The Twisted Root Page 0,137

nothing, sitting motionless, head turned away.

"Why?" he persisted. "What had he done to you?"

Silence.

"Was he the one who attacked you originally?" His voice was growing louder and more shrill in his desperation. "For heaven's sake, answer me! How can I help you if you won't speak to me?" He leaned forward over the small table, but still she did not turn. "You will hang!" he said deliberately.

"I know," she answered at last.

"And Cleo Anderson!" he added.

"No - I will say I killed Treadwell, too. I will swear it on the stand. They'll believe me, because they want to. None of them wants to condemn Cleo."

It was true, and he knew it as well as she did.

"You'll say that on the stand?"

"Yes."

"But it is not true!"

This time she turned and met his eyes fully. "You don't know that, Sir Oliver. You don't know what happened. If I say it is so, will you contradict your own client? You must be a fool - it is what they want to hear. They will believe it."

He stared back at her, momentarily beaten. He had the feeling that were there any heart left alive in her, she would have smiled at him. He knew that if he did not call her to testify, then she would ask the judge from the dock for permission to speak, and he would grant it. There was no argument to make.

He left, and had a miserable luncheon of bread which tasted to him like sawdust, and claret which could as well have been vinegar.

Rathbone had no choice but to call Aiden Campbell to the stand. If he had not, then most assuredly Tobias would have. At least this way he might retain a modicum of control.

The court was seething with anticipation. Word seemed to have spread during the luncheon adjournment, because now every seat was taken and the ushers had had to ban more people from crowding in.

The judge called them to order, and Rathbone rose to begin.

"I call Aiden Campbell, my lord."

Campbell was white-faced but composed. He must have known that this was inevitable, and he had had almost two hours to prepare himself. He stood now facing Rathbone, a tall, straight figure, tragically resembling both his dead sister and his nephew, Lucius, who was sitting beside his father more like a ghost than a living being. Every now and again he stared up at Miriam, but never once had Rathbone seen Miriam return his look.

"Mr. Campbell," Rathbone began as soon as Campbell had been reminded that he was still under oath. "An extraordinary charge has been laid against you by the last witness. Are you willing to respond to this - "

"I am," Campbell interrupted in his eagerness to reply. "I had hoped profoundly that this would never be necessary. Indeed, I have gone to some lengths to see that it would not, for the sake of my family, and out of a sense of decency and the desire to bury old tragedies and allow them to remain unknown in the present, where they cannot hurt innocent parties." He glanced at Lucius, and away again. His meaning was nakedly apparent.

"Mrs. Anderson has sworn that Miriam Gardiner claimed it was you she was running away from when she fled the party at Cleveland Square. Is that true?" Rathbone asked.

Campbell looked distressed. "Yes," he said quietly. He shook his head a fraction. "I cannot tell you how deeply I had hoped not to have to say this. I knew Miriam Gardiner - Miriam Speake, as she was then - when she was twelve years old. She was a maid in my household when I lived near Hampstead."

There was a rustle of movement and the startled sound of indrawn breath around the room.

Campbell looked across at Harry Stourbridge and Lucius.

"I'm sorry," he said fervently. "I cannot conceal this any longer. Miriam lived in my house for about eighteen months, or something like that. Of course, she recognized me at the garden party, and must have been afraid that I would know her also, and tell you." He was still speaking to Harry Stourbridge, as if this were a private matter between them.

"Obviously, you did not tell them," Rathbone observed, bringing his attention back to the business of the court. "Why would it trouble her so much that she would flee in such a manner, as if terrified rather man merely embarrassed? Surely the Stourbridge family was already aware that she came from a different social background? Was this