William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

head fractionally.
    “If you are about to object that it is irrelevant, Mr. Lovat-Smith, I will save you the trouble. It is not. I myself wish to know the answer to this. Dr. Hargrave? You must have some idea. He cannot have moved far with a wound such as you describe. Where did you see him when you attended it?”
    Hargrave was pale, his face drawn.
    “In the home of Mr. and Mrs. Furnival, my lord.”
    There was a rustle of excitement around the room, a letting out of breath. At least half the jurors turned to look up at Alexandra, but her face registered only complete incomprehension.
    “Did you say in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Furnival, Dr. Rathbone?” the judge said with undisguised surprise.
    “Yes, my lord,” Hargrave replied unhappily.
    “Mr. Rathbone,” the judge instructed, “please continue.”
    “Yes, my lord.” Rathbone looked anything but shaken; indeed he appeared quite calm. He turned back to Hargrave. “So the general was cleaning this ornamental knife in the Furnivals’ house?”
    “I believe so. I was told he was showing it to young Valentine Furnival. It was something of a curio. I daresay he was demonstrating its use—or something of the sort …”
    There was a nervous titter around the room. Rathbone’s face registered a wild and fleeting humor, but he forbore from making the obvious remark. Indeed he turned to something utterly different, which took them all by surprise.
    “Tell me, Dr. Hargrave, what was the general wearing when he left to go back to his own house?”
    “The clothes in which he came, of course.”
    Rathbone’s eyebrows shot up, and too late Hargrave realized his error.
    “Indeed?” Rathbone said with amazement. “Including those torn and bloodstained trousers?”
    Hargrave said nothing.
    “Shall I recall Mrs. Sabella Pole, who remembers the incident quite clearly?”
    “No—no.” Hargrave was thoroughly annoyed, his lips in a thin line, his face pale and set. “The trousers were quite intact—and not stained. I cannot explain it, and did not seek to. It is not my affair. I simply treated the wound.”
    “Indeed,” Rathbone agreed with a small, unreadable smile. “Thank you, Dr. Hargrave. I have no further questions for you.”
    The next witness was Evan, for the police. His testimony was exactly what most would have foreseen and presented no interest for Monk. He watched Evan’s sensitive, unhappy face as he recounted being called to the Furnivals’ house, seeing the body and drawing the inevitable conclusions, then the questioning of all the people concerned. It obviously pained him.
    Monk found his attention wandering. Rathbone could not provide a defense out of what he had, no matter how brilliant his cross-examination. It would be ridiculous to hope he could trick or force from any one of the Carlyons the admission that they knew the general was abusing his son. He had seen them outside in the hallway, sitting upright, dressed in black, faces set in quiet, dignified grief, totally unified. Even Edith Sobell was with them and now and again looked with concern at her father. But Felicia was in the courtroom, since she had not been subpoenaed to give evidence, and therefore was permitted inside the court. She was very pale behind her veil, and rigid as a plastic figure.
    It was imperative they had to find out who else was involved in the pederasty, apart from the general and his father. Cassian had said “others,” not merely his grandfather. Who? Who had access to the boy in a place sufficiently private? That was important; it had to be utterly private. One would hardly undertake such an activity where there was the slightest risk of interruption.
    The interrogations went on and Monk was almost unaware of them.
    Family again? Peverell Erskine? Was that what Damaris had discovered that night which had driven her nearly frantic with distress, so much so that she had been unable to control herself? After seeing Valentine Furnival she had come downstairs in a state bordering on hysteria. Why? Had she learned that her husband was sodomizing his nephew? But what could possibly have taken place up there that would tell her such a thing? Peverell himself had remained downstairs. Everyone had sworn to that. So she could not have seen anything. And Cassian was not even in the Furnivals’ house.
    But she had seen or heard something. Surely it could not be a coincidence that it had been the night of the murder? But what? What had she