William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

Suicide was a crime.
    Now there was nothing left but loss, not only personal but of one of the greatest, most luminous creative minds of the age. For Rathbone there was also shame for his own failure to have prevented this, a weighing down of guilt, and the last legal formalities of closing the issue. And there was also a colossal rage. He was clenched up inside with it. As he strode up the steps and along the hallway of the courthouse, he scarcely saw the colleagues he passed, the clerks and ushers, the litigants.His feet were loud and sharp on the stone of the floor, his back rigidly straight, his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands.
    He entered the courtroom just as they were beginning to consider him overdue, and there was a buzz of attention and disapproval. Sacheverall swung around, his fair face with its protruding ears serenely triumphant. He did not even consider it a possibility that Rathbone had found a weapon against him. A part of Rathbone’s anger turned to hatred, an emotion he was very unused to. He noticed Sacheverall smile at Zillah and her uncertain look back at him. There was no question that Sacheverall was pursuing her himself. There was no mistaking the nature of his interest, the eagerness in his eyes, the energy, almost excitement, when he spoke her name or had even the slightest contact with her.
    He was moving too quickly, not perhaps for Delphine, but certainly for Zillah herself. There was something indecent in it. Zillah was a charming girl, but the first thought that came to Rathbone’s mind was Barton Lambert’s money. Perhaps that was unjust, but he was too raw to care.
    Sacheverall faced Rathbone and nodded, his eyes bright. If he read anything in Rathbone’s expression, he must have assumed it was defeat. He showed no sign of apprehension.
    “I apologize, my lord, if I have kept the court waiting,” Rathbone said swiftly to the judge. “I was detained by circumstances beyond my control.”
    Sacheverall let out a slight sound, no more than an audible sigh, but the disbelief in it was obvious.
    McKeever caught some sense of Rathbone’s emotion.
    “What circumstances were those, Sir Oliver?” he asked.
    “I regret it profoundly, my lord, but my client is dead.”
    There was an instant’s utter silence. No one moved, not even a creak of wood or rustle of fabric. Then suddenly there was uproar. A woman shrieked. Several people rose to their feet, although there was nowhere to go. The jurors looked to each other, eyes wide with shock, unable yet to grasp the full significance of what they had heard.
    “Silence!” McKeever said distinctly, looking around theroom, then frowning at Rathbone. “I will have order! Sir Oliver, will you please explain to us what happened? Did Mr. Melville meet with an accident?”
    “It is not yet possible to say, my lord.” Rathbone found it difficult to find the right words, although he had tried to formulate them all the way there. Now, standing in the long-familiar room in which he had fought numberless cases, he was lost to express what he felt.
    Press reporters had been expecting a quiet collapse of the struggle and were there only to learn the damages, and perhaps to watch the human ruin as a man’s personal life was torn apart. Now they were scrambling for pencils to write something entirely different.
    In the gallery a woman gave a little squeal and stifled it with her hand.
    “Mr. Melville was found dead last night,” Rathbone began again. “At present the cause is not known.”
    The buzz in the gallery rose.
    “Silence!” McKeever ordered sharply, his face darkening with anger. He reached for his gavel and banged it with a loud crack. “I will clear the court if there is not silence and a decent respect!”
    He was obeyed reluctantly, but within seconds.
    Rathbone looked across at Sacheverall, waiting to see how he would react, if he was as horrified by his own part in this as Rathbone was. Rathbone saw surprise, but not amazement. He thought in a flash that the possibility had occurred to him. If the prosecutor was distressed or ashamed, he hid it well.
    Barton Lambert, on the other hand, sitting behind him, looked devastated. His blunt, rather ordinary face was slack with horror, mouth open, eyes staring fixedly. He seemed almost unaware of anyone around him, of Delphine at his side looking embarrassed, caught by surprise, but not grieved beyond her ability to control with dignity. Her head was high, her lips firmly