in.
Oliver felt the ease of familiarity wash over him like a warmth. Unreasonably, some of his helplessness left him, although he had not even begun to explain the problem, let alone address it. He sat down in the big chair opposite his father’s, leaning back comfortably.
For a few moments neither of them spoke. Henry continued to suck on his empty pipe. Outside in the darkness a nightbird called and the branches of the honeysuckle, with its trumpet-shaped flowers, waved in the slight wind. A moth banged against the glass.
'I have a new case,' Oliver said at length. 'I can’t possibly win it.'
Henry took his pipe out of his mouth. 'Then you must have had a good reason for taking it … or at least one that appeared good at the time.'
'I don’t think it was a good one.' Oliver was pedantic, as his nature inclined. He had learned exactness from Henry, and he never measured what he said to him. It was part of the basis of their friendship. 'It was compelling. They are not the same.'
Henry smiled. 'Not in the slightest,' he agreed.
'Monk asked me to,' Oliver added.
Henry nodded.
'There was a moral imperative,' Oliver said, justifying the choice. He did not want his father to think it was because of Monk, still less because of Hester.
'I see. Are you going to tell me what it is?'
'Of course.' Oliver moved and crossed his legs comfortably. He gave a succinct outline of the cases against both Cleo Anderson and Miriam Gardiner, then he waited while Henry sat deep in thought for several moments. Outside it was now completely dark except for the patch of luminous moonlight on the grass just short of the old apple tree at the end of the lawn.
'And you assume that this woman Cleo Anderson did not kill the coachman,' Henry said at last. 'Even in a manner for which there might be some mitigating circumstances-or possibly a struggle in which he died accidentally?'
Oliver thought for a moment before answering. The truth was that that was exactly what he had accepted. Cleo had said she was not present, and he had believed her. He still did.
'Yes. Yes, I am assuming that,' he agreed. 'She never denied taking the medicines. I have no proof of exactly how she did it, or any of the circumstances. I have deliberately avoided finding them.'
Henry made no comment. 'How is Monk involved?' he asked instead.
Rathbone explained.
'And Hester?' Henry asked, his voice gentle.
Oliver had not forgotten how fond his father was of Hester, nor his unspoken desire that Oliver should marry her. He sometimes feared Hester’s regard for him was at least in part the affection she had for Henry and the desire to belong to a family in which she could know the safety her own had not given her. Her father had shot himself after a financial disgrace visited upon him at the end of the Crimean War by a man who had traded upon their friendship in order to cheat. Hester’s mother had died shortly afterwards, largely of grief. Hester had spoken of it only once, unless she had done so more often to Henry when Oliver was not there, perhaps needing to share the burden.
This was a topic of conversation he was dreading. He had deliberately avoided it as long as possible, even to the extent of not coming to Primrose Hill but meeting his father in the City, where private conversations were too liable to interruption. Now it could no longer be deferred.
'Hester seems very well,' he answered expressionlessly. At least he thought he had, but judging by Henry’s face, perhaps he deluded himself. 'Of course, she is deeply concerned for this nurse, both personally and in principle,' he added, feeling the warmth rush up his cheeks.
Henry nodded. 'I can imagine that she is consumed with her usual fire.' He did not say anything about Oliver’s motives for accepting what seemed a hopeless case. He was the only person who induced Oliver to make explanations of himself where none had been asked for.
'It matters!' Oliver said urgently, leaning forward a little. He looked at Henry, at his lean and slightly stooped form, his hair very gray, and imagined what he would feel if he had been a soldier or a sailor instead of a mathematician, if he were broken in body, bewildered and alone, unable to afford the care he needed, stripped of the dignity of old age and left only with its helplessness. It was so painful it caught his breath. Now the battle was for John Robb, for Henry, for all those affected by injury and age, or who would be in time to come. 'It matters far more than any one person,' he said passionately. 'More than Cleo Anderson or even than Hester- or winning for its own sake. If we allow this injustice without doing all we can against it, what are we worth?'
Henry regarded him gravely, all the humor gone from his eyes. 'Very little,' he said quietly. 'But emotion will not win for you, Oliver. It is an excellent driving force, the best, and it will keep your courage high. Anger at injustice has righted more wrongs than most other things, and it is one of the great creative forces in a civilized society.' He shook his head. 'But in order not to replace one enemy with another, albeit innocently intended, you must use your intelligence. You told me that you are certain that both Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Gardiner are lying to you. You cannot go into court without knowing at least what the lie is-and why they are telling it at the risk of their own deaths. The reason must be a very powerful one indeed.'
'I know that,' Oliver agreed. 'And I have racked my brain to think what it could be.'
'Is it the same reason for each?'
'I don’t even know that.'
Henry sat thoughtfully, elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers steepled together. 'I assume that you warned each of them that not only her own life, but the life of the other, rests upon the verdict. Therefore they each have a compelling reason for not telling you the truth. From what you say it seems possible that Mrs. Anderson does not know it, but certainly Mrs. Gardiner does. Why would a woman hang for a crime she did not commit?' He looked very steadily at Oliver. 'Only because the alternative to her is worse.'
'What could be worse than hanging?' Oliver asked.
'I don’t know. That is what you must find out.'
'The hanging of someone you love…' Oliver said, as much to himself as to Henry.
'Is Lucius Stourbridge guilty?' Henry asked him.
'I don’t know,' Oliver replied. 'I don’t know why he could kill either Treadwell or his own mother.'
'Treadwell is easier,' Henry said thoughtfully. 'The man may have threatened Mrs. Gardiner, or threatened the marriage, either through Mrs. Anderson or in some other way. He was a blackmailer. Much is possible. It is far more difficult to think of any motive for Lucius to have killed his mother.'
'I’ve searched for one,' Oliver admitted. 'I’ve found nothing.'
'It would be extraordinary if the two murders were not connected,' Henry pursued, drawing his brows together. 'What elements do they have in common?'
'Treadwell himself, and Miriam Gardiner,' Oliver replied, 'and the nature of the attacks.'
'And the unknown,' Henry added. 'One must always include the possibility of a factor we have not considered, perhaps something outside our knowledge entirely. From what you have told me so far, it seems this may be the case here. Proceed with logic, eliminate what is impossible, and then examine what is left, no matter how ugly it may be. I have a feeling, Oliver, that this case may stretch your compassion to its limits and require more of you than you had thought to give. I am sorry. I appreciate that this is not easy for you, especially considering Hester’s involvement in it.'
'Her involvement makes no difference!' As soon as the words were on his lips he knew that they were untrue, and quite certainly that Henry knew it also, but it was difficult to withdraw them.
Henry shook his head so minutely it was barely a movement at all.
'It makes no difference to the issues,' Oliver amended. What he really meant-the aloneness, the knowledge of having held something precious and having let it slip through his fingers because he would not commit his passions fully enough, the regret-was all there between them, unsaid. Henry knew him well enough that truth was not necessary and lies were not only impossible but damaging. Henry understood as well as he did that Hester made all the difference in the world to the way he felt about it, to know he would continue to fight regardless of what he himself might lose in reputation, self-esteem or money.
Henry was smiling. Oliver knew in that moment that he approved. Much as he revered the law himself, and
