Lovat-Smith agreed helpfully. "What did you do then, ma'am?"

"Someone, I forget which of the nurses, suggested we fetch one of the skivvies who was a child, and very small, and send her down the chute to clear it."

"Send the child down?" Lovat-Smith said very clearly. "At this time you were still of the belief it was linen blocking the way?"

There was a shiver of apprehension around the room. Rathbone pulled a face, but very discreetly, out of view of the jury. In the dock Sir Herbert sat expressionless. Judge Hardie drummed his fingers silently on the top of his bench.

Lovat-Smith saw it and understood. He invited Callandra to continue.

"Of course," she said quietly.

"Then what happened?"

"Dr. Beck and I went down to the laundry room to await the blockage."

"Why?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why did you go downstairs to the laundry room, ma'am?"

"I-I really don't remember. It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. I suppose to find out what it was, and see that the quarrel was resolved. That is why we intervened in the beginning, to resolve the quarrel."

"I see. Yes, quite natural. Will you please tell the court what occurred then?"

Callandra was very pale and seemed to require an effort to maintain her control. Lovat-Smith smiled at her encouragingly.

"After a moment or two there was a sort of noise..." She drew in her breath, not looking at Lovat-Smith. "And a body came out of the chute and landed in the laundry basket below it."

She was prevented from continuing immediately by the rustles and murmurs of horror in the public gallery. Several of the jurors gasped and one reached for his handkerchief.

In the dock Sir Herbert winced very slightly, but his eyes remained steadily on Callandra.

"At first I thought it was the skivvy," she resumed. "Then an instant later a second body landed and scrambled to get out. It was then we looked at the first body and realized quite quickly that she was dead."

Again there was a gasp of indrawn breath around the room and a buzz of words, cut off instantly.

Rathbone glanced up at the dock. Even facial expressions could matter. He had known more man one prisoner to sway a jury against him by insolence. But he need not have worried. Sir Herbert was composed and grave, his face showing only sadness.

"I see." Lovat-Smith held up his hand very slightly. "How did you know this first body was dead, Lady Callandra? I know you have some medical experience; I believe your late husband was an army surgeon. Would you please just describe for us what the body was like." He smiled deprecatingly. "I apologize for asking you to relive what must be extremely distressing for you, but I assure you it is necessary for the jury, you understand?"

"It was the body of a young woman wearing a gray nurse's dress." Callandra spoke quietly, but her voice was thick with emotion. "She was lying on her back in the basket, sort of folded, one leg up. No one who was not rendered senseless would have remained in such a position. When we looked at her more closely, her eyes were closed, her face ashen pale, and there were purple bruise marks on her throat. She was cold to the touch."

There was a long sigh from the public galleries and someone sniffed. Two jurors glanced at each other, and a third shook his head, his face very grave.

Rathbone sat motionless at his table.

"Just one question, Lady Callandra," Lovat-Smith said apologetically. "Did you know the young woman?"

"Yes." Callandra's face was white. "It was Prudence Barrymore."

"One of the hospital nurses?" Lovat-Smith stepped back a yard. "In fact, one of your very best nurses, I believe? Did she not serve in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale?"

Rathbone considered objecting that this was irrelevant: Lovat-Smith was playing for drama. But he would do his cause more harm than good by trying to deny Prudence Barrymore her moment of posthumous recognition, as Lovat-Smith would know; he could see it in his faintly cocky stance, as if Rathbone were no danger.

"A fine woman in every respect," Callandra said quietly. "I had the highest regard and affection for her."

Lovat-Smith inclined his head. "Thank you, ma'am. The court offers you its appreciation for what must have been a most difficult duty for you. Thank you, I have nothing further to ask you."

Judge Hardie leaned forward as Callandra moved fractionally.

"If you would remain, Lady Callandra, Mr. Rathbone may wish to speak."

Callandra flushed at her own foolishness, although she had not actually taken a step to leave.

Lovat-Smith returned to his table, and Rathbone rose, approaching the witness box and looking up at her. He was disturbed to see her so drawn.

"Good morning, Lady Callandra. My learned friend has concluded with your identification of the unfortunate dead woman. But perhaps you would tell the court what you did after ascertaining that she was beyond your help?"

"I-we-Dr. Beck remained with her"-Callandra stammered very slightly-"to see she was not touched, and I went to report the matter to Sir Herbert Stanhope, so that he might send for the police."

"Where did you find him?"

"In the theater-operating upon a patient."

"Can you recall his reaction when you informed him what had happened?"

Again faces turned toward the dock as people stared at Sir Herbert, curious and titillated by horror.

"Yes-he was shocked, of course. He told me to go to the police station and inform the police-when he realized it was a police matter."

"Oh? He did not realize it immediately?"

"Perhaps that was my fault," she acknowledged. "I may have told him in such a way he thought it was a natural death. There are frequently deaths in a hospital."

"Of course. Did he appear to you to be frightened or nervous?"

A ghost of bitter amusement passed over her face.

"No. He was perfectly calm. I believe he completed the operation."

"Successfully?" He had already ascertained that it was successfully, or he would not have asked. He could remember vividly asking Sir Herbert, and his candid, rather surprised reply.

"Yes." Callandra met his eyes and he knew she understood precisely.

"A man with a calm mind and a steady hand," he remarked. Again he was aware of the jury looking toward the dock.

