Acceptable Loss 4 - The End (Pages 258 - end)

 RATING: VERY GOOD

SPOILERS!!!

I have finished the book and it has been a great read. My only problem that there were a few parts which were not explored properly.

William arrives at the Balingers' when they are having dinner with the whole family. Arthur refuses to receive him, but Oliver goes to the room to see him. William tells him that he is there to arrest Arthur, and he has chosen to come so late because he wants to prevent his humiliation if he did it during the day. Arthur agrees to go with him, and Margaret and her family are outraged, badmouthing Monk, saying that this is his personal vendetta for having lost the trial of Jericho Philips.

The trial starts some days later, and Oliver proves to be the excellent barrister he is, and he shows that the evidence is circumstancial. It is during the trial that Monk has to announce that Hattie is dead: murdered in the same way as Parfitt. When Hester asks him, he tells her about how she left the clinic. Hester decides to find out what happened and how Hattie left. She discovers that Margaret opened the door for Hattie to leave, and then when she asks a pedlar outside, she finds out that a woman whose description matches one of Margaret's sisters took her to a cab. The cabman tells Hester that he took the women to a house, and the landlady tells Margaret that Hattie was supposed to stay for a few days, but then a man came and she went with him. The man said his name was Rupert Cardew, but the landlady didn't see his face. When Hester confronts Margaret, she doesn't deny her part and is quite nasty towards Hester, accusing her of abandoning her dying father and mother when they needed her, and then telling her that she is using Scruff to empty a vacuum for her inability to have children. Hester is very hurt, but she does not ask her why she helped Hattie escape and who asked her, and she does not ask either why her sister took her to that house. 

Hester and Monk do not know what to think because there is a possibility that Carew is the killer, but it does not make sense that he used the help of Margaret and her sister, and if they did not work together, how did he know where to find Hattie?

Oliver thinks that he is winning the case, and he has cast sufficient doubt for Ballinger to be acquitted, so he does not think it is a good idea for him to testify. Yet, Margaret is against it because she believes that if he did not kill Parfitt, he has a right to tell everybody. And when Oliver visits Ballinger, he also wants to testify. Actually, he wants to show that the killer is Cardew. So Oliver has no option but to call him to testify. Things go wrong when Carew testifies, specifying the men who were part of the pornographic show, and that leads to Ballinger to be found guilty and his sentence is death.

Margaret is very upset and wants him to appeal, but there are no grounds for an appeal. The woman is so nasty, saying that Parfitt deserves to die and Pattie led such a life that her end would not have been any different. She is so horrible, and her loyalty blinds her. When Oliver goes to see his father-in-law, he also tells him that he needs to appeal and make sure that Carew stands trial for the murders because he is the kind of dissipated person who does not deserve to die. Oliver tells him that there are no grounds for appeal, but the man insists, and when Oliver asks him if he killed Parfitt, he admits to it, and he says that the man deserved to die. And he also says that he killed him because he wanted to go against Monk, so that he would fail in his investigation. Otherwise, Monk would have continued to search for the truth, and Arthur would have to look over his shoulder all the time. When Oliver tells him that he can't do much, Arthur tells him that there are hundreds of photographs of respectable people which will be made public if he says the word.

Oliver is in a quagmire, and he goes to talk to Hester and Monk. They agree to try to find the location of those photographs, and they will have the help of Claudine, Squeaky and Crow, but however much they try, they are not successful. When Oliver goes to see Arthur to beg him to stop his plan, he finds him lying on the floor. He has been murdered.

When Oliver tells Margaret, she is distraught and vents all her anger on Oliver. She calls him selfish and is nasty to him. Actually, she even says that her love is gone, and she plans to leave and move in with her mother, which she does the next day.

The epilogue shows Arthur's will, which has left Oliver all his photography equipment and photographs, which means that what he told him in prison was a bluff.

The book ends without revealing who killed Arthur or what is going to happen between Margaret and Oliver. I feel sorry for Oliver because Margaret has proved to be a nasty person. She could feel loyal to her father and believe in his innocence, but the fact that she helped to get Hattie out of the clinic, allegedly at her father's bequest, shows that she must know that her father was not totally innocent. Yet, she used arguments to justify the deaths of Parfitt and Hattie.