“Did you really want to know that, Oliver?” Her voice broke into his nightmare. “If you did, then I apologize for not telling you. I made a wrong judgment, and I’m sorry. I know that you have to act honestly. I thought it would be impossible for you if you knew that.”

He felt dizzy, as though the room were whirling around him. She was right—of course she was right. But he did know now. The terrible thing was that he could believe it. He remembered Margaret’s face as she looked at her father. She obeyed him without thought, without judgment. He was part of the life she had always known, the fabric of her beliefs, the order in everything.

That was natural. Perhaps Henry Rathbone was the cornerstone of Rathbone’s own life. He could not think of any values, any thought or idea that they had not shared with each other over the years. Their trust was so deep, it had never needed expressing. It was as sure as sunrise; it was the safety that reassured all other doubts, so he never feared an endless fall.

“Oliver?”

He heard her voice, but it was a moment before he could recall himself to the present, the small room in the clinic, the bed with the clean sheet on it, and Hester looking at him.

“What are you going to do?” she asked anxiously.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I suppose you are certain of all this?”

“Yes.” Her voice was gentle. “Margaret told me herself, when I faced her with it. She didn’t evade it. She didn’t say it was Gwen, though. That I deduced by going out and asking people in the streets. I found a peddler who saw Hattie with another woman, and described her. I found the hansom they took to Fulham, right to the house. I took the same cab to the same house, and spoke to the woman who owns it. There might be one chance in a hundred that I’m wrong. It was another woman who looked just like Hattie, at the same time on the same day. And another Mr. Cardew rented the place for her. And our Hattie turned up dead later that day, in the river just a mile away.”

“One chance in a hundred?” he said bitterly. “Perhaps in a million.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did this landlady see Cardew’s face?” It was a desperate last throw. Rathbone knew how he sounded even asking.

“No. He stood well back in the shadows, and he had a heavy coat on, and a hat. He could have been anyone.”

He could think of nothing to say, nothing that eased the increasing pain inside him.

“Thank you … I …”

Hester shook her head. “I know. Winchester won’t call me, and you shouldn’t. I can’t testify to anything firsthand. Do whatever you feel is the right thing.”