Cain His Brother

chapter 11
Rathbone was stunned by the news. It was preposterous, even if not all the elements were tragic. He had never known such a thing to happen before, certainly not in this manner.

Monk was standing stock-still, his face dark.

"Come on," Rathbone said gently. "It's all over."

Monk did not move. "No it isn't. I don't understand it."

Rathbone laughed abruptly. "Do you ever? Do any of us? If you thought he was going to tell you what he did with Angus, or why he killed him now, instead of sometime in the past years, you were dreaming. The wretched man was mad. Dear God, wasn't that evidence enough? Jealousy had driven him insane. What more is there to understand?"

"Why he attacked Ravensbrook now," Monk replied, turning and standing to climb the steps back up. "What good would it have done him?"

"None at all!" Rathbone said impatiently, following rapidly after him.

"What good did killing Angus do him? Nothing except release his hatred.

Perhaps he felt the same way about Ravensbrook. He had nothing to lose.

Can't hang him twice."

"But they weren't necessarily going to hang him at all!" Monk said sharply, striding through the door and into the hallway. "Goode hadn't even begun.

He's a damned clever lawyer." They passed a group of dark-suited men talking quietly, and almost bumped into a clerk hurrying in the opposite direction.

"We know Caleb killed Angus," Monk went on. "Or at least I do... because I heard him admit it, even boast about it. But that's not proof. He still had hope."

"Maybe he didn't know that. I'm a damned clever lawyer too!" Rathbone said at his elbow.

"Is this what you wanted?" Monk demanded, matching Rathbone pace for pace along the corridor, coattails flying. "Can't prove he was guilty, so deceive the poor devil into committing another murder, right there in his cell, so we can hang him for that, without a quibble? Even Ebenezer Goode couldn't defend him from that!"

It was on the edge of Rathbone's tongue to give back an equally bitter response, then he looked more closely at Monk, the confusion in his face.

It was not all anger. There was doubt and pain in it as well.

"What?" he demanded, swinging to a stop.

"Are you deaf? I said-" Monk began.

"I heard what you said!" Rathbone snapped. "It was sufficiently stupid-I shall ignore it. I am trying to fathom what you meant. Something puzzles you, something more than simply the questions we were asking before, and now we shall almost certainly never answer."

"Ravensbrook said Caleb attacked him." Monk began walking again. "And he fought him off. In the struggle Caleb was killed... accidentally." "I heard it," Rathbone agreed, going down the steps towards the cells. "Why?

What are you thinking? That it was actually suicide, and Ravensbrook is covering it up? Why?" They were obliged to walk in single file for some distance, then at the bottom Monk caught up again. "It makes no sense,"

Rathbone went on. "What reason could he have? The wretched man is dead, and guilty by implication, if not proof. What would he be saving him? Or any- one?"

"Legally he's innocent," Monk said with a scowl. "Not yet proven guilty, whatever we know, you and I. We don't count."

"For God's sake, Monk, the public knows. And as soon as the court reconvenes, they'll have him for trying to kill Ravensbrook as well."

"But as a suicide he'd be buried in unhallowed ground," Monk pointed out.

They were just outside the main door to the cells. "This way he's not convicted of anything, only charged. People can believe whatever they want.

He'll go down in posterity as an innocent man."

"I should think if it's a lie at all," Rathbone argued, "it is more likely Ravensbrook doesn't want to be accused of deliberately allowing the man to take his own life, morally at any time, legally while he's in custody and on trial."

"Point," Monk conceded.

"Thank you," Rathbone acknowledged. "I think it is most probable he is simply giving a mixture of what he knows in the confusion, and what he hopes happened. He is bound to be very shocked, and grieved, poor devil."

Monk did not reply, but knocked sharply on the door.

They were permitted in with some reluctance. Rathbone had to insist in his capacity as an officer of the court, and Monk was permitted largely by instinct of the gaoler, who knew him from the past, and was used to obeying him.

It was a small anteroom for the duty gaolers to wait. Ravensbrook was half collapsed on a wooden hard-backed chair. His hair and clothes were disheveled and there was blood splattered on his arms and chest, even on his face. He seemed in the deepest stages of shock, his eyes sunk in their sockets, unfocused. He was breathing through his mouth, gasping and occasionally swallowing and gulping air. His body was rigid and he trembled as if perished with cold.

One gaoler stood holding a rolled-up handkerchief to a wound in Ravensbrook's chest, a second held a glass of water and tried to persuade him to drink from it, but he seemed not even to hear the man.

"Are you the doctor?" the gaoler with the handkerchief demanded, looking at Monk. In his gown and wig, Rathbone was instantly recognizable for what he was.

"No. But there's probably a nurse still on the premises, if you send someone to look for her immediately," Monk replied. "Her name is Hester Latterly, and she'll be with Lady Ravensbrook in her carriage."

"Nurse'll be no use," the gaoler said desperately. "Nobody about needs nursin', for Gawd's sake. Look at it!"

"An army nurse," Monk corrected his impression. "You might have to go a mile or more to find a doctor. And she'll be more used to this sort of thing than most doctors around here anyway. Go and get her. Don't stand around arguing."

