William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

inkwell, which I had placed on the table, then made an attempt to write. I think he forced it. Then he looked up at me and said the nib was blunt and had divided, would I recut it.” He moved his shoulders very slightly, not quite a shrug. “Of course I agreed. He gave it to me. I wiped it clean so I could see what I was doing, and then I took out my knife, opened it …”
    No one in the room moved. The gaoler seemed mesmerized. There was no sound of the outer world, the courthouse beyond the heavy, iron door.
    Ravensbrook looked back at Monk again, his eyes dark and full of nightmare. Then, almost as if closing curtainswithin his mind, he looked just beyond him. His voice was a little high-pitched, as if he could not open his throat. “The next moment I felt a ringing blow, and I was forced back against the wall, and Caleb was on top of me.” He took a deep breath. “We struggled for several moments. I did all I could to free myself, but he had an extraordinary strength. He seemed determined to kill me, and it was all I could do to force the knife away from my throat. I made a tremendous effort, I suppose seeing the nearness of death in the blade. I don’t know exactly how it occurred. He jerked back, slipped, and missed his footing somehow, and fell, pulling me on top of him.”
    Rathbone tried to visualize it, the fear, the violence, the confusion. It was not difficult.
    “When I freed myself and managed to rise to my feet,” Ravensbrook went on, “he was lying there with the knife in his throat and blood pouring from the wound. There was nothing I could do. God help him. At least he is at some sort of peace now. He’ll be spared the …” He took another long, deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “The judicial … process.”
    Rathbone glanced at Monk, and saw the same look of distress in his face, and also the knowledge that there was no retreat or evasion possible.
    “Thank you,” Monk acknowledged Ravensbrook, then with Rathbone behind him, walked over and pushed the cell door wider and went inside. Caleb Stone was lying on the floor in a sheet of blood. It lay in a scarlet tide around his head and shoulders. The penknife, a beautiful silver engraved thing, was lying upside down against his neck, as if it had fallen out of the wound with its own weight. There was no question that he was dead. The beautiful green eyes were open, and quite blind. There was in his face a look of resignation, as if he had at last let go of something which was both a possession and a torture, and the ease of it had surprised him.
    Monk looked for something to tell him some fact beyondthat which Ravensbrook or the gaoler had said, and saw nothing. There were no contradictions, no suggestions of anything additional, anything unexplained by the account of a simple, stupid piece of violence. The only question was had he been impulsive, in a sudden overwhelming rage, perhaps like the rage that had killed Angus, or had it been a deliberately planned way of committing suicide before the hangman could take his life in the slow, exquisite mind-torture of conviction, sentence and hanging?
    He turned to Rathbone, and saw an understanding of the same question in his face.
    Before either of them could form it in words there was a noise behind them, the heavy clank of an iron bolt in a lock, and then Hester’s voice. Monk swung around and came out of the cell, almost pushing Rathbone forward into the outer room.
    “Lord Ravensbrook!” Hester glanced once at the gaoler, still holding the blood-soaked handkerchief against Ravensbrook’s chest, then moved forward and dropped to her knees. “Where are you hurt?” she said, as if he had been a child—quite soothingly, but with the voice of authority.
    He raised his head and stared at her.
    “Where are you hurt?” she repeated, putting her hand gently over the gaoler’s and moving the kerchief away very slowly. No gush of blood followed it; in fact, it seemed to have clotted and dried already. “Please, allow me to take your coat off,” she asked. “I must see if you are still bleeding.” It seemed an unnecessary comment. There was so much blood he must still be losing it at a considerable rate.
    “Should you, miss?” Jimson asked. He had returned with her and was staring at Ravensbrook dubiously. “Might make it worse. Better wait till the doctor gets ’ere. ’E’s bin sent fer.”
    “Take it off!” Hester ignored Jimson, and started to pull on