“Perhaps I was speaking more for myself than for others,” Ravensbrook conceded grudgingly, his face stiff. “I did my best not to permit it, but it may have existed in the village. I had no control over that.”

“The village?” Rathbone had omitted to ask Ravensbrook where the brothers had spent their childhood. He should have realized it would not have been in London.

“My country home in Berkshire,” Ravensbrook explained, his face suddenly white. “It was a better atmosphere for them than the city. Learned to ride, hunt, fish.” He took a deep breath. “Manly pursuits. Learned a bit about the land, and a man's responsibilities towards his fellows.”

There was a murmur of assent from one or two people in the room. Enid looked puzzled, Caleb bitter.

“A very privileged childhood, by the sound of it.” Rathbone smiled. “I gave them all I could,” Ravensbrook said without expression, except perhaps for a certain gravity which might have been sadness, or merely an effect of the light in his impassive face, with its patrician features and dark, very level eyes under their short brows.

“You speak of a jealousy growing between them,” Rathbone continued. He was battling with a witness who was all but hostile, and it was like drawing teeth. He could understand it. Having to expose his most private family life to the gaze of the public in general, and the seekers of sensation in particular, was something no decent man would wish, and to one like Milo Ravensbrook it was like facing enemy fire. But if there was to be justice it was unavoidable, not only punishment for Caleb, but a decent acknowledgment for Genevieve and her children. “Would you give the court an example of any evidences of these you can recall? Instances of behavior, resentments, quarrels . . .”

Ravensbrook looked somewhere over the heads of the crowd.

“I should prefer not to.”

“Naturally,” Rathbone commiserated. “No one wishes to recall such events, but I am afraid it is necessary if we are to discover what is the truth of this present tragedy. I am sure you wish that.” He was not perfectly sure.

Perhaps Ravensbrook would rather it went unknown, and could fade from memory as a mystery. But he could not say so.

There were several minutes of silence. One of the jurors coughed and produced a large handkerchief. Another shifted his weight as though embarrassed. The judge stared at Ravensbrook. Ebenezer Goode looked first at Ravensbrook, then at Rathbone, his face expectant.

But it was Caleb who broke the tension.

“Forgotten, have you?” he called down, his lips drawn back in something close to a snarl. “Forgotten how Angus was afraid of that damn black horse of yours-but I rode it! Forgotten how angry you were-”