The man went, perhaps glad to escape.

Monk turned to look at Ravensbrook, studied his face for a moment, then abandoned the idea and spoke instead to the remaining gaoler.

"What happened?" he asked. "Tell us precisely, and in exact order as you remember it. Start when Lord Ravensbrook arrived."

He did not question who Monk was, or what authority he had to be demanding explanations. The tone in Monk's voice was sufficient, and the gaoler was overwhelmingly relieved to hand over responsibility to someone else, anyone at all.

" 'Is lordship came in wi' permission from the 'ead warder for 'im ter visit wi' the prisoner," he responded. " 'Im bein' a relative, like, an' the prisoner lookin' fit ter be sent down, then like as not, topped."

"Where is the head warder?" Rathbone interrupted.

"Goin' ter speak wi' the judge," the gaoler replied. "Dunno wot 'appens next. Never 'ad no one killed in the middle o' a trial afore, leastways not while I were 'ere." He shivered. He had taken the glass of water, theoretically for Ravensbrook, and it slurped at the edges as his hand shook.

Rathbone took it from him and set it down. "So you opened the cell and allowed Lord Ravensbrook in?" Monk prompted.

"Yes, sir. An' o' course I locked it be'ind 'im, the prisoner bein' charged wi' a violent crime, like, it were necessary."

"Of course it was," Monk agreed. "Then what happened?"

"Nuffink, for 'bout five minutes or so."

"You waited out here?"

"O' course."

"And after five minutes?"

"'Is lordship, Lord Ravensbrook, 'e knocked on the door an' asked ter come out. I thought it was kind o' quick, but it in't none o' my business. So I let 'im aht. But 'e weren't through." He was still holding the rolled-up handkerchief at Ravensbrook's chest, and the blood was seeping through his fingers. " 'E said as the prisoner wanted ter write 'is last statement an' 'ad I any paper and a pen an' ink," he went on, his voice hoarse. "Well, o' course I don't 'ave it in me pocket, like, but I told 'im as I could send for 'em, which I did. I'nt that right, me lord?" He looked down at Ravensbrook for confirmation, but Ravensbrook seemed almost unaware of him.

"You sent for them. Who did you send?" Monk pressed.

"Jimson, the other bloke on watch wi' me. The feller wot yer sent for the nurse."

"And you locked the cell door?"

"O' course I locked it." There was indignation in his voice.

"And Lord Ravensbrook waited out here with you?"

"Yeah, yeah 'e did."

"Did he say anything?"

Ravensbrook neither moved on his chair nor made any sound.

"Wot, ter me?" the gaoler said with surprise. "Wot would a lordship talk ter the likes o' me abaht?"

"You waited in silence?" Monk asked. "Yeah. Weren't long, three or four minutes, then Jimson came back wi' pen an' paper an' ink. I gave 'em ter 'is lordship, opened the cell door again, and 'e went in, an' I locked it."

"And then?"

The man screwed up his face in concentration. "I'm trying ter think as if I 'eard anythink, but I can't recall as I did. I should lave..."

Why.

"Well, there must 'a bin summink, mustn't there?" he said reasonably. "'Cos arter a few minutes like, 'is lordship banged on the door an' shouted fer 'elp, shouted real loud, like 'e were in terrible trouble-which o' course 'e were." He took a deep breath, still staring at Monk. "So me an' Jimson, we both went to the door, immediate like. Jimson unlocked it, an' I stood ready, not knowin' what ter expec'.' "And what did you find?"

He looked over towards the cell door about ten feet away, and still very slightly ajar.

"'Is lordship staggerin' an' beatin' on the doors wi' 'is fists," he answered, his voice strained. "An' 'e were all covered in blood, like 'e is now." He glanced at Ravensbrook, then away again. "The prisoner were in an leap on the floor, wi' even more blood on 'im. I can't remember wot I said, nor wot Jimson said neither. 'E 'elped 'is lordship out, an' I went ter the prisoner." He kept his eyes fixed on Monk's face, as if to block out what was in his mind. "I knelt down by 'im an' reached for 'is 'and, like, ter see if 'e were alive. I couldn't feel nothin'. Although ter be 'onest wif yer, sir, I dunno as 'ow I weren't shakin' so much I wouldn't a' knowed anyway. But I think 'e were dead already. I never seen so much blood in me life."

"I see." Monk's eye strayed involuntarily towards the half-open cell door.

He forced his attention back to the man in front of him. "And then what?"

The gaoler looked at Ravensbrook, but Ravensbrook gave him no prompt whatsoever; in fact, from the fixed expression on his face, he might not even have heard what they said.

"We asked 'is lordship what 'ad 'appened," the gaoler said unhappily.

"Although anyone could see as there'd bin a terrible fight, an' some'ow the prisoner'd got the worst o' it."

"And when you asked Lord Ravensbrook, what did he say?"

