“Well, there must ’a bin summink, mustn’t there?” he said reasonably. “ ’Cos arter a few minutes like, ’is lordship banged on the door an’ shouted fer ’elp, shouted real loud, like ’e were in terrible trouble—which o’ course ’e were.” He took a deep breath, still staring at Monk. “So me an’ Jimson, we both went to the door, immediate like. Jimson unlocked it, an’ I stood ready, not knowin’ what ter expec’.”
“And what did you find?”
He looked over towards the cell door about ten feet away, and still very slightly ajar.
“ ’Is lordship staggerin’ an’ beatin’ on the doors wi’ ’is fists,” he answered, his voice strained. “An’ ’e were all covered in blood, like ’e is now.” He glanced at Ravensbrook, then away again. “The prisoner were in an ’eap on the floor, wi’ even more blood on ’im. I can’t remember wot I said, nor wot Jimson said neither. ’E ’elped ’is lordship out, an’ I went ter the prisoner.” He kept his eyes fixed on Monk’s face, as if to block out what was in his mind. “I knelt down by ’im an’ reached for ’is ’and, like, ter see if ’e were alive. I couldn’t feel nothin’. Although ter be ’onest wif yer, sir, I dunno as ’ow I weren’t shakin’ so much I wouldn’t a’ knowed anyway. But I think ’e were dead already. I never seen so much blood in me life.”
“I see.” Monk’s eye strayed involuntarily towards the half-open cell door. He forced his attention back to the man in front of him. “And then what?”
The gaoler looked at Ravensbrook, but Ravensbrook gave him no prompt whatsoever; in fact, from the fixed expression on his face, he might not even have heard what they said.
“We asked ’is lordship what ’ad ’appened,” the gaoler said unhappily. “Although anyone could see as there’d bin a terrible fight, an’ some’ow the prisoner’d got the worst o’ it.”
“And when you asked Lord Ravensbrook, what did he s
ay?”
“ ’E said as the prisoner’d leaped on ’im and attacked ’im when ’e ’ad the penknife out ter recut the nib, and ’though ’e’d done ’is best ter fight ’im off, in the struggle, ’e’d got ’isself stabbed, an’ it were all over in a matter o’ seconds. Caught the vein in ’is throat and whoosh! Gorn.” He swallowed hard, his concentration on Monk intense. “Don’ get me wrong, sir, I wouldn’t never ’ave had it ’appen, but maybe there’s some justice in it. Don’t deserve ter get away wi’ murderin’ ’is bruvver, like. No one do. But I ’ates an ’anging. Jimson says as I’m soft, but it in’t the way for no man ter go.”
“Thank you.” Monk did not volunteer an opinion, but a certain sense of his agreement was in his silence, and the absence of censure in his voice.
At last Monk turned to Ravensbrook and spoke clearly and with emphasis.
“Lord Ravensbrook, will you please tell us exactly what happened? It is most important, sir.”
Ravensbrook looked up very slowly, focusing on Monk with difficulty, like a man wakening from a deep sleep.
“I beg your pardon?”
Monk repeated his words.
“Oh. Yes. Of course.” He drew in his breath and let it out silently. “I’m sorry.” For several more seconds he said nothing, until Rathbone was about to prompt him. Then at last he spoke. “He was in a very strange mood,” he said slowly, speaking as if his lips were stiff, his tongue unwilling to obey him. His voice was curiously flat. Rathbone had seen it before in people suffering shock. “At first he seemed pleased to see me,” Ravensbrook went on. “Almost relieved. We spoke about trivialities for a few minutes. I asked him if he needed anything, if there was anything I could do for him.” He swallowed, and Rathbone could see his throat tighten.
“Straightaway he said that there was.” Ravensbrook was speaking to Monk, ignoring Rathbone. “He wanted to write a statement. I thought perhaps he was going to make a clean breast of it, some kind of confession, for Genevieve’s sake. Tell her where Angus’s body was.” He was not looking directly at Monk, but at some distance of the mind, some region of thought or hope.
“And was that what he wanted?” Rathbone asked, although he held no belief that it could have been. It was only a last, wild chance that he might have said something. But what could it matter, except that Genevieve would have some clearer idea. And was that good or bad? Perhaps ignorance was more merciful.
Ravensbrook looked at him for the first time.
“No …” he said thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think he even intended to write anything. But I believed him. I came out and asked for the materials, which were brought me. I took them back in. He grasped the pen from me, put it in the inkwell, which I had placed on the table, then made an attempt to write. I think he forced it. Then he looked up at me and said the nib was blunt and had divided, would I recut it.” He moved his shoulders very slightly, not quite a shrug. “Of course I agreed. He gave it to me. I wiped it clean so I could see what I was doing, and then I took out my knife, opened it …”
No one in the room moved. The gaoler seemed mesmerized. There was no sound of the outer world, the courthouse beyond the heavy, iron door.
Ravensbrook looked back at Monk again, his eyes dark and full of nightmare. Then, almost as if closing curtains within his mind, he looked just beyond him. His voice was a little high-pitched, as if he could not open his throat. “The next moment I felt a ringing blow, and I was forced back against the wall, and Caleb was on top of me.” He took a deep breath. “We struggled for several moments. I did all I could to free myself, but he had an extraordinary strength. He seemed determined to kill me, and it was all I could do to force the knife away from my throat. I made a tremendous effort, I suppose seeing the nearness of death in the blade. I don’t know exactly how it occurred. He jerked back, slipped, and missed his footing somehow, and fell, pulling me on top of him.”
Rathbone tried to visualize it, the fear, the violence, the confusion. It was not difficult.
“When I freed myself and managed to rise to my feet,” Ravensbrook went on, “he was lying there with the knife in his throat and blood pouring from the wound. There was nothing I could do. God help him. At least he is at some sort of peace now. He’ll be spared the …” He took another long, deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “The judicial … process.”
Rathbone glanced at Monk, and saw the same look of distress in his face, and also the knowledge that there was no retreat or evasion possible.
“Thank you,” Monk acknowledged Ravensbrook, then with Rathbone behind him, walked over and pushed the cell door wider and went inside. Caleb Stone was lying on the floor in a sheet of blood. It lay in a scarlet tide around his head and shoulders. The penknife, a beautiful silver engraved thing, was lying upside down against his neck, as if it had fallen out of the wound with its own weight. There was no question that he was dead. The beautiful green eyes were open, and quite blind. There was in his face a look of resignation, as if he had at last let go of something which was both a possession and a torture, and the ease of it had surprised him.
Monk looked for something to tell him some fact beyond that which Ravensbrook or the gaoler had said, and saw nothing. There were no contradictions, no suggestions of anything additional, anything unexplained by the account of a simple, stupid piece of violence. The only question was had he been impulsive, in a sudden overwhelming rage, perhaps like the rage that had killed Angus, or had it been a deliberately planned way of committing suicide before the hangman could take his life in the slow, exquisite mind-torture of conviction, sentence and hanging?
He turned to Rathbone, and saw an understanding of the same question in his face.
Before either of them could form it in words there was a noise behind them, the heavy clank of an iron bolt in a lock, and then Hester’s voice. Monk swung around and came out of the cell, almost pushing Rathbone forward into the outer room.