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“Terribly sorry,” Leighton said to Benjamin. “Dreadful thing to happen. Good of you to come up, Rathbone. What can I do for you?” He was a thin man, full of nervous energy but with a grave voice, nearer Henry's age than Benjamin's.

Benjamin's face was slightly flushed, as much from helpless anger as the sharp edge of the cold outside. “There's a lot about Judah's death that makes no sense,” he replied. “I wanted to find the truth of what happened.” He stood in the middle of the room, lean, broad-shouldered, skin burned brown by the sun of the Holy Land, his face hard.

Leighton had been a country doctor for twenty years. He understood grief and the anger that prompted men to fight it. He leaned against the bookcase and regarded Benjamin seriously. “The facts are simple. Judah went out for a walk at about half past ten in the evening. There was a half moon, but it was still extremely dark. He took a lantern, which was found washed up on the banks of the stream a few yards from where he was. When he did not return home, some little while after midnight, Antonia became sufficiently alarmed to send out the male servants to search for him. They found his body caught in the rocks of the fall a short distance below the stepping-stones.”

“I know all that!” Benjamin said impatiently. “Henry told me. What was he doing there? Why did he go out at all? Why did he try crossing icy stepping-stones at night? Where was he going? How does a strong man drown in two feet of water? The stream isn't running fast enough to sweep anyone off their feet, even at this time of the year. I've fallen off those stepping-stones a dozen times, and got no worse than wet clothes!”

“You can fall off a horse a hundred times and get no worse than bruises, or a broken collarbone,” Leighton said reasonably. “But the hundred and first fall can kill you. Benjamin, don't look for reasons where there are none. He slipped in the dark and fell badly. He struck his head on the stones and it knocked him senseless. If it hadn't, no doubt he'd have climbed out and walked home again. Tragically, it did.”

“How do you know he struck his head when he fell?” Benjamin challenged. “How do you know no one struck him?”

Leighton's face darkened. “Don't start thinking like that, Benjamin,” he warned. “There's no evidence to suggest anything of the sort. Judah slipped. It was a tragic accident. He drowned. The stream carried him down to the fall, and…”

“You examined him?” Benjamin interrupted.

“Of course I did.”

“What did you find, exactly?”

Leighton sighed. “That the cause of death was drowning. There were several abrasions on his head and shoulders, one where a smooth stone had struck him, which would be when he fell, several others rougher, where the current carried him down onto the fall.”

“Are you sure it was those stones?” Benjamin persisted.

“Yes. The wounds had little bits of riverweed in them, and his hands were scraped by the gravel at the bottom.” His face was sad and patient. “Benjamin, there's nothing more to it than I've told you. Don't look for reasons or fairness in it. There aren't any. It is an unjust tragedy, the death of a good man who should have lived a long and happy life. These things happen, probably more often than you know, because it doesn't hit you like this unless it was someone you loved. People die on the mountains, there are boating accidents on the lakes, falls in the hunting field. I'm sorry.”

“But why was he out crossing the stream in the middle of the night?” Benjamin could not let it go.

Leighton frowned. “Nobody knows that. I don't suppose we ever will. Look to what matters now. Help Antonia to come to terms with it. Be a support to her, and do what you can for young Joshua. They need your strength now, not a lot of questions to which we'll find no answers. And even if we found them all, they would make no difference to what happened. Make the best of what is left.”

Benjamin looked bewildered. “And Ashton Gower?” he demanded angrily. “Who is going to silence him? I swear by God, if he goes on blackening Judah's name,