“If you think Aunt Vespasia is simply being an old lady who is refusing to accept an unpalatable truth, you know very little of her and underestimate her profoundly. She knew Leo Cadell since before his marriage, and she is a woman of considerable wisdom and experience. She has seen more of the world than either you or I, particularly of men like the ones we are concerned with.” He had spoken more sharply than he intended, but it was too late to moderate it.
Cornwallis blushed. For a moment Pitt thought it was from anger, then he realized it was from shame.
Cornwallis turned away. “I’m sorry. I have the greatest regard for Lady Vespasia. My own relief has … has blinded me for a moment to the reality of other people’s grief.” His voice thickened with tightly suppressed emotion. “I want this to be the end of it so fiercely I cannot bear to believe otherwise. It has obliged me to think about a great many things, events and people which I had taken for granted most of my life … other men’s opinions of me I assumed I knew. Even my career has … still, that is hardly important now.” He let out his breath in a soundless sigh and turned back to face Pitt. “You had better find Cole … or at least have Tellman look for him. There is nothing else pressing … is there?”
Before Pitt could answer that there was not, there was a sharp rap on the door.
“Come in,” Cornwallis replied, looking towards it.
The man who came in looked startled.
“Mr. Justice Quade is here to see you, sir,” he said to Cornwallis. “He is extremely perturbed and says the matter is urgent.”
“Send him in,” Cornwallis directed. “Pitt, you’d better stay.”
Theloneus Quade appeared the moment after, and indeed, the clerk had not exaggerated. Quade’s thin, gentle face wore an expression of deep concern.
“I apologize for intruding upon you, Mr. Cornwallis.” He glanced at Pitt. “Fortunate to find you also here, Thomas. I am afraid there has been a development I find disturbing-most disturbing-and I felt I should inform you of it in case it has meaning.” He looked abashed, and yet perfectly determined.
“What is it?” Pitt asked with sinking misgiving, though with less surprise than he should have felt.
Theloneus looked from one to the other of them. “Dunraithe White has just excused himself from a case he was scheduled to hear. It was rather an important one, involving a major fraud in one of the large investment trusts. His withdrawal will severely inconvenience everyone and delay the hearing until someone can be found to replace him.”
Cornwallis stood motionless. “Is he ill?” he said without hope.
“He has said so,” Theloneus replied, “but I saw him at the opera yesterday evening, and he was in excellent health then.” His lips tightened. “I happen to be acquainted with his doctor. I took the liberty of calling him when I heard. I am afraid I practiced an untruth. I asked if Dunraithe had been taken to a hospital, that I might send him a letter or attend to anything he might wish. His doctor quite obviously had no idea what I was talking about, and assumed I must be mistaken. He may, of course, be ill at home and not have found it necessary to send for any medical help, but that would be an unusual way to behave, and Dunraithe is a conventional man. Mrs. White would have sent for someone, even if he had not.”
Cornwallis opened his mouth to argue with some reasonable answer and then changed his mind. Without being aware of it, his body was tense again, the ease gone from his face.
“It occurs to me,” Theloneus said sadly, “that a letter has been overdue in the mail, and perhaps he received it only this morning. He may imagine that Cadell was not alone in his crime and that a threat still exists.” He looked from one to the other of them. “I don’t know if you know the answer to that, but if you do, then you might persuade him of it. If not, then we had better continue our work. It would seem it is not entirely finished.”
Cornwallis glanced at Pitt, then back to Theloneus.
“We don’t know the answer,” he said frankly. “We were discussing it before you arrived. We don’t know exactly what Cadell wanted. We have assumed it was money, but it is only an assumption. We also assumed he was alone, and perhaps we should not have.” His voice was rough-edged. The weight of fear he had only just cast aside had descended upon him again. It seemed the heavier for the short respite. Quite suddenly he was once more haggard, the color gone from his skin. The one night’s untroubled sleep need never have been given him, or the few meals eaten with pleasure.
