Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel (18 page)

Because Rathbone was the man who had defended Phillips and crucified Hester on the stand, he himself would not emerge from it well—in law, yes, but not in the eyes of the jury.

Gavinton was on his feet, smiling.

“I have no objection whatever, my lord. I think it would well serve the cause of justice. I hesitated to subject Mrs. Monk to such an ordeal again. She can barely have forgotten the humiliation of the last time, but I confess it would seem just.” He turned his satisfied smile on Warne.

Rathbone felt the control slipping out of his hands, like the wet reins of a carriage when the horses bolt.

They were waiting for his answer. He could not protect Hester. If he ruled against her testifying he would expose himself without helping her. In fact, it might even make it appear as if she had something further to hide.

“Very well,” he conceded. “But keep it to the point, Mr. Warne.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Warne instructed the usher to call Hester Monk.

There was silence as Hester came into the room, except for the rustle of fabric and creak of stays as people in the gallery turned to
watch her, fascinated by this woman both Drew and Taft had described so vividly, and in “praise” so worded as to be moving from condescension into blame.

She was slender, almost a little too thin for fashionable taste, and she walked very uprightly across the open floor and climbed the steps to the witness stand. She did not look at Rathbone, at the jury, or up at the dock.

Rathbone watched her with a strange, disturbing mixture of emotions, which were far more powerful than he had expected. He had known her for more than a decade, during which he had fallen in love with her, been angered, exasperated, and confused by her, and had his emotions thoroughly wrung out. At the same time he had admired her more than any other person he knew. She had made him laugh, even when he did not want to, and she had changed his beliefs on a score of things.

Now he wanted to protect her from Gavinton, and Warne had set her in the center of the target—damn him!

She took the oath in a steady voice and stood facing Warne, ready to begin.

Warne, dark, haggard, and clearly nervous, moved forward into the center of the floor. He cleared his throat.

“Mrs. Monk, Mr. Drew has told us that you attended a service at Mr. Taft’s Church. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Just once?”

“Yes.”

He cleared his throat again.

“Why did you go? And why did you not return a second or third time? Was the service not as you had expected? Or did something happen while you were there that offended you to the degree that you did not wish to go again?”

Hester looked puzzled. Clearly Warne had not told her what he planned to say. Perhaps there had been no time.

Rathbone was so tense he had to move his position a little, consciously
clench his hands then loosen them. Was Warne going to use her vulnerability to save his case against Taft?

Why not? Rathbone had done it to save Jericho Phillips, of all people! How could he now self-righteously blame Warne?

The jury was tense, staring at Hester, a mixture of sympathy and apprehension in their faces.

Hester answered, her voice even. It was too calm to be natural. “I went because Josephine Raleigh is a friend of mine, and she told me of her father’s distress,” she said. “I understood her desperation acutely because my father also was cheated out of money and found himself in debt. He took his own life. I wanted to see if there was anything at all I could do to prevent that happening to Mr. Raleigh.”

Now there was movement in the court. One of the jurors put up his hand to ease his collar. Another’s face was pinched with grief, or perhaps it was pity. Debt was not so uncommon.

In the gallery a few people craned forward, turned to one another, sighed, or spoke a word or two.

“How did you intend to do that, Mrs. Monk?” Warne asked curiously.

Hester moved her shoulders very slightly. “I had no clear plan. I wanted to meet Mr. Taft and listen to him preach.”

“To what purpose?”

“To see if there was any chance he would release Mr. Raleigh from his commitment,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “Also to see if Mr. Taft asked me for money, and how he worded it, whether I felt pressured or not, whether he did it in front of others to embarrass me if I refused.”

Warne looked curious, but the tension still gripped his body and his hands.

“And did he do any of those things?” he asked.

She smiled bleakly. “I admit I did feel pressured—yes—and it was all carefully wrapped under the preaching of Christian duty: the safe and comfortable should give to the cold, hungry, and homeless. One cannot argue with that and then kneel to pray.”

“Did you give, Mrs. Monk?”

“To the ordinary collection, yes. I did not give more than that.” There was a faint, bitter smile touching her lips.

