“No. I never ask.”
“Do you know their names?”
Fowler could contain his impatience no longer. “My lord, this is all very worthy, but it is a total waste of the court’s time! I-”
“It is vital to the defense, my lord!” Rathbone cut across him. “I cannot move any faster and make sense of it.”
“Sense!” Fowler exploded. “This is the worst nonsense I have ever heard in twenty years in courtrooms-” He stopped abruptly.
The judge’s eyebrows rose. “You may care to rephrase that observation, Mr. Fowler. As it stands it is somewhat unfortunate. On the other hand, you may wish to allow Sir Oliver to continue, in the hope that before tonight he may reach some conclusion.”
Fowler sat down.
“Do you know their names, Mrs. Monk?” Rathbone asked again.
“Nell, Lizzie, and Kitty,” Hester replied. “I don’t ask for more than some way to address them.”
“And do you tell them more than that about yourself?” he asked.
The judge frowned.
“Do you?” Rathbone insisted. “Would those women have known who you were or where you lived, for example? Please be very exact in answering, Mrs. Monk!”
She tried to think back, remembering Nell’s banter, her admiration for Monk. “Yes,” she said clearly. “Nell knew. She said something about my husband, his appearance, his character, and she called me by name.”
Relief flooded Rathbone’s face like sunlight. “Thank you. Did they by any chance also know, at least roughly, the area in which you live?”
“Yes… roughly.”
“Did anyone happen to mention Mr. Monk’s occupation?”
“Yes… yes, Nell did. She… finds him interesting.”
The judge looked at Rathbone. “Are you making any progress toward a point, Sir Oliver? I fail so far to see it. I shall not allow this indefinitely.”
“I am, my lord. I apologize for the time it takes, but if the whole story is not shown, then it will not make sense.”
The judge made a slight grimace and sat back.
Rathbone returned his attention to Hester. “Did you continue to receive injured women in your house in Coldbath Square, Mrs. Monk?”
“Yes.” Was he seeking to expose the fact that Baltimore had been the usurer in partnership with Squeaky Robinson? But why? His death had nothing to do with Dalgarno. Or Katrina Harcus.
“Were any particularly severely injured?” Rathbone pressed.
It must be what he was looking for. “Yes,” she answered. “There were two in particular, we were not certain if they would live. One was knifed in the stomach, the other was beaten so hard she had fourteen broken bones in her limbs and body. We thought she might die of internal bleeding.” She heard the fury in her own voice, and the pity.
There was a murmur of protest in the court, people shifting uncomfortably in their seats, embarrassed for a way of life they preferred not to know so much about, and yet stirred to emotion in spite of themselves.
The judge frowned at Rathbone. “This is appalling, but this court is not the place for a moral crusade, Sir Oliver, justified as it might be at another time.”
“It is not a moral crusade, my lord, it is part of the case of the death of Katrina Harcus, and how it came about,” Rathbone replied. “I have not a great deal further to go.” And without waiting he spoke to Hester again. “Mrs. Monk, did you learn how these women had been so badly injured?”
“Yes. They had been respectable women, one a governess who married a man who put her into debt and then abandoned her. They both borrowed money from a usurer in order to pay what they owed, and when the debt to him could not be settled by honest means of work, he forced them into the brothel in which he was a partner, where they catered to the more unusual tastes of certain men…” She could not continue for the increasing sound of outrage and disgust in the courtroom.
The judge banged his gavel, and then again. Slowly the sound subsided, but the fury was still prickling in the air.
“Respectable young women, with some education, some dignity and a desire to be honest?” Rathbone said, his own voice rough with emotion.
“Yes,” Hester replied. “It happens to many if they have been abandoned, put out of a job and have no reference to character-”
“Yes,” he cut her off. “Did this cause you to take any action, Mrs. Monk?”
“Yes.” She knew the judge’s tolerance would not last a great deal longer. “I was able to learn exactly where this brothel was, and by means of questioning, who the partner was who practiced the usury. I never learned exactly who carried out the beatings or the knifing.” She did not know if he wanted this part or not, but she added. “It does not continue any longer. We were able to put the brothel out of business and turn the house into better premises for the Coldbath refuge.”
He smiled very slightly. “Indeed. What happened to the usurer?”
“He was killed.” Did he want to know it was Baltimore? She stared at him, and could not tell.
“But his record of the debts?” he asked.
“We destroyed it.”
“Did you then know he was killed?”
“Yes… he was a client as well as the usurer. He took his own tastes too far, and one of the women, who was new to the trade, was so revolted by what he asked of her that she lashed out at him, and he fell backwards out of the window onto the pavement beneath, to his death.”
There was a rumble of profound emotion from the courtroom. Someone even cheered.
“Order!” the judge said loudly. “I will have order! I understand your outrage-indeed, I share it-but I will have respect for the law! Sir Oliver, this story is fearful, but I still see no connection to the death of Katrina Harcus, and Mr. Dalgarno’s guilt or innocence in the matter.”
Rathbone swiveled to face Hester again. “Mrs. Monk, among those records did you find those of the young woman, Kitty, who came to you with cuts and bruises on the night Nolan Baltimore’s body was discovered in Leather Lane, near Coldbath Square?”
“Yes.”
“Was she among the once-respectable young women who had been reduced to selling her body for a particularly repulsive type of abuse in order to pay the ever-mounting debt of such high rates of usury that she could never be free of it?”
“Yes.”
“Could you describe her for the court, Mrs. Monk? What did she look like?”
Now she understood. It was so terrible she felt sick. The room swam around her as if she were at sea, the silence was a roar like waves. She heard Rathbone’s voice only distantly.
“Mrs. Monk? Are you all right?”
She clung onto the rails, gripping them hard so the physical pain would bring her back to the moment.
“Mrs. Monk!”
“She was…” She gulped and licked her dry lips. “She was fairly tall, very handsome. She had dark hair and golden brown eyes… very beautiful. She gave me the name of Kitty… and the records said Kitty Hillyer…”
Rathbone turned very slowly to face the judge. “My lord, I believe we now know where Katrina Harcus obtained the money to dress as well as was necessary for a handsome but penniless young woman, born illegitimate, left destitute when her father died and his promised legacy did not come. She traveled south to London to try and make a fortunate marriage. However, within the space of two months her mother died, her fiance rejected her for a richer bride, and her debts became so urgent she was drawn into the most repellent form of prostitution to satisfy the usurer, her father’s colleague, a man she had known as a child and to whom she had turned for help in a strange city, and who had so betrayed her. Perhaps because of who he was, his demands revolted her so intensely that she fought him off, to his death.”
