Coniston was talking. Rathbone turned to face him, waiting for him to speak again. He felt numb, as if he were at sea and the room were swaying around him. His face was hot.
Coniston was staring at him, his eyes narrowed in concern.
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
“Yes …” Rathbone lied. “Thank you. Yes. I’m … I’m quite well.”
“Then you will begin your closing argument tomorrow morning,” Pendock said stiffly.
“Yes … my lord,” Rathbone answered. “I’ll … I’ll be here.” It was a dismissal. He glanced one more time at the photograph in its ornate silver frame, then excused himself and walked out of the office, leaving Coniston and Pendock alone.
Rathbone went home in a daze. The hansom could have taken him almost anywhere and he might not have been aware of it. The driver had to call out to him when he reached his own door.
He alighted, paid the man, and went up the steps. He spoke only briefly as he went in, thanking Ardmore and asking him not to allow anyone to disturb him until he should call.
“Dinner, sir?” Ardmore asked with some concern.
Rathbone forced himself to be polite. The man more than deserved that much. “I don’t think so, thank you. If I change my mind, I’ll send for a couple of sandwiches, or a slice of pie, whatever Mrs. Wilton has. I’ll have a glass of brandy. In an hour or two. I need to think. I doubt anyone will call, but unless it is Mr. Monk, I cannot see them.”
Ardmore was in no way comforted. “Are you quite well, Sir Oliver? Are you certain there is nothing else I can do for you?”
“I am perfectly well, thank you, Ardmore. I have to make a very difficult decision about this case. I need time to consider what the right thing to do is, for a woman accused of a murder she did not commit-at least I don’t believe she did-and for the woman who was very brutally killed, I think merely to serve a purpose. For a man or men who committed these crimes, and for the sake of a larger justice altogether.”
“Yes, sir.” Ardmore blinked. “I shall see that you are not disturbed.”
Rathbone sat alone for nearly an hour, weighing up in his mind if he even wished to be certain that the young man in Ballinger’s photograph was Pendock’s son. If he did not use it then it did not really matter who it was.
If it was Hadley Pendock, then how would he use it? Not to get a particular verdict. There was no question in his mind that that would be irredeemably wrong. But Grover Pendock had ruled against Dinah all the way through the trial where it had mattered. Now he was attempting to end the trial before Agatha Nisbet could testify, and even if she did come on the following day, she would then not be allowed to say anything that could expose Herne, or Bawtry, or whoever it was who had brought about the murder of Joel Lambourn, Zenia Gadney, and thus also the murder of Dinah Lambourn.
That must not be allowed to happen.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in?” he called, surprised to be glad of the interruption he had specifically asked should not occur.
Ardmore came in with a tray of sandwiches, brown bread with roast beef and some of Mrs. Wilton’s best, sharp sweet pickles in a little dish. There was a wedge of fruit cake and a glass of brandy.
“In case you feel like it, sir,” he said, putting it on the table at Rathbone’s side. “Would you like a cup of tea as well, perhaps? Or coffee?”
“No, thank you, that’s excellent. Please tell Mrs. Wilton I appreciate her care, as well as yours. You may retire now. I shan’t need you again.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Ardmore withdrew and closed the door gently behind him. Rathbone heard his footsteps, a mere whisper of sound, tap across the hall floor toward the kitchen.
He picked up the first sandwich. He could use a few minutes’ respite from thought, and he realized he was hungry. The sandwich was fresh, the pickles very pleasant. He ate one, then another, then a third.
Had Arthur Ballinger begun this way, feeling and thinking exactly what he was-a dirty tool to save an innocent person? What use was an advocate who was more concerned with his own moral comfort than his client’s life? If Rathbone used the photograph of Hadley Pendock, if it was indeed he, then he would feel soiled afterward. Judge Pendock would hate him. He would not tell others what had been the instrument Rathbone had used, but he might tell them it was unusual, not a thing a gentleman would ever stoop even to touch, let alone injure another by wielding. He would not tell them Rathbone was able to do so only because Pendock’s son had seduced and violated vulnerable, homeless children.
And if he did not use it and Dinah Lambourn was hanged, how then would he feel? What would Monk and Hester think of him? More important than that, what would he think of himself?
What would he ever fight for again? He would have abdicated his responsibility to act. Could anything excuse that?
Either way, whether he used the photographs or not, what was Rathbone making of himself? A safe, morally clean coward who acquiesced while an innocent woman walked to the gallows? A safe man who would have nightmares for the rest of his life as he lay alone in his magnificent bed, in a silent house?
Or a man whose hands were soiled by the use of what amounted to blackmail, to force a weak judge to be honest?
He finished the last sandwich and ate the cake, then drank the last drop of the brandy. Tomorrow he was going to carry out a decision that would change his life-and maybe Dinah’s, and that of whoever had murdered Lambourn, and Zenia Gadney.
He stood up and went to the safe where he kept Arthur Ballinger’s photographs. One day he must find a better place for them, not in this house. But for now, he was glad they were still here.
He opened the safe and took out the case. He opened that, calm now that the decision had been made. He went through the images slowly, one by one. He was disgusted, sickened by the coarseness of them, by the cruelty, the indifference to the humiliation and pain of children.
He found it. It was the same face as that in Pendock’s silver-framed photograph. And on the bottom of this one, in Ballinger’s hand, was written “Hadley Pendock,” and the date and place in which it was taken.
Rathbone put it back again, made a note in his diary, checked that it was correct, then locked the case and put it back in the safe.
He knew what he must do tomorrow morning before the trial resumed, however hard, however painful and repellent. Shame was bitter, but it was a small thing compared with the hangman’s noose.
CHAPTER 23
In the morning, long before the court sat, Rathbone unlocked the safe again and took one of the prints that Ballinger had made of the photograph of Hadley Pendock. It was quite small, only three inches by four, a sample to show anyone what the original contained. Even so, the faces were clearly identifiable.
Rathbone put it in his pocket between two clean sheets of white notepaper, then left the house, taking a hansom to the Old Bailey. Today he needed to be early. As he rode through the gray icy morning streets he refused to let his mind even touch on what he must do, how he would say it, or how Pendock might respond. He had made up his mind, not that this was good, only that the alternative was unbearable.
He arrived at the court even before the usher, and had to wait until the man came in, startled to see Rathbone there before him.
“Are you all right, Sir Oliver?” he asked anxiously. He must know how the case was going. There was pity in his face.
“Yes, thank you, Rogers,” Rathbone said bleakly. “I need to speak to his lordship before we begin today. It is of the greatest possible importance, and it may take half an hour or so. I apologize for the inconveniences I am causing you.”
“No inconvenience at all, Sir Oliver,” Rogers said quickly. “It’s a miserable case. Maybe I shouldn’t be sorry
