“A quality you admire?” Juster asked.
“Of course.”
“Ahead of loyalty to your principles?”
“No.” Birkett looked slightly puzzled. “I did not suggest that, sir. Or if I did, it was unintentional. A man must place his principles before everything, or he is of no value. A friend would expect as much. At least any man would that I should choose to call friend.”
“I too,” Juster agreed. “A man must do what he believes to be right, even if it should prove to be at the terrible cost of the loss of a friend, or of the esteem of those he cares for.”
“My lord!” Gleave said, standing up impatiently. “This is all very moral sounding, but it is not a question! If my learned friend has a point in all this, may he be asked to reach it?”
The judge looked at Juster enquiringly.
Juster was not perturbed. “The point is very important, my lord. Mr. Adinett was a man who would place his principles, his convictions, above even friendship. Or to put it another way, even friendship, however long or deep, would have to be sacrificed to his beliefs if the two were in opposition. We have established that the victim, Martin Fetters, was his friend. I am obliged to Mr. Gleave for establishing that friendship was not Adinett’s paramount concern, and he would sacrifice it to principle, were such a choice forced upon him.”
There was a murmur around the room. One of the jurors looked startled, but there was a sudden comprehension in his face. The foreman let out his breath in a sigh, and something within him relaxed.
“We have not established that there was any such conflict!” Gleave protested, taking a pace forward across the floor.
“Or that there was not!” Juster rejoined, swinging around to him.
The judge silenced them both with a look.
Juster thanked Birkett and returned to his seat, this time walking easily, with a slight swagger.
* * *
The following day Gleave began his final assault upon Pitt. He faced the jury.
“This whole case, flimsy and circumstantial as it is, depends entirely upon the evidence of one man, Superintendent Thomas Pitt.” His voice was heavy with contempt. “Discount what he says and what have we left? I don’t need to tell you—we have nothing at all!” He ticked off on his fingers. “A man who saw another man in the street, turning in towards one of the gardens. This man might have been John Adinett, or he might not.” He put up another finger. “A scratch on a door which could have been there for days, and was probably caused by a clumsily wielded billiard cue.” A third finger. “A library chair moved, for any number of reasons.” A fourth finger. “Books out of place.” He shrugged, waving his hands. “Perhaps they were left out, and the housemaid is not a reader of classical Greek mythology, so she put them back wherever she thought they fitted. Her mind was on tidiness of appearance, not order of subject. Very possibly she cannot read at all! A thread of carpet in a shoe.” He opened his eyes very wide. “How did it get there? Who knows? And most absurd of all, half a glass of port wine. Mr. Pitt would have us believe this means that Mr. Fetters had no occasion to ring for the butler. All it really means is that Mr. Pitt himself is not accustomed to having servants—which we might reasonably have guessed, since he is a policeman.” He pronounced the last word with total scorn.
There was silence in the courtroom.
Gleave nodded.
“I propose to call several witnesses who are well acquainted with Mr. Pitt and will tell you what manner of man he is, so you may judge for yourselves what his evidence is worth.”
Pitt’s heart sank as he heard Albert Donaldson’s name and saw the familiar figure cross the open well of the court and mount the witness stand. Donaldson looked heavier and grayer than he had when he was Pitt’s superior fifteen years before, but the expression in his face was just as Pitt recalled, and he knew Donaldson’s contempt was still simmering just below the exterior.
The testimony went exactly as he expected.
“You are retired from the Metropolitan Police Force, Mr. Donaldson?” Gleave asked.
“I am.”
Gleave nodded slightly.
“When you were an inspector at the Bow Street station was there a Constable Thomas Pitt working there?”
“There was.” Donaldson’s expression already betrayed his feelings.
Gleave smiled. His shoulders relaxed.
“What sort of a man was he, Mr. Donaldson? I presume you had occasion to work with him often—in fact, he was answerable to you?”
“He wasn’t answerable to anybody, that one!” Donaldson retorted, darting a glance towards Pitt where he sat in the crowd. It had taken Donaldson only a moment to pick him out in the front rows. “Law to himself. Always thought he knew best, and wouldn’t be told by no one.”
He had waited years for his chance to get revenge for the frustration he had felt, for Pitt’s insubordination, for the flouting of rules Pitt had viewed as petty restrictions, for the cases Pitt had worked on without keeping his seniors informed. Pitt had been at fault. Even Pitt knew it now, when he had command of the station himself.
“Would
“A very fair one,” Donaldson answered quickly.
