William Monk 19 - Blind Justice

don’t have anything more to ask you at the moment, but I expect I will soon think of things.” He walked the short distance to the door and called for the guard. He straightened his suit jacket, and, with the very slight inclining of his head, he went outas the door opened. He did not ask if Rathbone wished to keep his services or not. That was a degree of hubris not unlike his own, Rathbone thought. Perhaps Brancaster was exactly the lawyer he needed.
    As he walked back to his cell with the guard at his side, he thought how short a time ago it was that he had sat at Ingram York’s dinner table in his magnificent house and celebrated his own handling of another, infinitely different case of fraud.
    He had looked at Beata York and thought how beautiful she was, not the superficial loveliness of regular features or delicate coloring, but the deep, inner beauty of humor, gentleness, vulnerability, and the power to understand and forgive.
    He was sure she would not understand or forgive this if she could see him now!

CHAPTER
9
    A SSISTANT COMMISSIONER B YRNE OF the Metropolitan Police stood by the window of his office and regarded Monk unhappily.
    “I didn’t say abandon him entirely,” he said with patience. “Just keep a reasonable distance. Dammit, Monk, the man has let the power of his office go to his head.”
    Monk wanted to argue, but Byrne was right, at least on the surface of things.
    “It’s when you are actually in the wrong, or at least in part, that you need your real friends.” Monk framed his answer carefully. “That’s the time they’re probably the only people who’ll stand by you.”
    “He perverted the course of justice,” Byrne repeated, his face puckered in distaste. “He has delusions of grandeur we can’t permit. If judges don’t keep the law, precisely what standard can you hold the rest of us to? You cannot afford to be associated with him.”
    “And if he’s not guilty?” Monk asked. “Wouldn’t I then be doingexactly what you say he did—taking the law into my own hands and prejudging a man before he’s tried?”
    Byrne’s eyebrows rose, making his face look oddly imbalanced. “Isn’t that what you’re doing anyway, deciding he’s not guilty before you have the evidence?”
    “I’m deciding he’s innocent until proven guilty,” Monk retorted. He was being argumentative, and he knew he was on thin ice. “Personally I think he’s behaved like an idiot—but an idiot who wanted to see an evil man brought to account for his greed and his manipulations of people’s gullibility. I think he very possibly used poor judgment in the means he employed. I don’t have to debate or weigh and measure whether he’s a friend or not. He has been for years, and the fact that that is currently a trifle inconvenient for me has nothing to do with anything.”
    “I don’t know whether you find that easy to say,” Byrne observed, “but you may find it harder to live up to. It’s inconvenient now; I promise you it is going to get a great deal more so.” He shook his head. “Be careful, Monk. I admire your loyalty, but not everyone will. Oliver Rathbone has made a great many enemies, and most of them would be very well pleased to see him brought down.”
    Monk looked straight at him. “I dare say you and I have also made a few enemies, sir. I would like to believe that my friends would stand by me, were I in his place. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that that decision would define who was a friend and who was not.”
    Byrne waved his hand in a gesture so small it was barely there at all. “I thought you would say something like that. Don’t complain that I didn’t warn you.”
    “No, sir. Is that all?”
    Byrne shook his head and turned away, but there was a brief smile on his face, there and then gone again. He had fulfilled his duty.
    M ONK WENT HOME A little earlier than usual that evening. He knew Hester would be waiting anxiously to learn how Rathbone was and ifMonk had consulted Rathbone’s lawyer, or thought of any plan as to how they might be of help.
    She was waiting for him in the kitchen. Scuff was there also. They both looked at him as he came in, eyes troubled and expectant. Hester put down the knife she had been using to carve the cold saddle of mutton and came over, kissing him briefly and gently, then stepping back while he touched Scuff casually on the shoulder. Monk felt the boy relax a little. He knew the question they both wanted to ask. Only