The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [128]
Sylvestra looked at Hester, her eyes terrified, questioning.
“Dr. Wade is with him,” Hester said in answer. “He is distressed, of course, but he is not in any danger. And naturally he will remain here.” Her voice dropped. “I asked him if he was guilty, and he shook his head vehemently.”
“But …” Sylvestra stammered. “But …” She looked at Monk, then at Evan, behind Hester.
“That is not helpful, Hester,” Monk said sharply.
Sylvestra looked bemused. Her hands moved as if to grasp at something, and closed on air. Her body was rigid and she moved jerkily, increasingly close to hysteria. At this very moment, her need was greater than Rhys’s.
Hester went over to her and touched her, taking her arms.
“There is nothing we can do tonight, but in the morning we must plan ahead. The charge has been made. It must be answered, whatever that answer is. Mr. Monk is a private agent of enquiry. There may yet be more to discover, and naturally you will employ the best legal counsel you can. Just now you must keep up your strength. No doubt Dr. Wade will tell his sister, but I will tell Mrs. Kynaston, if you would find that easier.”
“I … don’t know …” Sylvestra was shaking violently and her skin was cold where Hester held her.
Evan moved uncomfortably. He should not be witnessing this agony. His task was completed here. This was an intrusion, as it was for Monk. He looked at Hester. She was absorbed in her feelings for Sylvestra. He and Monk barely touched the periphery of her mind.
“Hester …” It was Monk who spoke, but hesitantly.
Evan looked at him. Monk’s face was filled with pity so profound it stood naked, startling, and it was a moment or two before Evan realized it was for Hester, not the woman who had received such a devastating blow. It was not only pity, there was also in it a burning admiration and a tenderness which betrayed his defenses utterly.
Evan longed for Hester to turn and see it, but she was consumed by her anguish for Sylvestra.
Evan walked towards the door. He was in the hall when he saw Dr. Wade coming down the stairs. The doctor looked haggard, and he still had the trace of a limp remaining from his accident.
“There will be no possibility of your moving him,” he said as he neared the bottom. “Whether he will be fit to stand a trial I cannot say.”
“We will have to have a medical opinion of more than one man to that,” Evan answered him. He looked at Wade’s strained expression, the darkness in his eyes and what he thought might even be fear, or the shadow of fear to come.
“Sergeant …”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Have …” Wade bit his lip. What he was about to say seemed to hurt him intensely. He struggled with it, hovered on the edge of decision, and finally summoned the strength. “Have you considered the possibility that he is not sane … not responsible, as you and I understand the sense?”
So Wade accepted that Rhys was guilty. Was it simply the evidence they had presented? Or did he know something from Rhys himself, some communication, some long knowledge and perception of the boy’s nature over the years?
“No man could do what was done to those women, Doctor, and be what you and I understand as sane,” Evan replied quickly. “Blame is not for us to decide … thank God.”
Wade took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, then nodded his acknowledgment and walked past Evan to the withdrawing room door.
10
After Monk and Evan had left, Corriden Wade remained in the withdrawing room, pacing the floor, unable to be still long enough to sit. Sylvestra was motionless, staring into space as if all will and strength within her had died. Hester stood by the fire.
“I’m sorry,” Wade said passionately, looking at Sylvestra. “I’m so sorry. I had no conception this would happen … it is the most ghastly thing.”
Hester stared at him. Had he seen some darkness in Rhys all the time, and feared disaster, but something less than this, less intense, less irretrievable than death? Looking at his face now,