"We were going to send a message to you," the major said earnestly, assisting her to a chintz-covered chair as if she had been an elderly invalid. "We have news for you."

"I am afraid it is not going to please you," Edith added, sitting in the chair opposite, her face earnest. "I'm so sorry."

Hester was confused. "You found nothing?" That was hardly news sufficient to send a message.

"We found something." Now the major also looked confused, but his questioning look was directed at Edith. Hester only peripherally noticed the depth of affection in it.

"I know that is what she asked," Edith said patiently. "But she likes Dr. Beck." She turned back to Hester. "You will not wish to know that twice in the past he has been accused of mishandling cases of young women who died. Both times the parents were sure there was nothing very wrong with them, and Dr. Beck performed operations which were quite unnecessary, and so badly that they bled to death. The fathers both sued, but neither won. The proof was not sufficient."

Hester felt sick. "Where? Where did this happen? Surely not since he's been with the Royal Free Hospital?"

"No," Edith agreed, her curious face with its aquiline nose and wry, gentle mouth full of sadness. "The first was in the north, in Alnwick, right up near the Scottish border; the second was in Somerset. I wish I had something better to tell you."

"Are you sure it was he?" It was a foolish question, but she was fighting for any rescue at all. Callandra filled her mind.

"Can there be two surgeons from Bohemia named Kristian Beck?" Edith said quietly.

The major was looking at Hester with anxiety. He did not know why it hurt her so much, but he was painfully aware that it did.

"How did you find out?" Hester asked. It did not affect the reality of it, but even to question it somehow put off the finality of acceptance.

"I have become friends with the librarian at one of the newspaper offices," Edith replied. "It is her task to care for all the back copies. She has been most helpful with checking some of the details of events referred to in the major's memoirs, so I asked her in this as well."

"I see." There seemed nothing else she could pursue. That was the missing element, the thing Prudence was going to tell the authorities-only Beck had killed her before she could.

Then another thought occurred to her, even uglier. Was it possible Callandra already knew? Was that why she had looked so haggard lately? She was racked with fear-and her own guilt in concealing it.

Edith and the major were both looking at her, their faces crumpled with concern. Her thoughts must be so transparent. But there was nothing she could say without betraying Callandra.

"How are the memoirs going?" she asked, forcing a smile and a look of interest which would have been genuine at any other time.

"Ah, we are nearly finished," Edith replied, her face filled with light again. "We have written all his experiences in India, and such things in Africa you wouldn't dream of. It was quite the most exciting thing I have ever heard in my life. You must read them when we have finished…" Then something of the light drained away as the inevitable conclusion occurred to all of them. Edith had been unable to leave the home which stifled her, the parents who felt her early widowhood meant that she should spend the rest of her life as if she were a single woman, dependent upon her father's bounty financially, and socially upon her mother's whim. She had had one chance at marriage, and that was all any woman was entitled to. Her family had done its duty in obtaining one husband for her; her misfortune that he had died young was one she shared with a great many others. She should accept it gracefully. The tragedy of her brother's death had opened up ugliness from the past which was far from healed yet, and perhaps never would be. The thought of returning to live in Carlyon House again was one which darkened even the brilliance of this summer day.

"I shall look forward to it," Hester said quietly. She turned to the major. "When do you expect to publish?"

He looked so deep in anxiety and concentration she was surprised when he answered her.

"Oh-I think…" Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly. His face was very pink. "I was going to say there is much work to be done, but that is not true. Edith has been so efficient there is really very little. But I am not sure if I can find a publisher willing to take it, or if I may have to pay to have it done." He stopped abruptly.

He took another deep breath, his face even pinker, and turned to Edith with fierce concentration. "Edith, I find the thought of concluding the work, and your leaving, quite intolerable. I thought it was writing about India and Africa which was giving me such pleasure and such inner peace, but it is not. It is sharing it with you, and having you here every day. I never imagined I should find a woman's company so extremely… comfortable. I always considered them alien creatures, either formidable, like governesses and nurses, or totally trivial and far more frightening, like ladies who flirt. But you are the most… agreeable person I have ever known." His face was now quite scarlet, his blue eyes very bright. "I should be desperately lonely if you were to leave, and the happiest man alive if you were to remain-as my wife. If I presume, I apologize-but I have to ask. I love you so very dearly." He stopped, overcome by his own audacity, but his eyes never left her face.

Edith looked down at the floor, blushing deeply; she was smiling, not with embarrassment but with happiness.

"My dear Hercules," she said very gently. "I cannot think of anything in the world I should like so much."

Hester rose to her feet, kissed Edith gently on the cheek, then kissed the major in exactly the same way, and tiptoed outside into the sun to walk back toward more suitable transport to the Old Bailey and Oliver Rathbone.

Before he could begin the case for the defense, Rathbone went to see Sir Herbert again to brief him now that he would be called to the witness stand.

It was not a meeting he looked forward to. Sir Herbert was far too intelligent a man not to realize how slender his chances were, how much depended on emotion, prejudices, sympathies; certainly intangibles that Rathbone was well skilled in handling, but frail threads from which to dangle a man's life. Evidence was unarguable. Even the most perverse jury seldom went against it.

However, he found Sir Herbert in a far more optimistic mood than he had feared. He was freshly washed and shaved and dressed in clean clothes. Except for the shadows around his eyes and a certain knack of twisting his fingers, he might have been about to set off for the hospital and his own professional rounds.

"Good morning, Rathbone," he said as soon as the cell door was closed. 'This morning is our turn. How do you propose to begin? It seems to me that Lovat-Smith has far from a perfect case. He has not proved it was me. Nor can he ever; and he has certainly not proved it was not Taunton or Beck, or even Miss Cuthbertson, let alone anyone else. What is your plan of action?" He might have been discussing an interesting medical operation in which he had no personal stake, except for a certain tightness in the muscles of his neck and an awkwardness in his shoulders.

Rathbone did not argue with anything he had said, even though he doubted it had the importance Sir Herbert attached to it. Quite apart from any motives of compassion, for all practical reasons it was most important that Sir Herbert should maintain his appearance of calm and assurance. Fear would convey itself to the jury, and they might very easily equate fear with guilt. Why should an innocent man be afraid of their judgment?