"'E said as the prisoner'd leaped on 'im and attacked 'im when 'e 'ad the penknife out ter recut the nib, and 'though 'e'd done 'is best ter fight 'im off, in the struggle, 'e'd got 'isself stabbed, an' it were all over in a matter o' seconds. Caught the vein in 'is throat and whoosh! Gom." He swallowed hard, his concentration on Monk intense. "Don' get me wrong, sir, I wouldn't never 'ave had it 'appen, but maybe there's some justice in it.

Don't deserve ter get away wi' munlerin' 'is bruvver, like. No one do. But I 'ates an 'anging. Jimson says as I'm soft, but it in't the way for no man ter go."

"Thank you." Monk did not volunteer an opinion, but a certain sense of his agreement was in his silence, and the absence of censure in his voice. At last Monk turned to Ravensbrook and spoke clearly and with emphasis. "Lord Ravensbrook, will you please tell us exactly what happened? It is most important, sir."

Ravensbrook looked up very slowly, focusing on Monk with difficulty, like a man wakening from a deep sleep.

"I beg your pardon?"

Monk repeated his words.

"Oh. Yes. Of course." He drew in his breath and let it out silently. "I'm sorry." For several more seconds he said nothing, until Rathbone was about to prompt him. Then at last he spoke. "He was in a very strange mood," he said slowly, speaking as if his lips were stiff, his tongue unwilling to obey him. His voice was curiously flat. Rathbone had seen it before in people suffering shock. "At first he seemed pleased to see me,"

Ravensbrook went on. "Almost relieved. We spoke about trivialities for a few minutes. I asked him if he needed anything, if there was anything I could do for him." He swallowed, and Rathbone could see his throat tighten.

"Straightaway he said that there was." Ravensbrook was speaking to Monk, ignoring Rathbone. "He wanted to write a statement. I thought perhaps he was going to make a clean breast of it, some kind of confession, for Genevieve's sake. Tell her where Angus's body was." He was not looking directly at Monk, but at some distance of the mind, some region of thought or hope.

"And was that what he wanted?" Rathbone asked, although he held no belief that it could have been. It was only a last, wild chance that he might have said something. But what could it matter, except that Genevieve would have some clearer idea. And was that good or bad? Perhaps ignorance was more merciful.

Ravensbrook looked at him for the first time.

"No..." he said thoughtfully. "No, I don't think he even intended to write anything. But I believed him. I came out and asked for the materials, which were brought me. I took them back in. He grasped the pen from me, put it in the inkwell, which I had placed on the table, then made an attempt to write. I think he forced it. Then he looked up at me and said the nib was blunt and had divided, would I recut it." He moved his shoulders very slightly, not quite a shrug. "Of course I agreed. He gave it to me. I wiped it clean so I could see what I was doing, and then I took out my knife, opened it... "

No one in the room moved. The gaoler seemed mesmerized. There was no sound of the outer world, the courthouse beyond the heavy, iron door.

Ravensbrook looked back at Monk again, his eyes dark and full of nightmare.

Then, almost as if closing curtains within his mind, he looked just beyond him. His voice was a little high-pitched, as if he could not open his throat. "The next moment I felt a ringing blow, and I was forced back against the wall, and Caleb was on top of me." He took a deep breath. "We struggled for several moments. I did all I could to free myself, but he had an extraordinary strength. He seemed determined to kill me, and it was all I could do to force the knife away from my throat. I made a tremendous effort, I suppose seeing the nearness of death in the blade. I don't know exactly how it occurred. He jerked back, slipped, and missed his footing somehow, and fell, pulling me on top of him."

Rathbone tried to visualize it, the fear, the violence, the confusion. It was not difficult.

"When I freed myself and managed to rise to my feet," Ravensbrook went on, "he was lying there with the knife in his throat and blood pouring from the wound. There was nothing I could do. God help him. At least he is at some sort of peace now. He'll be spared the..." He took another long, deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "The judicial... process."

Rathbone glanced at Monk, and saw the same look of distress in his face, and also the knowledge that there was no retreat or evasion possible.

"Thank you," Monk acknowledged Ravensbrook, then with Rathbone behind him, walked over and pushed the cell door wider and went inside. Caleb Stone was lying on the floor in a sheet of blood. It lay in a scarlet tide around his head and shoulders. The penknife, a beautiful silver engraved thing, was lying upside down against his neck, as if it had fallen out of the wound with its own weight. There was no question that he was dead. The beautiful green eyes were open, and quite blind. There was in his face a look of resignation, as if he had at last let go of something which was both a possession and a torture, and the ease of it had surprised him.

Monk looked for something to tell him some fact beyond that which Ravensbrook or the gaoler had said, and saw nothing. There were no contradictions, no suggestions of anything additional, anything unexplained by the account of a simple, stupid piece of violence. The only question was had he been impulsive, in a sudden overwhelming rage, perhaps like the rage that had killed Angus, or had it been a deliberately planned way of committing suicide before the hangman could take his life in the slow, exquisite mindtorture of conviction, sentence and hanging?

He turned to Rathbone, and saw an understanding of the same question in his face.

Before either of them could form it in words there was a noise behind them, the heavy clank of an iron bolt in a lock, and then Hester's voice. Monk swung around and came out of the cell, almost pushing Rathbone forward into the outer room.

