Acceptable Loss - Anne Perry [114]
Claudine looked at her, and her eyes were suddenly tired and bitterly unhappy. “Then you had better ask Lady Rathbone. She was here that morning, working in the laundry and the medicine room, just checking on supplies. She will know who is lying.”
Hester was stunned. “Margaret was here?”
Claudine’s face was unreadable. “Yes.”
“How long?”
“About an hour, that I know of.” Claudine watched her steadily.
“In the laundry?”
“Yes. Hester … I don’t believe any of the women here would lie to you. In addition to their gratitude, and perhaps fear for their future chances of treatment, why would they? They’d lie to anyone else to protect you, as easily as breathing, but not this. They all knew you wanted Hattie protected.”
Hester knew that was true. It was Margaret who’d had every reason to fear Hattie’s testimony. It had just never occurred to Hester that she would do this. In fact, for Hattie to have gone back to Chiswick and ended in the river, Margaret must have done far more than simply getting Hattie to leave.
“She done it?” Scuff asked, looking from Hester to Claudine and back again.
“Not killed her,” Hester said quickly. “But, yes, it does look as if she took her away from here.”
“Then, who killed ’er?” he said, his eyes full of disbelief.
“I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what she did, or what she meant to happen. But I’m going to find out.” She turned to Claudine. “Thank you. I think it’s best if you don’t say anything more to people here, even if they ask you. Please?”
“Of course I won’t.”
Claudine seemed about to add something more, then changed her mind. Hester guessed that it was some kind of warning, and from the troubled gentleness of her face, a sympathy. She smiled back, not needing words.
AFTER A SHORT, VERY firm discussion in which she told Scuff he was definitely not coming with her, Hester put him in a hansom and paid the driver to take him to the Wapping police station. She gave him fare for the ferry home, and she went on to the court.
Even the pavement outside was bustling with people, all eager to catch any word about what was going on inside. It was only with the help of an usher who knew her that Hester managed to get in at all. He escorted her through the hallway, and with some use of his authority, into the very back of the courtroom.
She had not long to wait—just a few minutes of Winchester’s argument—and then the judge adjourned the court for luncheon. Hester was buffeted by the crowd pouring out, first from the back of the gallery, and then at last from the front. She saw Lord Cardew, pale-faced, looking a decade older than he had just a few weeks ago. She was ashamed of being so relieved that he did not see her. What could she say to him that would even touch the pain he must be feeling? How much courage did it cost just to come out of the house, let alone to sit here and listen as the horror grew deeper, and the doubt ate into all that had once been so bright and safe?
Then she saw Margaret and her mother, side by side, just behind two other couples, pale-faced and tense. They also looked neither to right nor left, as if they could see no one. The resemblance in the women—something in the angle of the head, a shape of eyebrow—made Hester believe that they were Margaret’s sisters and their respective husbands.
But it was Margaret she needed to speak to, and alone.
She stepped forward, blocking Mrs. Ballinger’s way. It was discourteous, to say the least, but she had no better alternative.
Mrs. Ballinger stopped abruptly, her face filled with alarm. But Margaret hesitated only an instant, then, grasping the elements of the situation, turned to her mother.
“Mama, it seems Mrs. Monk needs to speak to me. Something must have occurred at the clinic.”
“Then, it can wait!” Mrs. Ballinger said between her teeth. “It is not even imaginable that anything there could be of importance to us now.”
“Mama—”
“Margaret, I do not care if the place has burned to the ground! Does she expect us to pass buckets of water?” She swiveled away