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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 i
“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, spi
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 i
“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 pla
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 i
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 capitalG ’s andE ’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 begi
“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.”