"My name is Oliver Rathbone," he introduced himself. "I have come to see if I can be of assistance to you in your present difficulty. Anything you say to me is completely confidential, but you must tell me the truth or I cannot be of any use." He saw the beginning of denial in her face. He sat down on the one hard chair, opposite where she was sitting on the cot. "I have been retained by Miss Hester Latterly." Too late he realized he should have said "Mrs. Monk." He felt the heat in his face as he was obliged to correct himself.
"She shouldn’t have," Cleo said sadly, her face pinched, emotion raw in her voice. "She’s a good woman, but she doesn’t have money to spend on the likes o’ you. I’m sorry for your trouble, but there’s no job for you here."
He was prepared for her answer.
"She told me that you took certain medicines from the hospital and gave them to patients who you knew were in need of them but were unable to pay."
Cleo stared at him.
He had not expected a confession. "If that were so, it would be theft, of course, and illegal," he continued. "But it would be an act which many people would admire, perhaps even wish that they had had the courage to perform themselves."
"Maybe," she agreed with a tiny smile. "But it’s still theft, like you said. Do you want me to admit it? Would it help Miriam if I did?"
"That was not my purpose in discussing it, Mrs. Anderson." He held her gaze steadily. "But a person who would do such a thing obviously placed the welfare of other people before her own. As far as I can see, it was an act, a series of acts, for which she expected no profit other than that of having done what she believed to be right and of benefit to others for whose welfare she cared. Possibly she believed in a cause."
She frowned. "Why are you saying all this? You’re talking about ’ifs’ and ’maybes.’ What do you want?"
He smiled in spite of himself. "That you should accept that occasionally people do things without expecting to be paid, because they care. Not only people like you—sometimes people like me, too."
A flush of embarrassment spread up her cheeks, and the line of her mouth softened. "I’m sorry, Mr. Rathbone, I didn’t mean to insult you. But with the best will in the world, you can’t clear me of thieving those medicines, unless you find a way to blame some other poor soul who’s innocent—and if you did that, how would I go to my Maker in peace?"
"That’s not how I work, Mrs. Anderson." He did not bother to correct her as to his title. It seemed remarkably unimportant now. "If you took the medicines, I have two options: either to plead mitigating circumstances and hope that they will judge you from the charity of your intent rather than the illegality of your act, or else to try to misdirect their attention from the theft altogether and hope that they concentrate on other matters."
"Other matters?" She shook her head. "They’re saying as I killed Treadwell because he was blackmailing me over the medicines. You can’t misdirect anybody away from that."
"And was he?"
She hesitated. Something inside her seemed to crumple. She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Yes."
He waited for her to say more, but she remained silent.
"How did he find out about the medicines?" he asked.
"I suppose it wasn’t hard." She stared ahead of her, a shadow of self-mockery in her expression. "Lot o’ people could have, if they’d wanted to think about it, and watch. I took stuff to about a score o’ the old ones who were really in a bad way. I don’t know why I talk about it in the past—they still are, an’ here’s me sittin’ here useless." She looked up at him. "There’s nothing you can do, Mr. Rathbone. All the questions in the world aren’t going to make any difference. I took the medicines, and it’ll be easy enough to prove. Treadwell worked it out. I don’t know how."
There was no argument to make. He heard footsteps along the corridor outside, but they continued on and no one disturbed them. He wondered briefly if the jailers here sympathized with her; even were it possible, they might sooner have had the law turn a blind eye to her thefts. Maybe they had little time for a blackmailer.
It was academic, only a wish. The power was not in their hands. Maybe it was a thought each would have had individually and never dared voice.
She was regarding him earnestly, her eyes anxious.
"Mr. Rathbone-don’t let them go talking to all the people I took medicines to. It’s bad enough they won’t get any help now. I don’t want them to know they were part of a crime— even though they never understood it."
He wished there was some way he could prevent that from happening, but it would soon enough become common knowledge. The trial would be written up in all the newspapers, told and retold by the running patterers, and in the gossip on every street corner. What should he tell her?
She was waiting, a flicker of hope in her face.
He regarded her almost as if he had not seen her before, not been speaking to her, forming judgments those last ten minutes. She had risked her own freedom, taken her own leap of moral decision in order to help the old and ill who could not help themselves. She had faced the most painful of realities and dealt with it. She did not deserve the condescension of being lied to. She would know the truth eventually anyway.
"I can’t stop them, Mrs. Anderson," he said gently, startled by the respect in his own voice. "And they’ll know anyway when it comes to trial. That is perhaps the only good thing about this whole affair. All London will hear of the plight of our old people to whom we owe so much—and choose not to pay. We may even hope that a few will take up the fight to have things changed."
She looked at him, hope and denial struggling in her face. She shook her head, pushing the thought away and yet unable to let go completely.
"D’you think so?"
"It is worth fighting for." He smiled very slightly. "But my first battle is for you. How long have you been paying Treadwell, and how much?"
Her voice hardened, and the pity vanished from her eyes. "Five years—an’ I paid him all I had, except a couple of shillings to live on."
Rathbone felt a tightening around his heart.
"And he asked you for more the night of his death. How much?"
Her voice sank to a whisper. She hesitated a moment before answering at all. "1 never saw him the night he died. That’s God’s truth."
He asked the question whose answer he did not want to hear and possibly he would not believe.
"Do you know who did?"
She answered instantly, her voice hard. "No, I don’t! Miriam told me nothing, except it wasn’t her. But she was in a terrible state, frightened half out of her mind an’ like the whole world had ended for her." She leaned towards him, half put out her hand, then took it back, not because the emotion or the urgency was any less, simply that she dared not touch him. "Never mind about me, Mr. Rathbone. I took the medicines. You can’t help me. But help Miriam, please! That’s what I want. If you’re my lawyer, like you said, you’ll speak up for her. She never killed him. I know her—I raised her since she was thirteen. She’s got a good heart an’ she never deliberately hurt anyone, but somebody’s hurt her so bad she’s all but dead inside. Help her—please! I’d go to the rope happy if I knew she was all right...."
He met her eyes and felt his throat choke. He believed her. It was a wild statement. She might have no real conception of what it would be like when the moment came, when the judge put on his black cap, and later when she was alone in the end, walking the short corridor towards the trap in the floor, and the short drop. Then it would be too late. But he still believed her. She had seen much death. There could be little of loneliness or pain that she was not familiar with.