"Lord Ravensbrook!" Hester glanced once at the gaoler, still holding the blood-soaked handkerchief against Ravensbrook's chest, then moved forward and dropped to her knees. "Where are you hurt?" she said, as if he had been a child-quite soothingly, but with the voice of authority.

He raised his head and stared at her.

"Where are you hurt?" she repeated, putting her hand gently over the gaoler's and moving the kerchief away very slowly. No gush of blood followed it; in fact, it seemed to have clotted and dried already. "Please, allow me to take your coat off," she asked. "I must see if you are still bleeding." It seemed an unnecessary comment. There was so much blood he must still be losing it at a considerable rate.

"Should you, miss?" Jimson asked. He had returned with her and was staring at Ravensbrook dubiously. "Might make it worse. Better wait till the doctor gets 'ere. 'E's bin sent fer."

"Take it off!" Hester ignored Jimson, and started to pull on Ravensbrook's shoulders to ease the jacket away from him. He did nothing, and she moved his arm aside from where he had been holding it across his chest. "Take the other one!" she ordered Monk. "It will slip away if you hold it properly."

He did as he was bid, and gently she pulled the coat off, leaving it in Monk's hands. The shirt beneath was surprisingly white and not nearly as badly stained as Monk had expected. Indeed, there were only four marks that he could see, one on the front of the left shoulder, one on the left forearm, and two on the right side of the chest. None of them were bright scarlet or puddled in blood. Only the one on the shoulder that he had been holding was still shining wet.

"Doesn't look too bad," Hester said dispassionately. She turned to the first gaoler. "I don't suppose you have any bandages? No, I thought not.

Have you cloths of any sort?"

The man hesitated.

"Right," she nodded. "Then take off your shirt. It will have to do. I'll use the tails." She smiled very dryly. "And yours too, Mr. Rathbone, I think. I need a white one." She ignored Monk, and his immaculate linen.

Even in this contingency she was apparently aware of his finances. Rathbone drew in a sharp breath, and thoughts of voluminous petticoats floated into his mind, and out again. He obeyed.

"Have you any spirits?" she asked the gaoler. "A little brandy for restorative purposes, perhaps?" She looked at Ravensbrook. "Have you a hip flask, my lord?"

"I don't require brandy," he said with a very slight shake of the head.

"Just do what is necessary, woman."

"I wasn't going to give it to you," she answered. "Have you any?"

He stared at her with seeming incomprehension.

"Yer feelin' faint, miss?" the gaoler said with concern.

The shadow of a smile touched her lips. "No thank you. I wanted to clean the wounds. Water will do if that's all there is, but brandy would have been better."

Rathbone passed her the glass of water Ravensbrook had declined. Monk moved forward and fished in Ravensbrook's jacket and found the flat, silver engraved flask, opened it and set it where she could reach it.

In silence they watched her work, cleaning away the blood first with cloths from the gaoler's coarse shirt, then with a little brandy, which must have stung when it was applied, from the involuntary oath escaping Ravensbrook, and the clenched teeth and gulp of pain.

But even Monk could see that the wounds were not deep, more gashes and cuts than genuine stabs.

She then bound them with bandages made from almost all of Rathbone's fine Egyptian cotton shirt, which she tore with great abandon and considerable dexterity, and, Monk thought, not a little satisfaction. He glanced at Rathbone and saw him wince as the cloth ripped.

"Thank you," Ravensbrook said stiffly when she was finished. "I am obliged to you again, Miss Latterly. You are extremely efficient. Where is my wife?"

"In your carriage, my lord," she replied. "I daresay she will be at home by now. I took the liberty of instructing the coachman to take her. She may become ill if she sits waiting in this chill. I am sure someone will find you a hansom immediately."

"Yes," he said after a moment. "Of course." He looked at Rathbone. "If you need me for anything, I can be found at my home. I cannot think what else there is to do now, or to say. I assume the judge will make whatever remarks he believes necessary, and that will be an end to it. Good day, gentlemen." He stood up and, walking very uprightly and with a slight sway, made his way to the door. "Oh." He turned and looked at Rathbone. "I presume I may have the liberty of giving him a decent burial? After all, he has not been found guilty of anything, and I am his only relative." He swallowed painfully.

"I can see no reason why not," Rathbone agreed, suddenly touched by a sense of overwhelming loss, deeper than mere death, a bereavement of the spirit, of the past as well as the future. "I will attend to the formalities, my lord, if you wish?"

"Yes. Yes, thank you," Ravensbrook accepted. "Good day." And he went out of the door. Now no longer locked, it swung to heavily behind him.

Hester looked towards the cell.

"You don't need to," Rathbone stepped in front of her. "It's most unpleasant."

"Thank you, Oliver, for your sensitivity," she said bleakly. "But I have seen far more dead men than you have. I shall be quite all right." And she walked in, brushing his shoulder. He had replaced his jacket and it looked odd with no shirt beneath.

Inside she stood still and looked down at the crumpled form of Caleb Stone.

She stared at him for several seconds before she frowned a little, then with a deep sigh, straightened up and came out again. Her eyes met Rathbone's.

