A Breach of Promise (32 page)

Delphine leaned across, looking at Sacheverall rather than Zillah.

“I am sure you mean only kindness, Mr. Sacheverall,” she said with a smile, but without warmth, “but I think perhaps you had better allow us a short while to overcome our dismay. It has been a very dreadful time for all of us, but most especially Zillah. Please make allowances for her….”

Sacheverall did not withdraw his hand. “Of course,” he said with a nod. “Of course it has. I do understand.”

“You understand nothing!” Zillah snapped, glaring at him. “You are a—a condottiere!”

“A what?” He was momentarily at a loss.

“A soldier of fortune,” she replied witheringly. “A man hired to fight for any cause, literally ‘one under contract.’ And if you do not take your hand off my arm I shall scream. Do you wish that?”

He removed his hand quickly. “You are hysterical,” he said soothingly. “It has all been a great shock to you.”

“Yes, I am!” she agreed, to his surprise. “I have never felt
worse in my life. I don’t think there is anything terrible still left to happen, except your manner towards me.”

“Zillah!” Delphine interrupted sharply, then smiled up at Sacheverall. “I think you had better be advised to leave us a little while, a day or two. For all your sympathy, I don’t think you do understand quite how fearful this has been to one of innocence in the more … elemental feelings of men. It is enough to make anyone … a trifle off balance. Please do not take to heart anything that is said just now. Make a little allowance….”

“Of course,” he said, smiling back at her. “Of course.” He inclined his head towards Zillah and returned to his table.

Zillah hissed something to her mother. It was inaudible from where Rathbone stood, but gauging from the slow flush of Sacheverall’s cheeks, he heard at least its tone, if not its content.

McKeever looked at Rathbone expectantly.

“I assume we may have the tragic news from some witness, Sir Oliver? And no doubt we shall have expert witnesses as well? There has been a doctor in attendance?”

“Yes, my lord. I have taken the liberty of requesting the presence of both the doctor and Mr. Isaac Wolff, who found Mr. Melville.”

“Thank you. That was most appropriate. It will save the court’s time in adjourning in order to send for them.” He hesitated, took a deep breath. “Sir Oliver, I would like to express the court’s deep sorrow that events have transpired this way. Killian Melville was a brilliant man, and his art was an adornment to our society and all those generations that lie ahead of us. His loss is a tragedy.” He did not refer to the case or its outcome. The omission was intentional and marked. Several of the jurors nodded agreement.

“Thank you, my lord,” Rathbone said with a rush of emotion which took him by surprise, making his voice hoarse.

Somewhere in the gallery a man blew his nose rather loudly and a woman stifled a sob.

“Call Mr. Wolff,” McKeever directed.

Part of Rathbone was sorry to have to put Wolff through this ordeal. The man had had hardly any sleep; he had lost probably the person he loved most to a sudden and profoundly tragic death, almost certainly suicide in despair at the shattering loss of his private life and of his career. Wolff himself might easily lose his professional standing also, his livelihood, even his liberty, if Sacheverall were vindictive enough to lay a complaint. He was haggard with a grief nothing would mend.

And yet the deep burning rage within Rathbone wanted this court, which had accomplished all this, to see what they had done. Especially he wanted Lambert to see. Sacheverall might never feel any regret or shame, but if others saw, then possibly his reputation would sour, and Rathbone desired that with a hunger he could all but taste.

Isaac Wolff came in like a man in a nightmare. His dark eyes were so far sunken into his head he looked cadaverous. He walked across the floor and up the steps to the witness-box like an old man, although he was barely forty. He looked towards Rathbone without seeing him.

The court waited in complete silence. They felt his grief and it held them in awe. It was like an animal thing, raw in the air.

Rathbone had already told him of his own feelings. There was no need to repeat any formal sympathy now, and he did not wish to break the tension by such civilities.

“Mr. Wolff, will you please tell us of the events late yesterday evening which bring you here today?” he asked.

Wolff spoke briefly, almost abruptly, except that his voice held no expression, no variation in tone.

