The Silent Cry

Runcorn lifted his eyes to meet Monk's, but he did not speak immediately.

"I suppose… I resented you," he said at last. "You always seemed to have the right word, to guess the right answers. You always had luck on your side, and you never gave anyone else any room. You didn't forgive mistakes.”

That was the damning indictment. He did not forgive.

"I should have," he said gravely. "I was wrong in that. I am sorry about Dora. I can't take it back now, but I am sorry.”

Runcorn stared at him. "You are, aren't you!" he said in amazement.

He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "You did well with the Duff case. Thank you." It was as close as he could come to an acceptance.

It was good enough. Monk nodded. He could not allow the lie to remain. It would break the fragile bridge he had just built at such a cost.

"I haven't finished with it yet. I'm not sure about the motive. The father was responsible for at least one of the rapes in St. Giles himself, and he was in Seven Dials regularly.”

"What?" Runcorn could scarcely believe what he seemed to have heard.

"That's impossible! It doesn't make any sense, Monk!”

"I know. But it is true. I have a dozen witnesses. One who saw him smeared with blood the night before Christmas Eve, when there was a rape in St. Giles, and Mrs. Kynaston and Lady Sandon will swear Rhys Duff was with them at the time, miles away.”

"We're not charging Rhys Duff with rape," Runcorn frowned, now thoroughly disturbed. He was a good enough policeman to see the implications.

Monk did not argue further. It was u

"I'm obliged," Runcorn said, shaking his head.

Monk nodded, hesitated a moment, then excused himself and went out to go home and bathe and sleep. Then he must go and tell Rathbone.

Chapter Twelve

The trial of Rhys Duff had commenced on the previous day. The court was filled and an hour before it began the ushers closed the doors. The preliminaries had already been conducted. The jury were chosen. The judge, a handsome man of military appearance and the marks of pain in his face, called the court to order. He had come in with a pronounced limp and sat a trifle awkwardly in his high, carved chair in order to accommodate a stiff leg.

The prosecution was conducted by Ebenezer Goode, a man of curious and exuberant appearance, well known and respected by Rathbone. He was unhappy with proceeding against someone as obviously ill as Rhys Duff, but he abhorred not only the crime with which he was charged, but the earlier ones which had provided the motive. He willingly made concession to Rhys's medical needs by allowing him to sit in the dock, high above the body of the court and railed off, in a padded chair to offer what comfort there was for his physical pain. He also had made no demur when Rathbone had asked that Rhys not be handcuffed at any time, so he might move if he wished, or was able to, and sit in whatever position gave him the least discomfort.

Corriden Wade was in court and could be called should he be needed, and so was Hester. They were both to be allowed immediate access to the prisoner if he showed any need for their attention or assistance.

Nevertheless as the testimony began, Rhys was alone as he faced a bitterly hostile crowd, his accusers and his judges. There was no one to speak for him except Rathbone, standing a solitary figure, black-gowned, white-wigged, a fragile barrier against a tide of hatred.

Goode called his witnesses one after the other: the women who had found the two bodies, Constable Shotts and John Evan. He took Evan carefully step by step through his investigation, not dwelling on the horror but permitting it to be passionately conveyed through Evan's white face and broken, husky voice.

He called Dr. Riley who spoke quietly and in surprisingly simple language of Leighton Duffs terrible wounds and the death he must have suffered.

"And the accused?" Goode asked, standing in the middle of the floor like a great crow, his arms dangling in his gown. His aquiline face with its pale eyes reflected vividly the horror and the sense of tragedy he felt unmistakably deeply.

Hester had liked him ever since first meeting him in the Stonefield case. Staring around the courtroom, more to judge the emotion of the crowd than to note who was present, she was lent a moment's real happiness to see Enid Ravensbrook, her face smoothed of its earlier suffering, her eyes gentle and bright as she watched Goode, a smile on her lips. Hester looked more closely, and saw there was a gold wedding band on her hand, not the one she had worn earlier, but a new one. For an instant she forgot the present ache of fear and tragedy.

But it was brief. Reality returned with Riley's answer.

"He was also very severely injured," he said quietly.

There was barely a sound in the room. There were faint rustles, tiny movements, a sigh of breath. The jurors never took their eyes from the proceedings.

"A great deal of blood?" Goode pressed.

Riley hesitated.

No one moved.

"No…" he said at last. "When a person is kicked and punched there are terrible bruises, but the skin is not necessarily broken. There was some, especially where his ribs were cracked. One had pierced the skin. And on his back. There the flesh had been ripped.”

There was a gasp of indrawn breath in the room. Several of the jurors looked very white.

"But Sergeant Evan said that the accused's clothes were soaked in blood, Dr. Riley," Goode pointed out. "Where did that come from, if not from his injuries?”

"I assume from the dead man," Riley replied. "His wounds were more severe, and there were several places where the skin was broken. But I am surprised he bled so badly.”

"And there were no wounds on the accused to account for such blood?”

Riley pressed.

"No, there were not.”

"Thank you, Dr. Riley.”

Rathbone rose. It was a forlorn hope, but he had nothing else. He must try anything, no matter how remote. He had no idea what Monk would produce, and there were always the possibilities that involved Arthur and Duke Kynaston.

"Dr. Riley, have you any way of knowing whose blood it was on Rhys Duffs clothes?”

"No, sir," Riley answered without the least resentment. The smooth expression of his face suggested he had no conviction in the matter himself, only a sadness that the whole event should have happened at all.

"So it could belong to a third, or even a fourth person, whom we have not yet mentioned?”

"It could… were there such a person.”

The jury looked bemused.

The judge watched Rathbone anxiously, but he did not intervene.

"Thank you," Rathbone nodded. "That is all I have to ask you, sir.”

Goode called Corriden Wade, who reluctantly, pale-faced, his voice barely heard, admitted that Rhys's injuries could not have produced the blood described on his clothes. Not once did he look up to the dock where Rhys sat motionless, his face twisted in an unreadable expression, a mixture of helpless bitterness and blazing anger. Nor did Wade appear to look towards the gallery where Sylvestra sat next to Eglantyne, both of them watching him intently. He kept his eyes undeviatingly on Goode, confirming that the events of that night of his father's death had rendered Rhys incapable of communication, either by speech or by writing. He was able only to nod or shake his head. He expressed the deepest concern for his well-being, and would not commit himself to any certainty that he would recover.

Goode hesitated, as if to ask him further as to his knowledge of Rhys's personality, but after the vaguest of begi

There was nothing for him to prove but the facts, and to explore the growth of motive only opened the way for Rathbone to suggest insanity.