“Then, you will understand why I have no pity for Mickey Parfitt,” Cardew replied. “Is there not some plea of mitigation you can make for the man who killed him—if only to save him from the gallows?” He said the last word as if sticking a knife into himself.

“I can try,” Rathbone said reluctantly. How often had this man pleaded with someone for leniency toward the son who had let him down with such anguish? Did he never grow tired of it? Did he wonder now whether, if he had made Rupert pay for his errors earlier, pay the full price then when they’d been so much less, might Rupert have learned the lesson, and this would not now be happening? Did he go on, exhausted as he was, because he understood that his gentleness before had been only an evasion of the inevitable? That in that space between, it had grown until now the price would be his life?

Cardew leaned forward, his face tense, his eyes fixed on Rathbone’s. “He won’t tell me what happened. I was able to see him only briefly before they took him away. But if he killed Parfitt, then perhaps it was in self-defense. Or the defense of someone else. Is that mitigation in the law?”

“If it was to save the life of someone else who was in immediate danger of being killed, then it is certainly more than mitigation,” Rathbone answered. “If it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it is justification. But I’m afraid that might be very difficult to convince a jury of now, when Rupert has been arrested, since an innocent man would have said so at the time.”

Cardew winced. “Of course. Yet I cannot believe that Rupert would kill him without the most terrible compulsion to do so. He has a temper, but he is not a fool.” He swallowed hard, as if he had an obstruction in his throat. “And in spite of his immorality in other directions, he has a sense of honor, in his own way. Killing a man in cold blood, even a man like Parfitt, would not be … acceptable. It is a coward’s way.” Unconsciously his shoulders squared a little as he said this, as though facing some threat himself.

Rathbone smiled slightly, but utterly without pleasure. “I have some difficulty in deciding for myself what ‘cold blood’ really is.”

At that moment the clerk knocked on the door and, with Rathbone’s permission, came in with the tray, of tea in a silver pot, a silver cream jug and sugar bowl, and silver tongs and teaspoons. The porcelain was plain, delicate, and ornamented only by a small blue crown. In spite of Rathbone’s refusal, the clerk had also brought a bottle of Napoleon brandy, and set it on the sideboard. He poured the tea, then excused himself and withdrew.