“And did anyone make you feel guilty?” Warne pressed.

There was not a sound in the gallery.

“Mr. Drew tried,” she answered. “But I told him all the money I could spare already went to my clinic in Portpool Lane. The women there are not only hungry, cold, and homeless, they are also sick.”

“Why did you not go back to the church, Mrs. Monk?”

“Because I already understood the pressure Mr. Raleigh, and others, must have felt,” she replied. “There is an art to making other people feel as if they should give what they can to those less fortunate. I am not good at it myself. I am far too direct. But I enlist the help of those who are good at it, in order to keep the clinic going. I know very well how it is done. Please heaven, we do not coerce anyone to give more than they can, so putting themselves into debt. We ask small amounts, and only from those who, as far as we can tell, have more than sufficient.”

Gavinton stood up, puzzled.

“My lord, I am afraid Mrs. Monk is all very righteous in her work, and in raising funds for it. Different people have their own ways of … of doing good.” He said it in such a way it sounded like some secret vice. “But what has it to do with whether Mr. Taft is guilty of fraud, or innocent?”

Rathbone turned to Warne. “This is a somewhat circuitous route to wherever you are going. A little more direct, if you please, Mr. Warne.”

Warne bowed, his face carefully expressionless; then he turned back to Hester.

“Mrs. Monk, what did you do as a result of your visit to Mr. Taft’s Church?”

“I went to see Mr. Robinson, who keeps the accounts for me at the clinic,” she answered, her voice low and a little hoarse. “I asked him if he knew of any way of determining if all the money raised by Mr. Taft actually went to the causes he claimed it did. Mr. Robinson told me
that he would endeavor to find out, and then later gave me the results of his inquiries.”

Gavinton was on his feet again.

“My lord, the court is already aware of all this. Mr. Warne is wasting our time. We know who Mrs. Monk is, and something of her past interference in cases she believed deserving. I am sorry to embarrass her; no doubt she is a well-intentioned woman, but past cases have made it tragically evident that she is also undisciplined.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “She comes with incomplete evidence, interpreted by her emotions, no doubt out of compassion, but nevertheless, emotions are not evidence. You yourself are only too aware of this. Tactless as it may be of me to remind you, but when you were a prosecutor, my lord, you totally destroyed her on the stand. Your friendship for her did not prevent you from doing your duty, however repugnant to you.”

Rathbone waited for Warne to fight back and was met with silence. He felt the heat burn up his own face. What in hell was Warne doing? He had left Rathbone no choice.

“Mr. Gavinton is right, Mr. Warne,” he said between his teeth. “This seems to be both repetitive and irrelevant. If you have anything of use to ask Mrs. Monk, please do so. If not, then release her and prepare to present your closing argument.” The case was lost. Warne was not going to use the photograph. Perhaps in a way that was a relief. This attempt to humiliate Rathbone was Warne’s way of expressing his revulsion at the fact that he had been shown the photograph at all.

“Yes, my lord,” Warne said dutifully. “I shall come more immediately to the point. I apologize if I appeared to be … meandering.” He looked at Hester. “Mrs. Monk, my learned friend has made more than one reference to the unfortunate case of Jericho Phillips, in which you gave evidence that was less than sufficient for the jury to find him guilty. Mr. Gavinton seems to feel that it somehow detracts from the value of your testimony now. Mr. Drew has spoken at length of the moral and emotional”—he hesitated, looking for the right word—“fragility
of the witnesses against Mr. Taft. He has as much as said that they are lightly balanced, prone to misunderstanding and exaggeration, and therefore not to be trusted. He has included you in that category. I feel it is only right that you should have the opportunity to give any testimony that would refute that, and restore your good name—and of course your reliability as a witness.”

Rathbone stiffened. What on earth was Warne trying to do? It was too late for this.

Hester said nothing. From her expression she had no idea what she could say or do that would matter now. She had been here a couple of times, but she probably knew from Josephine Raleigh, who had been here every day, that the case had already been lost. Reputations were destroyed beyond rebuilding.

