Midnight at Marble Arch - By Anne Perry Page 0,132
of yours?”
“I have no knowledge that she had money to invest,” Hythe said, trying to look as if the question surprised him.
Bower turned one way then the other, appealing for sympathy and some respite.
“Mr. Symington,” the judge said sharply, “I understand Mr. Bower’s impatience. You do appear to be wasting the Court’s time. The charge is rape, sir, not bad advice on investment.”
“Yes, my lord,” Symington said meekly. “Mr. Hythe, were you socially acquainted with Mrs. Catherine Quixwood?”
“Yes, sir,” Hythe said almost inaudibly.
“How did you meet?”
Vespasia watched with unnecessary anxiety as Symington drew out the growing friendship of Hythe and Catherine Quixwood. It seemed to be moving so slowly she dreaded that any moment Bower would object again and the judge would sustain him, and demand that Symington move on. She knew he was delaying until the luncheon adjournment in the desperate hope that Pitt and Narraway would come with something he could use. But the chances seemed more and more remote as the morning wore on. There was no sympathy for Hythe in the gallery, and nothing but loathing in the faces of the jurors.
Symington must have been as aware of it as Vespasia. Still, he plowed on. She could see no despair in his face, but his body was stiff, his left hand clenched by his side.
“Mr. Hythe,” he continued, “all these encounters with Mrs. Quixwood, which you admit to, took place in public. What about in private? Did you meet her in a park, for instance, or in the countryside? Or at a hotel?”
“No!” Hythe said hotly. “Of course I didn’t!”
“No wish to?” Symington asked, his eyes wide.
Hythe drew in his breath, stared desperately around at the walls above the heads of the gallery. The question seemed to trap him.
“Mr. Hythe?” the judge prompted. “Please answer your counsel’s question.”
Hythe stared at him. “What?”
“Did you not wish to meet Mrs. Quixwood in a more private place?” the judge repeated.
“No … I did not,” Hythe whispered.
The judge looked surprised, and disbelieving.
“Was that in case your wife should find out?” Symington asked Hythe.
Again Hythe was at a loss to answer.
Vespasia watched and felt a desperate pity for him. She believed that he had liked Catherine, but no more than that. It was Maris he loved, and he was trying now to protect her future. Symington was forcing him into a corner where he had either to admit that he had been seeking financial information for Catherine, or that it had been a love affair after all. He could not afford either answer.
Vespasia found that she was sitting with her hands clenched, nails digging into her palms. Her shoulders were stiff, even her neck was rigid, as if waiting for a physical blow to fall. Where was Narraway? Where was Pitt?
“Mr. Hythe?” Symington spoke just before the judge did.
“Yes …” Hythe said. His face was pinched with pain.
“Was your wife, then, unaware of your frequent meetings with Mrs. Quixwood?” Symington continued.
“No … yes …” Hythe was trembling. He could barely speak coherently.
“Which is it?” Symington was ruthless. “She knew, or she did not know?”
Hythe straightened. “She knew of some,” he said between his teeth. He regarded Symington with loathing.
“You were afraid she would suspect an affair?” Symington went on.
Hythe had committed himself to a path. “Yes.”
“And be jealous?” Symington added.
Hythe refused to answer.
“Is she a jealous woman?” Symington said clearly. “Has she had cause to be in the past?”
“No!” Now Hythe was angry. The color burned up his face and his eyes blazed. “I have never—” He stopped abruptly.
“Never deceived her?” Symington said incredulously. “Or were you going to say you have never allowed her to know of your affairs before?”
“I have had no affairs!” Hythe said furiously.
“Catherine was the first?” Symington asked.
Bower looked confused, unhappy because he did not understand what Symington was trying to do. Finally he rose to his feet.
“My lord, if my learned friend is attempting to cause a mistrial, or to give grounds for appeal because of his inadequate defense, I ask that—”
Symington swung round on him, glancing briefly at the clock, then launched into a denial.
“Not at all!” he said witheringly. “I am trying to show the Court that there is someone with more motive to kill Catherine Quixwood, out of jealousy, than any cause Alban Hythe might have had to kill a woman with whom he was, as my learned friend for the prosecution has demonstrated, having a romantic affair! Albeit, one in which the two parties never met in private.”