William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

jury’s contempt for his testimony was marked plainly in their faces, but they had to listen to his leering account, and however hard they might have wished to expunge it from their minds, it was not possible. One cannot willfully forget in an instant. And they were sworn to weigh the evidence, all of it, regardless of their own personal feelings, as Sacheverall reminded them more than once.
    Rathbone could discredit the man, but it was hardly worth the effort. He had discredited himself. There was no point in trying to shake his actual testimony. To draw attention to it at all, whether to rebut, argue, or deny, was only to fix it more firmly in the jurors’ minds.
    “No thank you, my lord,” Rathbone said when offered his chance to examine the witness. “I cannot think of anything useful to say to such a man.”
    The luncheon adjournment was brief, only sufficient to eat the hastiest meal, and then they returned to court. An occupant of the building where Melville lived swore unhappily that he had seen Isaac Wolff visit Melville’s rooms and remain for some time. No matter how Sacheverall pressed, he would not put an hour to it. Perversely, his very honesty and reluctance made his evidence the more powerful. It was apparent he both liked Melville personally and regarded this proceeding as an intrusion into those areas of a man’s life which should remain private.
    It was clear in the jurors’ expressions that they attached great weight to his word. He refused point-blank, and with some show of temper, to speculate.
    Sacheverall dismissed him with almost palpable satisfaction.
    Glancing at Barton Lambert, and at Zillah sitting besidehim, so stricken with misery and dismay she looked almost numbed, Rathbone had only one more card to play, and it was a desperate one, with only a shred of hope.
    He asked for a fifteen-minute adjournment to consult with Sacheverall.
    McKeever granted it, perhaps with more pity than legal reason.
    Outside in the hall, Rathbone saw Monk and spoke with him momentarily, but he had nothing to offer, and two minutes later Rathbone strode after Sacheverall, leaving Melville standing alone.
    “Well?” Sacheverall asked with a grin. “What now?”
    “Ask Lambert if he wants to pursue this,” Rathbone demanded. He loathed appealing to Sacheverall, of all people, for mercy, but he had nothing else left.
    Sacheverall’s fair eyebrows rose in amazement. “For God’s sake, what for? He can’t lose!”
    “He can’t lose the case,” Rathbone agreed. “He can lose his daughter’s happiness and peace of conscience. Have you looked at her face? Do you think this is giving her pleasure? She has her vindication; she does not want or need to ruin Melville as well. Ask Lambert if he needs to go any further.”
    “I don’t need to,” Sacheverall said with a broad smile.
    “Yes, you do!” Rathbone was furious, but he tried to conceal it for his own dignity. “In case you have temporarily forgotten it, you are acting for the Lambert family, not for yourself!”
    Sacheverall flushed. “I’ll ask him,” he agreed gracelessly. “But I shall also advise him. Now, if that was all you had to say, then we should not delay the court any longer.” And without waiting for Rathbone to reply, he turned on his heel and marched back to the courtroom, leaving Rathbone to follow.
    Sacheverall produced his final witness, and she was damning. She might have called herself an adventuress, but she was little more than an unpleasantly ambitious prostitute, both experienced and astute as to the appetites of men and women. She had no doubt whatever that Wolff and Melville were lovers. She had seen them embracing and her evidence waspossibly the more unpleasant because her entire manner showed that she saw nothing wrong in it. She did not imply it was casual or the satisfaction of a physical appetite alone, but she used the word
lovers
because she meant the fullness of that emotion.
    There was nothing for Rathbone to do. He was completely beaten. It was not merely in Sacheverall’s jubilant face but in the grim disgust of the majority of the jurors as well. Even those few who might have felt either pity or a sense that it was a private matter and not a public concern could not argue the issue that Killian Melville had broken his promise to marry Zillah Lambert because of a fault that lay within himself. He had deceived her as to his nature and his intentions and she had every right to demand and to