Prince of Secrets (22 page)

Back in his London home again Sir Ratcliffe Heneage also slept well, hugging to himself the knowledge of the surprise which Sir Halbert was about to spring when he cross-examined that damned Yankee swine.

Oh, yes, he would be on the rack tomorrow, exposed at last for the criminal he was. How fortunate he had been, although he had not known that at the time when he had made such a good, and unscrupulous, friend on his one visit to the United States. A friend who had shared his tastes, and who, by great good chance, had come up trumps when
he had sent that desperate cable asking whether she knew anything detrimental about Grant's past.

What had come back was not only what he had asked for, but also the promise to fund his action from her bottomless purse, something which had enabled him to hire that tiger of the law courts, Sir Halbert Parker. Tomorrow should see his action won, Grant discredited, and the other defendants with him!

C
obie was eating breakfast when the butler came in and said that Inspector Walker wished to see him.

Cobie looked up from his bacon and eggs. He had recovered his resilience and his appetite. The effects of yesterday afternoon's efforts had worn off. He had insisted that Dinah have breakfast in bed. She looked hollow-eyed, he thought, as though he had passed his exhaustion on to her. She hadn't resisted him, but had insisted on coming to court with him when he had suggested that she take the day off.

‘I'm sure that it will be the last day, Cobie. There can't be much more to come.'

Walker came in looking cock-a-hoop, or as though he had won a fortune in some illegal lottery.

‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr Grant. I know that you will want to be gathering yourself to face Sir Halbert.'

Cobie was dry. ‘Was that why you came, inspector?' and then before Walker could answer, ‘Have you had breakfast yet?—there's plenty on the sideboard if you haven't.'

Walker shook his head. ‘I came to tell you that we've got him—Mason, I mean. We caught him three nights ago—and he sang like a bird. More like a nightingale than a canary,' and he laughed at his mild joke.

‘Seems he was getting frightened that Sir R. was out of control, and might land them all in the mud. Quite relieved he was to tell us everything when it came down to it. Claims he was intimidated by the noble baronet. Sir R. did kill Lizzie Steele, as you thought. Linfield helped him to dispose of the body—he was the one who always did the dirty work—cleaned up after his master.'

He hesitated, laughing a little. ‘They fished Linfield out of the Thames early yesterday morning, and that was what made Mason so forthcoming when I took him in. It seems that Linfield frightened him into doing what he was told, but once he was out of the way, out it all came. He swore on his bended knees, and his mother's grave, that he hadn't killed Linfield.'

He laughed again. ‘I told him that I didn't believe him, and out came a lot more. Chapter and verse, no less. Times, dates and places. We shall be arresting Sir Ratcliffe as soon as his action's over, win or lose. The Commissioner thought it wouldn't be right to take him before it ends. We shall be waiting for him outside the court is the word from on high. From several things the Commissioner let slip, there are those even higher than him who will be glad to see the back of him. Think he'll win his action, Mr Grant?'

Cobie had risen and poured coffee for himself and Walker. ‘I don't think so, but I have the oddest notion that I may be in for a surprise in the witness box.'

‘Not so odd a notion as the show you put on yesterday.' Walker was respectful. ‘You did know as how I was in court?'

‘My wife told me.' Cobie watched Walker drink his coffee with gusto.

‘A nice young lady, your wife. I ought to tell you that I know more about you than I should—and others may be in
the same boat. You'll be careful for her sake, I hope, when you're in the witness box today.'

So Walker had a soft spot for Dinah; as though he knew what Cobie was thinking, Walker added, ‘I liked the way she stood up for you at Markendale. Little tiger cub she was, ordering me about. But that's enough. I really came to tell you that between us, we have Sir R. where we want him, whatever happens in court today. I think we shall both sleep better tonight. I'd best be off. Bates will be wondering where I am.'

‘That would never do.' Cobie put out his hand. ‘Our paths may not cross again, inspector. Thank you for all you have done.'

‘Oh, I shall come for your magic show at Christmas.' Walker grinned as he left. ‘Which is more than Sir R. will be able to do.'

Cobie was thinking of Walker's words when he walked into court, and later, when he was called again, to face Sir Halbert this time. So Walker knew more than he should about him—and he was right, others might do so, too…one of them being Sir Halbert, who was looking at him like a tiger facing a succulent piece of prey.

So, when Sir Halbert began to cross-examine him, he assumed a look of deadly boredom.

‘I believe that you call yourself Jacobus Grant.'

‘Yes, that is my name.'

