William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

eyes that he did not know what Rathbone was planning any more than she did. He was frowning, and staring at the court clerk, busily taking notes, his right hand bandaged. Fortunately, he wrote with his left.
    Rathbone then called a junior clerk from Baltimore and Sons and drew from him the statement that the records of the earlier dealings were available—not easily, but a diligent search by a company member would elicit them all.
    “And was the case public knowledge?” Rathbone said finally.
    “Oh, yes, sir.”
    Fowler tried to show that it was an abstruse piece of information, never discussed and unlikely to come to the attention of Dalgarno.
    “I couldn’t say, sir,” the clerk replied soberly. “I would think such things would be known, sir, even if only as an object lesson in what not to do.”
    Fowler retreated. “I still say, my lord, that incompetence does not equal innocence!” he said tartly. “The Crown does not say that the accused committed fraud well, merely that he did it!”
    Rathbone opened his eyes very wide. “If the Crown wishes, my lord, I can call a number of witnesses to demonstrate that Mr. Dalgarno was an ambitious and extremely able young man, that he rose from a relatively minor position to become one of the partners—”
    The judge held up his hand. “You have already done so, Sir Oliver. We take the point that the nature of the fraud with which he is charged is far less efficient than the earlier example for which Mr. Dundas was found guilty. The only thing relevant to this case appears to be the fact that the earlier case may well have been known to Mr. Dalgarno, and one wonders why he did not emulate it, if fraud was his intention. So far you have not completed your task. Please be succinct!”
    “Yes, my lord.” Rathbone recalled the foreman of the team of navvies who had worked on the Derby line, and drew from him greater and more tedious detail of the cutting and blasting necessary to drive a track through a hillside, coupled with the labor and cost of building a viaduct. He could equally easily have asked Jarvis Baltimore, but the navvy was not only more skilled in detail, he was demonstrably impartial.
    The court did not bother to hide its total lack of interest.
    They adjourned for luncheon. Monk told Hester to go with Margaret and he would join them later. Unwillingly, she obeyed, and he strode forward, shouldering his way through the crowd moving in the opposite direction until he was standing in front of the court clerk.
    “Excuse me,” he said, trying not to be abrupt, and yet his voice was sharp.
    The man made an effort to be civil. He was still trying to catch up with his notes. His writing was cramped, awkward, and with an odd, backward slope. Monk felt a strange dizziness in his mind as if there was something familiar about it. Could his idea be right?
    “Yes, sir?” the clerk said patiently.
    “What did you do to your hand?” Monk asked him.
    “I burned it, sir.” The clerk blushed very slightly. “On the cooking stove.”
    “You were writing with your other hand yesterday, weren’t you?”
    “Yes, sir. Fortunately, I can write with either hand. Not so neatly, but it’ll do.”
    “Thank you,” Monk said with a surge of understanding like a blaze of sunlight. He could picture exactly the odd characteristic capital
G
’s and
E
’s in Katrina’s diary, and sloping back, but still the same, in Emma’s. And suddenly the inscription in the recipe book—Eveline Mary M. Austin—EMMA! She had loved Katrina, and Katrina had kept her alive in her imagination by writing to her, and even from her, using her left hand.
    It was a painful and eccentric thing to do, and even with the explanation, it troubled him.

    At the beginning of the afternoon there were even fewer people in the public seats.
    “I call Miss Livia Baltimore,” Rathbone said to an immediate hiss of speculation and distaste. Livia herself looked startled, as if she were unprepared, but there was interest again from the crowd. Several jury members straightened in their seats as she made her way across the floor of the court and climbed the steps to the stand, pulling herself a little on the handrail as if she needed its support.
    “I apologize for putting you through this ordeal, Miss Baltimore,” Rathbone said gently. “Were it avoidable I would not do so, but a man’s life hangs in the balance.”
    “I know,” she said so quietly it was barely audible. The slight rustle of