A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1) (23 page)

“I am Ethan Northrup.” The man handed Royston his card. “Solicitor at law.”

Royston studied the card. Heavy linen cardstock, embossed. The address of his offices confirmed Royston’s impression of money.
 

“Will you accept me to represent you?”

Hope flickered for a moment, then died. “I have no money. I couldn’t pay a starving lad just out of law school let alone someone of your obvious stature, sir.”

“It’s been taken care of.”

“How? I have no family, and my friends have no money.”

“I think you’ll find that’s not quite true. Will you accept me?”

There could be just one answer. “Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, sir.”

The judge sighed. “I suppose you’ll want a continuance to prepare you case.”

“Unnecessary. I am familiar with the facts, and my client has already spent longer than he should in custody. Provided that is satisfactory to you,” Northrup asked Royston as an afterthought.

“By all means.” The day had gone from surreal to bizarre; there was nothing to do but go with it. Besides, Northrup seemed a man who knew exactly what he was about.

The prosecutor’s opening arguments laid out the theories that Browne had used in his interrogation the day before. A rumble rose from the galley like the low growl of a rogue ’wolf. The public, at least, found his theories compelling.

Like an actor treading the boards, Northrup came before the court for his turn. “Poppycock! Speculation unfounded on evidence.” He had an actor’s projection and elocution, as well. “Your Honor, Inspector Browne may have a
theory
that my client is guilty. But then, I may have a
theory
that the culprit is a gypsy or the King of Spain. If a servant of the public with a record as distinguished as my client’s can be locked up and held for trial on a theory without any proof of guilt, can any of us be safe?”

The prosecutor called Browne to the witness stand. Browne made a compelling witness, a noble-spirited young man, handsome and well-dressed, clearly in grief over his missing love and yet bravely holding himself together to do his duty. A soft murmur of sympathy came from the galley. Under the prosecutor’s gentle questions, Browne painted a picture of Royston as a danger to society and stated his professional opinion that he must be held to pressure him into revealing the whereabouts of Miss Chatham.

With a predatory smile, Northrup stepped up for the cross-examination. “You present an interesting theory, Inspector, but where is your proof?”

Browne sputtered.

“Surely, before you accuse one of your colleagues of such heinous crimes, a colleague whose name has often appeared in the paper under more flattering terms, whose arrest record outshines yours like the sun outshines the moon, a colleague who used to keep the company of your beloved and who is still held by her in friendly affections, surely you must have overwhelming evidence. Otherwise the court might think that you are the one who smites an innocent out of jealousy. So out with it, man. What is your evidence?”

Browne started to restate his theory. Though Browne’s bad showing was all to his advantage, Jones still cringed in embarrassment for his profession.

Northrup cut him off. “Theories, man. Where is your evidence! For example, the notes that were sent, do they match my client’s handwriting?”

“Whoever wrote them printed to disguise his hand.”

“So it might have been my client. Or it might not have been. It might have been anyone who wrote those notes. You, me, our honorable magistrate. Is that not so?”

Browne did not answer.

“Is that not so?” Northrup shouted.

The magistrate intervened. “You must answer the question, Inspector.”
 

Browne looked down. “Yes.”

“And the blow that knocked you unconscious. From the report I read, it was to the top of your head, correct?”

“Yes, sir. I still have a swelling at the top of my head the size of a goose egg.”

“So it was a blow of considerable force.”

“Yes, sir. One might even say murderous intent.” Browne glared at Royston.

“How tall are you, Inspector Browne?”

Browne drew himself up proudly. “Six-foot one and a little bit.”

“I see.” Northrup turned toward Royston. “Mr. Jones, will you stand up, please.”

Face heating, Royston did so.

“Barely five-ten. I understand they measured him twice before they accepted him as a constable.”

A titter of amusement ran through the audience, and Royston blushed harder.

“You may sit down, Mr. Jones.”

Royston sat, wishing he could slide down and sink into the floor. He hated solicitors.
 

“Now, if I were attempting to knock someone out, I would angle my blow for maximum force. As, indeed, your assailant clearly did. Don’t you agree, Inspector Browne?”

“Y-yes, sir.” Browne clearly smelled a trap, but he wasn’t sure what it was or how to avoid it.
 

“Like so.” Northrup mimicked swinging a cricket bat. “Or so.” He mimed a two-handed club down onto the head of a man either shorter or standing a step below. “Not like this.” He demonstrated standing on tip-toe and batting ineffectually at a target far above his head.

The audience chuckled. Royston winced. The solicitor was exaggerating for effect, but still—he wasn’t
that
short.

“I took the liberty of examining the area where the assault and kidnapping took place,” Northrup continued. “There was no convenient slope or step where a shorter man could lie in wait and gain a height advantage. The inescapable conclusion is that Inspector Browne was clearly attacked by a man of at least his own height.”

The man was good. Royston might have come to the conclusion, given more complete access to the facts and a clearer head. Browne should have, since he had been at the scene. But Northrup was a solicitor, not a trained investigator. More’s the pity; the Yard could use him.

Northrup turned back to Browne. “Clearly, then, my client could not be the man who assaulted you and abducted Miss Chatham.”

“He might have had an accomplice!” Browne countered, rather too loudly for the courtroom setting.

“He might have, and Miss Chatham might have been abducted by fairies. The law must deal in facts, not suppositions.” He turned to the magistrate. “Your honor, I move that the case against my client be dismissed for lack of evidence.”

The gallery erupted like citizens of Rome turning their thumbs down to vote a gladiator’s fate. The magistrate looked at the galley, then at the impeccably elegant solicitor before him. Both were powerful in different ways.

