Death of a Stranger (34 page)

There was a titter from the crowd. This, at least, was mildly entertaining. They were happy to see Rathbone baited; he was better game than the accused, who had long since lost any sympathy they might have felt for him.

Rathbone took a deep breath and steadied his temper. He acknowledged the judge’s remark and turned again to the witness stand. “Mr. Whitney, would it be technically possible to commit a far greater fraud than the one suggested here, one worth several thousands of pounds, by this same means of diverting a proposed route?”

Whitney looked startled. “Yes, of course it would. This was only a slightly greater length, a few hundred yards. One could do far more to make money.”

“For example?” Rathbone asked.

Whitney shrugged. “Buy land oneself, prior to the rerouting, and then sell it back at an inflated price,” he answered. “Many things, with enough imagination and the right contacts. Choose a stretch where a lot of construction was necessary, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, even long cuttings, and take a percentage on materials-the possibilities are numerous.”

“My lord!” Fowler said loudly. “My learned friend is simply showing that the accused is incompetent even at fraud. That is not an excuse.”

There was open laughter in the room. No one pretended not to be amused.

When it had died down Rathbone turned to him. “I am attempting to prove that he is innocent of murder,” he said politely, but with an underlying anger. “Why is it that you seem unwilling to allow me to do that?”

“It is circumstances that are preventing you, not I,” Fowler returned to another rustle of laughter.

“Your circumstances!” Rathbone snapped. “Mine not only allow me to, they oblige me to.”

“Mr. Fowler!” the judge said very clearly. “Sir Oliver has a point. Unless you have some objection of substance in law, will you cease from interrupting him, or we are likely to be here indefinitely!”

“Thank you, my lord,” Rathbone said ironically. Hester believed that he was, in fact, spinning out time, but she had no idea what for. What, or whom, was he expecting? She felt the first sudden shiver of hope.

Rathbone looked up at Whitney. “You have given us examples of other ways in which a more efficient fraud could be perpetuated. Have you knowledge of any such fraud-I mean a specific circumstance?”

Whitney looked slightly puzzled.

“For example,” Rathbone assisted him, “in Liverpool almost sixteen years ago? The company involved was Baltimore and Sons. There was a falsification of a survey, the grid references were changed…”

Fowler stood up again.

“Sit down, Mr. Fowler!” the judge commanded. He looked at Rathbone sternly. “I presume you have facts, Sir Oliver? Be careful you do not slander anyone.”

“It is a matter of record, my lord,” Rathbone assured him. “A man named Arrol Dundas was convicted of the crime, and unfortunately died in prison of jail fever. But the details of the crime were made public at the trial.”

“I see. The relevance to this present case may easily be guessed, nevertheless we require you to prove it.”

“Yes, my lord. I shall prove that records of it were kept by Baltimore and Sons, therefore it was known to senior members of the present company, even though they were not involved-in fact, not even out of school-at the time.”

“Very interesting. Be sure that it is also relevant to Mr. Dalgarno’s innocence.”

“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone drew out a few more details from Whitney, then excused him. Fowler looked as if he were considering asking him something, then declined, and Whitney left the stand.

Hester looked at Monk, but it was obvious from his tense, white face and the confusion in his eyes that he did not know what Rathbone was planning any more than she did. He was frowning, and staring at the court clerk, busily taking notes, his right hand bandaged. Fortunately, he wrote with his left.

Rathbone then called a junior clerk from Baltimore and Sons and drew from him the statement that the records of the earlier dealings were available-not easily, but a diligent search by a company member would elicit them all.

“And was the case public knowledge?” Rathbone said finally.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Fowler tried to show that it was an abstruse piece of information, never discussed and unlikely to come to the attention of Dalgarno.

“I couldn’t say, sir,” the clerk replied soberly. “I would think such things would be known, sir, even if only as an object lesson in what not to do.”

Fowler retreated. “I still say, my lord, that incompetence does not equal innocence!” he said tartly. “The Crown does not say that the accused committed fraud well, merely that he did it!”

