Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

Or perhaps it was only the lamplight reflecting.

Gilfeather sat down amid a stir of excitement from the gallery. James Argyll stood up.

“Mr. Farraline…”

Alastair looked at him with a fixed, polite expression of dislike.

“Mr. Farraline.” Argyll did not smile at him. “Why did you choose someone from London rather than Edinburgh? Have we no acceptable nurses in Scotland?”

Alastair’s face tightened noticeably.

“I imagine so, sir. None of them answered our advertisement. We wished for the best we could find. A woman who had served with Florence Nightingale seemed to us above reproach.”

There was a murmur around the crowd and mixed emotions, patriotic approval of Florence Nightingale and all she stood for in their minds, anger that her reputation should be besmirched, even vicariously, surprise, doubt and anticipation.

“You really considered such qualification necessary for so simple a task as administering a prepared dose to an intelligent and far from incapacitated lady?” Argyll said curiously. “Members of the jury may wonder why a local woman of sound reputation would not have served at least as well, and far less expensively in railway fares than sending for a stranger from London.”

This time the rustle was agreement.

Monk shifted impatiently. It was a point so minor as to be worthless, too subtle for the jury even to understand, much less recall when the time came.

“We wanted someone accustomed to travel,” Alastair repeated doggedly, his face pink, although it was impossible to tell what emotion lay behind the flushed cheeks and unhappy eyes. It could have been no more than grief, and certain embarrassment at being required to stand so publicly for everyone to stare at with such morbid interest. He was used only to honor, respect, even awe. Now his private affairs, his family and its emotions, were displayed and he was helpless to defend himself.

“Thank you,” Argyll said politely, conveying neither belief nor disbelief. “Did Miss Latterly seem an entirely satisfactory person to you while she was in your house?”

Even if Alastair had wished to deny it, he was now in a position where he could not, or he would seem to have connived at whatever ill he had implied.

“Yes, of course,” he said sharply. “I should never have permitted my mother to travel if I had suspected anything at all.”

Argyll nodded and smiled. “In fact, would it be true to say that your mother seemed to get along particularly well with Miss Latterly?”

Alastair’s face hardened. “Yes… I feel it would. A remarkably-” He stopped.

Argyll waited. The judged looked inquiringly at Alastair. The jurors all sat staring.

Alastair bit his lip. Apparently he had thought better of what he was going to say.

There was a murmur of sympathy around the room. Alastair’s face tightened, loathing the public pity.

Argyll knew when he had stopped winning, even if he did not know why.

“Thank you, sir. That is all I have to ask you.”

Gilfeather nodded benignly, and the judge excused Alastair with a further expression of sympathy and respect which Alastair accepted tight-lipped.

The next witness to be called was Oonagh Mclvor. She caused even more of a stir than Alastair. She had no title, no public position, but even if no one had known who she was, her air of dignity and suppressed passion would have commanded both respect and attention. Of course she was dressed entirely in black, but she was anything but drab. Her fair skin was delicate and warm and the gleam of her hair was plain beneath her black bonnet.

She climbed the steps deliberately and took the oath with an unwavering voice, then stood waiting for Gilfeather to begin. Not one of the fifteen jurors took his eyes from her.

Gilfeather hesitated, as if wondering how much to play on the jury’s sympathy, then decided against it. He was a subtle man and saw no need to gild the lily.

“Mrs. Mclvor, did you concur in your brother’s decision to employ a nurse from London for your mother?”

“Yes I did,” she said slowly and calmly. “I confess I thought it an excellent idea. I thought as well as her professional abilities, and her experience in travel, she would be an interesting companion for my mother.” She looked apologetic. “Mother had traveled considerably in her youth, and I think at times she missed the excitement of it. I thought such a woman would be able to talk with her about foreign parts and experiences that would be bound to entertain her.”

“Most understandable.” Gilfeather nodded. “I think in your circumstances I should have felt the same. And presumably that part of your arrangement lived up to your hopes.”

Oonagh smiled bleakly, but did not answer.

“Were you present when Miss Latterly arrived, Mrs. Mclvor?” Gilfeather continued.

The questions were all as Monk had foreseen. Gilfeather asked them and Oonagh answered them, and the court listened with rapt attention, all except Monk, who stared around at first one face, then another. Gilfeather himself looked satisfied, even smug. Watching him, the jury could only believe he was completely in command of the whole procedure and held no doubt as to its outcome.

Monk resented it bitterly, while admiring the man’s professionalism. He could not recall the trial of his mentor all those years ago. He did not even know in which court it had been held, but his helplessness now brought back waves of old emotion and grief. Then he had known the truth and had watched impotently while someone he had both loved and admired had been convicted of a crime he had not committed. Then Monk had been young and looking with incredulity at the injustice, not believing until the last possible moment that it could really happen. Afterwards he had been stunned. This time it was all too familiar, an old wound with scar tissue ripped away to reveal the unhealed depths, and probed anew.

At the defense table James Argyll sat with his black brows drawn down in thought. His was a dangerous face, full of strength and subtlety, but he was a man without weapons. Monk had failed him. Deliberately he used the word over and over to himself. Failure. Someone had killed Mary Farraline, and he had not found any trace of who it was or why it had happened. He had had weeks in which to seek, and all he had produced was that Kenneth had a pretty mistress with long yellow hair, white skin and a determination never to be cold and hungry again, or to sleep in some strange bed at some man’s favor, because she had not one of her own.

Actually Monk sympathized with her more than he did with Kenneth, who had been forced to part with more expensive gifts than he had wished, in order to keep her favors.

But unless someone could raise adequate suspicion of embezzlement to have the company books audited, and embezzlement was in fact proved true, then it was possibly scandalous, although not probably, and it was certainly no cause for murder.

Monk looked at Rathbone and in spite of himself felt a stab of sympathy. To a stranger he appeared merely to be listening, his head a trifle to one side, his long face thoughtful, his dark eyes heavy-lidded as if his attention were entirely involved. But Monk had known him long enough and seen him under pressure before. He could see the angle of his shoulders hunched under his beautiful jacket, the stiffness of his neck and the slow clenching and unclenching of his hand on the table, and he felt the frustration boiling inside him. Whatever he thought or whatever emotions churned inside him, there was nothing he could do now. Whatever he would have done differently, whether it was a whole strategy or as little as an intonation or an expression of the face, he could only sit silently and watch.

Oonagh was answering Gilfeather’s questions about the preparation for Mary’s journey.