Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel (45 page)

“Photographs,” Monk replied.

“Why would a vulnerable man allow himself to be photographed in such a situation? Forgive me, but does a photograph not require you to maintain a motionless position for some time while the photographer performs his art?” Brancaster looked puzzled.

“Yes, it does,” Monk agreed. “But having a compromising photograph taken was part of the initiation into the club. You could not be a member without agreeing to it.”

“I see. And did Mr. Parfitt own this … club?”

“No, he just managed it.”

“Did you discover who owned it?” Brancaster inquired.

Again the court was breathless; every member of the jury was staring at Monk.

“Yes—Arthur Ballinger,” Monk answered.

Brancaster also looked only at Monk. “The same Arthur Ballinger who was father-in-law to Oliver Rathbone?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“Is there any doubt about this whatever?” Brancaster persisted.

Monk shook his head. “No. Quite apart from the detailed proof he provided, in the end, when he was facing the hangman’s noose, he did not bother to deny it. In fact, he deliberately bequeathed the collection of pictures to Oliver Rathbone.”

“I see. And what was Rathbone’s reaction to this … bequest?”

York finally lost his composure. “Mr. Wystan! Do you not wish to object to this? Are you asleep, sir? Mr. Brancaster is asking for the witness to give an opinion, to state facts he cannot possibly know.”

Wystan rose to his feet. He looked very pale.

“I apologize, my lord, if I seemed inattentive. I assumed that Mr. Brancaster was asking Commander Monk if he observed any reaction in Sir Oliver, not what he imagined Sir Oliver’s feelings to be.”

A dull flush spread up York’s face, but the answer was perfectly reasonable.

Monk noted that Wystan had made an enemy for himself, but he felt a certain respect for the man. He was following his own judgment, regardless of the favor or disfavor it earned him. As it was a complete about-face from his previous position, it must have been hard to do.

Brancaster acknowledged it with the slightest inclination of his head.

Monk glanced at the jury. Every single one of them was watching Brancaster, waiting.

“Do you know of anything Sir Oliver said or did as a result of having inherited this terrible legacy?” Brancaster clarified his question to Monk.

“He told me about it. He was horrified,” Monk replied. “I am also aware that he used a photo to force someone to act honorably in circumstances where they refused to do it of their own volition. It is one of the worst choices a person can have, when no matter what course you take, it is going to cause pain to someone.” He knew this was not an answer to the question, but he guessed it was what Brancaster was giving him the opportunity to say. “If it were my friend or my brother
who had joined such a club, I would want to protect him, let him keep his hideous mistake private. If he continued to practice such abuse of children, I might feel less like protecting him.”

There was a murmur around the room, a rumble to which it was difficult to put a meaning, but it sounded more like agreement than anger.

“But I have no doubt,” he went on, “that if it were my wife or my friends who needed help, and some man in one of these photographs refused to give it though he was quite able, I would wish that whoever had the power to force him to act would use it, no matter how high the price. Wouldn’t any man?”

“Yes, I think so,” Brancaster agreed. “I certainly would. I could not see anyone I loved punished, tortured, perhaps killed if I could exert a pressure that would save him. Tell me, did Sir Oliver expose the man in the photograph that you speak of, and ruin him?”

“No. Of course not. He kept his word.”

Brancaster gave a slight shrug, still frowning a little. “Did he ever say anything that led you to understand why he wished to keep this power in his hands? Or for that matter, why did you, as a policeman, not expose the men in the photographs anyway? The acts depicted are not only revolting—they are criminal. It was within your right.”

The air in the room crackled. No one moved even a cramped limb.

Monk gave a small, tight smile. “Because as I think we have already established, the men involved are in all walks of life, almost all highly placed. There was no purpose in seducing or photographing men without money or influence or a great deal to lose if the pictures were made public. To expose them all would, at the very least, rock the foundations of our government, possibly the Church, the army, and the navy. I have no wish to do that. Apart from anything else, it would expose the nation to ridicule and contempt. Which of our ministers would be able to sit at the international tables of negotiation without embarrassment?”