Lovat-Smith rose to his feet.

"Yes, yes," Judge Hardie said, waving his hand. "Mr. Rathbone, please keep your observations till your summation. Lady Callandra was not present at the rest of me operation to pass judgment upon it. You have already elicited that the patient survived, which I imagine you knew? Yes- quite so. Please proceed."

"Thank you, my lord." Rathbone bowed almost imperceptibly. "Lady Callandra, we may assume that you did in fact inform the police. One Inspector Jeavis, I believe. Was that the end of your concern in the case?"

"I beg your pardon?" She blinked and her face became even paler, something like fear in her eyes and the quick tightening of her mouth.

"Was that the end of your concern in the case?" he repeated. "Did you take any further actions?"

"Yes-yes I did..." She stopped.

"Indeed? And what were they?"

Again there was the rustle of movement in the court as silks and taffetas brushed against each other and were crushed as people leaned forward. On the jury benches all faces turned toward Callandra. Judge Hardie looked at her inquiringly.

"I-I employed a private agent with whom I am acquainted," she replied very quietly.

"Will you speak so the jury may hear you, if you please," Judge Hardie directed her.

She repeated it more distinctly, staring at Rathbone.

"Why did you do that, Lady Callandra? Did you not believe the police competent enough to handle the matter?" Out of the corner of his vision he saw Lovat-Smith stiffen and knew he had surprised him.

-  Callandra bit her lip. "I was not sure they would find the right solution. They do not always."

"Indeed they do not," Rathbone agreed. "Thank you, Lady Callandra. I have no further questions for you."

Before the judge could instruct her, Lovat-Smith rose to his feet again.

"Lady Callandra, do you believe they have found the correct answer in this instance?"

"Objection!" Rathbone said instantly. "Lady Callandra's opinion, for all her excellence, is neither professional nor relevant to these proceedings."

"Mr. Lovat-Smith," Judge Hardie said with a little shake of his head, "if that is all you have to say, Lady Callandra is excused, with the court's thanks."

Lovat-Smith sat down again, his mouth tight, avoiding Rathbone's glance.

Rathbone smiled, but with no satisfaction.

Lovat-Smith called Jeavis to the stand. He must have testified in court many times before, far more frequently than anyone else present, and yet he looked oddly out of place. His high, white collar seemed too tight for him, his sleeves an inch too short.

He gave evidence of the bare facts as he knew them, adding no emotion or opinion whatever. Even so, the jury drank in every word and only once or twice did any one of them look away from him and up at Sir Herbert in the dock.

Rathbone had debated with himself whether to cross-examine or not. He must not permit Lovat-Smith to goad him into making a mistake. There was nothing in Jeavis's evidence to challenge, nothing further to draw out.

"No questions, my lord," he said. He saw the flicker of amusement cross Lovat-Smith's face.

The next prosecution witness was the police surgeon, who testified as to the time and cause of death. It was a very formal affair and Rathbone had nothing to ask of him either. His attention wandered. First he studied the jurors one by one. They were still fresh-faced, concentration sharp, catching every word. After two or three days they would look quite different; their eyes would be tired, muscles cramped. They would begin to fidget and grow impatient. They would no longer watch whoever was speaking but would stare around, as he was doing now. And quite possibly they would already have made up their minds whether Sir Herbert was guilty or not.

Lastly before luncheon adjournment Lovat-Smith called Mrs. Flaherty. She mounted the witness box steps very carefully, face white with concentration, black skirts brushing against the railings on either side. She looked exactly like an elderly housekeeper in dusty bombazine. Rathbone almost expected to see a chain of keys hanging from her waist and an expense ledger in her hand.

She faced the court with offense and disapproval in every pinched line of her features. She was affronted at the necessity of attending such a place. All criminal proceedings were beneath the dignity of respectable people, and she had never expected in all her days to find herself in such a position.

Lovat-Smith was obviously amused by it. There was nothing but respect in his face, and his manners were flawless, but Rathbone knew him well enough to detect it in the angle of his shoulders, the gestures of his hands, even the way he walked across the polished boards of the floor toward the stand and looked up at her.

"Mrs. Flaherty," he began quietly. "You are a matron of the Royal Free Hospital, are you not?"

"I am," she said grimly. She seemed about to add something more, then closed her lips in a thin line.

"Just so," Lovat-Smith agreed. He had not been raised by a governess nor had he been in hospital. Efficient middle-aged ladies did not inspire in him the awe they did in many of his colleagues.

He had told Rathbone, in one of their rare moments of relaxation together, late at night over a bottle of wine, that he had gone to a charity school on the outskirts of the city before a patron, observing his intelligence, had paid for him to have extra tutelage.

Now Lovat-Smith looked up at Mrs. Flaherty blandly. "Would you be good enough, ma'am, to tell the court where you were from approximately six in the morning of the day Prudence Banymore met her death until you heard that her body had been discovered? Thank you so much."

Grudgingly and in precise detail she told him what he wished. As a result of his frequently interposed questions, she also told the court the whereabouts of almost all the other nurses on duty that morning, and largely those of the chaplain and the dressers also.

Rathbone did not interrupt. There was no point of procedure he quarreled with, nor any matter of fact. It would have been foolish to draw attention to the weakness of his position by fighting when he could not win. Let the jury think he was holding his fire in the certainty that he had a fatal blow to deliver at some future time. He sat back in his chair a little, composing his face into an expression of calm interest, a very slight smile on his lips.

