The trial lasted for three days. On the first the prosecution began with the undertaker who had buried Hodge, and his evidence seemed damning. There was little Rathbone could have done to shake him, and he knew he would only make himself unpopular with the jury were he to try. The undertaker was an honest man and it was quite clear he believed utterly what he said. He behaved with both dignity and compassion.
In the early afternoon Hodge’s widow gave evidence as to the identity of the body, not that anyone had doubted it. It was her quiet grief that the prosecution wished the jury to see.
Rathbone rose to his feet. “I have nothing to ask this witness, my lord. I would merely like to offer my condolences upon her loss.” And he sat down again to a murmur of approval from the crowd.
Next to be called was Clement Louvain. Rathbone found his heart beating faster, his hands clenched and slick with sweat. There was more than a man’s life depending upon him. If he probed too far, asked too much, he could let out a secret that could destroy Europe. And no one in the room knew it but Louvain and himself.
Louvain took the oath. He looked tired, as if he had been up all night, and his face was deep-lined with the ravages of emotion. Rathbone wondered briefly what part of it might be loss of the woman Ruth Clark.
The prosecution led Louvain through the finding of Hodge’s body and the description of the terrible wound on his head.
“And why did you not call in the police, Mr. Louvain?” he enquired mildly.
Rathbone waited.
Louvain stood silent.
The judge stared at him, his eyebrows raised.
Louvain cleared his throat. “Part of my cargo had been stolen. I wanted it recovered before my competitors were aware of it. It ruins business. I employed a man to do that. It was he who caught Gould.”
“That would be Mr. William Monk?”
“Yes.”
The prosecution’s tone was audibly sarcastic. “And now that you have your cargo back, you are ready to cooperate with the law and the people of London, not to mention Her Majesty, and help us to obtain justice. Do I understand you correctly, Mr. Louvain?”
Louvain’s face was twisted with fury, but there was nothing he could do. Watching him, Rathbone had a sense of the power in him, the strength of his will, and was glad he had not incurred such hatred.
Louvain leaned forward over the railing of the witness-box. “No, you don’t,” he snarled. “You have no idea of life at sea. You dress in smart suits and eat food brought you by a servant, and you’ve never fought anything except with words. One day on the river and you’d heave up your guts with fear. I got the thief and I got back my cargo, and I did it without anyone getting hurt or spending the public money on police time. What else do you want?”
“For you to follow the law like anyone else, Mr. Louvain,” the prosecution replied. “But perhaps you will tell me exactly what you found when you went to your ship, the
Louvain did as he was bidden, and the prosecution thanked him and invited Rathbone to question the witness if he wished.
“Thank you,” Rathbone said courteously. He turned to Louvain. “You have described the scene very vividly, sir, the dim light of the hold, the necessity of carrying a lantern, the height of the steps. We feel as if we have been there with you.”
The judge leaned forward. “Sir Oliver, if you have a question, please ask it. The hour is growing late.”
“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone refused to be rushed, his tone was easy, almost casual. “Mr. Louvain, is it as awkward to climb the steps into the hold as you seem to suggest?”
“Not if you’re used to it,” Louvain answered.
“And sober, I presume?” Rathbone added.
Louvain’s shoulders clenched under his jacket, and his hands on the railing looked as if he could break the wood. “A drunken man could miss his footing,” he conceded.
“And fall a considerable distance. I believe you said eight or ten feet?”
“Yes.”
“And sustain serious injuries?”
“Yes.”
“And was Hodge sober?”
Louvain’s eyes narrowed. “Not from the smell of him, no.”
“Then what makes you believe he was murdered, rather than simply having missed his footing, slipped and fell?” Rathbone walked a step farther forward into the middle of the floor. “Let me assist you, Mr. Louvain. Could it be that since your cargo had been stolen, you automatically assumed that the watchman was a victim of the same crime? You looked at the scene and concluded that the thief had come aboard your ship, attacked your watchman and stolen your goods, rather than that your watchman had died an accidental death. His absence from his post had allowed a thief to come aboard your ship and steal your goods? Is that possible, Mr. Louvain?”
“Yes,” Louvain said bitterly. “That is possible.” His voice was barely audible. “In fact, I believe that is what happened.”
“Thank you, sir.” Rathbone returned to his seat.
The rest of the trial was a formality; the other witnesses, including Monk, gave their evidence the following day, substantiating all that Louvain had said. The jury returned a verdict on the third day-Gould was guilty of theft, as he had pleaded, but there was more than reasonable doubt that any murder had been committed at all. Of that charge he was not guilty.
Rathbone walked out into the mid-morning rain with a sense of one very small victory, one man’s life saved, at least for the time being.
THIRTEEN
In Portpool Lane time was measured not in nights and days but in loads of laundry, whether it was light enough to blow out the candles, or dark enough to ask the men in the yard to fetch water from the well at the end of the street. Everything still had to be done by signs from the back door. No one must come close enough to risk catching the contagion.
Four women had died now, including Ruth Clark and Martha. Hester went to each of the survivors as often as she could. For those with pneumonia or bronchitis it was a matter of keeping the fever down and making sure they drank as much as possible: water, tea, soup-anything to make up for the fluid loss.
For the three whose illness was recognizably plague there was less to be done, and a more desperate desire to try anything at all to lessen the pain, which was acute. It was not only the knowledge of almost certain death, but the poison that raged through their bodies before it erupted in the blackened, putrefying flesh of the buboes, that made a person so ill that he or she longed for oblivion. The moments of awareness between one delirium and another were so agonizing that they cried out, and there was nothing Hester or any of the others could do but administer cool cloths, a sip of water, and not leave them alone.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” Flo said softly, pulling uncomfortably on the sleeve of her blouse-like all of them, conscious every moment of her arms and groin. She set down another bowl of water on the table outside one of the rooms so Hester could wring out cloths for the woman inside. “Not even that Ruth Clark, the lyin’ bampot.” Her face was pale with tiredness, the freckles on it standing out like dirty marks, her eyes dark ringed. “I may be a tart, Miss ’Ester, an’ a few other things, I daresay, but I in’t never bin a thief. I got a name like anybody else, an’ she got no right to take it from me by tellin’ lies. Why’d she do that? I in’t never done nothin’ to ’er?”
“She was an angry woman,” Hester replied, putting the cloths over her arm, then picking up the bowl. “A man she trusted, maybe even loved, threw her aside like so much rubbish when she most needed him. She just lashed out at everyone.”
Flo shrugged. “If she trusted a man wot paid for ’er, the more fool ’er!” She looked at Hester defiantly, and Hester stared straight back at her. Flo sighed and lowered her gaze. “Well. . I s’pose we’re all stupid sometimes, poor cow,” she said reluctantly. Then she smiled. “I’m alive, an’ she ain’t, so I reckon I don’t ’old no grudges. I won, eh?”