"What are you going to do?" she asked quietly.

"Go home and get a shirt," he replied with a twisted smile. "There isn't anything else we can do, my dear. There's no case to prosecute or defend anymore. If Mrs. Stonefield wishes me to act for her in the matter of for- mally acknowledging her husband's death, then of course I will do so. First we must deal with this matter, which I imagine the judge will do when court reconvenes tomorrow morning."

"Is there something which worries you?" Monk said suddenly, looking at her closely. "What is it?"

"I... I don't think I am quite certain..." She frowned in concentration, but seemed unwilling to add more.

"Then come to my house and dine," Rathbone invited her, and included Monk with a gesture. "That is, if you do not have to return with Lady Ravensbrook, or go back to Limehouse?"

"No." She shook her head. "The typhoid is past its worst. In fact, there have been no new cases for over two days, and many of those who are left are beginning to recover. I... I would like to think further on Caleb Stone."

Before even considering it they ate a surprisingly good meal. Rathbone's house was warm and quiet, furnished in the discreet fashion of half a century earlier, the excellent chair lines of the Regency. It made for comfort and a sense of space.

Hester had not thought she would wish to eat at all, but when the meal was placed before her, and she had not had to take any part in its preparation, she found that she was, after all, quite hungry.

When the last course was completed Rathbone sat back and looked across at her.

"Well, what is it that worries you? Are you afraid it was suicide? And if it was, does it really matter? Who would it help to prove it, even if we could?"

"Why would he commit suicide now?" she asked, fumbling through the ideas jumbled in her mind, the memory of the wounds she had seen and the small, very sharp knife, almost like a scalpel, lying with the very end of its blade in Caleb's neck and its silver handle in the sheet of blood beside him. "His defense had not even begun!"

"Perhaps he had no hope it could succeed?" Monk suggested.

"You don't believe that," Rathbone said instantly. "Could he have killed himself in remorse? Perhaps hearing the evidence somehow brought it back to him. Or more likely it was seeing Ravensbrook, and knowing the grief it had brought him, and of course Genevieve."

"Genevieve?" Monk's eyebrows rose. "He loathed her. She was part of all that he despised in Angus: the comfortable, pious wife with her smiling, complacent face and her total ignorance of the tragedy and reality of the kind of life he led, the poverty and the hardship and the dirt."

"You don't know anything about Genevieve, do you?" Hester looked from one to the other of them, and saw the blank incomprehension in their faces. "No, of course you don't. She grew up in Limehouse..."

Rathbone was astonished. He sat quite still, except for a slight parting of his lips.

Monk, on the other hand, gave a snort of disbelief and moved his hand sharply to dismiss the idea as preposterous, knocking his elbow against his empty wineglass and clinking it against its neighbor.

"Yes, she did!" Hester said sharply. "I've just spent nearly a month in Limehouse, and I know the people she grew up with. They remember her. Her name used to be Ginny Motson."

Monk looked astonished. His face was almost expressionless with surprise.

"I assume you wouldn't say that unless you were sure beyond question?"

Rathbone said gravely. "This is not gossip, is it?"

"No, of course it isn't," Hester answered, the scene over the mistake clear in her mind. "She told me herself, when she realized I had guessed." They sat silently for several minutes, turning over those new and amazing thoughts. The butler came in and removed the last of the dishes and brought the port, offering it to Monk and Rathbone. He bowed civilly to Hester, but disregarded her otherwise. She puzzled him, and his uncertainty showed in his face.

"It would explain a number of things," Monk conceded at last. "Her dread of poverty, above all. No woman who had not known it should fear it as she does. I thought it was simple love of comfort. I'm glad it isn't." Hester smiled. She knew Monk's vulnerability where certain women were concerned.

He had been a startlingly poor judge of character before, but she did not refer to that. It was a precisely delicate subject just now. "Then was it Angus, or perhaps Caleb, who taught her to carry herself like a lady, and speak like one?" Rathbone mused. "If it were Caleb, then that may have been the cata lyst which turned his rivalry with Angus into hatred. She met Angus when he came to see Caleb, and perhaps she fell in love with him, or less attractively, saw a chance to get out of the poverty and squalor of Limehouse into something far better, and she took it."

"And you think Caleb might have loved her?" Hester said, raising her eyebrows. "So much that after he had killed Angus, for having taken her away from him, he now felt such remorse, on looking at her face in the courtroom, that he killed himself halfway through the trial? And Lord Ravensbrook allowed him to, and is prepared to conceal it? No." She shook her head sharply. "She told me she was never Caleb's woman, and I believe her. She had no reason to lie, and I don't think she did. Anyway, it makes no sense. If what you are saying were true, he would have written whatever it was he sent for the paper and ink to say. Unless, of course, you think Lord Ravensbrook took it? But why would he?"

Rathbone regarded his port, shining ruby red in the candlelight, but did not touch it.

"You're right," he conceded. "It doesn't make sense."

"And I don't see Caleb Stone taking his own life out of remorse, honestly,"

Monk added. "There was more than hatred in him. I don't know what, a terrible emotion that clawed at his heart or his belly, or both, but there was a wild humor in it, a kind of pain that was far subtler than remorse.