He noticed several jurors glancing at him and then at Lovat-Smith, and knew they were wondering when the real battle would begin. They also took furtive looks at Sir Herbert, high up in the dock. He was very pale, but if there was terror inside him, or the sick darkness of guilt, not a breath of it showed in his face.

Rathbone studied him discreetly as Lovat-Smith drew more fine details from Mrs. Flaherty. Sir Herbert was listening with careful attention, but there was no real interest in his face. He seemed quite relaxed, his back straight, his hands clasped in front of him on the railing. It was all familiar territory and he knew it did not matter to the core of the case. He had never contested his own presence in the hospital at the time, and Mrs. Flaherty excluded only the peripheral players who were never true suspects.

Judge Hardie adjourned the court, and as they were leaving Lovat-Smith fell in step beside Rathbone, his curiously light eyes glittering with amusement.

"Whatever made you take it up?" he said quietly, but the disbelief was rich in his voice.

'Take what up?" Rathbone looked straight ahead of him as if he had not heard.

"The case, man! You can't win!" Lovat-Smith watched his step. "Those letters are damning."

Rathbone turned and smiled at him, a sweet dazzling smile showing excellent teeth. He said nothing.

Lovat-Smith faltered so minutely only an expert eye could have seen it. Then the composure returned and his expression became smooth again.

"It might keep your pocket, but it won't do your reputation any good," he said with calm certainty. "No knighthood in this sort of thing, you know."

Rathbone smiled a little more widely to hide the fact that he feared Lovat-Smith was right.

The afternoon's testimony was in many ways predictable, and yet it left Rathbone feeling dissatisfied, as he told his father later that evening when he visited him at his home in Primrose Hill.

Henry Rathbone was a tall, rather stoop-shouldered, scholarly man with gentle blue eyes masking a brilliant intellect behind a benign air and a rich, occasionally erratic and irreverent sense of humor. Oliver was more deeply fond of him than he would have admitted, even to himself. These occasional quiet dinners were oases of personal pleasure in an ambitious and extremely busy life.

On this occasion he was troubled and Henry Rathbone was immediately aware of it, although he had begun with all the usual trivial talk about the weather, the roses, and the cricket score.

They were sitting together in the evening light after an excellent supper of crusty bread, pate, and French cheese. They had finished a bottle of red wine; it was not of a particularly good year, but satisfaction lent to the tongue what the vintage did not.

"Did you make a tactical error?" Henry Rathbone asked eventually.

"What makes you ask that?" Oliver looked at him nervously.

"Your preoccupation," Henry replied. "If it had been something you had foreseen you would not still be turning it over in your mind."

"I'm not sure," Oliver confirmed. "In fact, I am not sure how I should approach this altogether."

Henry waited.

Oliver outlined the case as he knew it so far. Henry listened in silence, leaning back in his chair, his legs crossed comfortably.

"What testimony have you heard so far?" he asked when Oliver finally came to an end.

"Just factual this morning. Callandra Daviot recounted how she found the body. The police and the surgeon gave the facts of death and the time and manner, nothing new or startling. Lovat-Smith played it for all the drama and sympathy he could, but that was to be expected."

Henry nodded.

"I suppose it was this afternoon," Oliver said thoughtfully. "The first witness after luncheon was the matron of the hospital-a tense, autocratic little woman who obviously resented being called at all. She made it quite obvious she disapproved of 'ladies' nursing, and even Crimean experience won no favor in her eyes. In fact, the contrary-it challenged her dominion."

"And the jury?" Henry asked.

Oliver smiled. "Disliked her," he said succinctly. "She cast doubt on Prudence's ability. Lovat-Smith endeavored to keep her quiet on that but she still created a bad impression."

"But..." Henry prompted.

Oliver gave a sharp laugh. "But she swore that Prudence pursued Sir Herbert, asked to work with him and spent far more time with him than any other nurse. She did admit, grudgingly, that she was the best nurse and that Sir Herbert asked for her."

"All of which you surely foresaw." Henry looked at him closely. "It doesn't sound sufficient to account for your feelings now."

Oliver sat in thought. Outside the evening breeze carried the scent of late-blooming honeysuckle in through the open French windows and a flock of starlings massed against the pale sky, then swirled and settled again somewhere beyond the orchard.

"Are you afraid of losing?" Henry broke the silence. "You've lost before-and you will again, unless you prefer to take only certain cases, ones so safe they require only a conductor through the motions?"

"No, of course not!" Oliver said in deep disgust. He was not angry; the suggestion was too absurd.

"Are you afraid Sir Herbert is guilty?"

This time his answer was more considered. "No. No, I'm not It's a difficult case, no real evidence, but I believe him. I know what it is like to have a young woman mistake admiration or gratitude for a romantic devotion. One has absolutely no idea-beyond perhaps a certain vanity-I will confess to that, reluctantly. And then suddenly there she is, all heaving bosom and melting eyes, flushed cheeks-and there you are, horrified, mouth dry, brain racing, and feeling both a victim and a cad, and wondering how on earth you can escape with both honor and some kind of dignity."

Henry was smiling so openly he was on the verge of laughter.

"It's not funny!" Oliver protested.

