William Monk 11 - Slaves of Obsession

forfeit their attention.
    “Sergeant Lanyon, you very diligently followed the trail of this barge all the way from Tooley Street, near Hayes Dock, down the Thames as far as Bugsby’s Marshes. It carried a cargo of something heavy, and we have assumed it was the guns from Mr. Alberton’s warehouse. Do you know the identity of the men who were seen by these various witnesses to whom you spoke? I mean know it, Sergeant, rather than deduce it from a dropped watch or a chance to purchase armaments for a cause.”
    “No, sir. I only know they knew where the guns were and they wanted them enough to commit murder to take them,” Lanyon answered with only a flicker of expression in his mild, thin face.
    “Just so,” Rathbone agreed. “But who were they?”
    Lanyon’s jaw set hard. “I don’t know. But someone dropped that watch, and recently. Gold watches don’t lie around warehouse yards long before someone notices them.”
    “Not in daylight, anyway.” Rathbone smiled very slightly. “Thank you, Sergeant Lanyon. You seem to have fulfilled your duty excellently. I have nothing more to ask of you … except … did you find out what happened to the guns after Bugsby’s Marshes? Or what happened to the barge afterwards?”
    “No, sir.”
    “I see. Don’t you find that curious?”
    Deverill stood up.
    Rathbone held out his hand. “I rephrase that, Sergeant Lanyon. In your experience as a police officer, is that a usual occurrence?”
    “No, sir. I’ve looked hard for anything further, but I can’t find any trace of where the guns went after that, or the barge.”
    “I shall enlighten you,” Rathbone promised. “About the guns, at least. The barge mystifies me as much as it does you. Thank you. I have nothing further to ask.”
    After the luncheon adjournment Deverill called the medical officer, who described the exact manner of the killings. It was gruesome and distressing evidence, and the court heard it in near silence. Deverill seemed to begin with the intention of drawing from him every agonizing detail, then just in time realized that the jury were acutely aware of the pain it had to cause the widow, and this not only produced in them a very natural rage against the perpetrators but also against himself, for subjecting her to hearing, perhaps for the first time, a clinical description of horror she had been protected from before.
    Rathbone looked up at Merrit in the dock and saw the agony in her eyes, her ashen skin now so bleached of color as to seem bruised, and the achingly rigid muscles of her arms and body as silent weeping racked through her. It would be a hard man indeed who could look at her and not believe that if she had had even the slightest knowledge of this before, let alone complicity, she was tortured with remorse now.
    He also wondered what went through her mind regarding Breeland, sitting bolt upright as if on some military duty, his features composed, almost without expression.
    In Rathbone’s mind the thing that burned up inside him with a rage he could not control was that Breeland never once extended his hand towards Merrit or made any gesture of pity for her. If he were distressed within himself, it was inside a loneliness nothing could break. Whatever he felt for her, he cared more for his cause, and the dignity and stoic innocence he presented to the world. If he had any human vulnerability, no one must see it. If he had weighed the cost to Merrit at all, it had not been heavy enough on the scales to show.
    A military expert was called who testified that this peculiar method of binding the arms and legs over a pole was known to be practiced by the army of the Union to punish those of its members who had been found guilty of various crimes, the
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indicating “thief.” It was not an execution, but usually lasted for six to twelve hours, by which time the man concerned was barely able to stand, even after release. He had no opinion as to the shooting, but his anger was palpable that an accepted form of discipline should have been so misused. It was an insult to the honorable man who had designed it.
    Whether the court agreed with him it was impossible to say; they were overwhelmed with the savagery of the only case they had witnessed, and they were not at war. The necessities of the Union army, of any army, were unknown to them. The fact that the practice was specific to the army for which Breeland fought was an added condemnation. The hatred for him could be felt in