Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [267]
Sir Wat said, “Ye gomerel: if that’s right, why the devil didn’t you watch that first letter? You could guess what’d happen to it in the wrong hands, even if you didn’t know the lassies had gone back?”
“The thought isn’t new to me,” said Lymond, his voice empty of expression. “I took all the precautions I could at the time.”
“But not enough.”
“Obviously. If you’re anxious to analyse my feelings on that occasion,” said Lymond with sudden savagery, “you can measure them against my lapses from temperance according to the gospel of Mr. Lauder.”
“Bloody fool,” said Buccleuch briefly. “Wait a bit, Henry. If the report was in two hands there should be some difference in the writing, eh?”
But the advocate shook his head and, getting up, stretched across to the Committee’s table. “Look for yourselves.”
The paper crackled as it passed from hand to hand: the sun, much lower, was climbing up one wall, forcing Erskine to shield his eyes against the heraldic dazzle of it. Culter sat without moving, his eyes on his hands.
From the benches opposite, Mylne suddenly got up, and crossing to the prisoner’s side, bent and spoke. The Master shook his head just as Lauder sat down, the restored paper in his hands, and observed them. “Well, doctor?”
The elderly figure straightened. “If ye want to hang him, ye’d best watch your step.”
“Would you like a rest, Mr. Crawford? You mustn’t swoon.”
Buccleuch growled. “I wouldna say yes to a drink of water on the lip of Gehenna, put like that. Lauder’s on top and he knows it. Look at him! He’s a mouth like the smirk on a pig.”
The smile was certainly there, widening at Lymond’s sardonic reply. “So near the climax? I can surely hold together for the peroration, Mr. Lauder.” And the surgeon, shrugged away, disappeared.
The Lord Advocate waited for the rustle of adjustment to die down, and then stood up.
“There is no need, I think, to prolong this inquiry much further. We have heard Mr. Crawford’s explanation of what happened in London, and in Lymond, in 1542: we have seen that there is no obvious difference in the handwriting in any part of the document which he claims is only partly his: we have heard him acknowledge responsibility for the appalling and cold-blooded crime whose results we know.
“On the one side, we have an explanation of these events which, if dreadful in its violence and its story of degeneration, is both straightforward and likely, and is supported both by documentary evidence and by part of the proofs supplied by Mr. Crawford himself. On the other, there is the history of what must appear an incredible twist of fate, which placed the defendant helpless at the mercy of powerful forces in London.
“We are asked to believe that he incurred the sympathetic interest of one of the highest ladies of the land, but that she could do nothing to help him: that while fervently supporting the Scottish cause he was feckless enough to allow a dangerous secret to fall into enemy hands: that there existed, as there exists in romances, some terrible English plot of which he happened to gain knowledge. Do all these things seem likely?”
The pause was for effect, but Gledstanes, meticulous and canny, broke in. “It doesn’t seem to me to be incontrovertible that the two halves of this letter are in the same hand. Also the suggestion about blowing up the convent seems gratuitous, if intended for English readers. Seems unnecessary and argues a callousness I find hard to believe. Particularly since—assuming he was a spy—the man surely expected when he wrote it to be sent back to Scotland in due course.”
Bishop Reid barely waited for him to end. “The answer to that surely lies as Lauder has already said in proof of character. The man’s led a life of abandon and profligacy—he hasn’t denied it. There’s the blind girl. The sister-in-law. The Scott boy—” He paused as Sir Walter shot up and was pressed down again by a neighbour.