"Yes it is-it's delicious. My dear boy, your sartorial elegance, your beautiful diction, your sheer vanity, will one day get you into terrible trouble! What is this Sir Herbert like?"

"I am not vain!"

"Yes you are-but it is a small fault compared with many. And you have redeeming features. Tell me about Sir Herbert."

"He is not sartorially elegant," Oliver said a trifle wasp-ishly. "He dresses expensively, but his taste is extremely mundane, and his figure and deportment are a trifle portly and lacking in grace. Substantial is the word I would choose."

"Which says more about your feeling for him than about the man himself," Henry observed. "Is he vain?"

"Yes. Intellectually vain. I think it very probable he did not even notice her except as an extremely efficient adjunct to his own skills. I would be very surprised if he even gave her emotions a thought. He expects admiration, and I have been led to believe he always gets it."

"But not guilty?" Henry wrinkled his brow. "What would he have to lose if she accused him of impropriety?"

"Not nearly as much as she. No one of any standing would believe her. And there is no evidence whatever except her word. His reputation is immaculate."

"Then what disturbs you? Your client is innocent and you have at least a fighting chance of clearing him."

Oliver did not answer. The light was fading a lhtle in the sky, the color deepening as the shadows spread across the grass.

"Did you behave badly?"

"Yes. I don't know what else I could have done-but yes, I feel it was badly."

"What did you do?"

"I tore Barrymore to shreds-her father," Oliver answered quietly. "An honest, decent man devastated by grief for a daughter he adored, and I did everything I could to make him believe she was a daydreamer who fantasized about her abilities and then lied about them to others. I tried to show that she was not the heroine she seemed, but an unhappy woman who had failed in her dreams and created for herself an imaginary world where she was cleverer, braver, and more skilled than she was in truth." He drew in a deep breath. "I could see in his face I even made him doubt her. God, I loathed doing that! I don't think I have ever done anything for which I felt grubbier."

"Is it true?" Henry's voice was gentle.

"I don't know. It could be," Oliver said furiously. "That isn't the point! I put dirty, irreverent fingers over the man's dreams! I dragged out the most precious thing he had, held it up to the public, then smeared it all over with doubt and ugliness. I could feel the crowd hating me-and the jury- but not as much as I loathed myself." He laughed abruptly. "I think only Monk equaled the hold of me as I was leaving and I thought he was going to strike me. He was white with rage. Looking at his eyes, I was frightened of him." He gave a shaky laugh as the shame of that moment on the Old Bailey steps came back to him, the frustration and the self-disgust. "I think if he could have got away with it, he might have killed me for what I did to Barrymore-and to Prudence's memory." He stopped, aching for some word of denial, of comfort.

Henry looked at him with bright, sad eyes. There was love in his face, the desire to protect, but not to excuse.

"Was it a legitimate question to raise?" he asked.

"Yes, of course it was. She was normally a highly intelligent woman, but there was nothing whatever to make anyone, even a fool, think that Sir Herbert would leave his wife and seven children and ruin himself professionally, socially, and financially for her. It's preposterous."

"And what makes you think she believed he would?"

"The letters, damn it! And they are in her hand, there is no question about that. The sister identified them."

"Then perhaps you do have a tormented woman with two quite distinct sides to her nature-one rational, brave, and efficient, the other quite devoid of judgment and even of self-preservation?" Henry suggested.

"I suppose so."

"Then why do you blame yourself? What is it you have done that is so wrong?"

"Shattered dreams-robbed Barrymore of his most precious belief-and perhaps a lot of others as well, certainly Monk."

"Questioned it," Henry corrected. "Not robbed them- not yet."

"Yes I have. I've made them doubt. It is tarnished. It won't ever be the same again."

"What do you believe?"

Oliver thought for a long time. The starlings were quiet at last. In the gathering dusk the perfume of the honeysuckle was even stronger.

"I believe there is something damned important that I don't know yet," he answered finally. "Not only don't I know it, I don't even know where to look."

"Then go with your beliefs," Henry advised, his voice comfortable and familiar in the near darkness. "If you don't have knowledge, it is all you can do."

* * * * *

The second day was occupied with Lovat-Smith's calling a tedious procession of hospital staff who all testified to Prudence's professional ability, and he was meticulous at no point to slight her. Once or twice he looked across at Rathbone and smiled, his gray eyes brilliant. He knew the precise values of all the emotions involved. It was pointless hoping he would make an error. One by one he elicited from them observations of Prudence's admiration for Sir Herbert, the inordinate number of times he chose her alone to work with him, their obvious ease with each other, and finally her apparent devotion to him.

Rathbone did what he could to mitigate the effect, pointing out that Prudence's feelings for Sir Herbert did not prove his feelings for her, and that he was not even aware that on her part it was more than professional, let alone that he had actively encouraged her. But he had an increasingly unpleasant certainty that he had lost their sympathy. Sir Herbert was not an easy man to defend; he did not naturally attract their liking. He appeared too calm, too much a man in command of his own destiny. He was accustomed to dealing with those who were desperately dependent upon him for the relief of bodily pain, even the continuance of their physical existence.

Rathbone wondered if he were frightened behind that masklike composure, if he understood how close he was to the hangman's noose and his own final pain. Was his mind racing, his imagination bringing out his body in cold sweat? Or did he simply believe such a thing could not happen?

Was it innocence which armored him against the reality of his danger?

