Through the afternoon and the next day Goode brought on a troop of witnesses who placed Rhys in St. Giles over a period of months. Not one of them could be cast doubt upon. Rathbone had to stand by and watch. There was no argument to make.
The judge adjourned the court early. It seemed as if there was little left to do but sum up the case. Goode had proved every assertion he had made. There was no alternative to offer, except that Rhys had been whoring in St. Giles, and his father had confronted him, they had quarrelled and Rhys had killed him. Goode had avoided mentioning the rapes, but if Rathbone challenged him that the motive for murder was too slender to believe, then he would undoubtedly bring in the beaten women, still bearing their scars. He had said as much. It was only Rhys's desperate condition which stayed his hand. Fortune had already punished him appallingly, and the conviction for murder would be sufficient to have him hanged. There was no need for more.
Rathbone left the courtroom feeling he had been defeated without offering even the semblance of a fight. He had done nothing for Rhys.
He had not begun to fulfill the trust Hesterand Sylvestra had placed in him. He was ashamed, and yet he could think of nothing to say which would do Rhys the slightest service.
Certainly he could harass witnesses, object to Goode's questions, his tactics, his logic, or anything else; but it would serve no purpose except to give the effect of a defence. It would be a sham. He knew it, Hester would know it. Would it even be of comfort to Rhys? Or offer him false hope?
At least he should have the courage to go to Rhys now, and not escape, as he would so much rather.
When he reached Rhys, Hester was already there. She turned as she heard Rathbone's step, her eyes desperate, pleading for some hope, any hope at all.
They sat together in the grey cell below the Old Bailey. Rhys was in physical pain, muscles clenched, broken hands shaking. He looked hopeless. Hester sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders. Rathbone was at his wits end.
"Rhys!" he said tensely. "You have got to tell us what happened! I want to defend you, but I have nothing with which to do it!" His own muscles were knotted tight, his hands balled into fists of frustration.
"I have no weapons! Did you kill him?”
Rhys shook his head, perhaps an inch in either direction, but the denial was clear.
"Someone else did?”
Again the tiny movement, but definitely a nod.
"Do you know who?”
A nod, a bitter smile, trembling-lipped.
"Has it anything to do with your mother?”
A very slight shrug of the shoulders, then a shake. No.
"An enemy of your father's?”
Rhys turned away, jerking his head, his hands starting to bang on his thighs, jolting the splints.
Hester grabbed his wrists. "Stop it!" she said loudly. "You must tell us, Rhys. Don't you understand, they will find you guilty if we cannot prove it was someone else, or at least that it could have been?”
He nodded slowly, but would not face her.
There was nothing left but the violence of the truth.
"They will hang you," Rathbone said deliberately.
Rhys's throat moved as if he would say something, then he swung away from them again, and refused to look at them any more.
Hester stared at Rathbone, her eyes filled with tears.
He stood still for a minute, then another. There was nothing to say or do. He sighed, and left. As he was walking along the passage he passed Corriden Wade going in. At least he might be able to offer some physical relief, or even a draught of some sort strong enough to give a few hours' sleep.
Further along he encountered Sylvestra, looking so distraught she seemed on the verge of collapse. At least she had Fidelis Kynaston with her.
Rathbone spent the evening alone in his rooms, unable to eat or even to sit at his fire. He paced the floor, his mind turning over one useless fact after another when his butler came to announce that Monk was in the hall.
"Monk!" Rathbone grasped at the very name, as if it had been a raft for a drowning man. "Monk! Bring him in… immediately!”
Monk looked tired and pale. His hair dripped and his face was shining wet.
"Well?" Rathbone demanded, finding himself gulping air, his hands stiff, a tingling in his arms. "What have you?”
"I don't know," Monk answered bleakly. "I have no idea whether it makes things better, or even worse. Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in Seven Dials, and then later in St. Giles.”
Rathbone was stunned. "What?" he said, his voice high with disbelief. It was preposterous, totally absurd. He must have misunderstood. "What did you say?”
"Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in both areas," Monk repeated. "I have several people who will identify him, in particular a cabby who saw him in St. Giles on the night before Christmas Eve, with blood on his hands and face, just after one of the worst rapes. And Rhys was in Lowndes Square at a quiet evening with Mrs. Kynaston, Arthur Kynaston and Lady Sandon and her son.”
Rathbone felt a sense of shock so great the room seemed to sway around him.
"You are sure?" he said, and the instant the words were off his tongue he knew how foolish they were. It was plain in Monk's face. Anyway, he would not have come with such news were he not certain beyond any doubt at all.
Monk did not bother to answer. He sat down uninvited, close to the fire. He was still shivering and he looked exhausted.
"I don't know what it means," he continued, staring past Rathbone at the empty chair opposite him, but mostly at something he could see within his own mind. "Perhaps Rhys was not involved in that rape, but he was in some or all of the others," he said. "Perhaps not. Certainly Leighton Duff did not follow his son in any sense of outrage or horror at what he had done, and then in righteous indignation confront him with it." He turned to Rathbone who was still standing on the same spot. "I'm sorry. All it means is that we have misunderstood the motive. It doesn't prove anything else. I don't know what you want to make of it. How is the trial going?”
"Appallingly," Rathbone replied, at last moving to the other chair and sitting down stiffly. "I have nothing to fight with. I suppose this will at least provide ammunition with which to open up the whole issue as to what happened. It will raise doubts. It will certainly prolong the trial…" He smiled bitterly. "It will shake Ebenezer Goode!" A well of horror opened up inside him. "It will shatter Mrs. Duff.”
"Yes, I know that," Monk replied very quietly. "But it is the truth, and if you allow Rhys to be hanged for something of which he is not guilty, none of us can then undo that, or call him back from the gallows and the grave. There is a certain kind of freedom in the truth, whatever it is. At least your decisions are founded on reality.
You can learn to live with them.”
Rathbone looked at him closely. There was at once a pain and the beginning of a kind of peace in his face which he had not seen before.
His weariness held within it the possibility of rest.
"Yes," he agreed. "Thank you, Monk. You had better give me the names of these people, and all the details… and of course your account. You have done very well." Deliberately he blocked from his mind the thought of having to tell Hester what he now knew. It was sufficient for the night that he should work out his strategy for Rhys.
Rathbone worked until six in the morning, and after two hours' sleep, a hot bath and breakfast, he faced the courtroom again. There was no air of expectation. There were even some empty seats in the spectators' gallery. It had degenerated from high drama into simple tragedy. It was not interesting any more.
Rathbone had had messengers out all night. Monk was in court.
In the dock Rhys looked white and ill. He was obviously in physical pain as well as mental turmoil, although there was now an air of despair about him which made Rathbone believe he no longer hoped for anything except an end to his ordeal.