Cain His Brother (37 page)

“Mr. Rathbone?” the judge prompted.

“Yes, my lord.” He turned to the witness stand. “Miss Herries,” he began, standing in the center of the open space of the floor, his feet a little apart, “you live on Manilla Street, on the Isle of Dogs, is that so?” “Yes sir.” She was not going to commit herself to anything whatsoever that she did not have to.

“Are you acquainted with the accused, Caleb Stone?”

Her eyes did not flicker. Certainly she did not look across at Caleb.

“Yes sir.”

“How long have you known him?”

“'Bout…” She hesitated. “Six, seven years, I s'pose.” She swallowed nervously and ran her tongue over her lips.

“Six or seven years is quite close enough.” Rathbone smiled, trying to reassure her. “Approximately how often do you see him?” Her face clouded and he hastened to help. “Every day? Or once a week, perhaps? Or once a month?”

“ 'E comes and goes,” she said guardedly. “Sometimes le's around fer two or free days, then 'e'll be gorn again. Mebbe gorn for weeks, mebbe back sooner. I'm reg'lar.”

“I see. But over the years, you have come to know him well?”

“Yer could say-”

“Is he your lover, Miss Herries?”

Her eyes slid to Caleb, then away again quickly.

There was no readable expression in his face. A juror frowned. Someone in the crowd sniggered.

“May I rephrase the question?” Rathbone offered. “Are you his woman?”

Caleb grinned, his green eyes bright. It was impossible to read his thoughts, or even whether his tense, almost wolfish expression was amusement or unworded threat.

Selina's chin came up a fraction. She avoided meeting the glance of anyone in the crowd beyond Rathbone.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Thank you for your candor, ma'am. I think we may take it that you do know him as well as anyone may be said to?”

“I s'pose.” She remained careful.

There was almost silence in the room, but one or two people stirred. This was of little interest. She was acknowledging the obvious.

Rathbone was aware of it. She was his final witness, and his last chance.

But for all her fear of the court, she would not willingly betray Caleb.

Not only were her emotions involved, and whatever memories she might have of moments of intimacy, but if he were to be found not guilty, then his vengeance would be terrible. Added to that, she lived on the Isle of Dogs; it was her home and they were her people. They would not look with tolerance on a woman who sold out her man, whether for gain or from fear for herself. Whatever price the law exacted for loyalty, the punishment for disloyalty must be worse. It was a matter of survival.

“Have you met his brother Angus as well?” Rathbone asked, his eyebrows raised.

She stared at him as she would a snake.

“Yeah.” It was a qualified agreement, made reluctantly. There was warning in her voice that she would go little further.

Rathbone smiled. “Mr. Arbuthnot has testified that you called at his place of business and saw him on the day of his disappearance. Is he correct?”

Her face tightened with anger. There was no way out.

“Yeah…

“Why?”

“WOt?”

“Why?” he repeated. “Why did you call upon Angus Stonefield?”

“ 'Cos Caleb told me ter.”

“What passed between you?”

“Nuffinkl”

“I mean what did you say to him, and he to you?”

“Oh. I don' 'member.” It was a lie, and everyone knew it. It was there in the low mumble from the onlookers, the slight shaking of the heads of the jurors, the quick shift of the judge's eyes from Selina to Rathbone.

Selina saw it too, but she assumed she had beaten Rathbone.

Rathbone pushed his hands into his pockets and looked at her blandly.

“Then if I were to say that you gave him a message that Caleb wished to see him urgently, that day, and wished him to go immediately to the Folly House Tavern, or the Artichoke, you would not be able to recall differently?”

“I…” Her eyes blazed with defiance, but there was no way out. She was loath to entrap herself by argument, or excuses which might rebound on her again. She had been caught once.

“Perhaps that has stirred your memory?” Rathbone suggested, carefully ironing all the sarcasm out of his voice.

She said nothing, but he had scored the point, and he knew it from the jury's faces. Once she had established that she was prepared to evade, or even lie, to protect Caleb, it would prejudice anything she might say in his defense.

“Did you see Angus Stonefield later that day, Miss Berries?” Rathbone resumed.

She said nothing.