What had really happened between himself and Prudence?

Rathbone went as far as he dared in trying to paint her as a woman with fantasies, romantic delusions, but he saw the faces of the jurors and felt the wave of dislike when he disparaged her, and knew he dared do little more than suggest, and leave the thought in their minds to germinate as the trial progressed. Henry's words kept coming back to him. Go with your beliefs.

But he should not have quarreled with Monk. That had been self-indulgent. He needed him desperately. The only way to save Sir Herbert from the gallows, never mind his reputation, was to find whoever did kill Prudence Barrymore. Even the escape of reasonable doubt was beginning to recede. Once he even heard a sharp note of panic in his own voice as he rose to cross-examine, and it brought him out in a sweat over his body. Lovat-Smith would not have missed it. He would know he was winning, as a dog on the chase scents the kill.

The third day was better. Lovat-Smith made his first tactical error. He called Mrs. Barrymore to the stand to testify to Prudence's spotless moral character. Presumably he had intended her to heighten the emotional pitch of sympathy for Prudence. Mrs. Barrymore was the bereaved mother, it was a natural thing to do, and in his position Rathbone would most certainly have done the same. He admitted as much to himself.

Nevertheless it proved a mistake.

Lovat-Smith approached her with deference and sympathy, but still all the cocky assurance in his stance that Rathbone had seen the previous day. He was winning, and he knew it. It was the sweeter for being against Oliver Rathbone.

"Mrs. Barrymore," he began with a slight inclination of his head, "I regret having to ask you to do this, painful as it must be for you, but I am sure you are as keen as the test of us that justice should be done, for all our sakes."

She looked tired, her fair skin puffy around the eyes, but she was perfectly composed, dressed in total black, which became her fair coloring and delicate features.

"Of course," she agreed. "I shall do my best to answer you honestly."

"I am sure you will," Lovat-Smith said. Then, sensing the judge's impatience, he began. "Naturally you have known Prudence all her life, probably no one else knew her as well as you did. Was she a romantic, dreaming sort of girl, often falling in love?"

"Not at all," she said with wide-open eyes. "In fact, the very opposite. Her sister, Faith, would read novels and imagine herself the heroine. She would daydream of handsome young men, as most girls do. But Prudence was quite different. She seemed only concerned with study and learning more all the time. Not really healthy for a young girl." She looked puzzled, as if the anomaly still confused her.

"But surely she must have had girlhood romances?" Lovat-Smith pressed. "Hero worship, if you will, of young men from time to time?" But the knowledge of her answer was plain in his face, and in the assurance of his tone.

"No," Mrs. Barrymore insisted. "She never did. Even the new young curate, who was so very charming and attracted all the young ladies in the congregation, seemed to awaken no interest in Prudence at all." She shook her head a little, setting the black ribbons on her bonnet waving.

The jury members were listening to her intently, uncertain how much they believed her or what they felt, and the mixture of concentration and doubt was plain in their expressions.

Rathbone glanced quickly up at Sir Herbert. Oddly enough, he seemed uninterested, as if Prudence's early life were of no concern to him. Did he not understand the importance of its emotional value to the jury's grasp of her character? Did he not realize how much hinged upon what manner of woman she was-a disillusioned dreamer, an idealist, a noble and passionate woman wronged, a blackmailer?

"Was she an unemotional person?" Lovat-Smith asked, investing the question with an artificial surprise.

"Oh no, she felt things intensely," Mrs. Barrymore assured him. "Most intensely-so much so I feared she would make herself ill." She blinked several times and mastered herself only with great difficulty. "That seems so foolish now, doesn't it? It seems as if it has brought about her very death! I'm sorry, I find it most difficult to control my feelings." She shot a look of utter hatred at Sir Herbert across in the dock, and for the first time he looked distressed. He rose to his feet and leaned forward, but before he could do anything further one of the two jailers in the dock with him gripped his arms and pulled him back.

There was a gasp, a sigh around the court. One of the jurors said something which was inaudible. Judge Hardie opened his mouth, and then changed his mind and remained silent. Rathbone considered objecting and decided not to. It would only alienate the jury still further.

"Knowing her as you did, Mrs. Barrymore..." Lovat-Smith said it very gently, his voice almost a caress, and Rathbone felt the confidence in him as if it were a warm blanket over the skin. "Do you find it difficult to believe that in Sir Herbert Stanhope," Lovat-Smith went on, "Prudence at last found a man whom she could both love and admire with all her ardent, idealistic nature, and to whom she could give her total devotion?"

"Not at all," Mrs. Barrymore replied without hesitation. "He was exactly the sort of man to answer all her dreams. She would think him noble enough, dedicated enough and brilliant enough to be everything she could love with all her heart." At last the tears would not be controlled anymore, and she covered her face with her hands and silently wept.

Lovat-Smith stepped forward and reached high up with his arm to offer her his handkerchief.

She took it blindly, fumbling to grasp it from his hand.

For once Lovat-Smith was lost for words. There seemed nothing to say that was not either trite or grossly inappropriate. He half nodded, a little awkwardly, knowing that she was not looking at him, and returned to his seat, waving his hand to indicate that Rathbone might now take his turn.

Rathbone rose and walked across to the center of the floor, acutely aware that every eye was on him. He could win or lose it all in the next few moments.

There was no sound except Mrs. Barrymore's gentle weeping.