And does it matter now?" He looked from one to the other of them, but the shadow in his eyes and the sense of unhappiness in him answered the question more vividly than words could have done.

No one bothered to affirm it. It was tangible in the air, the quiet candlelight of the dinner table gleaming on unused silver and winking in the blood-red colors of the untouched port glasses.

"If it was not suicide, then either it was accident or murder," Rathbone stated. He looked at Hester. "Was it exactly as Ravensbrook said?"

"No." She was quite positive. "It may have been an accident, but if it was as he said, then why didn't he cry out when Caleb first attacked him?" "He didn't," Rathbone said slowly. "He can't have. And according to his own account, he struggled with him for several moments, seconds perhaps, but there was obviously a struggle."

"In which Lord Ravensbrook tried to save himself from injury," Monk took up the thread. "And was, in principle, successful. His wounds are minor.

But Caleb was killed, by a freak mischance." He pulled a face.

"If Caleb attacked him, why did he not cry out straightaway?" Hester asked.

"I don't know. In some desperate hope of ending the matter without the gaolers needing to know?" Rathbone suggested. "It could be damning evidence if it were revealed in court, and even if no one introduced it, Ravensbrook's injuries would allow the conclusion easily enough."

"Irrational, in the circumstances," Monk argued.

"People frequently are irrational," Hester said. "But I don't think they work out a chain of thought as complicated as that in the heat of an unexpected attack. Would you, if you were leapt upon when you least thought of such a thing? Would you think of anything more than defending yourself?

If there were a weapon involved, and the attacker were younger and stronger than you, and you knew he had already killed one man, and was in danger of being hanged, so he had nothing to lose, even if he were caught, would you even think at all, or just fight for your life?"

Rathbone bit his lip. "If Caleb Stone attacked me, there'd be nothing in my mind but surviving," he admitted. His face twisted. "But I am not his father..."

Monk shrugged, but there was a tightness of wounded enthusiasm in his eyes.

"When I was chasing him down the river, I didn't think at all. There was nothing in my mind but a blind determination to catch him. I hardly even felt my own wrenches and bruises until afterwards."

Rathbone looked at Hester. "Are you sure he didn't cry out almost immediately, after the initial shock of the attack? It might take a moment in time to ward him off, and collect his wits."

"He had six separate wounds," she answered. "But they were all clean. He may well have bruises come up in the next day or two as well, and his clothes were torn a little, as if in a struggle. But Caleb had only one real wound, and that was the slash across his throat which killed him."

"What are you saying?" Rathbone leaned forward. "That Ravensbrook was mistaken, or that in some essential of importance, he lied?"

"I think so. Yes, I think he lied," she answered very deliberately. "I just don't know why."

Monk sipped his port, looking from one to the other of them.

"You mean there was a considerable struggle before he called out?" Rathbone persisted. "What reason would he have? If it was not suicide, and not an accident, then are you saying that Ravensbrook murdered him? Why on earth should he? Not just to prevent him from being hanged. That's absurd." "Then there is something we don't know," Hester answered. "Something which would make sense of it... or if not sense, at least something understandable to one's feelings."

"People kill for various reasons," Rathbone said thoughtfully. "Greed, fear, hatred. If it is irrational, then it may spring simply from emotion, but if it is rational, then it will be as a result of something that has happened, and to prevent something else from happening, to prevent some loss or pain to themselves, or someone they love."

"What could Caleb do to Ravensbrook, apart from be hanged, which could be a disgrace, but he has already disgraced himself very thoroughly." Monk shook his head.

"Hester is right. There is something crucial that we don't know, perhaps haven't even come close to." He turned to Rathbone. "What was going to happen next, if Caleb had lived?"

"The defense would have begun tomorrow," Rathbone replied slowly, his concentration suddenly sharpening, his wineglass ignored. "Perhaps we need to speak with Ebenezer Goode? I thought I knew what he was going to do, but perhaps I don't."

Monk stared at him. "What could he do? Plead insanity? The best argument he has is that it was an accident, that Caleb didn't mean to kill him, and then when he had, he panicked. Either that, or try to convince them there is not enough evidence to prove Angus is dead at all. And I don't think he will win with that."

"Then maybe that's it." Rathbone clenched his fists on the white tablecloth. "He was going to bring out some evidence to show Angus was not the just and honorable man we suppose. That would be worth killing him for.

To protect Angus's name, and Genevieve's. Perhaps to prevent Caleb from telling some appalling truth about him? That would be a reason."

"Do you think Lord Ravensbrook would kill Caleb to protect Genevieve?" Monk looked skeptical. "I gathered from their behavior towards each other that their relationship was cool, at best."

"Then to protect himself?" Rathbone argued urgently, leaning farther forward. "Or protect Angus, or his memory of him. After all, he was the nearest to a son he had. One can love a son in a strange, passionate and possessive way, as if he were part of oneself. I've seen some very complex emotions between parent and child."

"And Caleb?" Monk asked, his lips drawn back in a hard smile.

