Execution Dock - Anne Perry [120]
“Thank you,” Rathbone accepted. “That would be very good of you.”
Cribb hesitated an instant, looking very steadily at Rathbone, then he excused himself and left, closing the door behind him.
Rathbone felt vile, as if he were about to steal something. The diary was on the shelf. He was committed. Whether he looked at it now or not, Cribb would believe that he had.
What was Rathbone trying to do? Find the truth, whoever it saved, or lost.
He took the book down and searched the right pages. Rapidly, little more than scribbling, he took down the names. He was barely finished and had only just replaced the diary on the shelf when Cribb returned, carefully making a noise with his feet on the boards outside before he opened the door.
Cribb set the tea tray down on the desk.
“Thank you,” Rathbone said, his mouth dry.
“Shall I pour, sir?” Cribb offered.
“If you please.” Rathbone found that his own hands were shaking. He considered offering Cribb some kind of appreciation. What would be suitable, and not insulting? Thirty pieces of silver?
Cribb poured the tea, a cup for Rathbone, nothing for himself.
It was the most difficult thing Rathbone had ever swallowed. It tasted sour, and he was aware that it was he himself who had poisoned it.
“Thank you,” he said aloud. He wanted to add something, but it was all contrived, insulting.
“You are welcome, Sir Oliver,” Cribb replied calmly. He appeared to see nothing odd in Rathbone's manner, in fact to be totally unaware of his appalling discomfort. “I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and I am afraid I can think of no solution for it.”
“I was wrong to have asked,” Rathbone replied, and that at least he was absolutely certain about. “I must seek some other solution.” He finished the tea. “Please do not trouble Mr. Ballinger with it until I can think of some way to ease his mind at the same time as I tell him of it. If I am fortunate, it may turn out to be an error anyway.”
“Let us hope so, sir,” Cribb agreed. “In the meantime, as you say, it would be better not to distress Mr. Ballinger unnecessarily.”
Rathbone thanked him again, and Cribb walked with him to the front door. Rathbone went down the steps into the street heavy-footed, imprisoned within himself and weighed down with a moral dilemma from which there was now no escape.
He went straight to his own office and spent the next four hours comparing notes of cases he knew, court dates, and trials past and pending against the names he had copied down from Ballinger's diary. He pursued every one to its conclusion, finding out who the people were, of what they were accused, by whom they were defended, and what had been the verdict.
Most of the cases were trivial and easy enough to dismiss as regular business. In fact, many were to do with family estates, wills, and quarrels over property. Some were trials or settlements out of court for cases of financial incompetence or malfeasance. Those that had gone to trial and were concluded he could also discount. Their course was clear, and now in the public domain, simple cases of moral decline ending in tragedy, common enough.
In the end he was left with only three who could be Phillips's benefactor, or victim! Sir Arnold Baldwin, Mr. Malcolm Cassidy and Lord Justice Sullivan. It was that last name that caused him to freeze and his hands to clench the paper. But that was ridiculous. Lord Justice Sullivan had to have a solicitor, like any other man. He would have property, in all likelihood a house in London and a home in the country. Property always involved deeds, money, and possible disputes. And of course there were wills and inheritances and other matters of ownership and litigation.
His immediate task was to