Rathbone waited. He did not interrupt her. It was too great a risk. It might be viewed as sympathy; on the other hand, it might seem like indecent haste.

He ached to look around at the jury, and at Sir Herbert, but it would have betrayed his uncertainty, and Lovat-Smith would have understood it as a hunting animal scents weakness. Their rivalry was old and close. They knew each other too well for even a whisper of a mistake to go unnoticed.

Finally Mrs. Barrymore blew her nose very delicately, a restrained and genteel action, and yet remarkably effective. When she looked up her eyes were red, but the rest of her face was quite composed.

"I am very sorry," she said quietly. "I fear I am not as strong as I had imagined." Her eyes strayed upward for a moment to look at Sir Herbert on the far side of the court, and the loathing in her face was as implacable as that of any man she might have imagined to have the power she said she lacked.

"There is no need to apologize, ma'am," Rathbone assured her softly, but with that intense clarity of tone which he knew was audible even in the very back row of the public seats. "I am sure everyone here understands your grief and feels for you." There was nothing he could do to ameliorate her hatred. Better to ignore it and hope the jury had not seen.

"Thank you." She sniffed very slightly.

"Mrs. Barrymore," he began with the shadow of a smile, "I have only a few questions for you, and I will try to make them as brief as possible. As Mr. Lovat-Smith has already pointed out, you naturally knew your daughter as only a mother can. You were familiar with her love of medicine and the care of the sick and injured." He put his hands in his pockets and looked up at her. "Did you find it easy to believe that she actually performed operations herself?".

Anne Barrymore frowned, concentrating on what was obviously difficult for her.

"No, I am afraid I did not. It is something that has always puzzled me."

"Do you think that it is possible she exaggerated her own role a trifle in order to be-shall we say, closer to her ideal? Of more service to Sir Herbert Stanhope?"

Her face brightened. "Yes-yes, that would explain it. It is not really a natural thing for a woman to do, is it? But love is something we can all understand so easily."

"Of course it is," Rathbone agreed, although he found it increasingly hard to accept as the sole motive for anyone's actions, even a young woman. He questioned his own words as he said mem. But this was not the time to be self-indulgent. All that mattered now was Sir Herbert, and showing the jury that he was as much a victim as Prudence Barrymore and that the affliction to him might yet prove as fatal. "And you do not find it difficult to believe that she wove aD her hopes and dreams around Sir Herbert?"

She smiled sadly. "I am afraid it seems she was foolish, poor child. So very foolish." She shot a look of anger and frustration at Mr. Barrymore, sitting high in the public gallery, white-faced and unhappy. Then she turned back to Rathbone. "She had an excellent offer from a totally suitable young man at home, you know," she went on earnestly. "We could none of us understand why she did not accept him." Her brows drew down and she looked like a lost child herself. "A head full of absurd dreams. Quite impossible, and not to be desired anyway. It would never have made her happy." Suddenly her eyes filled with tears again. "And now it is all too late. Young people can be so wasteful of opportunity."

There was a deep murmur of sympathy around the room. Rathbone knew he was on the razor's edge. She had admitted Prudence created a fantasy for herself, that she misread reality; but her grief was also transparently genuine, and no honest person in the courtroom was untouched by it. Most had families of their own, a mother they could in their own minds put in her place, or a child they could imagine losing, as she had. If he were too tentative he would miss his chance and perhaps Sir Herbert would pay with his life. If he were too rough he would alienate the jury, and again Sir Herbert would bear the cost.

He must speak. The rustle of impatience was beginning; he could hear it around him.

"We all offer you not only our sympathy but our understanding, ma'am," he said clearly. "How many of us in our own youth have not let slip what would have been precious. Most of us do not pay so very dearly for our dreams or our misconceptions." He walked a few paces and turned, facing her from the other direction. "May I ask you one thing more? Do you find yourself able to believe that Prudence, in the ardor of her nature and her admiration of noble ideals and the healer's art, may have fallen in love with Sir Herbert Stanhope, and being a natural woman, have desired of him more than he was free to give her?"

He had his back to Sir Herbert, and was glad of it. He preferred not to see his client's face as he speculated on such emotions. If he had, his own thoughts might have intruded, his own anger and guilt.

"And that, as with so many of us," he continued, "the wish may have been father to the thought that in truth he returned her feelings, when in fact he felt for her only the respect and the regard due to a dedicated and courageous colleague with a skill far above that of her peers?"

"Yes," she said very quietly, blinking hard. "You have put it precisely. Foolish girl. If only she would have taken what was offered her and settled down like anyone else, she could have been so happy! I always said so-but she wouldn't listen. My husband"-she gulped-"encouraged her. I'm sure he meant no harm, but he didn't understand!" This time she did not look at the gallery.

'Thank you, Mrs. Barrymore," Rathbone said quickly, wishing to leave the matter before she spoiled the effect. "I have nothing further to ask you."

Lovat-Smith half rose to his feet, then changed his mind and sat down again. She was confused and grief-stricken, but she was also rooted in her convictions. He would not compound his error.

* * * * *

After his quarrel with Rathbone on the steps of the courthouse two days previous, Monk had gone home in a furious temper. It was not in the least alleviated by the fact that he knew perfectly well that Rathbone was bound by his trust to Sir Herbert, regardless of his opinion of Prudence Barrymore. He was not free to divide his loyalties, and neither evidence nor emotion permitted him to swerve.