“You must answer the question, Miss Berries,” the judge warned. “If you do not, I shall hold you in contempt of court. That means that I can sentence you to prison until such time as you do answer. And of course the jury are free to take any meaning they will from your silence. Do you understand me?”

“I saw 'im,” she said huskily, and swallowed hard. She stared straight ahead of her, her head rigid so she could not, even in the corner of her eye, see Caleb leaning over the railing of the dock, his eyes on her.

Rathbone affected interest, as if he had no idea what she was going to say.

Now there was total silence in the room.

“At the Folly House Tavern,” she said sullenly.

“What was he doing?”

“Nuffink.”

“Nothing?”

“ 'E were standin' around, waitin' fer Caleb, I s'pose. That's Were I told ' im ter be.”

“Did you see Caleb arrive also?”

` No.”

“But he told you earlier that he intended to be there?”

“Not that time special. That's where 'e said Angus were to go for 'im always. Same place. I didn't even see 'em together, an' I never saw 'em quarrel, an' that's the truth, whether yer believe me or not!”

“I do believe you, ma'am,” Rathbone conceded. “But did you see Caleb later on that day?”

“No, I didn't.”

One of the jurors shook his head, another coughed into his handkerchief.

There was a rustling in the public benches.

Rathbone turned away from the witness stand, and his glance caught Ebenezer Goode's and saw him smile ruefully. The case still hovered on the knife's edge, but however unwillingly, Selina's evidence might be all it needed to topple it against Caleb. Goode had very little with which to fight, and they both knew it. It would be a desperate gamble to call Caleb himself.

Even Goode could not know what he might say. There was a recklessness in the man, a well of emotion too dangerous to tap.

Rathbone turned the full circle before he faced Selina again. His eye caught Hester, near the front of the crowd, and beside her, Enid Ravensbrook, looking pale and tense. Her face was strained with pity and the terrible waiting for the evidence to unfold as they came nearer and nearer to the moment when the hatred and jealousy of years must finally explode in murder. Caleb had already left home when she had married Ravensbrook, but she must still have inherited some feeling for him, sensitive to her husband's long involvement, to all he had given, the years of struggle and finally the failure.

Certainly she knew both Angus and Genevieve, and was only too familiar with their loss.

Milo Ravensbrook sat on the other side of her, his face so pale he seemed bloodless, his dark eyes and level brows like black gashes on gray-white wax. Could a man see a more hideously painful revelation than that one child had killed the other? He would be left with nothing.

And yet from the moment that Angus's bloodstained clothes had been identified, was there anything else they could have done, any other course to follow?

Enid turned to him, her expression a mixture of anguish and almost an expectation of hurt, as if she already knew he would reject such intimacy, yet she could not help offering herself. She put her hand on his arm. Even from where Rathbone stood, he could see how thin her fingers were. It was only three and a half weeks since she had passed the crisis of her illness.

Ravensbrook remained frozen, as if he was not even aware of her.

There was silence in the room.

Rathbone looked again at Selina.

“Miss Herries, when did you see Caleb again? Consider your answer very carefully. An error in judgment now could cost you very dearly.”

Ebenezer Goode half rose to his feet, then decided an objection would achieve nothing. The question had been too carefully worded to be considered a threat. He sank back.

In the crowd someone dropped an umbrella, rustled for an instant, then left it where it lay.

“Miss Herries?”

Selina stared at Rathbone and he remained fixed on her gaze, as if he could see into her brain, read her fears and weigh them one against another. The judge moved his hands, then refolded them.

“Next day,” Selina said almost inaudibly.

“Did he mention Angus?”

“No…” Her voice was a whisper.

“Will you please speak so we may hear you, Miss Herries?” the judge directed.

“No.”

“Not at all?” Rathbone pressed.

` No.

“He didn't say that he had met him?”

` No.”

“And you didn't ask?” Rathbone allowed his eyebrows to shoot up. “Did you not care? You surprise me. Was it not the money for the rent of your home which Angus was to bring? Surely that was a matter of the utmost importance to you?”

“I took the message,” she said flatly. “Wot else weren't up ter me ter ask.”

“And he didn't tell you? Reassure you, for example? How boorish. Perhaps he was in too foul a temper.”

This time Ebenezer Goode did rise.