‘Or one of them, at least.'

Oh, oh, thought Cobie, what have we here? And so quickly. Counsel must be very sure of himself.

‘So far as I know,' he replied politely, ‘I am not out of the common run. I possess only one.'

Was it Mr Dilley—or Mr Horne—who had been tracked down? There was a small laugh at his reply, even the judge
smiling a little, but Cobie regretted it: he had not meant to rouse the tiger who was Sir Halbert Parker.

‘Indeed,' said counsel. ‘Let me try another. Were you not known at birth as Jacobus Percival, later as Jacobus Grant, and later still as Jumping Jake Coburn?'

Cobie's face never changed. His blue stare was not for Sir Halbert, but for Mr Van Deusen, who shook his head slightly, as though to say, Not from me, they know nothing from me. Which he had not suspected—but who, then? But his perfect control never faltered.

‘No,' he said, in his coolest voice. ‘As to the latter, I think that you are mistaken.'

‘No, Mr Jumping Jake Coburn, I don't think that I am.'

Cobie's counsel was on his feet, protesting.

‘M'lud, I fail to understand why Counsel is following this line. It seems to have little relevance to the action we are engaged in.'

The spectators were leaning forward. Mr Van Deusen took Dinah's hand and pressed it. ‘Courage, my dear.'

The judge said, ‘Yes, Sir Halbert. What is your purpose in querying Mr Grant's name? I, too, am a little baffled.'

Counsel spread his hands and his gown. ‘M'lud, Mr Grant's evidence is vitally damaging to my client. He has been presented to us as a wealthy American of good birth, related to the wife of the American envoy. His reputation is claimed to be unspotted. That, allied to his remarkable memory, makes him by far the most important witness for the four defendants.

‘I propose to show that he is no such thing, that his word cannot be relied on seeing that he is a common criminal, a murderer even, whose warranty of anything must prove nothing. He has chosen to pursue my client, for reasons of his own, in order to destroy him. He may even have stolen
the Heneage diamonds when he and my client were at Markendale.'

Uproar reigned. A court official called in vain for silence. During the whole of this interchange Cobie's expression of polite indifference had never wavered. Sir Ratcliffe Heneage was leaning forward, a savage, eager look on his face. He had cornered his implacable enemy at last!

Unseen, Walker, who had come to court to wait for the action to finish so that he might arrest his prey, clapped his hand on his thigh gleefully, ‘Oh, Mr Dilley, yet another name, and still more magic tricks!' for he, at least, knew that what counsel was saying was true.

Reporters, forgetting all decorum, rushed from the courtroom so that this remarkable news might be cried in the streets as soon as possible.

So, it was his past in the Territory, in the American South West, which had risen from the dead to confront him, not the adventures of Mr Horne and Mr Dilley. He smiled faintly in Dinah's direction. He saw Violet's eyes avid on him. Everyone's eyes avid on him.

The judge said, ‘Seeing that I accept the fact that Mr Grant's evidence is the clinching factor here, and that he has been presented as an honest and impartial witness, I will allow you to continue this line for the moment, Sir Halbert. But if I consider that you are embroidering, making bricks without straw, or fishing, I shall stop you immediately.'

‘With your lordship's permission, then,' and he turned on Cobie, who had been watching the Prince of Wales who had come to court, as he had done each day. The Prince's eyes were wary, assessing, when Sir Halbert began to attack the reputation of the man who had stolen his letters back for him—and who had undoubtedly also stolen Sir Ratcliffe Heneage's diamonds.

Cobie's eyes rose, to look beyond the courtroom at a line
of mountains, mauve against a tender blue sky. Had they tracked him back to Bratt's Crossing, where he had been strapped to the corral fence and been beaten almost to death?

Or to San Miguel, where he had been born again as a gunman, thief, and yes, in Sir Halbert's terms, a murderer—although he had never killed except to save life, or to avenge life taken criminally. Only those who had lived in that wild land could know what had to be done merely to survive. And he had survived. Oh, yes, he had survived. Would he survive this?

He was almost certain that they had learned nothing of his life at Bratt's Crossing, for the town had become derelict soon after he had blown up the mine there—with Hendrick Van Deusen's help—and its inhabitants had been scattered across the wide open spaces of the West.

‘M'lud,' Sir Halbert was saying, ‘I have affidavits here from a firm of agents in New York who have traced Mr Grant's past for me—in particular, his actions in New Mexico ten years ago. They have been sworn on oath as accurate before the District Attorney in New York. I put them as evidence into the court and shall, with your permission, question Mr Grant on them.'