“I went to see Melville. I knew he would be distressed after the day in court.” It was a simple statement without adjectives, even without expression. It had the starkness of real and final tragedy. He was looking at Rathbone now. Perhaps he knew that Rathbone at least understood the magnitude of his emotion. “I rang the bell of his rooms. There was no answer. I have a key. I let myself in. He was in the sitting room, in the chair by the fire, but the ashes had burned right down. It was obviously three or four hours since it had been stoked. He looked as if he
might have been asleep. At first I hoped he was. Then I touched him and I knew. He was cold.” He said nothing further.

“What time was that, Mr. Wolff?” Rathbone asked.

There was still silence in the room. Everyone was staring at Wolff. There was a sea of faces, a pale blur as every person’s attention was on him.

“Between half past ten and eleven,” Wolff replied. There was complete calm about him. Whatever they thought of him would not hurt him now. The worst he could conceive had already happened.

“Did you see anything to give you cause to know or guess the manner of his death?” Rathbone pursued, although he knew the answer.

“No.” Just the single word.

“Was anything disturbed?”

“No. Everything was as always.”

“Was there a glass or cup in the room, near where he was sitting?”

“No.”

“Was there a note or a letter of any kind?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wolff. If you will remain there, His Lordship may have some questions for you.”

Wolff turned slowly towards the judge.

“No, thank you,” McKeever declined quietly. “It seems perfectly clear. I am sorry we had to trouble you, Mr. Wolff. The court extends you its sympathy.”

“Thank you.” At another time there might have been a shadow of humor in Wolff’s acceptance. Today there was none. Something inside him was dead and there was no response except words, bare of feeling.

He turned and stepped down, holding on to the banister as if his sight and his coordination were impaired. He made his way to one of the seats at the back of the gallery and someone rose to give him space. Rathbone watched with his heart beating violently in case it were to shun him, but there was so deep a look of pity on the man’s face his gesture could not have been
misunderstood. Rathbone was suddenly uplifted by such compassion from a stranger, such a lack of judgment of frailty, only the awareness of grief.

He looked at Barton Lambert again. Lambert was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, as if he wanted to take some physical action but could think of nothing which answered his needs. There was a profound unhappiness in every line of him. He turned to Delphine, but she was looking the other way, her chin high, making the best of having to be there in these circumstances, but still aware of being the victor. Nothing so far had taken that from her. Zillah’s reputation was vindicated, and that mattered to her above all else.

Zillah herself sat white-faced and quite still, her eyes on Isaac Wolff and then on the judge, although it was impossible to say if she could actually see either of them, she appeared so sunk in her own sense of loss.

“Sir Oliver!” McKeever recalled his attention.

“My lord?”

“Did you say you had also requested the doctor to attend?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Then would you call him.”

“Yes, my lord. Dr. Godwin.”

There was instant rustling and creaking in the gallery as a score of people craned around to watch as the doors opened.

Godwin proved to be a sturdy man with dark hair and the music of the Welsh valleys in his voice. In total silence from the crowd and from the jury, he swore to his name and professional status, then awaited Rathbone’s questions.

“Dr. Godwin, were you summoned to Great Street at about eleven o’clock yesterday evening?”

“I was.”

“By whom, and for what purpose?”

“By Mr. Isaac Wolff, to attend his friend Killian Melville, who had apparently died.”

“And when you examined Mr. Melville, was he indeed dead?”

“Yes sir, he was—at least … at that point I made only a cursory examination. Very cursory.”

There was absolute silence in the room.

Everyone was unnaturally still, as if waiting for something extraordinary without knowing what.

McKeever leaned forward, listening intently, frowning as if he did not completely understand.

“Your choice of words is curious,” Rathbone pointed out. “Are you suggesting that later examination proved that Mr. Melville was not actually dead?” He asked it only to clarify. He entertained no hope of error.

“Oh no. Killian Melville was dead, I am afraid, poor soul,” Godwin assured him, nodding and pursing his lips.

“Can you say from what cause, Dr. Godwin?”

“Not yet, not for certain, like. But it was poison of some sort, and very probably of the type of belladonna. See it in the eyes. But I’ll know for sure when I’ve tested the contents of the stomach. Not been time for that yet.”

