Execution Dock

“You could tell that from a body?” Tremayne said, affecting some surprise.

All this was exactly what Rathbone had expected, and what he would have done had their roles been reversed-draw it all out in the fashion of a story, and with detail the jury would never forget. The poor devils would probably have nightmares for years to come. They would waken in a sweat with the sound of ru

“Yes, sir, pretty likely,” Orme replied. “Lots of boys, an’ girls too, is ‘alf starved. You're poor, you've got no choice. But the burns are different.”

“Is it not possible that a poor man, violent, perhaps drunken, in his despair might hurt even his own children?” Tremayne pressed.

“Yes, sir,” Orme conceded. “‘Course it is. But poor men don't ‘ave cigars to do it with. It isn't a bad temper that makes you light a cigar, smoke it till it's hot, then hold the end of it against a child's body till it burns through the skin into the flesh, and then makes scabs that bleed.”

Several people in the gallery cried out, stifling the sound instantly, and one of the jurors looked as if he might be sick. His face was sweaty, and had a faintly greenish hue. The man next to him grasped his arm to steady him.

Tremayne waited a moment before going on.

Rathbone understood. He would have done the same.

“Did that prompt any particular course of action from you?” Tremayne asked, retaining his composure as if with difficulty.

“Yes, sir,” Orme answered. “We visited the places we knew of where people kept boys o’ that age to use. We'd looked at them pretty hard, sir. ‘E wasn't a chimney sweep's boy, nor a laborer of any kind. Easy enough to see by ‘is ‘ands. No dirt from chimneys, no calluses from oakum picking or any other sort of thing like that. But if you'll pardon me, sir, in public like, there were other parts of his body that'd been ‘ard used.” His face was red, his voice cracking with emotion.

“The surgeon didn't testify to that,” Tremayne pointed out reluctantly. His body was oddly stiff as he stood, his usual grace lost.

“We didn't ask ‘im, sir. It isn't medical, it's common sense,” Orme told him.

“I see. Did that cause you to look anywhere in particular?”

“We tried lots o’ places up and down the river. It's our job to know where they are.”

“And did you find out where he came from?”

“No, sir, not for sure.”

“Only ‘sure’ will do here, Mr. Orme.”

“I know that!” Orme's temper was suddenly close to the surface, the emotion too raw to govern. “We know that Jericho Phillips kept a lot o’ boys, especially young ones, small as five or six years old. Took them in from wherever ‘e found them, and gave them a bed and food. Lot of them lived on a boat, but we'd never find anything there. He had lookouts, and they always knew who we were.”

Rathbone considered objecting that Orme was stating an opinion rather than presenting evidence, but it was hardly worth making a fuss over. He decided against it.

“So you never saw anything amiss on his boat?” Tremayne concluded.

“No, sir.”

“Then why did you raise his name at all?” Tremayne asked gently, as if he were puzzled. “What was it that drew him to your attention, other than a growing desperation to find at least a name for this dead boy?”

Orme let out his breath in a sigh. “An informant came to us and said that Jericho Phillips was keeping a kind o’ cross between a brothel and a peep show on his boat. He ‘ad young boys there and forced them to perform certain… acts…” He stopped, obviously embarrassed. His eyes flickered to the public gallery, aware that there must be women there. Then he looked away again, angry with himself for his weakness.

Tremayne did not help him. It was clear from the expression on his face, the slight downturn of his mouth, that he found the subject repellent, and touched on it only because he owed it to the dead, and to the truth.

“U

Tremayne was exquisitely careful. “That is what this man told you, Mr. Orme?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see.” Tremayne shifted his balance a little. “And did you request that he take you so you might ascertain for yourself if this were true? After all, he could have invented the entire story, couldn't he?”

“Yes, sir, ‘e could. But ‘e refused to take us, or to testify. ‘E said he was being blackmailed, because ‘e'd looked at the pictures. It was my opinion that ‘e'd probably bought some as well. ‘E was scared stiff.”

This time Rathbone did rise to his feet and object. “The witness may be of that opinion, my lord, but that is not evidence.”

Tremayne inclined his head in acknowledgment, smiling a little, then turned again to Orme. “Did he say so, Mr. Orme?”

“No, sir, he wouldn't even give us ‘is name.”

Tremayne shrugged in a very slight, elegant gesture of confusion. “Was there any purpose in his coming forward at all, if he was prepared to say so little, and not to swear to any of it?”

“No, sir, not really,” Orme admitted. “Maybe it just helped us narrow the search, so to speak. Mr. Durban was rather good at drawing. He made a sketch of the dead boy's face, and then a picture of how he might ‘ave looked standing up and dressed. We took it around for a couple of weeks or so, to see if anyone could give ‘im a name, or say anything about ‘im.”

“And could they?”

“Yes, sir. They said ‘e used to be a mudlark. A young lad came and told us they picked coal up off the tideline o’ the river when they were six or seven years old. He just knew him as Fig, but he was certain it was ‘im, because of the fu

Tremayne turned towards Rathbone, but there was no point contesting the identification. Whether it was the same boy or not was immaterial to the charge. He was somebody's child.

Tremayne led Orme in some detail through the process of the various other people who had confirmed that they knew the boy. One had added that his whole name was Walter Figgis. Others, through a laborious process that Rathbone allowed Tremayne to abbreviate, confirmed that there were boats on the river that gave shelter to children. On some of them the boys were appallingly misused. But of course there was no proof. Tremayne, wisely, barely touched on that. The generality was enough to shake the jury, and the audience in court, to a revulsion so deep that many of them were physically trembling. Some looked nauseated to the point that Rathbone was afraid they might not be able to control themselves.

Rathbone himself was aware of a depth of distress he had seldom felt before, only perhaps in cases of the most depraved rape and torture. He looked up at Phillips and saw nothing in him at all resembling human pity or shame. A wave of fury almost drowned him. The sweat broke out on his body, and the wig on his head was like a helmet. The black silk gown suffocated him as he held his arms to his sides. He was imprisoned in it.

Then he was afraid. Was Phillips beyond human emotions, unreachable? And Rathbone had promised to use all his skills to set him free again to go back to the river. He had no escape from doing it; it was his covenantal duty, which he had already accepted, and he had given his word, not only to the court, but also to Arthur Ballinger, and thus obliquely to Margaret. To refuse now would suggest to the jury that he knew something that condemned the accused beyond doubt. He was trapped by the law that he wanted above all to serve.