but he had seen in her face that she cared for Merrit, might even find something of herself in her, as she might have been at sixteen; wayward, idealistic, too much in love to believe ill of the man in whom she had vested so much, too close to her dream to deny it, whatever the cost.
Was that how she had been? He wished he had known her then. Ridiculous how sharp that ache was, even half a year after she had married Monk. In fact, it was sharper now than it had been when she was still single and Rathbone could have asked her to marry him, if he had only realized how much he had wanted it.
When the case reached its conclusion, satisfactorily and a good hour earlier than he had expected, he accepted his client’s thanks and went out into the hot, noisy August street. He hailed the first available hansom that passed him, giving his father’s address in Primrose Hill. He settled back for the long ride and deliberately let his mind slip into idleness. He did not wish to think of Monk or of his new case. Especially he did not wish to think of Hester.
After an agreeable supper of fresh bread, Brussels pate, a very pleasant red wine, and then hot plum pie with flaky pastry and fresh cream, he sat back in his armchair and looked through the open French windows across the lawn to the honeysuckle hedge and the orchard beyond. There was no sound but birds singing, and the faint scratch as Henry Rathbone wiggled a small knife around in the bowl of his pipe, not really achieving anything. He did it out of habit, his mind not on the task, just as he seldom actually smoked the pipe. He filled it, tamped down the tobacco, lit it, and invariably allowed it to go out.
“Well?” he said eventually.
Oliver looked up. “Pardon?”
“Are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?”
It was both comfortable and disturbing to be understood so well. There was no room for evasions, no escape, and no temptation to try.
“Have you read about the murders in the warehouse yard in Tooley Street?” Oliver asked.
Henry knocked out his pipe on the fire surround. “Yes?” he said, looking anxiously at Oliver. “I thought it was supposed to be an American gun buyer. Isn’t it?”
“Almost certainly,” Oliver said ruefully. “Monk has just brought him back here to stand trial.”
“So what does he want from you? He does want something, doesn’t he?”
“Of course.” Occasionally he tried hedging with his father. It never worked, because even if he succeeded in misleading him, he felt so guilty he found himself admitting the truth and then feeling ridiculous. Henry Rathbone was transparently honest himself. Sometimes it was a fault—in fact, quite often, when negotiation or management had to be achieved. He would never have made an even moderate barrister. He had not the first idea how to act a part or plead a cause in which he did not believe.
But he had a brilliant grasp of facts and a relentlessly logical mind which was capable of remarkable leaps of imagination.
Now he was waiting for Oliver to explain. Outside the starlings were swirling across the sky, black against the fading gold of the sun. Somewhere close by a lawn recently had been mown, and the smell of the cut grass was heavy.
“He brought the daughter back also,” Oliver started to explain. “Extraordinary, but she and Breeland say that they are neither of them guilty of killing Alberton, or of stealing the guns.” He saw the look of disbelief in his father’s face. “No, I don’t think so either,” he said quickly. “But he does have a story better than simple denial. He says Alberton changed his mind, but had to do it secretly because of Philo Trace, the buyer from the South to whom he had already given his word and from whom he had accepted a half payment in advance.”
Henry’s mouth pulled down at the corners in distaste. “And was Alberton the sort of man to do that?”
“Not from what I’ve read, but I have no personal knowledge,” Oliver replied. “Apart from dishonesty, it would ruin his reputation for the future. But more to the point, according to Monk, Trace did not receive his money back.” He hesitated. “At least, he says he didn’t. And Alberton’s estate has no record of having received Breeland’s money.”
Henry put his pipe in his mouth. He lit a match, and the sharp smell of it filled the air momentarily. He held it to the tobacco and inhaled. It ignited, puffed smoke for an instant, then went out again. He sucked at it anyway.
“The most reasonable explanation seems to be that Breeland is lying,” Oliver went on. “Perhaps I need to examine Alberton’s business affairs, and what I can of Mr. Trace, to guard myself from unpleasant surprises.”
Henry nodded slowly in silent agreement. Oliver was still leaning forward, elbows on his knees. They were facing each other across the space in front of the fireplace, as if the fire were lit, although on this summer evening it was still warm enough for them to be pleased the French doors were open. It was merely a comfortable habit shared over years of discussing all manner of things. Oliver had first done it when he was eleven; then it had been a question of irregular Latin verbs, and trying to find a logic behind their eccentricity. They had reached no conclusion, but the sense of companionship, of having attained some quality of adulthood, was of immeasurable satisfaction.
“The police traced the guns to the river and onto a barge down as far as Bugsby’s Marshes,” he went on. “Whereas Breeland claims he took delivery of them at the railway station and went by train to Liverpool. Merrit Alberton swears to the same thing.”
“That doesn’t make a great deal of sense,” Henry said thoughtfully. “How competent are the police? I wonder.”
“Monk says the man in charge seems excellent. And regardless of that, Monk himself went with him. He says exactly the same. The guns went from the warehouse to the river, and downstream as far as Bugsby’s Marshes. From there it would be an easy matter to transfer them to an oceangoing ship, and across the Atlantic. Even Breeland doesn’t argue that he took them, and they arrived safely in America. Presumably they were used in the battle at Manassas.”
Henry said nothing, absorbed in thought.
“Hester believes the girl is innocent,” Oliver said, then instantly wished he had not. He had betrayed too much of himself. Not that Henry was unaware of his feelings. Hester had visited him often enough. She had sat in this room, watched the light fade across the sky and the last sun gilding the tips of the poplars, the evening breeze shimmering through the leaves. She had liked Henry, and she had felt at home here, comforted by more than the beauty of the place, the honeysuckle and the apple trees, also by an inner peace.
