Free Never Call It Love by Veronica Jason

hired carriage and asked the driver to take her to
the Bow Street house of Sir John Fielding. A younger half-brother of the
novelist Henry Fielding, Sir John had been knighted for having founded his Bow
Street Runners, London's first organized defense against crime.
    As
the horses drew the vehicle swiftly over the cobblestones, Elizabeth felt
almost lighthearted, so much so that she could enjoy the sight of smart private
carriages moving along the street, and well-dressed men and women strolling
along the sidewalks. Now that she knew that her brother had been guilty last
Wednesday night of nothing except consorting with a notorious whore, she felt
not the slightest scruple about lying to save him. True, such a lie, told under
oath on the witness stand, still would constitute perjury. But she would not be
perjuring herself to obstruct justice. She would be doing so to prevent a
possible miscarriage of justice, one that might leave Christopher hanging dead
from a noose, and her mother dead also, or wishing she were.
    When
she reached the Bow Street house, she gave her name to a cheerful-looking youth
who guarded the door. He returned in a few minutes to lead her through a room where
ragged miscreants sat dejectedly on benches under the watchful gaze of a pair
of burly Runners. Then he stood aside for her to enter a smaller room.
    A
man with a massive head and a leonine mane of gray hair stood up from behind
his desk. "Good afternoon, Miss Montlow." Even though she had heard
that he had been blinded by an accident at the age of nineteen, the sight of
the closed eyelids in his broad face was a shock.
    "Please
sit down." She took the straight chair on the opposite side of the desk.
"May I say that I regret the circumstance that I am sure brings you
here?"
    "Not
so much as I do, Sir John. My brother is being held for no reason. On the night
in question, he was fifteen miles from London. He was with my mother and me, in
our house near the village of Parnley."
    He
said, "You will be willing to swear to that in court?"
    Something
in his tone made her nerves tighten. She had heard eerie tales of this blind
man's powers. It was said that he could recognize more than three thousand
London criminals just by their voices. Had he also developed a sixth sense that
told him when someone was lying?
    "Certainly
I will so testify. But why should his case come to court? I see no reason why
he should have been arrested at all. Surely your bailiffs told you that both my
mother and our servant stated that my brother had been with us Wednesday
night."
    His
voice was perfectly neutral. "They told me. But he cannot be
released. He has already been remanded to Newgate Prison to be held for trial
at the next General Sessions."
    "May
I ask upon what evidence? Surely not just because the... the crime was
committed in our empty house!"
    "Upon
additional evidence submitted the morning after the crime by an eyewitness, a
maid employed by a family across the street. She did not tell immediately
everything she had seen. Perhaps in her excitement she forgot it. Perhaps she
hesitated to accuse a neighbor of her own employers. But the next morning she
did tell them, and her employers brought her here to give her evidence to me.
    Elizabeth's
pulse was beating hard in the hollow of her throat. "What had she
seen?"
    "Your
brother has very distinctive hair, has he not? Yellow hair so pale it is almost
silvery, the sort of hair that is usually observed only in young
children."
    "Yes."
    "When
the youths were carrying the girl into the house, one of them lost his hat
Because of his hair, the housemaid recognized him as Christopher Montlow."
    "Just
by his hair? There must be thousands of young men in London with hair
that shade."
    "Not
thousands. Scores, perhaps."
    "I
don't care if there is only one other! The man she saw could not possibly have
been my brother. And I shall so testify." It did not matter, she told
herself, that this blind man did not seem to believe her.