“Thank you. I have nothing else to ask you at this point.”

“No—no, I daresay not.” Godwin stood quite still. “But I can tell you something I imagine you did not know.”

The room seemed to crackle as if there were thunder in the air.

“Yes?”

“Killian Melville was a woman.”

No one moved.

A reporter broke a pencil in half and it sounded like gunfire.

A woman screamed.

“I—I beg your pardon,” Rathbone said, swallowing and choking.

“Killian Melville was a woman,” Godwin repeated clearly.

“You mean he was—” McKeever was startled.

“No, my lord,” Godwin corrected. “I mean she was … in every way a perfectly normal woman.”

Zillah Lambert slid into a faint.

There were gasps around the gallery. One of the jurors used
an expletive he would not have wished to have owned he even knew.

Delphine Lambert gave a scream and jerked her hand up to her mouth. Slowly her face turned scarlet with embarrassment and rage. She stared fixedly ahead of her, refusing to risk meeting anyone else’s eyes. She had been completely confounded. It was obvious to anyone who looked at her. Perhaps that, more than anything else, annoyed her now. The shock was total.

No one seemed to have noticed Zillah as she slumped momentarily insensible.

Sacheverall at last reacted. He scrambled to his feet, his arms waving.

“Hardly normal, my lord! Dr. Godwin makes a mockery of the word. Killian Melville was in no way normal. Man or woman.”

“I meant medically speaking!” Godwin snapped with surprising ferocity. “Physically she was exactly like any other woman.”

“Then why did she dress like a man,” Sacheverall shouted, waving his arms, “behave like a man, and in every way affect to be a man? For God’s sake, she even proposed marriage to a woman!”

“No, she didn’t!” Rathbone was on his feet too, shouting back. “That is precisely my case! She didn’t! Mrs. Lambert was so keen to have her daughter make what seemed an excellent match that she assumed Melville’s affection and regard for Miss Lambert was romantic, whereas it was, in fact, exactly what Melville claimed it was: a profound friendship!” He spoke without having thought of it first, something he had sworn never to do in court, but even as he heard his voice he was certain it was the truth. Now, with the clarity of hindsight, it all seemed so apparent. Melville’s passion and his silence—her silence—were all so easily understood. Of course he—she—had laughed when Rathbone had asked if the relationship with Isaac Wolff was homosexual. He remembered now how oblique Melville’s answers had been. He remembered a score
of things, tiny things, the burning level eyes, the fairness of Melville’s skin, the small, strong hands, a lack of masculinity in movement and gesture. The husky voice could have been man’s or woman’s.

He thought ruefully that that must have cost an effort, an aching throat to keep the pitch permanently so unnaturally low.

She must have enjoyed Zillah’s company, one of her own sex to befriend. No wonder the relationship was peculiarly precious to her.

Sacheverall was furious, but for once he had no ready answer.

“She was still unnatural!” he said loudly and angrily. His face was red, and he jerked around in gestures too large to have dignity or meaning. He had lost control of the case. Nothing was as he had meant it to be. When he had come in that morning he had had victory in the grasp of his fingers. Now it had all exploded into tragedy and then absurdity.

“She was perverted, perhaps insane—”

“She was not—” Rathbone began angrily, but Sacheverall cut across him.

“She took advantage of Mr. Lambert’s generosity for the most obvious reasons, to advance her career, if you can call it that!” He jabbed his finger in the air; his voice was almost a shriek. “She deceived him, lied to him at every turn—then deceived Miss Lambert and abused her feelings for the same crass, greedy reasons, and …”

Zillah was recovered now, sitting motionless, the tears streaming down her cheeks, although her face did not twist or crumple. She had the curious gift of being able to weep and remain beautiful.

Barton Lambert rose to his feet.

“Be quiet!” he commanded so loudly that Sacheverall stopped in the middle of his sentence, his face slack with surprise. “He dressed as a man, in that he did deceive me,” Lambert went on, lowering his voice only slightly. “I never for an instant suspected he was not one. But I was not deceived in his …” He corrected himself: “Her skill. He was still one of
the finest architects in Europe, and I’ll swear you’ll not see a better one in your lifetime!”