Anne Perry - Death Of A Stranger

At last Rathbone accepted the invitation, now offered somewhat sarcastically, to cross-examine the witness.

“Good gracious!” Fowler said in amazement, playing to the jury, who until now had had nothing to consider but uncontested evidence.

“Superintendent Runcorn,” Rathbone began courteously. “You described your conduct in excellent detail. You appear to have overlooked nothing.”

Runcorn eyed him with suspicion. He was far too experienced at giving evidence to imagine a compliment was merely that. “Thank you, sir,” he said flatly.

“And presumably you tried to find evidence proving that this cloak found on the roof from which Miss Harcus fell belonged to Mr. Dalgarno?”

“Naturally,” Runcorn conceded.

“And did you succeed?” Rathbone enquired.

“No, sir.”

“Mr. Dalgarno doesn’t have a cloak?”

“Yes, sir, but it’s not that one.”

“Has he two, then?”

“Not that we can trace, sir. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t his,” Runcorn said defensively.

“Of course not. He purchased this one secretly in order to leave it on the rooftop after he had thrown Miss Harcus off it to her death.”

There was a nervous titter around the room. Several jurors looked confused. Jarvis Baltimore reached across and slid his hand over Livia’s.

“If you say so, sir,” Runcorn replied blandly.

“No, no, I do not say so!” Rathbone retorted. “You say so! I say it belonged to someone else… who was on the roof and was responsible for Miss Harcus’s death… someone you never thought of trying to trace.”

“No one else had reason,” Runcorn said calmly.

“That you know of!” Rathbone challenged him. “I will presently show you a completely different interpretation of circumstances, Superintendent, one beyond your wildest ideas… which you would never seek to prove because it is extraordinary beyond anything else I have ever heard, and no man could be expected to think of it. Thank you. That is all.”

Monk swiveled to look at Hester, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I’ve no idea.”

The jurors were staring at each other. There was a buzz of speculation in the body of the court.

“Grandstanding!” Fowler said audibly, disgust heavy in his voice.

Rathbone smiled to himself, but Hester had a hideous fear that he was doing exactly that, and that Fowler was not blustering, but knew it.

Margaret sat with her knuckles white, leaning forward a little.

Fowler called his next witness-the police surgeon, of whom Rathbone asked nothing-and then began on the neighbors who had seen or heard something that evening.

Rathbone glanced at his watch now and then.

“What is he waiting for?” Monk hissed.

“I don’t know!” Hester said more sharply than she had intended. What could Rathbone hope for? What other solution was there? He had not shaken any of the testimony at all, let alone suggested the alternative he had spoken of so dramatically.

They adjourned for the day and people trooped out into the halls and corridors. Hester overheard more than one say that they would not bother to return.

“I don’t know why a man like Rathbone would take such a case,” one man said disgustedly as he began down the broad steps into the street. “There’s nothing in it for him but defeat, and he knows it.”

“He can’t be doing as well as we thought,” his companion replied.

“He knows his client’s guilty!” The first man pursed his lips. “Still, I’d have thought he’d try, for the look of it.”

Hester was so angry she started forward, but stopped as she felt the pressure of Monk’s hand on her arm. She swung around to face him.

“What were you going to say?” he asked.

She drew breath to reply, and realized she had nothing prepared that made sense. She saw Margaret’s misery and growing confusion. “He’ll fight!” she assured her, because she knew how badly Margaret wanted to believe it.

Margaret made an attempt at a smile, but excused herself to find a hansom home before facing the evening in Coldbath Square.

Hester began the fourth day of the trial with a sinking heart. She had lain awake in the night wondering whether to go to Rathbone’s house and demand to see him, but realized there was nothing she could learn that would help, and certainly she had nothing to offer him. She had no idea who could have killed Katrina Harcus, or why. She knew it was not Monk, and was less and less certain that it was Dalgarno, although she could not like the man. Looking at him through the days so far she had seen fear in his face, in the hunched angle of his shoulders, the tight lips and pallor of his skin, but she had not seen pity for the dead woman. Nor had she seen any concern for Livia Baltimore, who was growing more miserable with each new piece of testimony that showed how callously he had treated a young woman who had believed he loved her, and whom, all evidence showed, deeply loved him.

In court in the morning she looked at Livia. Her skin was pale and puffy around the eyes, her body rigid, and Hester knew she was still clinging to hope. But even if Rathbone could somehow perform a miracle and gain an acquittal of murder for Dalgarno, was there anything on earth he could do to show him innocent of duplicity and opportunism?

Fowler concluded for the prosecution.

Hester slipped her hand over Monk’s briefly. It was easier than trying to find words when she had no idea what to say.

Rathbone rose to begin the defense. The public gallery was almost half empty. He called the surveyor again.

Fowler complained that he was wasting the court’s time. The surveyor had already testified in great detail. The subject had been more than exhausted.

“My lord,” Rathbone said patiently, “my learned friend knows as well as the rest of us that I was able only to cross-examine him on the subjects already spoken of in direct examination.”

“Can there possibly be any other subjects left?” Fowler asked to a ripple of laughter from the crowd. “We already know far more about the building of railways than we need to, or I imagine than we wish to.”

“Possibly than we wish to, my lord.” Rathbone smiled very slightly. “Not than we need to. We have still reached no unarguable conclusion.”

“You are lawyers,” the judge said dryly. “You can argue any conclusion on earth! However, proceed, Sir Oliver, but do not waste our time. If you appear to be talking for the sake of it I shall sustain Mr. Fowler’s objection-indeed, I shall object myself.”

Rathbone bowed with a smile. “I shall endeavor not to be tedious or irrelevant, my lord,” he promised.

The judge looked skeptical.

Rathbone faced the surveyor when he had been duly reminded of his previous oath and had restated his professional qualifications. “Mr. Whitney,” he began, “you have already told us that you surveyed both the originally intended route for the railway of Baltimore and Sons from London to Derby and the route now taken. Is there a significant difference in cost between the two?”

“No, sir, not significant,” Whitney replied.

“What do you consider significant?” Rathbone asked.

Whitney thought for a moment. “Above a few hundred pounds,” he replied at length. “Hardly as much as a thousand.”

“A lot of money,” Rathbone observed. “Sufficient to buy several houses for an ordinary family.”

Fowler rose to his feet.

The judge waved him down again and looked at Rathbone. “If you are intending to reach any conclusion, Sir Oliver, you have diverted further than the railway in question. You would be better occupied justifying your own circuitous journey.”