Still he hated him for what he had suggested of Prudence, generally because he had seen the faces of the jury nodding, frowning, beginning to see her differently: less of a disciple of the lady with the lamp, tending the sick and desperate in dangerous foreign lands, and more as a fallible young woman whose dreams overcame her good sense.

But more particularly, and at the root of his anger, was the fact that it had woken the first stirrings of doubt in himself. The picture of her he had painted in his mind was now already just so very slightly tarnished, and try as he might, he could not clear it to the power and simplicity it had had before. It did not matter whether she had loved Sir Herbert Stanhope or not, was she deluded enough to have misread him so entirely? And worse than that, had she really performed the medical feats she had claimed? Was she really one of those sad but so understandable creatures who paint on the gray world the colors of their dreams and then escape into parallel worlds of their own making, warping everything to fit?

He could understand that with a sudden sickening clarity. How much of himself did he see only through the twisted view of his own lack of memory? Was his ignorance of his past his own way of escaping what he could not bear? How much did he really want to remember?

To begin with he had searched with a passion. Then as he had learned more, and found so much that was harsh, ungenerous, and self-seeking, he had pursued it less and less. The whole incident of Hermione had been painful and humiliating. And he suspected also that much of Runcorn's bitterness lay at his door. The man was weak, that was his one flaw, but Monk had traded on it over the years. A better man might not have used it in that way. No wonder Runcorn savored his final triumph.

And even as he thought it, Monk understood enough of himself to know he would not let it rest. Half of him hoped Sir Herbert was not guilty and he could undercut Runcorn yet again.

In the morning he went back to the hospital and questioned the nurses and dressers once more about seeing a strange young man in the corridors the morning of Prudence's death. There was no doubt it had been Geoffrey Taunton. He had admitted as much himself. But perhaps someone had seen him later than he had said. Maybe someone had overheard an angry exchange, angry enough to end in violence. Perhaps someone had even seen Nanette Cuthbertson, or a woman they had not recognized who could have been her. She certainly had motive enough.

It took Mm the best part of the day. His temper was short and he could hear the rough edges to his voice, the menace and the sarcasm in his questions, even as he disliked them. But his rage against Rathbone, his impatience to find a thread, something to pursue, overrode his judgment and his better intentions.

By four o'clock all he had learned was that Geoffrey Taunton had been there, precisely as he already knew, and that he had been seen leaving in a red-faced and somewhat flustered state while Prudence was still very much alive. Whether he had then doubled back and found her again, to resume the quarrel, was unresolved. Certainly it was possible, but nothing suggested that it was so. In fact, nothing suggested he was of a nature or personality given to violence at all. Prudence's treatment of him would try the patience of almost any man.

About Nanette Cuthbertson he learned nothing conclusive at all. If she had worn a plain dress, such as nurses or domestics wear, she could have passed in and out again with no one giving her a second glance.

By late afternoon he had exhausted every avenue, and was disgusted with the case and with his own conduct of it. He had thoroughly frightened or offended at least a dozen people, and furthered his own interests hardly at all.

He left the hospital and went outside into the rapidly cooling streets amid the clatter and hiss of carriages, the sound of vendors' cries as costers' carts traveled by, peddlers called their wares, and men and women hurried to reach their destinations before the heavy skies opened up in a summer thunderstorm.

He stopped and bought a newspaper from a boy who was shouting: "Latest on trial o' Sir 'Erbert! Read all about it! Only a penny! Read the news 'ere!" But when Monk opened the page it was little enough: merely more questions and doubts about Prudence, which infuriated him.

There was one more place he could try. Nanette Cuthbertson had stayed overnight with friends only a tew hundred yards away. It was possible they might know something, however trivial.

He was received very coolly by the butler; indeed, had he been able to refuse entirely without appearing to deny justice, Monk gathered he would have done so. The master of the house, one Roger Waldemar, was brief to the point of rudeness. His wife, however, was decidedly more civil, and Monk caught a gleam of admiration in her glance.

"My daughter and Miss Cuthbertson have been friends for many years." She looked at Monk with a smile in her eyes although her face was grave.

They were alone in her sitting room, all rose and gray, opening onto a tiny walled garden, private, ideal for contemplation-or dalliance. Monk quashed his speculations as to what might have taken place there and returned his attention to his task.

"Indeed, you might say they had been from childhood," Mrs. Waldemar was saying. "But Miss Cuthbertson was with us at the ball all evening. Quite lovely she looked, and so full of spirits. She had a real fire in her eyes, if you know what I mean, Mr. Monk? Some women have a certain"-she shrugged suggestively-"vividness to them that others have not, regardless of circumstance."

Monk looked at her with an answering smile. "Of course I know, Mrs. Waldemar. It is something a man does not overlook, or forget." He allowed his glance to rest on her a fraction longer than necessary. He liked the taste of power, and one day he would push his own to find its limits, to know exactly how much he could do. He was certain it was far more than this very mild, implied flirtation.

She lowered her eyes, her fingers picking at the fabric of the sofa on which she sat. "And I believe she went out for a walk very early," she said clearly. "She was not at breakfast. However, I would not wish you to read anything unfortunate into that. I am sure she simply took a little exercise, perhaps to clear her head. I daresay she wished to think." She looked up at him through her lashes. "I should have in her position. And one must be alone and uninterrupted for such a thing."

