'It is not yet possible to say, my lord.' Rathbone found it difficult to find the right words, although he had tried to formulate them all the way there. Now, standing in the long-familiar room in which he had fought numberless cases, he was lost to express what he felt.
Press reporters had been expecting a quiet collapse of the struggle and were there only to leam the damages, and perhaps to watch the human ruin as a man's personal Me was torn apart. Now they were scrambling for pencils to write something entirely different.
In the gallery a woman gave a little squeal and stifled it with her hand.
'Mr. Melville was found dead last night,' Rathbone began again. 'At present the cause is not known.'
The buzz in the gallery rose.
'Silence!' McKeever ordered sharply, his face darkening with anger. He reached for his gavel and banged it with a loud crack. 'I will clear the court if there is not silence and a decent respect!'
He was obeyed reluctantly, but within seconds.
Rathbone looked across at Sacheverall, waiting to see how he would react, if he was as horrified by his own part in this as Rathbone was. Rathbone saw surprise, but not amazement. He thought in a flash that the possibility had occurred to him. If the prosecutor was distressed or ashamed, he hid it well.
Barton Lambert, on the other hand, sitting behind him, looked devastated. His blunt, rather ordinary face was slack with horror, mouth open, eyes staring fixedly. He seemed almost unaware of anyone around him, of Delphine at his side looking embarrassed, caught by surprise, but not grieved beyond her ability to control with dignity. Her head was high, her lips firmly closed, her gaze resolutely forward. She would not satisfy the curious in the gallery by meeting their looks.
Zillah, on her father's other side, had slumped forward and buried her face in her hands, her hat askew and her bright hair shining in the sunlight from the windows. Her shoulders were hunched and she shook, not yet with weeping but with the deep shuddering movement of horror and disbelief. She seemed hardly able to catch her breath. Her father was still too deeply stunned and overwhelmed by his own emotions to help her, to offer any kind of comfort.
Sacheverall, who so often had his attention upon her, now stood up and went from his table around to stand beside her. He spoke to her, leaning close and putting his hand on her shoulder. He repeated whatever it was he had said, and she sat up slowly, her face ashen, her eyes hollow, burning with tears.
'Go away!' she said quite clearly.
'My dear!' Sacheverall began urgently.
'If you touch me again I shall strike you!' she hissed, and indeed if he had looked at her face at all he must have known she truly meant it.
Delphine leaned across, looking at Sacheverall rather than Zillah.
'I am sure you mean only kindness, Mr. Sacheverall,' she said with a smile, but without warmth, 'but I think perhaps you had better allow us a short while to overcome our dismay. It has been a very dreadful time for all of us, but most especially Zillah. Please make allowances for her…'
Sacheverall did not withdraw his hand. 'Of course,' he said with a nod. 'Of course it has. I do understand.'
'You understand nothing!' Zillah snapped, glaring at him. 'You are a-a condottiere!'
'A what?' He was momentarily at a loss.
'A soldier of fortune,' she replied witheringly. 'A man hired to fight for any cause, literally 'one under contract.' And if you do not take your hand off my arm I shall scream. Do you wish that?'
He removed his hand quickly. 'You are hysterical,' he said soothingly. 'It has all been a great shock to you.'
'Yes, I am!' she agreed, to his surprise. 'I have never felt worse in my life. I don't think there is anything terrible still left to happen, except your manner towards me.'
'Zillah!' Delphine interrupted sharply, then smiled up at Sacheverall. 'I think you had better be advised to leave us a little while, a day or two. For all your sympathy, I don't think you do understand quite how fearful this has been to one of innocence in the more… elemental feelings of men. It is enough to make anyone… a trifle off balance. Please do not take to heart anything that is said just now. Make a little allowance…'
'Of course,' he said, smiling back at her. 'Of course.' He inclined his head towards Zillah and returned to his table.
Zillah hissed something to her mother. It was inaudible from where Rathbone stood, but gauging from the slow flush of Sacheverall's cheeks, he heard at least its tone, if not its content.
McKeever looked at Rathbone expectantly.
'I assume we may have the tragic news from some witness, Sir Oliver? And no doubt we shall have expert witnesses as well? There has been a doctor in attendance?'
'Yes, my lord. I have taken the liberty of requesting the presence of both the doctor and Mr. Isaac Wolff, who found Mr. Melville.'
'Thank you. That was most appropriate. It will save the court's time in adjourning in order to send for them.' He hesitated, took a deep breath. 'Sir Oliver, I would like to express the court's deep sorrow that events have transpired this way. Killian Melville was a brilliant man, and his art was an adornment to our society and all those generations that lie ahead of us. His loss is a tragedy.' He did not refer to the case or its outcome. The omission was intentional and marked. Several of the jurors nodded agreement.
'Thank you, my lord,' Rathbone said with a rush of emotion which took him by surprise, making his voice hoarse.
Somewhere in the gallery a man blew his nose rather loudly and a woman stifled a sob.
'Call Mr. Wolff,' McKeever directed.
Part of Rathbone was sorry to have to put Wolff through this ordeal. The man had had hardly any sleep; he had lost probably the person he loved most to a sudden and profoundly tragic death, almost certainly suicide in despair at the shattering loss of his private life and of his career. Wolff himself might easily lose his professional standing also, his livelihood, even his liberty, if Sacheverall were vindictive enough to lay a complaint. He was haggard with a grief nothing would mend.
And yet the deep burning rage within Rathbone wanted this court, which had accomplished all this, to see what they had done. Especially he wanted Lambert to see. Sacheverall might never feel any regret or shame, but if others saw, then possibly his reputation would sour, and Rathbone desired that with a hunger he could all but taste.
Isaac Wolff came in like a man in a nightmare. His dark eyes were so far sunken into his head he looked cadaverous. He walked across the floor and up the steps to the witness-box like an old man, although he was barely forty. He looked towards Rathbone without seeing him.
The court waited in complete silence. They felt his grief and it held them in awe. It was like an animal thing, raw in the air.
Rathbone had already told him of his own feelings. There was no need to repeat any formal sympathy now, and he did not wish to break the tension by such civilities.
'Mr. Wolff, will you please tell us of the events late yesterday evening which bring you here today?' he asked.
Wolff spoke briefly, almost abruptly, except that his voice held no expression, no variation in tone.
'I went to see Melville. I knew he would be distressed after the day in court.' It was a simple statement without adjectives, even without expression. It had the starkness of real and final tragedy. He was looking at Rathbone now. Perhaps he knew that Rathbone at least understood the magnitude of his emotion. 'I rang the bell of his rooms. There was no answer. I have a key. I let myself in. He was in the sitting room, in the chair by the fire, but the ashes had burned right down. It was obviously three or four hours since it had been stoked. He looked as if he might have been asleep. At first I hoped he was. Then I touched him and I knew. He was cold.' He said nothing further.
'What time was that, Mr. Wolff?' Rathbone asked.
There was still silence in the room. Everyone was staring at Wolff. There was a sea of faces, a pale blur as every person's attention was on him.
'Between half past ten and eleven,' Wolff replied. There was complete calm about him. Whatever they thought of him would not hurt him now. The worst he could conceive had already happened.
'Did you see anything to give you cause to know or guess the manner of his death?' Rathbone pursued,
