“One of the larger paintings, an almost life-size portrait of a man, swung away from the wall in the upstairs study,” he said a trifle too quickly. “Behind it was a panel that, when pushed in, revealed a space containing a ladder up into the attic …”
The gallery rustled. Every juror leaned forward. Even Wystan turned in his seat to stare at Monk more intently.
Monk bit his lip to stop himself from smiling. “Naturally I went up, and my wife came with me. We found ourselves in a large space with a few of the things we would expect to see-empty boxes, a trunk or two. It was the second, smaller room that mattered. There was a door into it, and as soon as we opened that, we saw the contraption.”
There was not a sound in the entire courtroom.
“Contraption?” Brancaster asked huskily.
“A pistol on a table held steady by two weights. Tied to its trigger was a wire, which passed through a ring in the ceiling, and was attached at the other end to a tin can with a very small hole in the bottom,” Monk explained. “It is difficult to describe it so as to make its purpose clear, but the moment we saw it we understood. It was a device created so that as the water dripped out of the can, the can became lighter, slowly rising to the point where the cord went slack, thus releasing the trigger and firing the gun. The can was empty when we arrived, and we found the bullet in the far wall. The water that had dripped out had been caught by a container beneath the can, and had evaporated. And the window was wedged open.”
Brancaster affected confusion. He shook his head fractionally.
“Are you saying that Taft arranged this extraordinary piece of machinery to shoot himself?”
“No, sir. As the medical examiner would testify, it seems Mr. Taft and his entire family were already dead, possibly for a couple of hours, when this gun went off. Because the window was open the sound of it could be heard by the neighbors, whose houses were approximately fifty feet away. The purpose of the shot was to establish the time of Mr. Taft’s death-wrongly.”
“I see!” Brancaster’s face lit up. “So it was to mislead the police as to the time of Taft’s death, presumably so whoever killed him could prove that he was elsewhere at that precise moment?”
“Exactly,” Monk agreed. “The police are now considering it to be murder of all four members of the family, Taft himself included.”
There were gasps from almost everyone in the court, even several of the jurors.
Brancaster cleared his throat.
“And whom do they suspect, Commander Monk?”
Monk spoke quietly. “It all comes back to the missing money. The paintings are actually registered as owned by Robertson Drew. They have already arrested him, and I imagine they will charge him with all four murders, if they are not already doing so as we speak.”
“Ah!” Brancaster let out his breath in a sigh, as if it were now all perfectly clear. “So it is possible that Robertson Drew strangled Mrs. Taft and her daughters, shot Taft himself, and then rigged up this contraption in the attic to make it seem as if Taft’s death happened at five in the morning-a time at which Drew can fully account for his whereabouts, I imagine-when the neighbors heard the shot, rather than a couple of hours earlier?”
“Yes,” Monk agreed. “It is quite possible.”
“Just one other thing, Mr. Monk: If Drew went through all that trouble, why did he not remove the machine from the attic? If you had not found it, we would have known nothing about it at all. It seems extraordinarily dangerous, a careless piece of arrogance.”
“He tried to,” Monk said with a bleak smile. “He had to be careful not to seem too eager to get into the house, or he might have aroused suspicion, but he did ask the police several times. In fact, it was his eagerness to gain access to the house that made us decide to look there as well.”
“I see. But there is still one piece that puzzles me.” Brancaster knew that every man and woman in the courtroom was listening to him, and he made the most of it. It was a superb performance. “If he had to ask for police permission to get into the house to remove this contraption, how did he get in, in the middle of the night, to murder the entire family?”
Monk had been waiting for that. “On the night he killed them all, we suspect he entered through a loosely fitted larder window, at the back of the house where in the dark no one would have seen him climb in. After the deaths were discovered, and the police knew it was the scene of a crime, even if they did not understand the full nature of it, they secured all the windows and locked the inside doors. The house was then their responsibility, and there was a great deal that was of value still inside-silver, crystal, paintings, and such. So they kept a careful eye on it, as, I might add, did the neighbors, which prevented Drew from breaking in again.”
“I see.” Brancaster nodded. “Yes, that makes excellent sense. A very terrible crime. Thank you for your diligence, Commander Monk. Without it, poor Taft would have gone down in history as a murderer and a suicide, when in truth he was no more than a thief and an exploiter of the humble and the generous. In the end he was a victim himself. Justice owes you a great deal.” He bowed to Monk, then before anyone could intervene, bowed very slightly to the jury also.
“But of course your task, gentlemen, is to weigh the justice of a far less violent but more evil and dangerous crime, one that has already eaten deeply into the fabric of our nation-that of the torture and abuse of children for the obscene entertainment of men without honor or decency. It has been exposed, at great risk to himself, by Oliver Rathbone. Do we ignore it, and thus allow it to go on corrupting the soul of our nation? Indeed, do we punish the man who has forced us to face this terrible truth? Or do we thank him-and begin to root its poison out of our society?”
“Mr. Brancaster!” snapped York. “If you have finished questioning this witness, then allow counsel for the prosecution the right to do so. I will tell the jury when it is time to consider their verdict-not you! I will also correct your somewhat loose interpretation of the law!”
Wystan stood up. “Thank you, my lord. I don’t believe I have any questions for Commander Monk. The issue seems tragically clear to me. I wish there had been some other way to expose this mighty evil, but I fear if there had been, then we did not avail ourselves of it.”
Brancaster stood as if afraid to move, staring at Wystan. Wystan swallowed. Monk could see the movement of his throat even from the height of the witness stand.
When Wystan spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “My lord, the prosecution is aware that Sir Oliver made grave judicial errors. He took the law into his own hands, and that cannot be permitted. However, we do not ask for a custodial sentence in this instance. We trust that the professional discipline the Lords Justice wish to exercise will be adequate for the offense relating to how the evidence of Robertson Drew’s character was presented to the court.”
York stared at him.
“Thank you,” Brancaster said breathlessly. “Thank you, Mr. Wystan.” He turned slowly to Monk. “Thank you, Commander. It seems you are excused.”
“Silence! I will have silence in the court,” York yelled as the noise of the astonished onlookers rose to a pitch.
Slowly the buzz ebbed away. Every eye was on York.
“Gentlemen of the jury, the accused has presented excuses for his behavior, but he has not attempted to deny it, therefore it is not open to you to bring in a verdict of not guilty. The court thanks you for your service.”
The foreman of the jury glanced at his fellows then rose slowly to his feet.
“My lord?”
York looked at him grimly. “Have I not made myself clear, sir?”
The foreman swallowed. “Yes, my lord. We wish to know if it is open to us to agree with the prosecution, and ask that Sir Oliver just serve the time he already has done in prison, and then the Lords Justice discipline him whatever way they have to? Can we do that?”