him.
In court in the morning she looked at Livia. Her skin was pale and puffy around the eyes, her body rigid, and Hester knew she was still clinging to hope. But even if Rathbone could somehow perform a miracle and gain an acquittal of murder for Dalgarno, was there anything on earth he could do to show him innocent of duplicity and opportunism?
Fowler concluded for the prosecution.
Hester slipped her hand over Monk’s briefly. It was easier than trying to find words when she had no idea what to say.
Rathbone rose to begin the defense. The public gallery was almost half empty. He called the surveyor again.
Fowler complained that he was wasting the court’s time. The surveyor had already testified in great detail. The subject had been more than exhausted.
“My lord,” Rathbone said patiently, “my learned friend knows as well as the rest of us that I was able only to cross-examine him on the subjects already spoken of in direct examination.”
“Can there possibly be any other subjects left?” Fowler asked to a ripple of laughter from the crowd. “We already know far more about the building of railways than we need to, or I imagine than we wish to.”
“Possibly than we wish to, my lord.” Rathbone smiled very slightly. “Not than we need to. We have still reached no unarguable conclusion.”
“You are lawyers,” the judge said dryly. “You can argue any conclusion on earth! However, proceed, Sir Oliver, but do not waste our time. If you appear to be talking for the sake of it I shall sustain Mr. Fowler’s objection-indeed, I shall object myself.”
Rathbone bowed with a smile. “I shall endeavor not to be tedious or irrelevant, my lord,” he promised.
The judge looked skeptical.
Rathbone faced the surveyor when he had been duly reminded of his previous oath and had restated his professional qualifications. “Mr. Whitney,” he began, “you have already told us that you surveyed both the originally intended route for the railway of Baltimore and Sons from London to Derby and the route now taken. Is there a significant difference in cost between the two?”
“No, sir, not significant,” Whitney replied.
“What do you consider significant?” Rathbone asked.
Whitney thought for a moment. “Above a few hundred pounds,” he replied at length. “Hardly as much as a thousand.”
“A lot of money,” Rathbone observed. “Sufficient to buy several houses for an ordinary family.”
Fowler rose to his feet.
The judge waved him down again and looked at Rathbone. “If you are intending to reach any conclusion, Sir Oliver, you have diverted further than the railway in question. You would be better occupied justifying your own circuitous journey.”
There was a titter from the crowd. This, at least, was mildly entertaining. They were happy to see Rathbone baited; he was better game than the accused, who had long since lost any sympathy they might have felt for him.
Rathbone took a deep breath and steadied his temper. He acknowledged the judge’s remark and turned again to the witness stand. “Mr. Whitney, would it be technically possible to commit a far greater fraud than the one suggested here, one worth several thousands of pounds, by this same means of diverting a proposed route?”
Whitney looked startled. “Yes, of course it would. This was only a slightly greater length, a few hundred yards. One could do far more to make money.”
“For example?” Rathbone asked.
Whitney shrugged. “Buy land oneself, prior to the rerouting, and then sell it back at an inflated price,” he answered. “Many things, with enough imagination and the right contacts. Choose a stretch where a lot of construction was necessary, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, even long cuttings, and take a percentage on materials-the possibilities are numerous.”
“My lord!” Fowler said loudly. “My learned friend is simply showing that the accused is incompetent even at fraud. That is not an excuse.”
There was open laughter in the room. No one pretended not to be amused.
When it had died down Rathbone turned to him. “I am attempting to prove that he is innocent of murder,” he said politely, but with an underlying anger. “Why is it that you seem unwilling to allow me to do that?”
“It is circumstances that are preventing you, not I,” Fowler returned to another rustle of laughter.
“Your circumstances!” Rathbone snapped. “Mine not only allow me to, they oblige me to.”
“Mr. Fowler!” the judge said very clearly. “Sir Oliver has a point. Unless you have some objection of substance in law, will you cease from interrupting him, or we are likely to be here indefinitely!”
“Thank you, my lord,” Rathbone said ironically. Hester believed that he was, in fact, spinning out time, but she had no idea what for. What, or whom, was he expecting? She felt the first sudden shiver of hope.
Rathbone looked up at Whitney. “You have given us examples of other ways in which a more efficient fraud could be perpetuated. Have you knowledge of any such fraud-I mean a specific circumstance?”
Whitney looked slightly puzzled.
“For example,” Rathbone assisted him, “in Liverpool almost sixteen years ago? The company involved was Baltimore and Sons. There was a falsification of a survey, the grid references were changed…”
Fowler stood up again.
“Sit down, Mr. Fowler!” the judge commanded. He looked at Rathbone sternly. “I presume you have facts, Sir Oliver? Be careful you do not slander anyone.”
“It is a matter of record, my lord,” Rathbone assured him. “A man named Arrol Dundas was convicted of the crime, and unfortunately died in prison of jail fever. But the details of the crime were made public at the trial.”
“I see. The relevance to this present case may easily be guessed, nevertheless we require you to prove it.”
“Yes, my lord. I shall prove that records of it were kept by Baltimore and Sons, therefore it was known to senior members of the present company, even though they were not involved-in fact, not even out of school-at the time.”
“Very interesting. Be sure that it is also relevant to Mr. Dalgarno’s innocence.”
“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone drew out a few more details from Whitney, then excused him. Fowler looked as if he were considering asking him something, then declined, and Whitney left the stand.
Hester looked at Monk, but it was obvious from his tense, white face and the confusion in his eyes that he did not know what Rathbone was planning any more than she did. He was frowning, and staring at the court clerk, busily taking notes, his right hand bandaged. Fortunately, he wrote with his left.
Rathbone then called a junior clerk from Baltimore and Sons and drew from him the statement that the records of the earlier dealings were available-not easily, but a diligent search by a company member would elicit them all.
“And was the case public knowledge?” Rathbone said finally.
“Oh, yes, sir.”
Fowler tried to show that it was an abstruse piece of information, never discussed and unlikely to come to the attention of Dalgarno.
“I couldn’t say, sir,” the clerk replied soberly. “I would think such things would be known, sir, even if only as an object lesson in what not to do.”
Fowler retreated. “I still say, my lord, that incompetence does not equal innocence!” he said tartly. “The Crown does not say that the accused committed fraud well, merely that he did it!”
Rathbone opened his eyes very wide. “If the Crown wishes, my lord, I can call a number of witnesses to demonstrate that Mr. Dalgarno was an ambitious and extremely able young man, that he rose from a relatively minor position to become one of the partners-”
The judge held up his hand. “You have already done so, Sir Oliver. We take the point that the nature of the fraud with which he is charged is far less efficient than the earlier example for which Mr. Dundas was found guilty. The only thing relevant to this case appears to be the fact that the earlier case may well have been known to Mr. Dalgarno, and one wonders why he did not emulate it, if fraud was his intention. So far you have not completed