“I’ll go and see Mr. White,” Pitt said quietly. He looked at Theloneus. “Will you come with me? He may simply refuse to admit me. He could send his butler with a message that he is too ill. I can scarcely argue that I know he has not yet sent for a doctor.”
“Of course,” Theloneus agreed. “I had thought of it myself. I can persuade him, on judicial business, if nothing else. He cannot refuse to speak to me on that, whatever his state of health.” He gave a sad little grimace. “I do not know whether to wish he is telling the truth or not.”
It proved a wise decision. When the butler opened the door there was a cool refusal in his face prepared for whoever should consider disturbing his master’s peace. However, when Theloneus introduced himself and declared the nature of his business, the butler recognized that it was not within his jurisdiction to refuse, and he dutifully carried Theloneus’s card upstairs on his silver tray.
He returned several minutes later, his face grim.
“Mr. White is not well this morning, sir, as I explained. If the matter truly cannot wait, then of course he will see you. Perhaps you would not mind doing him the favor of allowing him a few minutes to compose himself and come downstairs.” It was not really a question.
“Of course,” Theloneus said sympathetically. He sat down in one of the large chairs in the study where they had been shown. Pitt could not help thinking that it was one of the few rooms in the house where Marguerite White would almost certainly not interrupt them. Dunraithe would not have to explain their presence to her.
Pitt and Theloneus sat in silence. Several times Pitt nearly spoke, then changed his mind. They had already said all there was until they knew whether White had indeed received a letter, or if perhaps he had some genuine illness. Perhaps he had, and the anxiety and distress of the past few weeks had so worn down his courage that he no longer had the strength to fight back.
The door opened and Dunraithe White came in, closing it behind him. He was dressed in trousers and a soft smoking jacket. He looked gray-faced, as if he had not slept for nights on end, and there was a dry, stiff texture to his skin. He had shaved, but poorly, as if his attention had not been upon the task. As well as a small missed patch on his chin, there were two tiny spots of blood where the blade had caught him. The butler had simply reported Pitt as “another gentleman,” and White was profoundly shaken to recognize him.
“Superintendent! Has something further happened?” He cleared his throat. “Stokes did not tell me you were here. Only you …” He turned to Theloneus. “I … I thought it was a judicial matter.”
“It is,” Theloneus replied, staring at him levelly and without the slightest evasion. “I am deeply concerned over your withdrawal from the Leadbetter case. As you must know, it will cause the deepest inconvenience to the court calendar, and a considerable cost due to the delay, which must necessarily follow, until someone else can be found to hear it. Is there any way whatsoever, with your physician’s assistance, that in a day or two you may be recovered sufficiently to resume your role?” He regarded White with innocent concern.
“No.” White answered without hesitating to give the matter thought. “It would be quite misleading of me to allow you to think I will be well … I really cannot say that.” He swallowed. “In … in fairness to all concerned, the prosecution and the defense … you must replace me.” He looked at Theloneus with something like despair in his eyes.
Seeing the compassion in Theloneus’s face, Pitt expected him to relent, but he did not. Without a moment’s change in the gentleness in his eyes or his voice, he continued as if White had not spoken.
“I am sorry, my dear fellow. I must know the truth of this. You do indeed look as if you are suffering greatly, but you do not seem unwell, which is a different thing.”
White made as if to protest, but he could not find the words.
“If you have some ailment,” Theloneus went on, “then allow me to send for your physician. I know him well, and I have no doubt he will come to you within the hour.”
“Really!” White protested. “I am perfectly able to … to send for him myself, should I require his assistance. You take too much …” He half turned away, moving his arm ineffectually. “Please accept my word, Quade, and my apologies, and let the matter be. I have said all I have to.”
Theloneus remained where he was.
“I think not,” he said very quietly. “Perhaps I wrong you, and if so I am in your debt, but I think you are not ill