"In her position?" Monk inquired, regarding her steadily.

She looked grave. She had very fine eyes, but she was not the type of woman that appealed to him. She was too willing, too obviously unsatisfied.

"I-I am not sure if this is discreet; it can hardly be relevant____________________"

"If it is not relevant, ma'am, I shall immediately forget it," he promised, leaning an inch or two closer to her. "I can keep my own counsel."

"I am sure," she said slowly. "Well-for some time poor Nanette has been most fond of Geoffrey Taunton, whom you must know. And he has had eyes only for that unfortunate girl Prudence Barrymore. Well, lately young Martin Hereford, a most pleasing and totally acceptable young man..." She invested the words with a peculiar emphasis, conveying her boredom with everything so tediously expected. "... has paid considerable attention to Nanette," she concluded. "The night of the ball he made his admiration quite apparent. Such a nice young man. Far more suitable really than Geoffrey Taunton."

"Indeed?" Monk said with exactly the right mixture of skepticism, to entice her to explain, and encouragement, so she would not feel slighted. He kept his eyes on hers.

"Well..." She lifted one shoulder, her eyes bright. "Geoffrey Taunton can be very charming, and of course he has excellent means and a fine reputation. But there is more to consider than that."

He watched her intently, waiting for her to elaborate.

"He has a quite appalling temper," she said confidently. "He is utterly charming most of the time, of course. But if he is really thwarted, and cannot bear it, he quite simply loses all control. I have only seen him do it once, and over the silliest incident. It was a weekend in the country." She had Monk's attention and she knew it. She hesitated, savoring the moment.

He was becoming impatient. He could feel the ache in his muscles as he forced himself to sit, to smile at her, when he would like to have exploded in temper for her stupidity, her vacuous, meaningless flirting.

"A long weekend," she continued. "Actually, as I recall, it was from Thursday until Tuesday, or something like that. The men had been out shooting, I think, and we ladies had been sewing and gossiping all day, waiting for them to return. It was in the evening." She took a deep breath and stared around the room as if in an effort to recollect. "I think it was Sunday evening. We'd all been to church early, before breakfast, so they would have the whole day outside. The weather was glorious. Do you shoot, Mr. Monk?"

"No."

"You should. It's a very healthy pastime, you know."

He choked back the answer that came to his lips.

"I shall have to consider it, Mrs. Waldemar."

"They were playing billiards," she said, picking up the thread again. "Geoffrey had lost all evening to Archibald Purbright. He really is such a cad. Perhaps I shouldn't say that?" She looked at him inquiringly, her smile very close to a simper.

He knew what she wanted.

"I'm sure you shouldn't," he agreed with an effort. "But I shan't repeat it."

"Do you know him?"

"I don't think I care to, if he is a cad, as you say."

She laughed. "Oh dear. Still, I'm sure you will not repeat what I tell you?"

"Of course not. It shall be a confidence between us." He despised himself as he was doing it, and despised her the more. "What happened?"

"Oh, Archie was cheating, as usual, and Geoffrey finally lost his temper and said some perfectly terrible things..."

Monk felt a rage of disappointment. Abuse, however virulent, was hardly akin to murder. Stupid woman! He could have hit her silly, smiling face.

"I see," he said with distinct chill. It was a relief not to have to pretend anymore.

"Oh no, you don't," she retorted urgently. "Geoffrey beat poor Archie over the head and shoulders with the billiard cue. He knocked him to the floor, and might have rendered him senseless had not Bertie and George pulled him off. It was really quite awful." There was a flush of excitement in her cheeks. "Archie was in bed for four days, and of course they had to send for the doctor. They told him Archie had fallen off his horse, but I don't think the doctor believed that for an instant. He was too discreet to say so, but I saw the look on his face. Archie said he'd sue, but he'd been cheating, and he knew we knew it, so naturally he didn't. But neither of them were invited again." She smiled up at him and shrugged her smooth shoulders. "So I daresay Nanette had a great deal to think about. After all, a temper of that sort gives one cause for consideration, however charming a man may be otherwise, don't you agree?"

"I do indeed, Mrs. Waldemar," Monk said with sincerity. Suddenly she looked extremely different. She was not stupid; on the contrary, she was very perceptive. She did not prattle on; she recounted valuable and maybe extremely relevant information. He looked back at her with profound appreciation. "Thank you. Your excellent memory is most admirable and explains a great deal to me that had previously been beyond my understanding. No doubt Miss Cuthbertson was doing exactly as you say. Thank you so much for your time and courtesy." He rose to his feet, backing away from her.

"Not at all." She rose also, her skirts billowing around her with a soft sound of taffeta. "If I can be of any further assistance, please feel able to call upon me."

"Indeed I shall." And with such speed as grace allowed, he took his departure out into the darkening streets, the lamplighter passing on his way, one light glowing into life after another along the length of the pavement.

So Geoffrey had a violent temper, even murderous. His step lightened. It was a small thing so far, but definitely a break in the gloom around Sir Herbert Stanhope.

It did not explain Prudence's dreams or their reality, and that still burdened him, but it was a beginning.

And it would be an acute satisfaction to him to take it to Rathbone. It was something he had not found for himself, and Monk could imagine the look of surprise-and obligation-in Rathbone's clever, self-possessed face when he told him.