Page 99 of The Twisted Root (William Monk 10)

Cleo swallowed convulsively. "Aiden Campbell."

If she had set off a bomb it could not have had more effect.

Rathbone was momentarily paralyzed.

There was a roar from the gallery.

The jurors turned to each other, exclaiming, gasping.

The judge banged his gavel and demanded order.

"My lord!" Rathbone said, raising his voice. "May I ask for the luncheon adjournment so I can speak with my client?"

"You may," the judge agreed, and banged the gavel again. "The court will reconvene at two o’clock."

Rathbone left the courtroom in a daze and walked like a man half blind down to the room where Miriam Gardiner was permitted to speak with him.

She did not even turn her head when the door opened and he came in, the jailer remaining on the outside.

"Was it Aiden

Campbell you were running from?" he asked.

She said 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."