“My lord, my learned friend is making suggestions for which he has had no grounds, and they are the merest speculation…”

“Yes, yes,” the judge agreed. “Mr. Rathbone, please do not lead your witness with such remarks. You know better than that. Ask your question and have done.”

“My lord. Miss Herries, was Caleb in a bad temper when you saw him again?”

“No.”

“Just a little hurt?”

“Hurt?” she said suspiciously.

“Stiff! Bruised?”

“Yeah, well…” She hesitated, weighing how far she dare lie. Her glance slid once towards Caleb, then quickly away again. She was frightened, weighing one danger against another.

Rathbone was sorry for her, but he could not relent. There were facets of his professional skills he did not enjoy.

It would be overdoing it to draw the jury's attention to her dilemma. They had seen Caleb's face. They knew her position. Better to allow them to deduce it than to patronize them, risk having them think he was too eager.

“I do not ask you to tell us how he obtained any injuries he may have received, Miss Herries,” he helped her. “If you do not know, simply say whether he was injured in any way, or not. You are surely in a circumstance to know. He was your lover.”

“'E were 'urt, yeah,” she conceded. “But 'e didn't say 'ow, an I don't ask.

There's lot's o' fights in Lime'ouse an' Blackwall. Fights any night, an' most days. Caleb often got 'urt, but 'e never killed no one, far as I know.” Her chin came up a fraction. “Not that anyone got the best of 'im neither.”

“I can well believe it, ma'am. I have heard suggestions he is a very powerful man with an excellent skill in defending himself, and considerable physical courage.”

She stood a little straighter, her head high.

“That's right. No one beats Caleb Stone.”

Her pride caught him with a knife stab of pity, and he knew, almost without letting his eyes stray to the jury, that it was also the last fragment needed to tip the thin balance of belief towards conviction.

“Thank you, Miss Herries.” He turned to Goode. “Your witness, sir.” Goode rose slowly, as if he were tired, uncurling his long legs. He ambled across the open space of the floor and stopped before the witness stand, looking up at her.

“Ali, Miss Herries. Allow me to ask you a few questions. They will not take long.” He smiled at her dazzlingly. From the look in her face she may well have found that more unnerving than Rathbone's elegance. “Nor prove painful,” he added.

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. I'm most obliged.” He tucked his thumbs under the armholes of his waistcoat beneath his gown. “Did Caleb tell you why he was prepared to ask his brother for money, considering the feeling between them? Or indeed, why his brother was willing to give it?”

“No, 'e don't tell me things like that. I'nt my bus'ness. Angus always gave 'im money, if 'e wanted it. Guilt, I reckon.”

“Guilt for what, Miss Herries? Was Angus responsible for Caleb's misfortune?”

“I dunno,” she said sharply. “Mebbe 'e was! Mebbe 'e poisoned the old man's mind agin' Caleb. 'E were all goody-goody. Butter wouldn't melt in 'is mouf. 'Ow do I know what 'e felt? I jus' know 'e came any time Caleb sent for 'im.”

“I see. And was Angus at all apprehensive when you gave him Caleb's message?”

“Wot?”

“I apologize. Did he seem to you to be worried or fearful? Was he reluctant to go?”

“No. Well… I s'pose 'e didn't want ter leave his bus'ness. But he never did. That ain't 'ard t'understand'oo'd waana leave a nice warm office uptarn ter go ter some public 'ouse on the Isle of Dogs?”

“No one, indeed,” Goode agreed. “But beyond that natural reluctance, he was as usual?”

“Yeah.”

“And he had often met with Caleb before?”

“Yeah.”

“He did not, for example, offer to give you the money, to save himself the journey to Limehouse, and in fact the necessity to see Caleb at all?”

“No.” She did not add anything further, but there was surprise in her face, as well as antagonism.

Goode hesitated, seemed to consider a further question, then discard it.

Rathbone had a sudden flash of intuition as to what it was. He determined to ask it himself on reexamination. Goode had led the way for him. “And when you saw Caleb the day after?” Goode resumed. “He made no reference to Angus, is that right?”

“Yeah. 'E din't say nuffin' at all abaht 'im.” Her face was pale; Rathbone was sure she was lying. He looked across at the jury and saw reflected in their faces exactly what he felt. No one believed her.

“Do you know if he killed his brother, Miss Herries?” Goode's voice cut across the silence.