William Monk 19 - Blind Justice

Rathbone had ever even seen them.
    Rathbone looked at Drew again and was certain—almost.
    It was not yet half past three in the afternoon. Too early to adjourn. He could think of no excuse to halt the proceedings until tomorrow. Nevertheless, as soon as Drew had finished his long and rather ramblinganswer to Gavinton’s last question, without excuse or giving any reason, Rathbone adjourned the court until the following morning.
    Amid whisperings, questions, looks of confusion, the assembly rose and left. Outside in the hallways little groups huddled together earnestly. As he passed one of them, Rathbone was close enough to overhear the urgent questions as to what had happened. What had suddenly changed?
    He was not sure that anything had. His mind was in turmoil. He needed time alone in which to think. Did his realization make any difference? Could it?
    A S HE RODE HOME in a hansom he felt so tense his body ached and his fingernails bit into the flesh of his palms.
    The first thing was to be sure. He thought he was right, but he had mistaken people in the street before, thinking he knew them then realizing with embarrassment that he didn’t. Once he had even addressed someone, only to have the man turn full face to him, revealing himself a stranger.
    As soon as he was in his own house he refused any offer of tea, or whisky, and went into his study, locking the door. No one must ever see him with this horror! He took the photographs from their hiding place.
    His hands were trembling, his fingers clumsy as he unlocked the box containing the photographic plates. He opened the lid and it nearly slid out of his grasp. He clutched with the other hand and let the lid fall backward.
    The heavy sheets of glass were stacked neatly next to each other but not so close as to prevent them being removed one at a time. The printed paper copies were kept separately in a heavy brown envelope. He had looked at them only once. They held images he would rather not have known about.
    He slid the paper out of the envelope onto the table, glancing at the door, needing to reassure himself it was locked. He did not want even the most trusted servant to know of these. How could he explain lookingat such things to anyone? Evidence? Yes, they had been, but not in any current case. So why had he kept them? Why not destroy them as soon as they were his and he had the right to? They were obscene and dangerous, the key to blackmailing some of the most important men in the land. There were people he could destroy with these, careers, families he could ruin.
    That was not how he had thought of them, though. They were revolting, but they were indelible proof of crimes against children, so repellent and so compulsively woven into the nature of most of those who committed them that they would almost certainly happen again and again.
    But what he saw now was the power to humble the men who had had the bravado, the arrogance to be photographed, the power to make them repay some of the debt they owed. They could never make it up to the children themselves—too many were missing or dead—but there were other causes.
    Ballinger had begun the whole hideous performance by using the photograph of a senior judge to make him command an industrialist to stop the pollution that had spread disease and death to an entire community. Usurers had been forced to forgive debt caused by exorbitant interest. Other wrongs had been redressed. Then finally the power had become its own end, and all the original passion for justice or mercy was swallowed up—the only thing that had mattered was survival.
    Not that Ballinger had survived. His deeds had destroyed him.
    But there was a saying that Rathbone could never forget: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
    Was he going to do nothing while Robertson Drew destroyed Bicknor and Sawley? They might be weak in some ways, but wasn’t that true of every single person? And if Squeaky Robinson had said Taft was a fraudster, then Rathbone firmly believed that he was.
    But he had sworn to himself that he would never use these pictures again, unless someone’s life was in jeopardy, and there was no other way out. This case was only about money.
    Or was it? It was also about faith and honor, belief in a church anda God who was both just and merciful … a God who loved his people. Taft was not only robbing them of a quality of life, he was robbing them of their faith. Surely that was a