Warne smiled at her, but it was sadly, as if he were apologizing for something.

“Mrs. Monk, I regret having to remind you of what can only be a painful memory for you, but much has been made of your failure to testify against Jericho Phillips with sufficient clarity of thought to secure his conviction. Sir Oliver Rathbone appeared for Phillips at that time and pretty well destroyed you on the stand.”

“I remember,” Hester said a little huskily. She was very pale.

Rathbone racked his mind for anything he could say to stop this.

Gavinton sat with a slow smile spreading across his face, unctuous and satisfied.

“Why were you so … careless in your preparation to testify? Surely you wished Phillips to be found guilty?”

“Of course I did.” Her voice was charged with emotion now, and her shoulders were high and awkward.

There was nothing Rathbone could do to help her.

“I was careless,” she went on suddenly. “I was so certain he was guilty that—”

“Guilty of what, Mrs. Monk?” Warne interrupted her.

“Guilty of using children,” she said sharply. “Boys unwanted by
their families, orphans or ones whose parents couldn’t look after them, all of them between five years and eleven or twelve years old. He imprisoned them on his riverboat and had the men who frequented the boat pose for pornographic photographs, which he later used to blackmail them—”

Warne held his hand up again to stop her.

“I find it highly unbelievable that anyone would allow themselves to be photographed if they were engaging in such horrible acts, Mrs. Monk. You are stretching the limits of credibility.”

“Phillips ran a club for wealthy and influential men,” she told him, her voice now sharp with distress. “Men whose ordinary lives no longer gave them the thrill of danger they hungered for. The price of membership in the club was to have the photographs taken. It also ensured that none of the other members would betray the club or one another—they were all in the same situation.”

“Very clever,” Warne said bitterly. “I can see why the whole matter angered you to the point that you lost your sense of judgment. But in order to obtain a conviction you had to prove that a crime had taken place and that the person accused was responsible. Where did you slip up in this?”

Gavinton stood up again. “My lord, that is irrelevant.” He sounded weary, as if his patience had been tried to the utmost. “We all know that Mrs. Monk did indeed fail in that endeavor. I do not contest it. There is nothing to be gained by repeating the miserable affair, and Mrs. Monk herself can only be embarrassed by it. Mr. Warne is wasting our time.”

Rathbone felt the sweat trickling down his body. Looking at Gavinton it was clear that he had no idea that Drew was in one of those photographs. Obviously Hester did not either. Was Warne somehow going to bring it in? He could not do so legally without first showing the evidence to the defense.

When Rathbone started to speak his mouth was dry, and he had to clear his throat before he could force his voice to make a sound.

“Mr. Warne? The defense stipulates to Mrs. Monk’s distress in the earlier case and the fact that the whole issue was so repugnant to her that she failed to present adequate evidence of Phillips’s guilt in the eyes of the law. What is your purpose in raising the subject again? Jericho Phillips is dead, and his crimes have nothing to do with this case.”

“I did not raise the subject, my lord,” Warne said smoothly, his dark eyes fixed on Rathbone’s. “It was my learned friend who brought it up, to discredit Mrs. Monk. He suggested she was overemotional, her judgment warped by her horror at that time, to the degree that her testimony even now is still unreliable. I want to show the court that that is not so. I believe I have that right.”

“My lord—” Gavinton began.

Rathbone did not even look at him. “Mr. Warne,” he said quietly, “you are trying our patience. If you can show that Mrs. Monk is a reliable witness and we should take what she says more seriously, then do so. But briefly, please.”

“Yes, my lord.” Warne looked again at Hester. “Mrs. Monk, you spoke of photographs that Mr. Phillips used to blackmail the otherwise respectable gentlemen who were members of the club that indulged in pornography and the sexual abuse of small boys. I think we all find that not only obscene but also, as my learned friend said, highly unbelievable.”

Rathbone could hardly breathe. Warne was going to do it. Had he shown the photograph to Gavinton, as the rules of evidence required? If he had not, then Gavinton could ask for a mistrial and Rathbone would have to grant it. Was that what Warne intended to do? Why? It would not ensure a conviction.