A sudden, fearful death (44 page)

Henry looked at him with bright,
sad eyes. There was love in his face, the desire to protect, but not to excuse.

"Was it a legitimate question
to raise?" he asked.

"Yes, of course it was. She
was normally a highly intelligent woman, but there was nothing whatever to
make anyone, even a fool, think that Sir Herbert would leave his wife and
seven children and ruin himself professionally, socially, and financially for
her. It's preposterous."

"And what makes you think she
believed he would?"

"The letters, damn it! And
they are in her hand, there is no question about that. The sister identified
them."

"Then perhaps you do have a
tormented woman with two quite distinct sides to her nature—one rational,
brave, and efficient, the other quite devoid of judgment and even of
self-preservation?" Henry suggested.

"I suppose so."

"Then why do you blame
yourself? What is it you have done that is so wrong?"

"Shattered dreams—robbed
Barrymore of his most precious belief—and perhaps a lot of others as well,
certainly Monk."

"Questioned it," Henry
corrected. "Not robbed them— not yet."

"Yes I have. I've made them
doubt. It is tarnished. It won't ever be the same again."

"What do you believe?"

Oliver thought for a long time. The
starlings were quiet at last. In the gathering dusk the perfume of the
honeysuckle was even stronger.

"I believe there is something
damned important that I don't know yet," he answered finally. "Not
only don't I know it, I don't even know where to look."

"Then go with your
beliefs," Henry advised, his voice comfortable and familiar in the near
darkness. "If you don't have knowledge, it is all you can do."

* * * * *

The second day was occupied with Lovat-Smith's calling a
tedious procession of hospital staff who all testified to Prudence's
professional ability, and he was meticulous at no point to slight her. Once or
twice he looked across at Rathbone and smiled, his gray eyes brilliant. He knew
the precise values of all the emotions involved. It was pointless hoping he
would make an error. One by one he elicited from them observations of
Prudence's admiration for Sir Herbert, the inordinate number of times he chose
her alone to work with him, their obvious ease with each other, and finally her
apparent devotion to him.

Rathbone did what he could to
mitigate the effect, pointing out that Prudence's feelings for Sir Herbert did
not prove his feelings for her, and that he was not even aware that on her part
it was more than professional, let alone that he had actively encouraged her.
But he had an increasingly unpleasant certainty that he had lost their
sympathy. Sir Herbert was not an easy man to defend; he did not naturally
attract their liking. He appeared too calm, too much a man in command of his
own destiny. He was accustomed to dealing with those who were desperately
dependent upon him for the relief of bodily pain, even the continuance of their
physical existence.

Rathbone wondered if he were
frightened behind that masklike composure, if he understood how close he was to
the hangman's noose and his own final pain. Was his mind racing, his
imagination bringing out his body in cold sweat? Or did he simply believe such
a thing could not happen?

Was it innocence which armored him
against the reality of his danger?

What had really happened between
himself and Prudence?

Rathbone went as far as he dared in
trying to paint her as a woman with fantasies, romantic delusions, but he saw
the faces of the jurors and felt the wave of dislike when he disparaged her,
and knew he dared do little more than suggest, and leave the thought in their
minds to germinate as the trial progressed. Henry's words kept coming back to
him.
Go with your beliefs.

But he should not have quarreled
with Monk. That had been self-indulgent. He needed him desperately. The only
way to save Sir Herbert from the gallows, never mind his reputation, was to
find whoever did kill Prudence Barrymore. Even the escape of reasonable doubt
was beginning to recede. Once he even heard a sharp note of panic in his own
voice as he rose to cross-examine, and it brought him out in a sweat over his
body. Lovat-Smith would not have missed it. He would know he was winning, as a
dog on the chase scents the kill.

The third day was better.
Lovat-Smith made his first tactical error. He called Mrs. Barrymore to the
stand to testify to Prudence's spotless moral character. Presumably he had
intended her to heighten the emotional pitch of sympathy for Prudence. Mrs.
Barrymore was the bereaved mother, it was a natural thing to do, and in his
position Rathbone would most certainly have done the same. He admitted as much
to himself.

Nevertheless it proved a mistake.

Lovat-Smith approached her with
deference and sympathy, but still all the cocky assurance in his stance that
Rathbone had seen the previous day. He was winning, and he knew it. It was the
sweeter for being against Oliver Rathbone.

"Mrs. Barrymore," he
began with a slight inclination of his head, "I regret having to ask you
to do this, painful as it must be for you, but I am sure you are as keen as the
test of us that justice should be done, for all our sakes."

She looked tired, her fair skin
puffy around the eyes, but she was perfectly composed, dressed in total black,
which became her fair coloring and delicate features.

"Of course," she agreed.
"I shall do my best to answer you honestly."

"I am sure you will,"
Lovat-Smith said. Then, sensing the judge's impatience, he began.
"Naturally you have known Prudence all her life, probably no one else knew
her as well as you did. Was she a romantic, dreaming sort of girl, often
falling in love?"

"Not at all," she said
with wide-open eyes. "In fact, the very opposite. Her sister, Faith, would
read novels and imagine herself the heroine. She would daydream of handsome
young men, as most girls do. But Prudence was quite different. She seemed only
concerned with study and learning more all the time. Not really healthy for a
young girl." She looked puzzled, as if the anomaly still confused her.

"But surely she must have had
girlhood romances?" Lovat-Smith pressed. "Hero worship, if you will,
of young men from time to time?" But the knowledge of her answer was plain
in his face, and in the assurance of his tone.

"No," Mrs. Barrymore
insisted. "She never did. Even the new young curate, who was so very
charming and attracted all the young ladies in the congregation, seemed to
awaken no interest in Prudence at all." She shook her head a little,
setting the black ribbons on her bonnet waving.

