“And the laudanum?” she persisted.
“Quixwood surely put it there, knowing she would drink it. If she didn’t he could always give it to her when he got home. It wouldn’t have been as safe for him, but it could still have worked.”
“What are we going to do about it?” she asked.
He smiled. “I hope we are going to get a verdict in Alban Hythe’s favor. Then we will consider proving Quixwood lied to protect Neville Forsbrook from being prosecuted for Angeles’s rape. I still want to see that young man pay for all he has done.” His voice caught.
The jury returned after two long hours, every minute of which dragged by at a leaden pace.
The courtroom was packed. There were even people standing in the aisle and at the back.
The proceedings were enacted at the majestic pace of the law. No one stirred. No one coughed.
The foreman of the jury answered in a calm, level voice.
“We find the prisoner, Alban Hythe, guilty as charged, my lord.”
In the dock Hythe bent forward, utterly beaten.
Maris Hythe looked as if she was about to faint.
Vespasia was stunned. She had truly hoped they had managed to cobble together enough information to create the required doubt, and the tide of despair that washed over her momentarily robbed her of thought. It was seconds, even a full minute before she could think of what to do next.
She took a long, slow breath and turned to Narraway. “This is not right,” she said quietly. “We have three weeks until he goes to the gallows. We must do something more.”
CHAPTER 20
Pitt refused to accept defeat. It was intolerable. Alban Hythe had neither raped nor killed Catherine Quixwood, and yet he had sat in court and watched the judge put on a black cap and sentence him to death. As always, three Sundays were allowed before the hanging, a period of grace-hardly much time in which to mount an appeal, even if they could find new evidence.
They needed more time. The only way to get that would be to have the Home Secretary grant a reprieve, and there were no grounds for it. Pitt had spent long hours at his office, wanting to be alone, at least away from those closest to him. Their pain distracted his mind, and he needed to be absolutely undivided in his concentration. He had no emotional strength to spare for comfort.
He paced back and forth across his office floor, shoulders hunched, muscles knotted. He went over it in his mind again and again, but there was nothing on which to appeal. Symington, crushed and miserable, had already said as much.
He was convinced that the answer they had found, and in part concocted out of fragments of evidence, was the truth. The unimaginative, pedestrian-minded jury had not believed them. Why not? What had they missed, done wrongly? Had it all rested on Bower’s stirring of rage and fear in them so passionate they could not think? Did they simply not believe that Catherine could have been as intelligent or brave as they had shown her to be? Did they need so intensely to punish someone that they could not wait for the right man?
Surely Symington had stirred their pity and their anger with Hythe’s willingness to sacrifice his own life to save Maris? But perhaps they were more taken in by Quixwood’s feigned grief.
He pulled himself up abruptly. The reason didn’t matter now. He needed to get Hythe a reprieve from the Home Secretary, a stay of execution long enough to find grounds for an appeal. They must not allow it to be over. Proof of Hythe’s innocence after he was dead was of no use at all-and also once the execution had taken place it would be twice as hard to convince anyone that the Court had made an irretrievable mistake, judicially murdered a totally innocent man.
What argument did he have to take to the Home Secretary? It was there in the shadows at the back of his mind, knowledge crowding the darkness. That was the power of his position.
He snatched his hat off the rack at the door, jammed it on his head, and left his office.
On the street he hailed a hansom and gave the driver the Home Secretary’s private address. He hated doing this, but there was no other way to save Alban Hythe’s life.
He sat in the cab rattling over the cobbles, oblivious of the traffic.
Much interesting and highly confidential information came his way. As head of Special Branch there were potentially dangerous secrets that he knew about many people in power. He had to guard their vulnerability to blackmail, or any other kind of inappropriate pressures. The Home Secretary was a decent man, if a little pompous at times. Pitt did not personally like him. Their backgrounds, experience and cultural values were different. There was no natural sympathy between them, as there had been between Pitt and many of the men he had worked for in the past. They had been well bred, in many cases ex-military or navy, like Narraway, but not politicians, not used to keeping the favor of others by always seeking the art of the possible coupled with the confidence of the majority.
As a young man the Home Secretary had studied at Oxford and been an outstanding scholar, a man well liked by his friends. One friend in particular had been charming, ambitious but a trifle equivocal in some of his moral choices. He was not averse to cheating when he needed to pass an exam that was beyond his ability.
He had begged the Home Secretary to cover for him, necessitating a lie. In loyalty to his friend the Home Secretary had done so. He had learned afterward, painfully, that he had been used, made a complete fool of. He had paid for it bitterly in regret and had never done such a thing again.
The friend had fared well, progressing financially. That exam success had laid the foundation of his career. He had climbed higher in his chosen field, still using people at every step. The Home Secretary had never betrayed him, nor had he ever spoken with him again, except as was necessary. As far as Pitt was aware, very few other people had ever known of the incident, and most of those were long dead.
Unwillingly but without question, the Home Secretary could be persuaded to grant a stay of execution to Alban Hythe. Pitt could make his alternative far too painful for him to refuse. He had the upper hand.
But it was a terrible abuse of power. If he did this, would he no longer be capable of knowing where to draw the line? A little pressure, a little force, a little twisting of the fear. How was this so different from rape, in essence?
No, he acknowledged, there had to be another way.
He leaned forward and rapped on the partition to attract the driver’s attention. “Changed my mind,” he said. He gave the man Townley’s address instead.
“Yes, sir,” the driver agreed wearily, adding something else less courteous under his breath.
Pitt leaned back in the seat, Sweat was running over his skin, and yet he felt cold enough to shiver. Was it so easy to misuse power, and to let it misuse you?
Townley’s footman permitted him in only because he insisted.
“I’m sorry,” Pitt said to the man. “Time is short and I am fighting for a man’s life, otherwise I would not disturb you at this hour of the evening. I need to speak to Mr. Townley and very possibly the rest of his family. Please inform him so.”
Townley came out of the sitting room to where Pitt was waiting in the hall. The man’s face was grim and anger lay as close to the surface as good manners and a level of fear would allow it. He did not bother with a greeting.
Pitt was uncomfortable, wretchedly aware of how close he had come to exercising the power he possessed in a way he would ever after regret.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Townley,” Pitt said quietly. “I need your help-”
“I cannot give it to you, sir,” Townley interrupted him. “I have a good idea of what it is you wish of me. My answer is the same as before. I don’t know what can have made you imagine it would be different.”
“The conviction of Alban Hythe of a crime he did not commit,” Pitt said simply. “In three weeks they will hang him, then any evidence that proves his innocence will be of little use to him, or to his young widow. I shall pursue it, eventually I will prove our terrible mistake, and in so doing shake everyone’s faith in our system of justice, and I daresay ruin a few men’s careers in the process. Then I may also catch the man who is actually
