“Don’t stand there like a damn footman,” Ballinger said with a sudden blaze of fury. “You haven’t got time to waste!”

Wordlessly Rathbone turned and banged on the door to be released.

HESTER HAD COME HOME from the clinic a little earlier than usual, but Monk was barely through the door when Rathbone arrived at Paradise Place. He looked so ashen, Hester was frightened for him. His hollow eyes and the dragging lines of his face made it clear that he was almost at the end of his strength. She offered him tea immediately, and went to put the kettle on without waiting for his answer. Also without asking him, she put in a stiff dash of brandy.

When she returned with it already poured out in a large kitchen mug, Rathbone was sitting next to the fire in Monk’s usual seat, and he was still shivering. Monk sat on a hard-backed chair.

Hester put the tray down on the table between them, with Rathbone’s mug nearest to him, and then she looked at Monk. His face was pale too, and the lines in it were more than those of tiredness.

Monk gestured to her chair, opposite Rathbone, and she sat obediently.

“Ballinger has photographs,” Monk said simply. “They’re with somebody who’ll make them public if Ballinger is hanged. We don’t know who’s in them, but what they’re doing is obvious. Ballinger said they’re all kinds of people: in government, judiciary, business, even the royal household. He blackmails them, not for money but for power, to bring about the reforms he believes are just. At least that’s what he told Rathbone. Any of that might be true, or might be lies, but we can’t afford to take the risk.”

“He wants me to mount an appeal.” Rathbone looked at her. “That’s the condition for his silence. But I can’t. There are no grounds.”

For a moment Hester was stunned. It was monstrous. Then the more she thought of it, the more it made sense. It might all be true. It would be a passionate and almost understandable reason for all he had done. She could see the temptation. If she had had such power to use in the reform of nursing, she would have played with the idea, and please God, discarded it, but perhaps not? But, then, it could also be a brilliant way of defending himself, because they could not afford to ignore him.

“I’m surprised he trusted someone else with the pictures. How do you know they are all together, with one person?” Hester asked.

Rathbone stared at her, horror in his face.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But I wouldn’t give everything to one person, would you?”

“Oh, God!” he said in utter wretchedness. There was no hope in his voice.