Anne Perry - Cain His Brother

“It was one baby!” Abigail Ratchett said fiercely. “I'm not drunk and I'm not mad, no matter what anyone says.”

Genevieve turned to Monk, desperation in her face. She had to raise her voice to make herself heard. “You said someone saw them together on the day Angus was killed! Find that man and bring him here. That will solve it!”

The coroner banged again, demanding silence, then turned to Monk. “Well?” he said sharply. “Did you find such a witness? If you did, what is all the nonsense? It seems you are totally irresponsible, sir!”

“I went back,” Monk replied, his voice quiet, hard. “I found the witness, and I had him stand exactly where he had seen Angus and Caleb face each other. I stood where he said they did.”

Now, suddenly, there was not a sound in the room.

“I was before a mirror, sir,” Monk said with a brilliant smile. “I fought with my own reflection in a glass, and the man watching me relived a mirage.”

“That proves nothing!” Ravensbrook said thickly. “You have said Caleb confessed to murdering Angus. How can a man murder himself?”

“He said he had destroyed Angus,” Monk corrected. “And that I would never find the body. That was the joke. That is why he laughed. Caleb knew of Angus, and despised him. I think Angus did not know of Caleb. He could not bear to. For him it was truly another person, a dark presence beyond himself, and he was profoundly afraid of him.”

“Nonsense!” Ravensbrook retaliated, his voice rising. “You cannot prove such a wild and totally scurrilous story. Caleb was insane, certainly, and he murdered his brother. Then when he knew he would be convicted, and hanged, in a last frenzy of hatred, he attacked me too, because, God forgive me, I always loved Angus better. If I am guilty of a sin, it is that, and only that!”

The voice was rising again. People were moving about.

“It can be proved.” Monk lifted his voice, staring at the coroner. “The body of Caleb Stone is in the morgue.” He swung around to Selina. “Madam, do you know Caleb's body well enough to tell it from Angus's?”

“Yeah, 'course I do,” she said without blushing.

He looked at Genevieve. “And you, Mrs. Stonefield, could you tell your husband's body from Caleb's?”

“Yes.” Her voice was no more than a whisper, her face bloodless.

“Then let us put an end to this farce,” the coroner commanded. “We shall take these two ladies to the morgue.” He rose, his face set, his eyes unblinking. He did not even bother with the uproar in the court or pay the slightest attention to the journalists falling over one another to get out and find messengers.

The morgue attendant pulled back the sheet and uncovered the naked body as far as the groin. The room was cold, and smelled of water and death. The candlelight was yellow and left the corners in shadow.

Selina Herries leaned on Hester's arm, her face calm, almost beautiful, all the brashness and the anger gone from it. She looked at the face with its smooth brow, the chiseled mouth, the green eyes closed, then she looked down at the broad chest, scarred and marble white. The pattern of old injuries was quite individual.

“That's Caleb,” she said quietly. She touched his cold cheek with her fingers, gently, as if he could feel her. “God rest him,” she whispered.

The coroner nodded and Hester went out with her. A few minutes later she returned with Genevieve. Again the morgue attendant laid back the sheet.

Genevieve stared hard at the same calm face with its closed eyes, and the same white body with its old scars.

Finally her eyes filled with tears and they spilled down her cheeks in an anguish of pity, wrenching at her with a pain she would never forget.

“Yes,” she whispered so quietly that in any place but this room of death, it would not have been heard. “Yes, that is Angus. I know those scars as I know my own hand. I bandaged most of them myself. God make him whole, and give him peace at last.” She turned slowly and Hester held her in her arms while she wept the grief of all the lost pain she could not heal, the child she could not reach.

“I'll conduct the prosecution of Ravensbrook for murder,” Rathbone said with passion.

“You'll never prove it,” Monk pointed out.

“That doesn't matter!” Rathbone clenched his jaw, his body rigid. “The charge will ruin him. It will be enough.”

Monk leaned forward and picked up one of the dead hands. It was beautiful, perfect-nailed, and he knew now why Caleb had always worn gloves-to protect Angus's hands. He folded it carefully across the other. Perhaps no one else in the room could feel so deeply and with such an intimate pity for a man divided against himself, forever in fear of a dark half he did not know.

“Be at peace,” he said. “What debts you cannot pay, we will.”