Hester sat silently, steeped in misery.

"I must go home," Rathbone said at last. "Perhaps a good night of sleep will clear my mind sufficiently to think of something." He bade them good-night and left, acutely conscious of loneliness. He would lie by himself in his smooth linen sheets. Monk would lie with Hester in his arms. The clear, moonlit night held no magic for him.

Tobias was in an expansive mood when he called his first witness the next day, but he was careful not to exaggerate his manner. He was too clever to alienate a jury by seeming to gloat over his triumph, although Rathbone, sitting at his table, thought his care unnecessary. As things were going at present, and from all future prospect, Tobias could hardly lose, whatever he did.

Neither Hester nor Monk was in the court, nor was Callandra Daviot. All of the Stourbridge family had yet to testify, and therefore were forbidden to be present in case anything they heard should influence what they themselves would say.

Tobias’s first witness was the Stourbridges’ groom. He took great care to establish his exact position in the household and his so-far blameless reputation. He left no avenue, however small, for Rathbone to call into question either his honesty or his power of observation.

Rathbone was quite satisfied that he should do so. He had no useful argument to make and no desire to try to blacken the man’s character. It was always a bad exercise in that it offended the jurors to malign a person who was no more than a witness and in no way involved in a crime. And it had the great advantage—indeed, at the moment the only advantage—in that it took time.

All that he showed by it, unquestionably, was that Treadwell had on a number of occasions driven Miriam from Bayswater back to her home in Hampstead, or had collected her. He had also once or twice delivered messages or gifts from Lucius to her, in the early days of the courtship, before Lucius himself had done so. Undoubtedly, Treadwell knew her home and had spent time in the area.

Next, Tobias called the keeper of the local inn, the Jack Straw’s Castle Inn, on the corner of North End Hill and Spaniards Road, who swore that Treadwell had stopped there on more than a few occasions, had a pint of ale and played darts or dominoes, gambled a little, and struck up casual conversation with the locals. Yes, he had seemed to ask a lot of questions. At the time the landlord had taken it for concern for his employer, who was courting a woman who lived in the area.

The landlord of the Bull and Bush, farther up on Golders Hill, said much the same, as did two locals from the Hare and Hounds, a short walk farther along. There he had asked more particularly about Miriam Gardiner and Cleo Anderson. Yes, he was free with his money, as if he knew there would be more where that had come from.