Rathbone opened his eyes very wide. “If the Crown wishes, my lord, I can call a number of witnesses to demonstrate that Mr. Dalgarno was an ambitious and extremely able young man, that he rose from a relatively minor position to become one of the partners-”

The judge held up his hand. “You have already done so, Sir Oliver. We take the point that the nature of the fraud with which he is charged is far less efficient than the earlier example for which Mr. Dundas was found guilty. The only thing relevant to this case appears to be the fact that the earlier case may well have been known to Mr. Dalgarno, and one wonders why he did not emulate it, if fraud was his intention. So far you have not completed your task. Please be succinct!”

“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone recalled the foreman of the team of navvies who had worked on the Derby line, and drew from him greater and more tedious detail of the cutting and blasting necessary to drive a track through a hillside, coupled with the labor and cost of building a viaduct. He could equally easily have asked Jarvis Baltimore, but the navvy was not only more skilled in detail, he was demonstrably impartial.

The court did not bother to hide its total lack of interest.

They adjourned for luncheon. Monk told Hester to go with Margaret and he would join them later. Unwillingly, she obeyed, and he strode forward, shouldering his way through the crowd moving in the opposite direction until he was standing in front of the court clerk.

“Excuse me,” he said, trying not to be abrupt, and yet his voice was sharp.

The man made an effort to be civil. He was still trying to catch up with his notes. His writing was cramped, awkward, and with an odd, backward slope. Monk felt a strange dizziness in his mind as if there was something familiar about it. Could his idea be right?

“Yes, sir?” the clerk said patiently.

“What did you do to your hand?” Monk asked him.

“I burned it, sir.” The clerk blushed very slightly. “On the cooking stove.”

“You were writing with your other hand yesterday, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Fortunately, I can write with either hand. Not so neatly, but it’ll do.”

“Thank you,” Monk said with a surge of understanding like a blaze of sunlight. He could picture exactly the odd characteristic capital
G
’s and
E
’s in Katrina’s diary, and sloping back, but still the same, in Emma’s. And suddenly the inscription in the recipe book-Eveline Mary M. Austin-EMMA! She had loved Katrina, and Katrina had kept her alive in her imagination by writing to her, and even from her, using her left hand.

It was a painful and eccentric thing to do, and even with the explanation, it troubled him.

At the beginning of the afternoon there were even fewer people in the public seats.

“I call Miss Livia Baltimore,” Rathbone said to an immediate hiss of speculation and distaste. Livia herself looked startled, as if she were unprepared, but there was interest again from the crowd. Several jury members straightened in their seats as she made her way across the floor of the court and climbed the steps to the stand, pulling herself a little on the handrail as if she needed its support.

“I apologize for putting you through this ordeal, Miss Baltimore,” Rathbone said gently. “Were it avoidable I would not do so, but a man’s life hangs in the balance.”

“I know,” she said so quietly it was barely audible. The slight rustle of movement in the body of the court ceased, as if everyone were straining not to miss a word. “I will do anything I can to help you prove that Mr. Dalgarno did not do this terrible thing.”

“And your testimony will assist me greatly,” he assured her. “If you tell the exact truth as you know it, absolutely exact! Please trust me in this, Miss Baltimore.”

“I do,” she whispered.

The judge asked her to speak more loudly, and she repeated it: “I do!”

Rathbone smiled. “I imagine you have a natural sympathy for Miss Harcus. She was young, like yourself, not more than four or five years older, and very much in love with a charming and dynamic man. You must know how she felt, her whole future before her, full of promise.”

She swallowed convulsively, and nodded.

“I am sorry, but we need you to speak,” Rathbone said apologetically.

“Yes, I do,” she said huskily. “I can imagine it very well.”

“Have you ever been in love, Miss Baltimore, even if it had not yet reached more than a matter of understanding between you?”

Fowler was on his feet. “My lord, that is completely irrelevant to the issue of this court, and it is grossly intrusive! Miss Baltimore’s personal feelings have no place here and should be respected by-”

The judge flapped his hand at him impatiently. “Yes, yes, Mr. Fowler. Sir Oliver, your point? Or you may continue no further on this rambling excursion of yours.”