Sir Darcy was on his feet. ‘M'lud, I protest. This is the first that Mr Grant, or myself, have heard of this. I beg leave that the Court be adjourned so that I may speak to my client.'

Sir Halbert began to protest in his turn, but the judge waved a dismissive hand at him. ‘Yes, Sir Darcy. You may have fifteen minutes with your client, no more.'

Alone in the small room he had visited before, Sir Darcy turned on Cobie. ‘What is all this, Mr Grant? I asked you to inform me of anything which could damage your case, or be brought up against you.'

Cobie said, almost carelessly, ‘Your guess is as good as mine, sir. Desperation, one assumes. An attempt to blacken my name, and destroy my reputation—and my evidence.'

‘There is no truth in any of it?'

‘Well, it
is
true that I spent some two years in the American South West some ten years ago, but as to being…what did he say, Mr Jake Coburn, or Jumping Jake Coburn? I am at a total loss as to why he should make any such claim. I was employed as a mining engineer in a place called Bratt's Crossing in Arizona Territory. I worked there for some six months until I fell out with the manager over his working practices, and left.

‘After that I toured the desert country, taking a long delayed holiday, enjoying its wild beauty, before I returned to civilisation. As for being a gunman and murderer, I ask you,' and he spread his hands and smiled. ‘I think that Sir Ratcliffe's agents invented a lurid story to please their employer. It has been known.'

‘And that is all?'

‘I am sorry to disappoint you—and Sir Halbert. The truth, as usual, is dull and ordinary.'

‘Is there anyone who can support your story? I realise that it is unlikely, seeing that it was ten years ago in another country.'

Cobie smiled again. He decided to take a chance on Schultz, aka Hendrick Van Deusen. ‘Why, as to that, Sir Darcy, most remarkably, one of the guests at Markendale was my friend, the American financier and politician, Mr Hendrick Van Deusen, whom I met in the South West when he was visiting there, and he is in the courtroom today.'

One of Sir Darcy's cohorts said eagerly, ‘A Mr Van Deusen has sent this paper to you by an usher, Sir Darcy, and awaits an answer.'

So, Hendrick was still acting as back-up, and had doubt
less proposed himself as a witness. He would say no more, lest the story Hendrick told in the witness box might conflict with anything he had told Sir Darcy.

Sir Darcy read the paper quickly. ‘I will see him when I have finished with Mr Grant. I have one further question for you, sir. This business of your having several names. What can he mean by that?'

‘Oh, nothing to that, sir. Nothing at all. I have a perfectly natural and legal explanation for why the name on my birth certificate is not the name I am known by now.'

‘And that is all?'

‘It is surely enough.'

Sir Darcy sighed. ‘Until now, I thought that we were winning hands down. No matter. You seem singularly unruffled by all this. Which might mean anything—or nothing. You are sure that there is nothing else you have to tell me? This matter of the Heneage diamonds, for instance.'

‘Oh, that! Merely mud to sling at me, and hope that it will stick.'

‘I hope you are right.'

One of his juniors said, ‘Your time is nearly up, Sir Darcy. If you wish to see Mr Van Deusen…'

‘Briefly. You may return to the court, Mr Grant. I hope that Sir Halbert has no more unpleasant surprises for us.'

Cobie hoped so, too. Mr Dilley and Mr Horne were still in hiding—but for how long?

He returned to a room buzzing with excitement, to sit by Lord Kenilworth, who leaned over and said, ‘What the devil was all that about, Grant?'

‘You know as much as I do, Kenilworth. Sir Halbert's investigators have lively imaginations—as I shall hope to prove.'

Rainey said, ‘Busy life you've led, Grant, hey?' There was no malice in his tone, merely a mild approval.

Counsel was ready for Cobie when he was recalled to the witness box.

‘Now, Mr Grant, I am going to take you through the findings I have before me.'

Cobie nodded.

‘Let me begin with the problem of your name, Mr Grant. You are, I believe, illegitimate.'

Cobie said, still bored, ‘Is that a question, my lord?'

Lord Justice Coleridge said, ‘Rephrase that as a question, Sir Halbert.'

‘Is it true that you are illegitimate, Mr Grant?'

Cobie said, lying in his teeth, for like his grandfather, Tom Dilhorne, whom he greatly resembled, he followed his own rules, society's, and other men's meaning nothing to him.

‘No, sir. It is true, however, that I was adopted.'