As I drew closer, I saw that Rowley clutched a thick volume to his chest. He had fallen asleep. I was tempted, I confess, to take my revenge there. To grab him by his throat and allow him to wake to the nightmare of his own death. The cruelty of so mad an experience appealed to me, and certainly he deserved no less. But no matter how satisfying, I understood that the crime would accomplish little.

I stood before him and made coughing noises until he stirred sufficiently. His fleshy eyelids flickered and fluttered, and his jowls danced a rousing dance. He wiped the drool off his lips with the back of his sleeve and reached out for his wine goblet.

“What is it, Daws?” he asked absently, but when the silver rim of the goblet met his lips, his eyes, for the first time, focused upon my face, and he knew I was not Daws. He sat up straight, forgetting about the wine, which fell into his lap. “Weaver,” he whispered.

“Mr. Daws is incapacitated,” I told him, “and your butler, whose name I did not learn, has broken his head.”

He pushed himself backward into the chair. “You’ve got yourself out,” he noted, with the slightest of smiles.

I saw no point in confirming the obvious. “You were determined to see the jury convict me,” I said. “Why?”

“You must take that up with the jury,” he shot back, now attempting to escape by pushing himself through the back of the chair. The pressure forced his jowls out like wings, and he looked more like a costume mask than a man.

“No, I must take that up with you. You showed no interest in learning the truth of Yate’s death. You concerned yourself with nothing more than seeing me convicted, and then you did not hesitate to sentence me to hang. I want to know why.”

“Murder is a dreadful crime,” he said, very softly. “It must be punished.”

“So must be the attempt at murder, for I cannot regard your treatment of me as anything but.”

Rowley stopped squirming, as though he had decided all at once to be bold rather than timid. “You may regard what you like. Your opinions are your own, so you must not make me accountable for them.”

I took a step closer. “Allow me to state a fairly obvious fact, sir: I can be hanged but once. The verdict has been pronounced. If I am retaken into custody, I shall surely meet that most terrible of fates regardless of what transpires between us. You must understand that the law cannot now restrain my actions.” I leaned in toward him. “In your efforts to see me punished by the law, you have placed me beyond the law, and I have little to lose by acting upon every violent impulse. So let me ask the question once more. Why did you choose to see me convicted?”

“Because I thought you guilty,” he said, turning his face away from mine.

“I cannot for an instant believe that. You heard those witnesses confess that they had been paid to say they saw what they never saw, what they never could have seen, since it did not happen. You chose to ignore the falseness of the testimony. You all but ordered the jury to ignore the falseness of the testimony. I demand to know why.” Because I had anticipated a reluctance on his honor’s part, I had taken a carving knife with me from the kitchen. I now presented it and, rather than wait for him to decide whether or not I meant to use it, jabbed it quickly into the flesh under his left eye. I meant to do no serious harm, only show him that I was not one of those men who will speak but not act.

His hands shot up at once to cover the wound, which I must say was rather inconsequential. It bled some, but I’ve had more urgent injuries inflicted upon my face by my barber.

“You’ve blinded me!” he cried.

“No, I haven’t,” I answered, “but I see now that the idea of being blinded offers you some distress. I’ll not hesitate to slice your eye if you don’t tell me what you know. It may not have occurred to you that I am a man with little time to spare. I hope you will forgive me if I grow impatient.”

“The devil take you, Weaver. I had no choice. I did what I could for you.” He remained curled over, pressing both hands to the cut as though he might bleed to his death if he did not press all ten digits into service.

“Why did you have no choice?”

“Damn you,” he murmured, but not to me. He seemed to be speaking to the air itself. Then he faced me once more. “Look, Weaver, you’ve got yourself out. That ought to be enough. If you’re wise, you’ll not dawdle but get gone as best you can. You don’t want to anger these people.”

“What people? Who told you to sway the jury against me?” I demanded.

Silence. But I held up the carving knife, and he reconsidered his reticence.

“Oh, bother it! I’ll not be mutilated on his behalf. I hardly bear that much love for the man, and I curse that I ever involved myself in this. But there is a general election upon us, and no man can afford to remain neutral.”

I felt myself tense. “What? The election again? What does the election have to do with this?”

“It was Griffin Melbury,” he said. “Griffin Melbury told me to do it, but I must beg you not to say I’ve told you. The man is a dangerous enemy, and I won’t have him set his cap at me.”

His words so surprised me I nearly dropped my knife. I checked the loosening of my grip, however, and found that my hold grew tighter- so tight that my fingers turned white.

Griffin Melbury. The Tory candidate standing for Westminster. The man who had married my Miriam.

“Explain it all to me,” I said. “Omit nothing.”

“Melbury called me to meet him the instant I drew your trial. He said it was imperative that you be found guilty, that you hang. All the Tory values- a strong Church, a strong monarchy, controlling the new wealth and the liberal thinkers- all of it was to depend upon my taking this action. He made it quite clear that should I not do my duty in this matter I would find that, following the election, there would be by far more Tories in power than necessary to see me lose my place.”

I knew that most judges were political creatures and owed their loyalty to one of the two parties. I also knew well that these men thought nothing of allowing their affiliations to influence their rulings. I could not, however, imagine why the Tories should wish to see me convicted for this crime. How could my fate be bound up with the Tory cause? Unless, of course, Melbury only fabricated the urgency of the situation, and for him it was a matter of honor. But having never met Griffin Melbury, having never crossed him or angered him, I could hardly believe that he would hold so powerful a grudge against me simply because I had once courted the woman who became his wife.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he snapped, as though I were his child and had asked him why the sky is blue. “I don’t know. He did not say; he would not say. I demanded an answer, but he only offered me threats. You must believe I had no satisfaction in doing as I did. I had no choice.”

“What have I to do with this? How can I have anything to say of the Tory cause?”

“How should I know when Melbury would tell me nothing? I would think that you might answer that question better than I. If I could have avoided the scene in the court today, I would have. I have no love of seeing my reputation weakened on your account- or on his, for that matter. I acted as I did because there was nothing else for me to do.”

I remained still for a long while, hearing nothing- not the crackling of the fire or the ticking of the clock or the deep breathing of Piers Rowley, whose hands had ceased their stanching of his long-clotted wound and had instead commenced to hold his teary face.

I found him nothing but risible. “Show me your banknotes,” I said.

Rowley removed his hands from his face. He had been content to cower and shake when I merely threatened his life, but now that I sought his wealth, I had roused the lion in him. “I thought you had more honor in you than to turn thief,” he said steadily. His voice had gained some composure, and I thought that either the man truly loved his money or the cowardice he had displayed had merely been a bit of mummery meant to stave off more brutal punishment.