Dad Hears My Thoughts novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: Rain on the Street of Lamps

The magistrate read the letter twice and handed it back to me.

"R," he said.

He was a thin old man in a black gown, with ink on both cuffs.

Tristram swore he was the one honest judge in the city.

"R," I said. "Ralph."

"Or any of a dozen others." He ticked R after R off on his fingers.

"I can name forty men at court whose names start with R. So can any lawyer Ralph Harcourt hires."

"She was murdered," Tristram said. "There's a bruise on her throat the shape of his ring."

"There was. She's buried now, in the paupers' ground, as a suicide."

The magistrate sighed. "And who found this letter?"

"We did."

"A cutter who swore a foundling was hers. A man the King means to hang."

He spread his hands. "In a room you broke into at midnight."

Neither of us said anything.

"His lawyers will say you wrote it yourselves," he said. "And they'll be believed."

"Then what do we need?"

He looked at Tristram over his spectacles.

"The stone," he said. "In his hand. In front of people who can't be bought."

I folded the letter into my bodice.

"And Mistress Hawtrey," he said, as we turned to go. "Don't leave that letter with anyone."

He tapped his desk. "Not even me. Papers in this building catch fire."

It was raining when we came out.

Not snow anymore. Cold, steady rain that ran off the eaves and down the backs of our necks.

The baby was with the widow at the bakery, asleep in a bread basket by the ovens.

So for once it was only the two of us, walking.

Tristram didn't say anything for two streets.

Then he said, "Give me the stone."

"No."

"I'll take it to the palace tomorrow. I'll say I found it. Let them hang me if they like."

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