“My lord.” Rathbone looked up at Livia. “Miss Baltimore, has Mr. Dalgarno paid court to you? Please do not be modest or discreet to the detriment of the truth. Trust me. And do not oblige me to ask other witnesses to refute any denial made in the effort to protect your reputation. There is nothing to be ashamed of in someone’s paying court to you, even professing love and asking you for your hand in marriage.”

Her face was scarlet, but she looked directly at Rathbone. “Yes. Mr. Dalgarno has done me the honor of asking me to marry him. We are simply not in a position to make the matter public so soon after my father’s death. It would be insensitive… and… wrong.”

There was a gasp of breath around the court. Now, at last, Rathbone had their attention. The judge’s eyes opened very wide, and he shook his head slowly from side to side, not in denial but in surprise.

Fowler rose to his feet, and then before anyone directed him, sat down again.

“Just so,” Rathbone said when the noise permitted him. “Not to mention the death of his previous fiancée, who heard of his change of heart only weeks earlier, but still kept her own passionate feelings toward him. I assume, Miss Baltimore, that although she must have been made aware of you, you were not aware of her?”

Hester looked across at Dalgarno and saw the tight, desperate look in his face. He had to see the jurors’ increasing contempt for him. In law, to have deceived and discarded a woman, unless there were a promise, was not an offense. But he also knew that logic does not always override emotion. He shot a look of pure loathing at Rathbone, which had he seen it, should have scorched his tongue into silence.

Livia looked as if Rathbone had struck her. The blush faded from her face, leaving her ash pale, struggling to catch her breath. “Michael wouldn’t kill her!” she gasped. “He wouldn’t!” But it sounded more like a plea than an assurance.

“No, Miss Baltimore,” Rathbone agreed loudly and very clearly. “Of course he wouldn’t. He had no cause to wish her harm, merely to desire that she leave him alone to pursue a more fitting bride. Did you ever see her in your home after the time Mr. Dalgarno began to court you?”

She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears.

“No,” Rathbone repeated for her. “Or in any public place, seeking to embarrass or pursue Mr. Dalgarno?”

“No,” she whispered.

“In fact, you were unaware of her interest in him at all?”

“Yes… I was.”

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

Fowler shook his head. “This is irrelevant, my lord. We are chasing ghosts. All my learned friend has demonstrated is Dalgarno’s abandonment of his commitment to a relatively poor woman when a richer one gave him hope that he might woo her successfully.”

“No, my lord,” Rathbone contradicted him. “I am showing the court that Miss Harcus had every reason to feel desperately betrayed by a man she loved, and whom she had sincerely believed loved her. That, with other facts I shall also bring witnesses and documents to prove, will explain what happened on the night of her death, and why. And it will show that Mr. Dalgarno had no intentional hand in it. He is guilty of no more than abusing a woman’s love, which I regret to say is something many men have done and walked away from. It is regarded by most of us as contemptible, but not as criminal.”

“Then do so, Sir Oliver,” the judge instructed. “You have still some way to go.”

“Yes, my lord,” Rathbone said obediently.

He was bluffing, Hester knew it with certainty. A coldness gripped her.

“A witness, if you please, Sir Oliver,” the judge said plaintively. “Let us proceed. We still have at least an hour before we may reasonably adjourn.”

“Yes, my lord. I call Mr. Wilbur Garstang.”

“We have already heard from Mr. Garstang… at some length!” Fowler protested.

“We have already heard from everybody at some length, yourself included,” the judge retorted. “Please keep your interruptions to the minimum, Mr. Fowler. Sir Oliver, is there really anything Mr. Garstang can do beyond fill the time?”

“Yes, my lord, I believe so,” Rathbone answered, although there was surely more truth in the judge’s comment than he could afford to admit.

“Call Wilbur Garstang,” the judge said wearily.

Mr. Garstang climbed the steps and was advised by the judge that he was still under oath. He was a precise little man with a carping attitude and an inclination to pick fault.

“I have already told you what I observed,” he said to Rathbone, looking down at him over the top of his gold-rimmed eyeglasses.

“Indeed,” Rathbone agreed. “But I wish to reestablish it in the minds of the jury, with rather a different emphasis. You are an exact and acute observer, Mr. Garstang, that is why I chose you to speak yet again. I apologize for the inconvenience no doubt it causes you.”