Rathbone took a deep breath and laid his reputation in the balance. “Or there is the third possibility, sir; that it was not Caleb who attacked Lord Ravensbrook, but that the outcome was exactly what was meant from the beginning.”

There was utter silence, not even an indrawn breath of disbelief. It was as if life in the room were suspended. Enid was ashen-faced, Genevieve paralyzed.

Finally the coroner spoke.

“Mr. Rathbone, are you suggesting that Lord Ravensbrook intentionally killed Caleb Stone?”

“I am suggesting that it is a possibility, sir.”

Goode closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, anguish written all over his face.

Two spots of color touched Milo Ravensbrook's cheeks, but he neither moved nor spoke.

Selina Herries bit her knuckles and stared at Rathbone. “In God's name, man, for what conceivable reason?” the coroner asked.

The door opened at the back of the court and Monk came in, drenched with rain, tousled and exhausted for lack of sleep, but accompanied by an elderly man and a stout woman in black.

Rathbone felt weak with relief. His voice trembled as he answered the coroner.

“I will call witnesses to answer that question, sir. I shall begin with the Reverend Horatio Nicolson, of Chilverley, with your permission.”

The coroner hesitated. He looked around the room, saw the wide-eyed faces, the anticipation, the journalists who were still present sitting with pencil in hand, faces bright with eagerness. He could not disallow it. “I shall stop you if for one instant there is irrelevance, or any attempt at unsubstantiated attack!” he warned. “Be very careful, Mr. Rathbone, very careful indeed! I will have no one's good name taken lightly.”

Rathbone bowed his head in acknowledgment and called Horatio Nicolson to the witness stand.

Slowly, with deep regret and obvious embarrassment, the Reverend Nicolson mounted the witness stand and took the oath.

Rathbone began by establishing precisely who he was so that the court might understand his importance.

“So you knew Lord Ravensbrook and his family quite well at the time Angus Stonefield came to Chilverley?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” Nicolson answered, his face grave.

“Did you come to know Angus?”

“Yes. I tutored him in Latin, beginning when he was about eight, I believe. He was an excellent student, intelli gent, willing and quick to learn. A most agreeable boy, so thoughtful and well mannered.” He smiled at the memory, in spite of himself.

“My wife was especially fond of him. She worried about him. He was quite often ill, you know, and at times seemed very withdrawn.” His voice dropped a little. “There was a sadness in him, especially when he was very young.

Most rational, I suppose, having lost both his parents at such an early age.”

“Did he continue to be such an excellent student, Mr. Nicolson?” Rathbone asked.

Nicolson's face pinched with grief.

“No. I am afraid he became very erratic. At times he was excellent, his old self. And then there would be occasions when I would hardly see him for several weeks.”

“Do you know the reason for this?”

Nicolson drew in a deep breath and let it out in a silent sigh. “I asked, naturally. Lord Ravensbrook confided in me that he had become most recalcitrant at times, hard to discipline, and on occasion even openly rebellious.”

There was a faint rustling in the room. No one was yet interested.

Nicolson's head lifted. “Although I must say in his defense that Lord Ravensbrook was a hard man to please.” He spoke as if he had not seen Ravensbrook in the room, nor did his eyes move towards where he sat, stiff and pale. “He was handsome, charming and talented himself,” Nicolson continued. “And he expected those in his own family to come up to his standards. If they did not, he was harsh in his criticism.”

“But Angus was not, strictly speaking, his own family,” Rathbone pointed out. “Except distantly. Was he not the child of a cousin?”

Nicolson's face tightened, touched with a deep pity. “No sir, he was the illegitimate son of his younger brother, Phineas Ravensbrook. Stonefield was the young woman's name, which was all he was legally entitled to. But he was Ravensbrook by blood.”

Rathbone heard the murmur of surprise around the room, the indrawn breath.

The coroner leaned forward, as if about to interrupt, then changed his mind.

“Why did Lord Ravensbrook not adopt him?” Rathbone asked. “Especially since he had lost his wife and had no children of his own.”

“Lord Ravensbrook and his brother were not close, sir.” Nicolson shook his head, a great weight of sadness in his voice, and in the gentle lines of his face. “There was tension between them, a deep-lying rivalry that could take no joy in the other's happiness or success. Milo, the present Lord Ravensbrook, was the elder. He was clever, charming and talented, but I think his ambition was even larger than his abilities, considerable as they were.”

Memory lit his face. “Phineas was quite different. He had such vitality, such laughter and imagination. Everyone loved Phineas. And he seemed to have no ambition at all, except to enjoy himself…”

The coroner leaned across his table.

“Mr. Rathbone! Is this of any relevance to Caleb Stonefield's death? It seems to be very old history, and of a very personal nature. Can you justify it in this court?”

“Yes sir, it is at the very core of it,” Rathbone said with feeling momentary to passion. Something of the rage and the emergency in him must have been there in his voice and the angles of his body. Every eye was on him, and the coroner hesitated only a moment before permitting him to proceed.

Rathbone nodded to Nicolson.

“I am afraid he got away with much that perhaps he should not,” Nicolson said quietly, but his voice carried even to the back of the room in the silence. “He could smile at people, and they forgot their anger. They forgave him far too much for his own good, or for Milo's. The sense of injustice, you see? As if all the pleasures and pains of life could be weighed against each other-only God can do that… at the end, when it is all known.”

He sighed. “Perhaps that is why he was so harsh with poor Angus, to try to prevent him following in his father's footsteps. Such charm can be a terrible curse, undoing all that would be good in a man. It is not right that we should laugh our way out of justice. It teaches us all the wrong lessons.”

“Was Lord Ravensbrook so very harsh, Mr. Nicolson?”

“In my opinion, yes sir.”

“In what way?”

The coroner's face pinched, but he did not interrupt.

In the room there was a scrape of fabric on fabric, the squeak of a boot.

Milo Ravensbrook fidgeted and moved as if to speak, but did not.

Nicolson looked wretched, but he did not hesitate to reply in a soft, steady voice.

“He seemed at times impossible to please. He would humiliate the boy for mistakes, for foolishness which was merely born of ignorance, or uncertainty, lack of confidence. And of course the more a child is embarrassed, the more mistakes he makes. It is a terrible thing to feel worthless, sir, to feel you owe a debt of gratitude, and instead of paying it, you have to let down those you most wish to please.” He pressed on with difficulty through his obvious emotion. “As a small boy I saw Angus many times struggling to keep from weeping, and then the shame he felt when he could no longer help it, and was then chastened for that too. And he was bitterly ashamed of being beaten, which he was frequently. It terrified him, and then he felt himself a coward because of it.”

In the crowd a woman stifled a sob.

Selina Herries had not wept for Caleb's death. It was still too new a shock for her, her feelings towards the man too mixed between pride, contempt, and fear of him. Now her feelings for the child he must have been were simple. She let the tears run down her face without shame or hindrance.