William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

surroundings became invisible to him, Lady Stanhope and Arthur merely blurs on the edge of his vision. He knew what the old case was, violently and with sickening immediacy. A girl had been molested and murdered. He could still see her thin broken body and feel the rage inside himself, the confusion and the pain, the aching helplessness. That was why he had driven his constables so hard, worried and harassed his witnesses, why his contempt had scalded Runcorn without mercy or patience.
    The horror was back inside him with all the freshness it had had when he was twenty. It did not excuse the way he had treated people, it did not undo anything, but it explained it. At least he had had a reason, a passion which was not centered upon himself. He was not merely cruel, arrogant, and ambitious. He had cared—furiously, tirelessly, single-mindedly.
    He found himself smiling with relief, and yet there was a sickness in his stomach.
    “Mr. Monk?” Lady Stanhope said nervously.
    “Yes—yes, ma’am?”
    “Are you going to be able to help my husband, Mr. Monk?”
    “I believe so,” he said firmly. “And I shall do everything within my power, I promise you.”
    “Thank you. I—we—are most grateful.” She held Arthur’s hand a little more tightly. “All of us.”

9
    T
HE TRIAL OF S IR H ERBERT S TANHOPE
opened at the Old Bailey on the first Monday in August. It was a gray, sultry day with a hot wind out of the south and the smell of rain. Outside the crowds pressed forward, climbing up the steps, eager to claim the few public seats available. There was an air of excitement, whispering and pushing, an urgency. Newsboys shouted promises about exclusive revelations, prophesies of what was to come. The first few heavy drops of rain fell with a warm splatter on oblivious heads.
    Inside the wood-paneled courtroom the jury sat in two rows, their backs to the high windows, faces toward the lawyers’ tables, behind whom were the few public benches. To the jurors’ right, twenty feet above the floor, was the dock, like a closed-in balcony, its hidden steps leading down to the cells. Opposite the dock was the witness box, like a pulpit. To reach it one crossed the open space of the floor and climbed the curving steps up, then stood isolated, facing the barristers and the public. Higher still, and behind the witness box, surrounded by magnificently carved panels and seated on plush, was the judge. He was robed in scarlet velvet and wigged in curled white horsehair.
    The court had already been called to order. The jury wasempaneled and the charge had been read and answered. With immense dignity, head high and voice steady, Sir Herbert denied his guilt absolutely. Immediately there was a rustle of sympathy around the body of the court.
    The judge, a man in his late forties with brilliant light gray eyes and a clean-boned, lean-cheeked face, flashed his glance around but refrained from speech. He was a hard man, young for such high office, but he owed no one favors and had no ambitions but the law. He was saved from ruthlessness by a sharp sense of humor, and redeemed by a love of classical literature and its soaring imagination, which he barely understood but knew he held to be of immense worth.
    The prosecution was conducted by Wilberforce Lovat-Smith, one of the most gifted barristers of his generation and a man Rathbone knew well. He had faced him frequently across the floor of the court, and held him in high regard, and not a little liking. He was of barely average height, dark-complexioned with a sharp-featured face and heavy-lidded, surprisingly blue eyes. His appearance was not impressive. He looked rather more like an itinerant musician or player than a pillar of the establishment. His gown was a fraction too long for him, indifferently tailored, and his wig was not precisely straight. But Rathbone did not make the mistake of underestimating him.
    The first witness to be called was Callandra Daviot. She walked across the space between the benches toward the witness stand with her back straight and her head high. But as she climbed the steps she steadied herself with her hand on the rail, and when she turned to Lovat-Smith her face was pale and she looked tired, as if she had not slept well for days, even weeks. It was apparent that either she was ill or she was carrying some well-nigh-intolerable burden.
    Hester was not present; she was on duty at the hospital. Apart from the fact that financially she required the