Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [142]
“Thank you, my lord,” Rathbone said ironically. Hester believed that he was, in fact, spinning out time, but she had no idea what for. What, or whom, was he expecting? She felt the first sudden shiver of hope.
Rathbone looked up at Whitney. “You have given us examples of other ways in which a more efficient fraud could be perpetuated. Have you knowledge of any such fraud—I mean a specific circumstance?”
Whitney looked slightly puzzled.
“For example,” Rathbone assisted him, “in Liverpool almost sixteen years ago? The company involved was Baltimore and Sons. There was a falsification of a survey, the grid references were changed . . .”
Fowler stood up again.
“Sit down, Mr. Fowler!” the judge commanded. He looked at Rathbone sternly. “I presume you have facts, Sir Oliver? Be careful you do not slander anyone.”
“It is a matter of record, my lord,” Rathbone assured him. “A man named Arrol Dundas was convicted of the crime, and unfortunately died in prison of jail fever. But the details of the crime were made public at the trial.”
“I see. The relevance to this present case may easily be guessed, nevertheless we require you to prove it.”
“Yes, my lord. I shall prove that records of it were kept by Baltimore and Sons, therefore it was known to senior members of the present company, even though they were not involved—in fact, not even out of school—at the time.”
“Very interesting. Be sure that it is also relevant to Mr. Dalgarno’s innocence.”
“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone drew out a few more details from Whitney, then excused him. Fowler looked as if he were considering asking him something, then declined, and Whitney left the stand.
Hester looked at Monk, but it was obvious from his tense, white face and the confusion in his eyes that he did not know what Rathbone was planning any more than she did. He was frowning, and staring at the court clerk, busily taking notes, his right hand bandaged. Fortunately, he wrote with his left.
Rathbone then called a junior clerk from Baltimore and Sons and drew from him the statement that the records of the earlier dealings were available—not easily, but a diligent search by a company member would elicit them all.
“And was the case public knowledge?” Rathbone said finally.
“Oh, yes, sir.”
Fowler tried to show that it was an abstruse piece of information, never discussed and unlikely to come to the attention of Dalgarno.
“I couldn’t say, sir,” the clerk replied soberly. “I would think such things would be known, sir, even if only as an object lesson in what not to do.”
Fowler retreated. “I still say, my lord, that incompetence does not equal innocence!” he said tartly. “The Crown does not say that the accused committed fraud well, merely that he did it!”
Rathbone opened his eyes very wide. “If the Crown wishes, my lord, I can call a number of witnesses to demonstrate that Mr. Dalgarno was an ambitious and extremely able young man, that he rose from a relatively minor position to become one of the partners—”
The judge held up his hand. “You have already done so, Sir Oliver. We take the point that the nature of the fraud with which he is charged is far less efficient than the earlier example for which Mr. Dundas was found guilty. The only thing relevant to this case appears to be the fact that the earlier case may well have been known to Mr. Dalgarno, and one wonders why he did not emulate it, if fraud was his intention. So far you have not completed your task. Please be succinct!”
“Yes, my lord.” Rathbone recalled the foreman of the team of navvies who had worked on the Derby line, and drew from him greater and more tedious detail of the cutting and blasting necessary to drive a track through a hillside, coupled with the labor and cost of building a viaduct. He could equally easily have asked Jarvis Baltimore, but the navvy was not only more skilled in detail, he was demonstrably impartial.
The court did not bother to hide its total lack of interest.
They adjourned for luncheon. Monk told Hester to go with Margaret and he would join them later.