The jury members were listening to
her intently, uncertain how much they believed her or what they felt, and the
mixture of concentration and doubt was plain in their expressions.

Rathbone glanced quickly up at Sir
Herbert. Oddly enough, he seemed uninterested, as if Prudence's early life were
of no concern to him. Did he not understand the importance of its emotional
value to the jury's grasp of her character? Did he not realize how much hinged
upon what manner of woman she was—a disillusioned dreamer, an idealist, a noble
and passionate woman wronged, a blackmailer?

"Was she an unemotional
person?" Lovat-Smith asked, investing the question with an artificial
surprise.

"Oh no, she felt things
intensely," Mrs. Barrymore assured him. "Most intensely—so much so I
feared she would make herself ill." She blinked several times and mastered
herself only with great difficulty. "That seems so foolish now, doesn't
it? It seems as if it has brought about her very death! I'm sorry, I find it
most difficult to control my feelings." She shot a look of utter hatred at
Sir Herbert across in the dock, and for the first time he looked distressed.
He rose to his feet and leaned forward, but before he could do anything further
one of the two jailers in the dock with him gripped his arms and pulled him
back.

There was a gasp, a sigh around the
court. One of the jurors said something which was inaudible. Judge Hardie
opened his mouth, and then changed his mind and remained silent. Rathbone
considered objecting and decided not to. It would only alienate the jury still
further.

"Knowing her as you did, Mrs.
Barrymore ..." Lovat-Smith said it very gently, his voice almost a caress,
and Rathbone felt the confidence in him as if it were a warm blanket over the
skin. "Do you find it difficult to believe that in Sir Herbert
Stanhope," Lovat-Smith went on, "Prudence at last found a man whom
she could both love and admire with all her ardent, idealistic nature, and to
whom she could give her total devotion?"

"Not at all," Mrs.
Barrymore replied without hesitation. "He was exactly the sort of man to
answer all her dreams. She would think him noble enough, dedicated enough and
brilliant enough to be everything she could love with all her heart." At
last the tears would not be controlled anymore, and she covered her face with
her hands and silently wept.

Lovat-Smith stepped forward and
reached high up with his arm to offer her his handkerchief.

She took it blindly, fumbling to
grasp it from his hand.

For once Lovat-Smith was lost for
words. There seemed nothing to say that was not either trite or grossly inappropriate.
He half nodded, a little awkwardly, knowing that she was not looking at him,
and returned to his seat, waving his hand to indicate that Rathbone might now
take his turn.

Rathbone rose and walked across to
the center of the floor, acutely aware that every eye was on him. He could win
or lose it all in the next few moments.

There was no sound except Mrs.
Barrymore's gentle weeping.

Rathbone waited. He did not
interrupt her. It was too great a risk. It might be viewed as sympathy; on the
other hand, it might seem like indecent haste.

He ached to look around at the
jury, and at Sir Herbert, but it would have betrayed his uncertainty, and
Lovat-Smith would have understood it as a hunting animal scents weakness.
Their rivalry was old and close. They knew each other too well for even a
whisper of a mistake to go unnoticed.

Finally Mrs. Barrymore blew her
nose very delicately, a restrained and genteel action, and yet remarkably
effective. When she looked up her eyes were red, but the rest of her face was
quite composed.

"I am very sorry," she
said quietly. "I fear I am not as strong as I had imagined." Her eyes
strayed upward for a moment to look at Sir Herbert on the far side of the
court, and the loathing in her face was as implacable as that of any man she
might have imagined to have the power she said she lacked.

"There is no need to
apologize, ma'am," Rathbone assured her softly, but with that intense
clarity of tone which he knew was audible even in the very back row of the public
seats. "I am sure everyone here understands your grief and feels for
you." There was nothing he could do to ameliorate her hatred. Better to
ignore it and hope the jury had not seen.

"Thank you." She sniffed
very slightly.

"Mrs. Barrymore," he
began with the shadow of a smile, "I have only a few questions for you,
and I will try to make them as brief as possible. As Mr. Lovat-Smith has
already pointed out, you naturally knew your daughter as only a mother can. You
were familiar with her love of medicine and the care of the sick and
injured." He put his hands in his pockets and looked up at her. "Did
you find it easy to believe that she actually performed operations
herself?".

Anne Barrymore frowned,
concentrating on what was obviously difficult for her.

"No, I am afraid I did not. It
is something that has always puzzled me."

"Do you think that it is
possible she exaggerated her own role a trifle in order to be—shall we say,
closer to her ideal? Of more service to Sir Herbert Stanhope?"

Her face brightened. "Yes—yes,
that would explain it. It is not really a natural thing for a woman to do, is
it? But love is something we can all understand so easily."

"Of course it is,"
Rathbone agreed, although he found it increasingly hard to accept as the sole
motive for anyone's actions, even a young woman. He questioned his own words as
he said mem. But this was not the time to be self-indulgent. All that mattered
now was Sir Herbert, and showing the jury that he was as much a victim as
Prudence Barrymore and that the affliction to him might yet prove as fatal.
"And you do not find it difficult to believe that she wove aD her hopes and
dreams around Sir Herbert?"

She smiled sadly. "I am afraid
it seems she was foolish, poor child. So very foolish." She shot a look of
anger and frustration at Mr. Barrymore, sitting high in the public gallery,
white-faced and unhappy. Then she turned back to Rathbone. "She had an
excellent offer from a totally suitable young man at home, you know," she
went on earnestly. "We could none of us understand why she did not accept
him." Her brows drew down and she looked like a lost child herself.
"A head full of absurd dreams. Quite impossible, and not to be desired
anyway. It would never have made her happy." Suddenly her eyes filled with
tears again. "And now it is all too late. Young people can be so wasteful
of opportunity."