William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

more. His skin was drained of all color, and dry like old parchment. He stood straight, shoulders squared, but he moved as if his whole body were filled with pain.
    Anything as banal as “Good morning” seemed ridiculous. There could be nothing good in it for this man. Rathbone thanked the clerk and excused him, then gestured to the big leather chair opposite the desk, for Cardew to sit down.
    “I am aware of what has happened,” Rathbone said quickly, to spare Cardew the pain of telling him. “At least the rudiments.”
    Cardew looked startled.
    “Commander Monk has long been a friend of mine,” Rathbone explained.
    “He tells you of all his cases?” Cardew asked with disbelief.
    “Not at all, sir. But this one distressed him more than most, because of its connection to the Jericho Phillips case a very short while ago.”
    Cardew looked like an old man too stubborn to admit defeat. Rathbone had seen other men like that, for whom surrender was too alien to be considered. They were bewildered, carrying on from force of habit and inability to think of any alternative.
    “Why should he be distressed?” Cardew asked. “He is doing his job. In his place I would assume my son to be guilty. Such evidence as they have indicates it to be so. That creature was undoubtedly killed with Rupert’s cravat. Even I could not argue against it. The thing is distinctive. I know. I gave it to him. Apparently they cut it off the wretched man’s neck.”
    “Did Rupert confess that he did it?” Rathbone asked.
    A flush spread up Cardew’s cheeks, and he lowered his eyes. Cowardice was a sin neither his nature nor his upbringing could forgive. A gentleman did not make excuses, he did not complain, and above all he did not lie to escape the consequences of his acts.
    “No, he did not,” he said, so quietly that Rathbone barely heard him.
    Rathbone considered any words of comfort he could offer, and all were inadequate, trite, or the very lies that Cardew so despised.
    “What is it you would like me to do?” Rathbone said gently.
    Cardew looked up. “Do you know what Parfitt was?”
    “I know at least something of it.” Memory assailed Rathbone like a wave of nausea. “I know what Jericho Phillips was. I was there on his boat. I saw his corpse at Execution Dock, and I could look at it without regret. He died obscenely, but I could feel only relief that he was gone. I’m not proud of that. Indeed, it is something I prefer not to recall.”
    “Then, you will understand why I have no pity for Mickey Parfitt,” Cardew replied. “Is there not some plea of mitigation you can make for the man who killed him—if only to save him from the gallows?” He said the last word as if sticking a knife into himself.
    “I can try,” Rathbone said reluctantly. How often had this man pleaded with someone for leniency toward the son who had let him down with such anguish? Did he never grow tired of it? Did he wonder now whether, if he had made Rupert pay for his errors earlier, pay the full price then when they’d been so much less, might Rupert have learned the lesson, and this would not now be happening? Did he go on, exhausted as he was, because he understood that his gentleness before had been only an evasion of the inevitable? That in that space between, it had grown until now the price would be his life?
    Cardew leaned forward, his face tense, his eyes fixed on Rathbone’s. “He won’t tell me what happened. I was able to see him only briefly before they took him away. But if he killed Parfitt, then perhaps it was in self-defense. Or the defense of someone else. Is that mitigation in the law?”
    “If it was to save the life of someone else who was in immediate danger of being killed, then it is certainly more than mitigation,” Rathbone answered. “If it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it is justification. But I’m afraid that might be very difficult to convince a jury of now, when Rupert has been arrested, since an innocent man would have said so at the time.”
    Cardew winced. “Of course. Yet I cannot believe that Rupert would kill him without the most terrible compulsion to do so. He has a temper, but he is not a fool.” He swallowed hard, as if he had an obstruction in his throat. “And in spite of his immorality in other directions, he has a sense of honor, in his own way. Killing a man in cold blood, even a man like Parfitt, would not be … acceptable. It is a coward’s way.” Unconsciously