"God knows." Rathbone sighed. "Perhaps it was to spare him the verdict and the hanging. I wouldn't wish hanging on anyone. It's an appalling way to die. It's not the actual drop, and the rope around the throat, jerking tight and breaking the neck as the trap opens, it's the deliberate hourby-hour, minute-by-minute dragging it out to the appointed hour. It's a refinement of cruelty which degrades everyone involved."

"Then perhaps we should ask Mr. Goode?" Hester concluded. "If we want to know? But do we?"

"Yes," Monk said without hesitation. "I want to know, even if I don't want to do anything about it."

Rathbone's eyes widened. "Could you do that... know, and do nothing?"

Monk opened his mouth to reply, then changed his mind. He shrugged, and drank the rest of his port, looking at neither Rathbone nor Hester.

Rathbone rang the bell and the butler appeared within seconds.

"I want you to take a note to Ebenezer Goode, straightaway," Rathbone ordered. "It is vital we meet with him before court sits again tomorrow. I expect he will be at his home, but if he is not, it is worth pursuing him to wherever he is. Get your coat, and I'll have the note ready. Take a hansom."

The butler did not move a muscle; his face remained as impassive as if Rathbone had merely asked him to bring another bottle of port.

"Yes sir. Would that be the address in Westbourne Place, sir?"

"Yes." Rathbone stood up. "And make all haste."

It was over an hour and a half later when Ebenezer Goode strode in, his coattails flapping behind him, a broadbrimmed hat jammed on his head and a look of glittering expectation in his eyes.

"Well?" he said as soon as he was in the door. He swept a bow to Hester, then ignored her, staring at Rathbone and Monk. "What is it that possibly matters now, that it cannot wait until tomorrow morning and allow me a decent dinner? Have you found a body?"

"Yes, and no." Rathbone indicated an easy chair. They had retired to the withdrawing room and were relaxed in front of a brisk fire. "Do you know Miss Hester Latterly? She, of course, knows you."

"Miss Latterly. How do you do." Goode bowed perfunctorily. "What the devil do you mean, Rathbone? Have you found Angus Stonefield's body, or not?"

"No, we have not. But Caleb's death may not be nearly as simple as we had supposed."

Goode froze, still halfway to the chair.

"How? In what way? Is Ravensbrook more severely injured than they said?"

Goode sank into the chair.

"No," Hester answered him. "A few very minor cuts on his upper arms and shoulders. They will stay for a while, but none of them is serious." Goode looked at her sharply.

"Miss Latterly is a nurse," Monk said rather quickly. "She was in the Crimea, and has tended more wounded men than you have had cases. She was close to the court, fortunately, and came to Lord Ravensbrook's assistance."

"I see." A flash of interest lit Goode's expression. "Do I take it from your tone of voice, and your curious choice of words, Miss Latterly, that there is something more to your opinion than you have said?"

"It is simply this, Mr. Goode," Monk explained. "We can think of no explanation which fits all the facts, therefore we feel that there must be some profoundly significant fact which we do not know."

Goode's eyebrows shot up. "And you think I do?" he said incredulously. "I have no idea at all why Caleb should attack Lord Ravensbrook. He may well have hated him, because he so obviously preferred Angus, and perhaps always had done, but that is all rather obvious. By the way, what facts does that not fit?" He looked again at Hester.

"The fact that Lord Ravensbrook did not cry out until after he had sustained six very minor wounds," she answered him. "And Caleb had sustained one fatal slash across the jugular vein and was already dead."

He leaned forward, staring at her intently.

"Are you suggesting, ma'am, that Lord Ravensbrook was a willing actor in Caleb's death, either by suicide or by murder?' "Not quite. We do not believe it likely Caleb would have killed himself.

Why should he? His defense had not even begun." She looked at him intently.

"Had he not some realistic chance of escaping conviction, or at least conviction of anything worse than not reporting a fatal accident? If I were defending him"-she ignored Goode's sharp start of amazement-"l should plead a fight in which Angus had accidentally been killed, perhaps fallen into the river, hit his head, and Caleb had been afraid to report it, since he could not prove what had happened, and knowing the quarrel between them, and his own reputation, expected no one would believe him. After all, there is no witness to say anything differently."

Goode leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs.

"Would you indeed?"

"Yes," she said decisively. "Wouldn't you?"

A sudden, dazzling smile broke across his face. "Yes, ma'am, indeed I would, especially after the weight of evidence produced by the prosecution.

I think trying to rebut it simply as not proven would be insufficient. The jury do not like Caleb Stone, and Mrs. Stonefield has aroused a considerable sympathy."

"Was that what you intended?" Rathbone demanded. "Were you going to call Caleb tomorrow?"

"Of course," Goode answered. "I have no one else. Why? What light can that throw upon his death?"

"None, unless we knew what he was going to say." Monk spoke for the first time. "Plainly, was he going to say something about Angus which it would have been worth killing him to keep secret?"

"Ravensbrook?" Goode's voice rose almost to falsetto. "You think Lord Ravensbrook murdered Caleb in his cell to keep him silent?"

"Obviously you don't," Rathbone said dryly. "So you cannot know of anything such as we suggest."

