Execution Dock - Anne Perry [31]
There was a distinct rustle in the gallery now. The people on either side of Hester quite blatantly turned to look at her. One even smiled and nodded.
Simmons blushed furiously.
Tremayne wisely hid his victory. He inclined his head towards the judge, as if to thank him, and then returned to his seat.
Rathbone sounded a little less certain as he called his next witness, a dockmaster named Trenton from the Pool of London. He testified to Durban's friendship over several years with the mudlarks, beggars, and petty thieves who spent most of their lives at the river's edge. This time Rathbone was more careful to allow his witness to express his own opinions. Tremayne had scored an emotional victory, but he was going to find it a great deal more difficult to score another.
“Spent time with them,” Trenton said with a slight shrug. He was a small, squarely built man with a heavy nose and mild manner, but under the respect for authority there was considerable strength, and more than fifty years of ever-hardening opinion. “Talked to ‘em, gave ‘em advice, sometimes even shared ‘is food, or gave ‘em the odd sixpence or the like.”
“Was he looking for information?” Rathbone asked.
“If ‘e was, ‘e was a fool,” Trenton answered. “You get a reputation for being a soft touch like that, an’ you'll ‘ave a line o’ folks from Tower Bridge to the Isle o’ Dogs, all ready to tell you anything you want to ‘ear, for a penny or two.”
“I see. Then what could he have been doing? Do you know?”
Trenton was well prepared. Tremayne leaned forward, ready to object to speculation, but he did not have the opportunity.
“Don't know what ‘e was doing,” he said, pushing his lower lip out in an expression of puzzlement. “Never seen another River Police, nor land neither, who spent time with beggars and drifters like ‘e did, not with boys, like. They don't know much an’ won't tell you anything that matters even if they do.”
“How do you know that, Mr. Trenton?”
“I run a dock, Sir Oliver. I ‘ave to know what people are doing on my patch, ‘specially if there's a chance it's something as they shouldn't. I kept an eye on ‘im, over the years. There aren't that many bent River Police, but it's not impossible. Not that I'm saying ‘e was, mind you!” he added hastily. “But I watched. Thought at first ‘e might be a kidsman.”
“A kidsman?” Rathbone inquired, although of course he knew the word. He asked for the benefit of the jury.
Trenton understood. “A man who gets kids to do ‘is stealing for ‘im,” he replied simply. “Mostly it's silk handkerchiefs, bits o’ money, things like that. A good leather purse, maybe. But ‘e weren't, of course.” He shrugged again. “Just River Police with more interest in kids than anyone else.”
“I see. Did he ask you about Jericho Phillips?”
Trenton rolled his eyes. “Over and over, till I was sick of telling ‘im that as far as I know ‘e's just a petty thief, a chancer. Maybe does a bit of smuggling, although we've never caught ‘im at it. Per'aps a bit of informing, but that's all.”
“Did Mr. Durban accept that answer?”
Trenton's face darkened. “No, ‘e didn't. Obsession ‘e ‘ad, and got worse towards the time ‘e died. Which was a shame,” he added quickly.
“Thank you.” Rathbone released him.
Tremayne looked indecisive from the moment he stood up. His face and his voice reflected exactly the fears that were beginning to touch Hester. Could they have been mistaken about Durban? Had he been a man who committed one marvelous act of nobility in an effort to redeem a life otherwise deeply flawed? Had they come in at the end, and thought all the rest was the same, when in fact it was not at all?
Tremayne was floundering, and he was acutely aware of it. It had been a decade since he had last been so subtly set off balance. There was nothing in Trenton's evidence to contest, nothing he could grasp firmly enough to turn or twist to any other meaning.
Hester wondered if he was beginning to have doubts as well. Did he wonder if Monk had been naive, driven by loyalty to