sober.' His face twisted with a bitter, furious smile. 'I would rip her apart in moments.'
He assumed a stance at once graceful and satirical. 'Now, Mrs. Moggs-how do you know that this operation was an abortion and not the removal of a tumor, as the eminent surgeon, Sir Herbert Stanhope, has sworn? What did you see-precisely?' He raised his eyebrows. 'And what is your medical expertise for saying such a thing? I beg your pardon, where did you say you trained? How long had you been on duty? All night? Doing what? Oh yes- emptying the slop pail, sweeping the floor, stoking the fire. Are these your usual duties, Mrs. Moggs? Yes I see. How many glasses of porter? The difference between a large tumor and a six-week fetus? I don't know. Neither do you? Thank you, Mrs. Moggs-that will be all.'
Monk drew in his breath to speak, but Rathbone cut him off.
'And you have absolutely no chance at all of getting the patients to testify. Even if you could find them, which you can't. They would simply support Sir Herbert and say it was a tumor.' He shook his head in tightly controlled fury. 'Anyway it is all immaterial! We can't call them. And Lovat-Smith doesn't know anything about it! And his case is closed. He can't reopen it at this point without an exceptional reason.'
Monk looked bleak.
'I know all that. I wasn't thinking of the women. Of course they won't testify. But how did they know that Sir Herbert would perform abortions?'
'What?'
'How did-' Monk began.
'Yes! Yes I heard you!' Rathbone cut across him again. 'Yes, that is certainly an excellent question, but I don't see how the answer could help us, even if we knew it. It is not a thing one advertises. It must be word of mouth in some way.' He turned to Hester. 'Where does one go if one wishes to obtain an abortion?'
'I don't know,' she said indignantly. Then, the moment after, she frowned. 'But perhaps we could find out?'
'Don't bother.' Rathbone dismissed it with a sharp return of misery. 'Even if you found out, with proof, we couldn't call a witness, nor could we tell Lovat-Smith. Our hands are tied.'
Monk stood near the window, the clarity of the sunlight only emphasizing the hard lines of his face, the smooth skin over his cheeks, and the power of his nose and mouth.
'Maybe,' he conceded. 'But it won't stop me looking. He killed her, and I'm going to see that sod hang for it if I can.' And without waiting to see what either of them thought, he turned on his heel and went out, leaving the door swinging behind him.
Rathbone looked at Hester standing in the center of the floor.
'I don't know what I'm going to do,' she said quietly. 'But I'm going to do something. What
'How?' His eyebrows shot up. 'I've finished!'
'I don't know! Call more character witnesses to say what a fine man he is.'
'I don't need them,' he protested.
'I know you don't. Call them anyway.' She waved a hand wildly. 'Do something, anything-just don't let the jury bring in a verdict yet.'
'There's no point-'
'Do it!' she exploded, her voice tight with fury and exasperation. 'Just don't give up.'
He smiled very slightly, merely a touch at the corners of his lips, but there was a shining admiration in his eyes, even if there was no hope at all.
'For a while,' he conceded. 'But there isn't any point.'
Callandra knew how the trial was progressing. She had been there on that last afternoon, and she saw Sir Herbert's face, and the way he stood in the dock, calm-eyed and straight-backed, and she saw that the jurors were quite happy to look at him. There was not one who avoided his glance or whose cheeks colored when he looked toward them. It was plain they believed him not guilty.
So someone else was-someone else had murdered Prudence Barrymore.
Kristian Beck? Because he perfonned abortions and she knew it, and had threatened to tell the authorities?
The thought was so sickening she could no longer keep it at the back of her mind. It poisoned everything. She tossed and turned in bed until long after midnight, then finally sat up hunched over with her hands around her knees, trying to find the courage to force the issue at last. She visualized facing him, telling him what she had seen. Over and over again she worded it and reworded it to find a way that sounded bearable. None did.
She played in her mind all the possible answers he might give. He might simply lie-and she would know it was a he and be heartsick. The hot tears filled her eyes and her throat at the thought of it. Or he might confess it and make some pathetic, self-serving excuse. And that would be almost worse. She thrust that thought away without finishing it.
She was cold; she sat shivering on the bed with the covers tangled uselessly beside her.
Or he might be angry and tell her to mind her own business, order her to get out. It might be a quarrel she could never heal-perhaps never really want to. That would be horrible-but better than either of the other two. It would be violent, ugly, but at least there would be a certain kind of honestly in it.
Or there was a last possibility: that he would give her some explanation of what she had seen which was not abortion at all but some other operation-perhaps trying to save Marianne after a back-street butchery? That would be the best of all and he would have kept it secret for her sake.
But was that really possible? Was she not deluding herself? And if he did tell her such a thing, would she believe it? Or would it simply return her to where she was now- full of doubt and fear, and with the awful suspicion of a crime far worse.
She bent her head to her knees and sat crumpled without knowledge of time.
Gradually she came to an understanding that was inescapable. She must face him and live with whatever followed. There was no other course which was tolerable.
'Come in.'
She pushed the door open firmly and entered. She, was shaking, and there was no strength in her limbs, but neither was there indecision, that had been resolved and there was no thought of escape now.
Kristian was sitting at his desk. He rose as soon as he saw her, a smile of pleasure on his face in spite of very obvious tiredness. Was that the sleeplessness of guilt? She swallowed, and her breath caught in her throat, almost choking her.
'Callandra? Are you all right?' He pulled out the other chair for her and held it while she sat down. She had intended to stand, but found herself accepting, perhaps because it put off the moment fractionally.
'No.' She launched into the attack without prevarication as he returned to his own seat. 'I am extremely worried, and I have decided to consult you about it at last. I cannot evade it any longer.'
The blood drained from his face, leaving him ashen. The dark circles around his eyes stood out like bruises. His voice when he spoke was very quiet and the strain was naked in it.
'Tell me.'
This was even worse than she had thought. He looked so stricken, like a man facing sentence.
'You look very tired…' she began, then was furious with herself. It was a stupid observation, and pointless.
The sad ghost of a smile touched his mouth.
'Sir Herbert has been absent some time. I am doing what I can to care for his patients, but with them as well as my own it is hard.' He shook his head minutely. 'But that is unimportant. Tell me what you can of your health. What pain do you have? What signs that disturb you?'
How stupid of her. Of course he was tired-he must be exhausted, trying to do Sir Herbert's job as well as his