Brancaster bit his lip. “Perhaps I had not appreciated just how wide and how deep this is. It … it is very frightening.” He took a deep breath. “I begin to grasp just what Sir Oliver was struggling with, and so perhaps
why he took the irrevocable step of bringing it into the open in this particular way—we do not know who is involved, and yet we cannot possibly legally or morally turn our backs on the problem and pretend it is not real, dangerous, and terrible.”

York leaned forward. “Mr. Brancaster, before you elevate the accused to sainthood, perhaps you should remind the jury that Abel Taft, a man who was yet to be convicted of anything at all and was charged with fraud, not violence, not obscenity, is dead! As are his poor wife and his two young daughters—as a direct result of this act of Rathbone’s that you are attempting to paint so nobly!”

“Thank you, my lord,” Brancaster said with a sudden appearance of humility. Then he turned back to Monk. “Commander Monk, I believe you have been reinvestigating that tragic event, to which his lordship refers, specifically the issue of where the large amount of money that was embezzled—still unaccounted for—went. Is that correct?”

Wystan looked puzzled. He made as if to rise, then eased back into his seat again but paid even closer attention.

“Yes, that is correct,” Monk answered quickly, before York could intervene, or Wystan changed his mind. “I went back to Taft’s house. The matter is now being looked at by experts called in by the local police—”

“How is this your concern?” York interrupted angrily. “Are you not Thames River Police? Since when did your jurisdiction run to an embezzlement investigation, miles from the river, over a case that was already closed?”

That was the question Monk had been hoping to avoid.

“It does not, my lord,” he said as deferentially as he could force himself to. “Which is why, when I found the evidence, I turned it over to the local police. I went in there with their permission,” he added, before York could challenge him on that also. He did not want to get the officer who had granted the help into trouble. “We cooperate with each other, my lord,” he added, seeing the irritation in York’s face. He already disliked York, for Rathbone’s sake, but he knew the man had a point.

York hesitated.

Brancaster quickly broke in. “Evidence, Commander? Evidence of what?”

“Murder,” Monk replied. He was leaping far ahead of the way he had intended to tell the story, but he dared not risk being blocked now.

There were gasps around the court. In the gallery there was a buzz of amazement. In the jury box every man stared at Monk as if he had only this moment appeared there by magic.

York was furious.

“If you are deliberately trying to create a sensation, Commander,” he snapped, “in the hope of making us forget why we are here, then you are making a profound mistake. This is the trial of Oliver Rathbone for perverting the course of justice and abusing his office as judge.”

Monk hesitated. Dare he defy York, or might it only bring down further disaster, on all their heads? Suddenly the issue of the photographs had been obscured and the defense was losing clarity. He must think of an answer to York.

He took a bold risk. It was all he had left.

“I think Sir Oliver may unintentionally have caused the murder to happen,” he said, his breath almost choking him.

There was utter silence.

“I beg your pardon?” York said at last. Then, as Monk drew in his breath to repeat his words, York held up his hand. “No—no, that is not necessary. I heard you. I just failed for a moment to believe my ears. If this is some elaborate trick, Mr. Monk”—he dropped the courtesy of using his rank—“then I shall hold you in contempt of court.”

At last Brancaster stepped in. “Perhaps, my lord, it would be best if Commander Monk were to tell us, as briefly as possible, exactly what the evidence was, so the jurors may interpret it for themselves?”

York had no possible course but to agree. He did so reluctantly.

“Proceed. But if you stray off the point I shall stop you and rule you out of order. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord,” Monk swallowed his dislike and turned back to face Brancaster. He must recount this in exactly the right sequence, or York would stop him before he reached the end. He considered for a moment
leaving Hester out of the account, because he could not give any good reason why she should have been there, but being caught in any kind of evasion would be dangerous.

“I took my wife with me when I went to Abel Taft’s home,” he said straightaway. “I knew the search would be faster with two people, and her medical skill might prove useful if we discovered anything unusual. Also a woman can read the meaning in certain domestic arrangements that a man might miss.”

“And did you discover such things?” Brancaster said swiftly, to forestall any interruption from York, or even Wystan, although Wystan seemed as interested as the jurors, who were grasping every word.

