Rathbone felt it keenly. If ever a man could be accused of arrogance, it was himself.
“We may be able to win the legal argument, then,” Brancaster went on, “or maybe not, depending on if they amend the charge before we get to court. This, as it stands, is enough to hold you, and for now that is all they need. But we must also win the moral argument. I’ve looked into the case against Taft. From what I read, until the moment Warne produced the picture, Taft was definitely winning. He was a very plausible liar, and Drew even more so. You should have recused yourself. The picture changed the course of justice, whether it perverted it or not. I assume Gavinton was so taken aback that he had not even considered demanding that you prove the authenticity of it?”
Rathbone was beginning to regain a little of his composure. Brancaster was nothing like the dry and rather otherworldly academic he had been expecting. He owed his father an apology for his lack of faith in him. And for a little while it was good to engage his brain in his familiar profession. It was a brief escape back into his own world.
“I doubt Gavinton wanted the jury’s mind on the thing any longer than necessary,” he said drily. “And he certainly wouldn’t want them to have to look at it.”
Brancaster smiled for the first time. “I’m sure. Did you think of that at the time?”
“No. I gave it to Warne and let him do with it as he thought right, under legal privilege, of course. I actually began to think he wasn’t going to use it at all. Which makes me wonder-who brought the prosecution against me? Why me and not Warne? He is really the one who used the picture, in the end.”
“A lot of interesting questions, Sir Oliver,” Brancaster agreed. “How did anyone know it was you who gave it to Warne? Who else did you tell?”
“No one but Warne himself,” he replied. “And if he thought it was wrong enough to turn me in, why did he use it?”
“As I said, a lot of questions,” Brancaster repeated. “What did you tell Warne about where you got the pictures in the first place?”
“The truth!”
“Which is?”
Rathbone felt his throat tighten and a certain sense of shame fill him with unwelcome heat. “They were bequeathed to me by my father-in-law.” He saw Brancaster’s amazement flash before he masked it, but he did not interrupt.
“He had used them for blackmail,” Rathbone went on. He heard his own voice as if it belonged to someone else. “I tried, unsuccessfully, to defend him on a charge of murder. He was to be hanged, from which I could not save him. He threatened to use the photographs to bring down half the establishment if I did not mount an appeal …” He found himself breathless, his chest tight.
“How did you prevent him from doing that?” Brancaster asked. “I think I prefer not to know, but I have to ask. This case appears to have some uglier possibilities than I had assumed.” It was a thundering understatement, and Rathbone was as aware of that as Brancaster.
“I didn’t,” Rathbone answered, wondering if Brancaster would believe him-indeed, if anybody would. “He told me the photographs were safe. That they would be in the hands of someone else who could use them. Then he was murdered.”
“In prison?” There was a raw edge of incredulity to Brancaster’s voice.
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“They never found out.”
“And the pictures … who had them?”
“His lawyer, I assume. That’s who delivered them to me.”
Brancaster took a deep breath. “Who else knows this? And please be careful to give me an honest answer. Believe me, you can’t afford to protect anyone else at this point.”
“I don’t know who else Ballinger told. I told Monk, and Hester Monk, and recently my father.”
“No one else?”
“No.”
“I said don’t lie to me, Sir Oliver,” Brancaster’s eyes were hard, his voice grating. “I should have included ‘don’t lie by omission.’ And, don’t be naïve. Did you not mention such an extraordinary event to your wife? She was Ballinger’s daughter, after all.”
Rathbone noticed the curious use of the past tense, as if Margaret were dead. As far as love was concerned, or loyalty, perhaps she was. That still hurt. Why? Why did he allow it to? He did not know her now.
“She never believed her father guilty.” Rathbone said quietly. “I could not shatter what was left of her faith in him by telling her more than she needed to know. And I would not have shown them to her anyway. And without the physical evidence, I know she could have gone on disbelieving me, even if I had told her the truth.”
“But you did not feel such a need to protect Mrs. Monk?” Brancaster questioned.
For the first time Rathbone laughed, a hard, jerky sound torn out of him. “Hester saw the live victims,” he said witheringly. “She would hardly be thrown into a fit of the vapors by photographs. She was an army nurse. She has seen men blown to bits on the battlefield and gone in to help those who were left alive. For any man I know to protect her from the truth is a laughable idea. Perhaps that’s why Warne chose her to identify Drew in court.”
“That was rather well done,” Brancaster remarked with respect in his voice. “I shall be very sorry if I find it was he who brought you to the attention of the authorities. Have you any connections with Drew or Taft that I should know about?”
Rathbone tried to think of anything. He realized how much he was impressed with Brancaster. It would be a very hard blow indeed if Brancaster declined to take the case.
“Only that Hester-Mrs. Monk-decided to investigate Taft, and it was her inquiries, employing her bookkeeper from the Portpool Lane clinic, that uncovered the main details of Taft’s fraud. But I didn’t know anything of that at the time.”
“And your acquaintance with Mrs. Monk?” Brancaster asked. He did not need to explain his precise meaning; it was perfectly clear from his expression.
“Friends,” Rathbone replied, not avoiding his eyes. “At one time I was in love with her. I decided she was not the right sort of wife for me, and she was in love with Monk, whom she married not long after that. We have remained friends.”
Brancaster waited for him to add more, perhaps to justify himself, to insist that there was nothing inappropriate in the relationship. Rathbone knew that to do so would be a mistake. Explaining, protesting too much always was. He knew that from his own experience in questioning witnesses.
Brancaster relaxed with a smile. It lit his face and made him look quite different: younger and more vulnerable.
“I cannot promise victory, Sir Oliver, but I can promise an exceedingly good fight.” He stood up. “I don’t have anything more to ask you at the moment, but I expect I will soon think of things.” He walked the short distance to the door and called for the guard. He straightened his suit jacket, and, with the very slight inclining of his head, he went out as the door opened. He did not ask if Rathbone wished to keep his services or not. That was a degree of hubris not unlike his own, Rathbone thought. Perhaps Brancaster was exactly the lawyer he needed.
As he walked back to his cell with the guard at his side, he thought how short a time ago it was that he had sat at Ingram York’s dinner table in his magnificent house and celebrated his own handling of another, infinitely different case of fraud.
He had looked at Beata York and thought how beautiful she was, not the superficial loveliness of regular features or delicate coloring, but the deep, inner beauty of humor, gentleness, vulnerability, and the power to understand and forgive.
He was sure she would not understand or forgive this if she could see him now!
