The Silent Cry

Evan was forming no picture of him, certainly nothing to explain what he was doing in St. Giles, except following a wayward and disappointing son whose taste in pleasures he did not understand, and perhaps whose appetites frightened him, knowing the danger to which they could lead disease being not the least of them. He would not ask this woman the questions whose answers he needed, but he would ask Joel Kynaston: he must.

It was another half-hour of largely meaningless but pleasant conversation before the butler came back to say that Mr. Kynaston had returned and would see Evan in his study. Evan thanked Fidelis and followed where he was directed.

The study was obviously a room for use. The fire blazed in a large hearth, glinting on wrought brass shovel and tongs and gleaming on the fender. Evan was shivering with cold, and the warmth enveloped him like a welcome blanket. The walls were decorated with glass-fronted bookcases, and pictures of country domestic scenes. The oak desk was massive and there were three piles of books and papers on it.

Joel Kynaston sat behind it, looking at Evan curiously. It was impossible to tell his height, but he gave the impression of being slight. His face was keen, nose a trifle pinched, mouth highly individual. It was not a countenance one would forget, nor easily overlook. His intelligence was inescapable, as was his consciousness of authority.

"Come in, Mr. Evan," he said with a slight nod. He did not rise, immediately establishing their relative status. "How may I be of service to you? If I had known anything about poor Leighton Duffs death I should already have told you, naturally. Although I have been ill with a fever, and spent the last few days in my bed. However, today I am better, and I ca

"I'm sorry for your illness, sir," Evan responded.

"Thank you." Kynaston waved to the chair opposite. "Do sit down. Now tell me what you think I can do to be of assistance.”

Evan accepted, finding it less comfortable than it looked, although he would have sat on boards to achieve the warmth. He was obliged to sit upright rather than relax.

"I believe you have known Rhys Duff since he was a boy, sir," he began, making a statement rather than a question.

Kynaston frowned very slightly, drawing his brows together. "Yes?”

"Does it surprise you that he should be in an area like St. Giles?”

Kynaston drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No. I regret to say that it does not. He was always wayward, and lately his choice of company caused his father some concern.”

"Why? I mean for what specific reason?”

Kynaston stared at him. Several reactions flickered across his face.

He had highly expressive features. They showed amazement, disdain, sadness, and something else not so easily read, a darker thing, a sense of tragedy, or perhaps evil.

"What exactly do you mean, Mr. Evan?”

"Was it the immorality of it?" Evan expanded. "The fear of disease, of scandal or disgrace, of losing the favour of some respectable young lady, or the knowledge that it might lead him to physical danger, or greater depravity?”

Kynaston hesitated so long Evan thought he was not going to answer.

When finally he did speak, his voice was low, very careful, very precise, and he held his strong, bony hands in front of him, clutched tightly together.

"I should imagine all of those things, Mr. Evan. A man is uniquely responsible for the character of his son. There ca

"You believe Mr. Duff followed Rhys into St. Giles, and they were both attacked as a result of something that happened because they were there?”

"Don't you? It seems a tragically apparent explanation.”

"You don't believe Mr. Duff would have gone alone otherwise? You knew him well, I believe?”

"Very well!" Kynaston said decisively. "I am perfectly certain he would not! Why in heaven's name should he? He had everything to lose, and nothing of any conceivable value to gain." He smiled very slightly, a fleeting, bitter humour, swallowed instantly in the reality of loss. "I hope you catch whoever is responsible, sir, but I have no sensible hope that you will. If Rhys had a liaison with some woman of the area, or something worse," his mouth twisted very slightly in distaste, 'then I doubt you will discover it now. Those involved will hardly come forward, and I imagine the denizens of that world will protect their own, rather than ally with the forces of law.”

What he said was true. Evan had to admit it. He thanked him and rose to take his leave. He would speak to Dr. Corriden Wade, but he did not expect to learn much from him that would be of any value.

Wade was tired at the end of a long and harrowing day when he allowed Evan into his library. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he walked across the room ahead of Evan as if his back and legs hurt him.

"Of course I will tell you what I can, Sergeant," he said, turning and settling in one of the comfortable chairs by the embers of the fire, and gesturing towards the other for Evan. "But I fear it will not be anything you do not already know. And I ca

"I understand," Evan replied quickly. The memory returned to him with sharp pity of Rhys lying in the alley, of his own horror when he had realised he was still alive, still capable of immeasurable pain. Nor could he ever rid his mind of the horror in Rhys's eyes when he had regained his senses and first tried to speak, and found he could not.

"I had no intention of asking to see him. I hoped you might tell me more about both Rhys and his father. It may help to learn what happened.”

Wade sighed. "Presumably they were attacked, robbed and beaten by thieves," he said unhappily, sadness and gravity equal in his face.

"Does it matter now why they went to St. Giles? Have you the least real hope of catching whoever it was, or of proving anything? I have little experience of St. Giles in particular, but I spent several years in the Navy. I have seen some rough areas, places where there is desperate poverty, where disease and death are commonplace, and a child is fortunate to reach its sixth birthday, and more fortunate still to reach manhood. Few have an honest trade which earns them sufficient to live. Fewer still can read or write. This is then a way of life.

Violence is easy, the first resort, not the last.”

He was looking at Evan intently, his dark eyes narrowed. "I would have thought you were familiar with such places also, but perhaps you are too young. Were you born in the city, Sergeant?”

"No, in the country…”

Wade smiled. He had excellent teeth. "Then perhaps you still have something to learn about the human battle for survival, and how men turn upon each other when there is too little space, too little food, too little air, and no hope or strength of belief to change it. Despair breeds rage, Mr. Evan, and a desire to retaliate against a world in which there is no apparent justice. It is to be expected.”

"I do expect it, sir," Evan replied. "And I would have imagined a man of Mr. Leighton Duffs intelligence and experience of the world to have expected it also, indeed to have foreseen it.”