The magistrate turned to the prosecutor. “Do you have any other witnesses or evidence to present?”

The magistrate sounded hopeful, but the prosecutor shook his head.

“No, sir.”

“Then I have no choice to dismiss the case until such time as further evidence can be brought. “You are free to go, Mr. Jones.”

The galley roared in outrage. The magistrate pounded his gavel for order, and when that failed, ordered the bailiffs to clear the court.

“Excuse me one moment,” Northrup said to him. Numb, Royston sat where he was as the solicitor he had not hired engaged in a quick private consultation with the magistrate and the prosecutor. Royston took the time to wonder how he was to get safely home with the crowd out for his blood no doubt assembling outside the court.

There had been instances of magistrates looking the other way as those they had to release for lack of evidence faced the rough justice of a mob outside the courtroom door. This was more typical in rural jurisdictions than in sophisticated London, true, but Royston did not want to be one of the rare exceptions.

“I’ve convinced the magistrate and the Yard that it would not serve the interests of order if they allowed the crowd to take matters into their own hands. They will be sending out a decoy. Meanwhile, we will leave in a few hours from a back entrance. I’ve arranged to have your things brought. All in all, it's safer than a trip back to the gaol.”

So whatever services his mysterious benefactor had bought, they did not end with the hearing. But who would have intervened on his behalf? Even if Godwin had sold all his goods and borrowed against his pension, it would not have bought a solicitor with the address embossed on Northrup’s card. Willie was a good for a drink and sympathy, but nothing beyond that.
 

“I can’t believe you got them to agree to that. Not with Chatham happy to see me dead one way or the other.”

The solicitor smiled. “The one who sent me is not without influence.”

The one who sent him? Could it be that, in this time of direst need, his father’s family had chosen to come forth and claim him, to defend their blood and namesake? He shook his head bitterly. Their only interest in all of this would be to distance themselves as far as possible from the scandal.

“I have arranged for the use of a small conference room where we might wait in private. Do you wish anything while you wait? Tea, perhaps?

Royston didn’t think he could keep anything down at the moment. “No, thank you.”

Northrup smiled kindly, as though he could guess the reason for Royston’s refusal. The conference room was windowless, lit dimly by gaslight, but Royston was happy for the relative darkness that allowed him to close his eyes and collect himself.

He was still not out of danger; this was just a reprieve while Browne and Chatham tried to find or manufacture evidence against him. He would not have a job at the Yard anymore, and doubtless his landlord would look for an excuse to turn him out on the streets rather than harbor such a notorious tenant.

In what seemed like a short time, a constable arrived bearing an envelope with his effects.

“Check that everything is in order,” Northrup advised.

Royston let the contents of the envelope slide onto the table between them. His watch had been returned, but the coin he wore on the chain was missing. Given everything that happened already, everything he still had to face, it was a trifle. And yet his eyes burned.

“Is everything as should be?”

Royston told him about the missing coin, though not its significance.

“You will look into it,” Northrup ordered the constable, who paled and nodded. “You can return it care of my office. Believe that I will follow up if it does not arrive.”
 

Northrup had tea and sandwiches brought in from somewhere despite Royston’s refusal. He drank some of the tea, but the thought of food still made him queasy, even though it looked as if it might have been catered directly from Fortnum and Mason’s.

Northrup checked his watch. “It’s time we left. We’ve a carriage waiting for us at the back entrance.”

Commissioner Chatham also waited for them at the entrance. “You’ve won yourself a reprieve in court, Jones, but not in the eyes of the Yard. You’ll never work for us again. God only knows what Godwin ever saw in you, but I should have never let him talk me into hiring you. Blood will always tell.”

His mother would tell him to take the high road, to prove his gentility through his actions. But that tenet had worn thin with overuse. He smiled. “You disprove your own theory, sir. For a man of reputedly legitimate birth, you are the biggest bastard I know.”

Chatham inhaled sharply, wordless with shock. Before he could recover, Jones followed the solicitor to the waiting carriage. If there had ever been any hope of him recovering his job, he’d just sunk it to the bottom of the Thames. He should be in despair, but all he felt was free, as if he’d stepped off a cliff and, instead of plummeting to his death, had sprouted wings and flown into the sun.

What waited for them was not a hansom cab, but a well-appointed barouche. Numbly, Royston obeyed Northrup’s gesture and climbed in. “I suggest you do not return home,” Northrup said. “Sentiments are rather high. I fear you would be in danger.”
 

“But I have nowhere to go.” Godwin would take him in, but he wouldn’t endanger the old man or call attention to their association until his name was cleared.
 

The solicitor smiled. “My client has space aplenty.”

Was he, perhaps, about to step foot at last in his father’s halls? Despite everything that family had done to his mother and by extension to himself, despite everything Miss Fairchild had revealed of his father’s character, part of him still whispered,
my blood. My home.

“All right,” Royston said.

“We shall take a circuitous route, with your permission,” the solicitor said. “To preserve privacy.”

And safety, he didn’t need to add. “Yes. Of course. Whatever you think best.”

When the carriage finally stopped its directionless twisting and turnings and set upon its route in earnest, Royston recognized it. He’d driven it once himself, in a hired pony trap on the way to an interview with an alchemist and a werewolf, on a day that seemed a lifetime ago. The estate of his father’s family lay this way.

But the carriage went on past the iron gates without slowing. .It drew up in the courtyard of the Fairchild House, and servants came to take the horses while others met them at the carriage door and inquired after baggage. It seemed they were expected.