“Thank you,” Rathbone acknowledged. “I think it is most probable he is simply giving a mixture of what he knows in the confusion, and what he hopes happened. He is bound to be very shocked, and grieved, poor devil.”

Monk did not reply, but knocked sharply on the door.

They were permitted in with some reluctance. Rathbone had to insist in his capacity as an officer of the court, and Monk was permitted largely by instinct of the gaoler, who knew him from the past, and was used to obeying him.

It was a small anteroom for the duty gaolers to wait. Ravensbrook was half collapsed on a wooden hard-backed chair. His hair and clothes were disheveled and there was blood splattered on his arms and chest, even on his face. He seemed in the deepest stages of shock, his eyes sunk in their sockets, unfocused. He was breathing through his mouth, gasping and occasionally swallowing and gulping air. His body was rigid and he trembled as if perished with cold.

One gaoler stood holding a rolled-up handkerchief to a wound in Ravensbrook's chest, a second held a glass of water and tried to persuade him to drink from it, but he seemed not even to hear the man.

“Are you the doctor?” the gaoler with the handkerchief demanded, looking at Monk. In his gown and wig, Rathbone was instantly recognizable for what he was.

“No. But there's probably a nurse still on the premises, if you send someone to look for her immediately,” Monk replied. “Her name is Hester Latterly, and she'll be with Lady Ravensbrook in her carriage.”

“Nurse'll be no use,” the gaoler said desperately. “Nobody about needs nursin', for Gawd's sake. Look at it!”

“An army nurse,” Monk corrected his impression. “You might have to go a mile or more to find a doctor. And she'll be more used to this sort of thing than most doctors around here anyway. Go and get her. Don't stand around arguing.”

The man went, perhaps glad to escape.

Monk turned to look at Ravensbrook, studied his face for a moment, then abandoned the idea and spoke instead to the remaining gaoler.

“What happened?” he asked. “Tell us precisely, and in exact order as you remember it. Start when Lord Ravensbrook arrived.”

He did not question who Monk was, or what authority he had to be demanding explanations. The tone in Monk's voice was sufficient, and the gaoler was overwhelmingly relieved to hand over responsibility to someone else, anyone at all.

“ 'Is lordship came in wi' permission from the 'ead warder for 'im ter visit wi' the prisoner,” he responded. “ 'Im bein' a relative, like, an' the prisoner lookin' fit ter be sent down, then like as not, topped.”

“Where is the head warder?” Rathbone interrupted.