Twenty-One Days (Daniel Pitt #1)(76)

‘And you’ll have to testify as to who Winifred was, and how she died,’ he went on. ‘And that you deliberately disfigured her so she would be mistaken for you . . . knowing that Russell Graves could very well be hanged for it.’

‘Will they send me to prison? What about Sarah and Arthur? They knew nothing about it at all!’

Daniel would have known from the timbre of her voice, the fear in her eyes that she was lying. He did not need Sarah’s admission. He preferred not to know about Arthur.

‘Ebony, Sarah helped you—’

‘No! Sarah knew nothing about it!’ Her voice was shrill and she shook her head vigorously.

‘You used silk, and linseed oil, from Arthur’s paint supplies—’

She looked at Sarah, and then forced herself to look at Daniel again. ‘No!’

‘Yes, you did,’ Miriam insisted. Her voice was steady and calm. Ebony would not have heard the pain in it, but Daniel did. ‘She was dead. You didn’t hurt her. You just disguised her as yourself. You put your clothes on her. And her clothes in your wardrobe. It was a way for you to escape at last.’

‘Sarah didn’t . . .’

‘I know,’ Daniel took over again. ‘You did that all by yourself. Or were you going to tell me that Mr Falthorne helped you?’

The struggle in her face was obvious. It was painful to watch.

‘I can help you, but I have to know the truth.’ Was he making more rash promises he was not able to keep? ‘Ebony, if you lie the court will know it! Do you want to be hanged for killing Winifred?’

‘I didn’t kill her!’ Her voice was desperate now. ‘She came at me, screaming, clawing. I pushed her away. She was trying to get at my face, my eyes. I pushed her and she fell backwards over her own skirts and hit her head on the hearthstone. I swear!’

‘Then help me prove it! For Sarah and Arthur’s sake, if not your own!’ Daniel begged. But he wanted her freed as well, and Graves proved a liar and totally discredited, and imprisoned long enough to break him. ‘Please!’

She stared at him, searching his eyes, looking for hope, belief that she could trust him. She couldn’t believe, but she was tired of fighting, and there was no one else to turn to. ‘All right. But Sarah had nothing to do with it! You’ve got to prove that!’

Daniel glanced at Miriam, but she shook her head, just a fraction, as he had known she would.

He did not tell Ebony that it was not true, and he knew it. One problem at a time. There was no other, better answer.

Miriam held out her hand. Wearily, too exhausted to fight any more, Ebony took it.





Chapter Eighteen


It was now little over a week before Russell Graves would hang, if they did not launch an appeal against his conviction, which, since Ebony was not dead, would not be difficult to substantiate.

Miriam had taken the X-rays of both Ebony and Sarah, and was satisfied that they were clear and accurate.

‘See,’ Miriam said in her laboratory in the cellar, as she pointed to the X-ray machine’s pictures of Ebony. ‘The bones here have been broken also, and here, and here, in the wrist.’

‘Could it have been an accident?’ Daniel hoped profoundly that it could not.

‘Hardly one accident,’ Miriam murmured. ‘See how they are differently shaded? This one on the wrist is plain? The other one is duller white, and this one is the whitest of all, that means it is older. It was healed a long time ago. I would estimate it is sixteen or seventeen years old. There are others there, in the left leg, and another in the right foot. And three ribs. There are no two made at the same time. And nobody has that many accidents.’

‘We can’t prove he caused them, can we?’ Daniel held only the faintest hope, but it was worth asking. ‘Someone must know!’

‘The lady’s maid probably does. Except he would have got rid of her. I’ll wager you that she has had a series of maids.’

‘Wouldn’t she want to keep them, to look after her? She must have wanted someone to trust,’ he insisted.

She rolled her eyes, in momentary exasperation. ‘Daniel, for heaven’s sake, she wouldn’t hire the servants! He would! And he’d get rid of a maid who knew too much, whether she was brave or rash enough to say so or not.’

Daniel had a sudden, searing impression of Ebony’s loneliness. What a fa?ade she must have kept from society, from her friends, the people beside whom she fought for the same issues she cared about, and even from her servants.

How many of them knew anyway, and were too tactful to let her see? Or too afraid? He felt almost overwhelmed with his revulsion for the man! ‘We have to prove it. We can’t let him go back to that again. And Sarah—’

‘I wish we could let him hang,’ Miriam said seriously, the light completely gone from her face. ‘But we can’t.’ She looked at him intently. ‘What are you going to do, Daniel?’

‘I cannot leave it any longer before telling Kitteridge, whose case this is. And I have to tell Mr fford Croft when I am certain I know what proof I have of anything. But . . .’ He stopped. He wanted to tell her more about the biography, which was always on his mind. He struggled for a way to tell her without admitting that there was some strong element of truth in the accusations about his father – at least about the things that Narraway had known about vulnerable people, people who had made mistakes somewhere, and thus had given a lifetime as hostages to fortune. His father had said there was such a file. One could not work in Special Branch without learning some people’s secrets, at least. It was judgement, a balancing act, weighing one person’s happiness against perhaps someone else’s life.