“In court, perhaps, but not in the public mind. There I am still ruined. For God’s sake, man, can’t you see that?” Ballinger controlled the panic rising in his voice with obvious difficulty. “Saying that the case was inadequate is not enough.” He fixed Rathbone with an intense gaze. “I need them to know that they had the wrong man, Oliver. I need that! There is another man out there that the police should be pursuing. I imagine it is Rupert Cardew. They must go after him as diligently as they did after me. I don’t give a damn if his father is a decent man that everyone admires, or how sorry for him they might feel. My family is decent too.”

He hesitated for several seconds, and Rathbone was about to speak again when Ballinger seemed to reach some decision, and continued. “And you have no idea what good I’ve done that I don’t boast about, or seek reward for. But that won’t stay anyone’s hand, or their tongues.”

Rathbone looked at him and felt profoundly sorry for him. He was right. The talk, the suspicion, would remain, the belief that somehow he had escaped justice. He would be saved from the punishment of the law, but not of society.

“Are you sure you want to, Arthur?” he said gently. “This case is still very lightly balanced. Emotions are high. Don’t ever mistake Winchester for a fool because he occasionally makes people laugh. He will go for your throat if he has the chance.”

“Then, I won’t give him the chance,” Ballinger said bitterly. “Rupert Cardew is a dissolute and violent young man, and he should answer to the law like anyone else. Parfitt was a scab on the backside of humanity, but Hattie Benson was simply an ignorant young woman who made her living in the only way she could imagine. She had little alternative but the match factory, or a sweatshop somewhere. Whoever killed her should hang for it, and I can see that in the jurors’ faces, even if you can’t.”

Rathbone knew that he was right, but he was still afraid of the risk. It seemed brutal to warn Ballinger, but it would be a betrayal of Rathbone’s duty not to.

“You would be safer to leave it as it is,” he said gently. “I have to tell you that. The risk is considerable.”

“What does ‘considerable’ mean?” Ballinger said sharply.

“The balance is with us now, but not heavily. That could alter. They could hear something, the mood could change on an attitude, an answer they don’t understand, a witness saying something …”

“I’ll take that chance. I will not leave that courtroom with the world believing I am guilty but I escaped because I had a good lawyer.”