“Very little,” Monk replied. “What we did find dismissed everything else from thought.”

“Money?” Brancaster asked innocently.

“Paintings,” Monk answered. “Framed so as to conceal the artists’ signatures. Experts are examining them now, but there seems to be a very considerable collection of good paintings disguised as copies. Their value, if authentic, would be enough to live on, more than comfortably, for thirty or forty years if sold judiciously over time.”

“Does the value about equal the money that has not been accounted for?” Brancaster questioned.

Wystan stood up. “While this theft was well detected on Commander Monk’s part, my lord, it is a long way short of murder. Unless he is somehow suggesting that Taft killed his wife over the paintings? I don’t see any evidence whatsoever to indicate such a thing.”

“Your point is well taken,” York replied. “If that were so, it might relieve Rathbone of the moral guilt of causing the Taft family’s deaths, although even that seems to be questionable. You are not advancing your case, Mr. Brancaster.” He smiled thinly, a faint, bitter satisfaction.

Brancaster’s cheeks colored with anger. “My lord,” he said between his teeth. “If we might allow Commander Monk to complete the account of what he found …”

“Then get on with it!” York snapped. “You are trying the court’s patience.”

Without replying to him Brancaster made a small gesture with his hands, inviting Monk to continue.

“One of the larger paintings, an almost life-size portrait of a man, swung away from the wall in the upstairs study,” he said a trifle too quickly. “Behind it was a panel that, when pushed in, revealed a space containing a ladder up into the attic …”

The gallery rustled. Every juror leaned forward. Even Wystan turned in his seat to stare at Monk more intently.

Monk bit his lip to stop himself from smiling. “Naturally I went up, and my wife came with me. We found ourselves in a large space with a few of the things we would expect to see—empty boxes, a trunk or two. It was the second, smaller room that mattered. There was a door into it, and as soon as we opened that, we saw the contraption.”

There was not a sound in the entire courtroom.

“Contraption?” Brancaster asked huskily.

“A pistol on a table held steady by two weights. Tied to its trigger was a wire, which passed through a ring in the ceiling, and was attached at the other end to a tin can with a very small hole in the bottom,” Monk explained. “It is difficult to describe it so as to make its purpose clear, but the moment we saw it we understood. It was a device created so that as the water dripped out of the can, the can became lighter, slowly rising to the point where the cord went slack, thus releasing the trigger and firing the gun. The can was empty when we arrived, and we found the bullet in the far wall. The water that had dripped out had been caught by a container beneath the can, and had evaporated. And the window was wedged open.”

Brancaster affected confusion. He shook his head fractionally.

“Are you saying that Taft arranged this extraordinary piece of machinery to shoot himself?”

“No, sir. As the medical examiner would testify, it seems Mr. Taft and his entire family were already dead, possibly for a couple of hours, when this gun went off. Because the window was open the sound of it could be heard by the neighbors, whose houses were approximately fifty
feet away. The purpose of the shot was to establish the time of Mr. Taft’s death—wrongly.”

“I see!” Brancaster’s face lit up. “So it was to mislead the police as to the time of Taft’s death, presumably so whoever killed him could prove that he was elsewhere at that precise moment?”

“Exactly,” Monk agreed. “The police are now considering it to be murder of all four members of the family, Taft himself included.”

There were gasps from almost everyone in the court, even several of the jurors.

Brancaster cleared his throat.

“And whom do they suspect, Commander Monk?”

Monk spoke quietly. “It all comes back to the missing money. The paintings are actually registered as owned by Robertson Drew. They have already arrested him, and I imagine they will charge him with all four murders, if they are not already doing so as we speak.”

“Ah!” Brancaster let out his breath in a sigh, as if it were now all perfectly clear. “So it is possible that Robertson Drew strangled Mrs. Taft and her daughters, shot Taft himself, and then rigged up this contraption in the attic to make it seem as if Taft’s death happened at five in the morning—a time at which Drew can fully account for his whereabouts, I imagine—when the neighbors heard the shot, rather than a couple of hours earlier?”