Anne Perry - The Twisted Root

Rathbone tried to read what she was feeling, even to imagine what was in her mind, and failed utterly. There were too many possibilities, and none of them made sense entirely.

"He was a man who did evil things," she said quietly at last, as much to herself as to him. "But he was not without virtue, and he is dead now, poor soul. I don’t think Mrs. Stourbridge knew anything about him except that he drove the carriage quite well-and, of course, that he was related to the cook."

"Why was she killed?"

She winced. "I don’t know." She did not look at him as she said it. Her voice was flat, the tone of it different.

He knew she was lying.

"Who killed her?"

"I don’t know," she repeated.

"Lucius?"

"No!" This time she turned to look at him, eyes dark and angry.

"Were you with him?"

She said nothing.

"You weren’t. Then how do you know he did not?"

Again she said nothing.

"It was the same person who killed both people?"

She made a very slight movement. He took it for agreement.

"Has it anything to do with the stolen medicines?"

"No!" Suddenly she was completely frantic again. "No, it has nothing to do with Cleo at all. Please, Sir Oliver, defend her." Now she was pleading with him. "She is the best person I have ever known. The only thing she has done against the law is to take medicines to treat the ill who cannot afford to buy them. She made nothing for herself out of it." Her face was flushed. "How can that be so wrong that she deserves to die for it? If we were the Christian people we pretend to be, she wouldn’t have had to take them. We would care for our own old and sick. We would be grateful to those who fought to protect us when we needed it, and we’d be just as keen to protect them now. Please, don’t let her suffer for this. It’s nothing to do with her. She didn’t kill Treadwell and she couldn’t possibly have killed Mrs. Stourbridge." Her voice was tight with fear and strain, almost strangled in her throat. "I’ll say I killed them both, if it will free her, I swear it!"

He put his hand on her arm. "No-it would only condemn you both. Say nothing. If you will not tell me the truth, at least do not lie to me. I will do anything I can for both of you. I accept that Mrs. Anderson could not have killed Mrs. Stourbridge, and I believe you that you did not kill Treadwell. If there is another answer I shall do everything in my power to find it."

She shook her head fractionally. "You can’ t," she whispered. "Just don’t let them hang Cleo. She only took the medicines-that’s all."

Rathbone had a late luncheon at his club, where he knew he would be left in complete solitude, should he wish it-and he did. Then he took a hansom out to the North London Hospital, intending to see Hester. He was not looking forward to it, and yet it was necessary to do so. He had not seen her alone since her marriage, but he had always known that it would be painful to him.

He sat in the cab as it clipped smartly through the streets, unaware of the other passing vehicles, even of where he was as they moved from one neighborhood to another, as they changed eventually from stone-facaded houses to the green stretch of the Heath.

He had changed his mind a dozen times as to what he would say to her, what manner he would adopt. Every decision was in one way or another unsatisfactory.

When he reached the hospital, paid the cabbie and alighted, he walked up the steps and met her without having had time to prepare himself. She was coming along the wide corridor at a brisk, purposeful walk, her head high. She was wearing a very plain blue dress with a small, white, lace collar, almost like a kind of uniform. On anyone else it might have been a little forbidding, but it was how he always visualized her: as a nurse, determined about something, ready to start some battle or other. The familiarity of it almost took his breath away. No amount of imagining this moment could stab like the reality. The sunlight in the corridor, the smell of vinegar, footsteps in the distance, all were printed indelibly in his mind.

"Oliver!" She was startled to see him, and pleased. He could detect none of the roar of emotion in her that he felt himself. But then he should not have expected it. She was happy. He wanted her to be. And part of him could not bear it.

He made himself smile. If he lost his dignity they would both hate it. "I was hoping to see you. I trust I am not interrupting."

"You have news of some sort?" She searched his face.

He must think only of the case. They had a common cause, one that mattered as fiercely as any they had ever fought. The lives of two women depended on it.

"Very little," he replied, moving a step closer to her. He caught a warmth, a faint air of some perfume about her. He ached to move closer still. She was so different now, so much less vulnerable than before. And yet in so many ways she was exactly the same. The will to battle was there, the stubbornness, the unreason, the laughter he had never completely understood, the arbitrariness that exasperated and fascinated him.

There was a very faint flush on her cheeks, as if she guessed some part of his thoughts.

He looked away from her, avoiding her eyes, pretending to be thinking deeply of legal matters.

"I have been to see both Cleo Anderson and Miriam Gardiner. Both deny either conspiracy or murder, but Miriam at least is lying to me about the murders. She knows who committed them, but I believe her when she says it is not she. I have not met Lucius Stourbridge."

Hester was startled. "Do you believe he could be guilty of killing his own mother?"

"I don’t think so, but it would seem to have been someone in the family, or else Miriam Gardiner," he reasoned.

She looked up and down the corridor. "Come into the waiting room here. There is no one needing it at the moment. We can speak more easily." She opened the door and led him in.

He closed it, trying to force his emotions out of his consciousness. There were far more important issues between them.

"Major Stourbridge?" he asked. "Or the brother, Aiden Campbell?"

She looked miserable. "I don’t know. I can’t think of any reason why they would hurt either Mrs. Stourbridge or, still less, Treadwell. But he was a blackmailer. If he would blackmail Cleo, then maybe he would blackmail others as well. William says he seemed to spend more money than he could have had from Cleo, so there will have been other victims."

"Lucius?"

"Perhaps," she said quietly. "That would explain why Miriam is prepared to defend him, even at the price of being condemned for it herself."

It was possible. It would explain Miriam’s refusal to tell the truth. But he still found it hard to believe.

"I cannot think of anything we could argue which would convince a jury of that, especially in the face of Miriam’s denial," he said, watching Hester. "And she would not let me try. I have promised not to act against her wishes."

A smile touched the corners of Hester’s lips and then vanished. "I would have assumed as much. I would like you to be able to defend Miriam, but I am more concerned with Cleo Anderson. I hope she did not kill Treadwell, but she cannot have killed Mrs. Stourbridge. I am absolutely sure she would not have conspired for Miriam to marry Lucius, or anyone else, for money. That part of it is simply impossible."

"Even to put to a good cause?" he asked gently.

"To put to any cause at all. It would be revolting to her. She loves Miriam. What kind of a woman would have her daughter marry for money? That’s prostitution!"

"Hester, my dear! It is the commonest practice in civilization. Or out of it, for that matter. Parents have sold their daughters in marriage, and considered it as doing all parties a service, since time immemorial-longer. Since prehistory."