"Or else he does not know its effect." Monk could not let go so easily.

"Perhaps he knows what it is, but not its meaning, or what it could lead to." He swiveled around to face Goode. "What was he going to say?" Goode bit his lip. "Well, with a normal client, I would know the answer, or I would not ask the question. But with Stone all I could do was guess.

Certainly he told me he would say it was an accident, that the hatred was mutual and he had no more destroyed Angus than Angus had wished to destroy him." He crossed his legs and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, making a steeple of his fingers. "You must understand he spoke elliptically and in paradoxes, and half the time he just laughed. If I thought it would have helped him, I would have pleaded the man mad." He regarded them each in turn, his face full of pity and question. "But who wants to spend his life in Bedlam? I think I'd rather be hanged. He was at times eminently sane. He was certainly highly intelligent and obviously well educated. When he chose to, he spoke beautifully. At other times he sounded like any other ruffian from the Isle of Dogs."

"So you don't really know what he would say?" Rathbone concluded.

"Would you? I only know what I intended to ask him."

"What was that?" Rathbone and Monk said together.

"About his quarrel with Angus, of course, and what led up to it," Goode replied.

"About Angus!" Monk clapped his hands on his knee. He twisted around to look at Hester. "Then we must find out what it was he was going to say, what their quarrel really was, if we want to know if it was worth killing him for. Do we?"

"I do," Goode said instantly. "Guilty or innocent, he was my client. If he was murdered, for whatever reason, I not only want to know, I want to prove it."

"To whom?" Rathbone asked. "The court isn't going to sit while we search for Angus Stonefield's youth."

"It's an unnatural death," Goode pointed out. "There'll be a coroner's inquest."

"A formality," Rathbone answered. "Ravensbrook will give his account. The gaolers will confirm it. The doctor will confirm the cause of death and it will be pronounced an unfortunate accident. Everyone will say `What a shame,' and think `What a relief.' The matter will be closed, and they will proceed to the next case."

"It will take us days, perhaps weeks, to find the answer to whatever Caleb was going to say which mattered so much," Monk said angrily. "Can't you delay it?"

"A while, perhaps." Rathbone looked across at Goode. "What do you think?"

"We can try." Goode's voice lifted a little. "Yes, dammit, we can certainly try!" He swung around. "Miss Latterly?"

"Yes?"

"Are you with us? Will you be as obstructive as possible as a witness to the events, as vague and as contradictory as you may? Give them cause to think, to question, to wonder and to doubt."

"Of course," she agreed. "But who will help Monk to trace Angus's life? He cannot do it all alone."

"We'll all do it, until the inquest begins," Goode said simply. "By then, surely we will have some idea of what it is we are seeking, and from whom."

"We must make the coroner believe there is a question of murder," Rathbone went on with rising eagerness. "If he thinks it is accident or suicide he will simply close the matter. And darrunit, that is going to be hard. The only possible guilty party is Ravensbrook, and that won't sit easily with any coroner I know."

"So we had better begin now," Monk said decisively. He looked at Goode. "I assume you will demand a full coroner's inquest for your client, and time to gather evidence?" He turned to Rathbone. "And you will ask to represent the Crown, since you are the prosecutor?" He turned lastly to Hester, assuming her agreement without it crossing his mind to ask her.

"You and I will begin to delve into Angus's past. We shall have to do it separately, because there is no time to do it together. You already know far more about Genevieve than I do." Humor and self-mockery flickered across his face. "And you seem to be a far better judge of her character. Find out all you can of Angus from her, including where, when and how they first met, and all she knows of his relationship with Caleb, and Ravensbrook. This time, the truth. I shall go to Ravensbrook's country home and see what I can learn there. That is apparently where the brothers grew up."

"What about the Isle of Dogs, and Limehouse?" Rathbone asked.

"I'll go there," Hester said immediately. "After I have seen Genevieve, and perhaps Titus Niven."

Goode was aghast. "You cannot go to Limehouse, Miss Latterly! You have not the faintest idea what it is like, or you would not entertain such a thought. A gentlewoman like yourself would be-"

"I have been nursing the typhoid victims there for more than a month, Mr.

Goode," she said patiently. "I am in an excellent position to investigate in that quarter. I daresay I know more of the individual residents than anyone else. I could name you at least two hundred, and tell you their families and their ancestors. And I could tell you who they have lost recently. They will talk to me as they would not to any of you. That I can swear."

Goode looked taken aback, and considerably impressed.

"I see. Perhaps I had better stick to my own last. Would I be presumptuous to be concerned for your safety?"

"Not at all, but probably unnecessarily worried," she replied with a generous smile. "Since Caleb is dead, no one is going to feel the same urgency tþ defend him now, or fear the reprisals for betraying him by the truth."

Rathbone rose to his feet. "I think a good night's sleep is called for, before we begin. Let us meet here again in three days' time and discuss what we have learned."

"Agreed." Goode rose also. "Miss Latterly, may I find you a hansom and escort you as far as your home?"

"Thank you," she accepted graciously. "That would be most agreeable. It has been a somewhat exhausting day."