Ormorod returned his attention to the matter. "I conducted an examination, sir, in some considerable detail." Again he waited, for dramatic effect.
Gilfeather kept his composure.
Rathbone swore under his breath.
Argyll sighed silently, but his expression was easily readable.
Ormorod"s face tightened. This was not the reaction he had intended.
"It took me a long time," he said tightly. "And I was obliged to conduct a full postmortem examination, most particularly the contents of the stomach of the deceased. But I concluded that there was no doubt whatsoever that Mrs. Farraline had met her death as a result of having been given a ma.s.sive overdose of her usual medicine, a distillation of digitalis."
"How ma.s.sive a dose, sir? Can you say?"
"At least twice what any responsible pract.i.tioner would prescribe for her," Ormorod answered.
"And you have no doubt of that?" Gilfeather persisted.
"None whatsoever. But you do not need to rest on my opinion alone, sir. The police surgeon will have told you the same."
"Yes sir. We have the result of that to be read into evidence," Gilfeather a.s.sured Mm. "And it confirms precisely what you say."
Ormorod smiled and nodded.
"Did you form any opinion as to how it had been administered?"
"By mouth, sir."
"Was any force used?"
"There was nothing to suggest it, no sir. I would think it was taken quite voluntarily. I imagine the deceased lady had no idea whatever that it would do her harm."
"But you have no doubt that it was indeed the cause of her death?"
"No doubt whatsoever."
"Thank you, Dr. Ormorod. I have no further questions for you."
Argyll thanked Gilfeather and faced Dr. Ormorod.
"Sir, your evidence has been admirably clear and to the point. I have only one question to ask you. It is this. I a.s.sume you examined the medicine chest from which the deceased"s dose had been taken? Yes. Naturally you did. How many vials were there in it, sir...both full and empty?"
Ormorod thought for a moment, furrowing his brow.
"There were ten full vials, sir, and two empty."
"Are you quite sure?"
"Yes...yes, I am positive."
"Would you describe their appearance, sir?"
"Appearance?" Ormorod clearly did not see any purpose to the question.
"Yes, Doctor; what did they look like?"
Ormorod held up his hand, finger and thumb apart. "About two, two and a half inches long, three quarters of an inch in diameter, sir. Very unremarkable, very ordinary medical vials."
"Of gla.s.s?"
"I have said so."
"Clear gla.s.s?"
"No sir, dark blue colored gla.s.s, as is customary when a substance is poisonous, or can be if taken ill-advisedly."
"Easy to see if a vial is full or empty?"
At last Ormorod understood. "No sir. Half full, perhaps; but completely full or quite empty would appear exactly the same, no line of liquid to observe."
"Thank you, Doctor. We may presume one of them was used by Miss Latterly on the previous evening, the other we may never know...unless Miss McDermot should choose to tell us."
"Mr. Argyll!" the judge said angrily. "You may presume what you please, but you will not do it aloud in my court. Here we will have evidence only. And Miss McDermot has said nothing about the subject."
"Yes, my lord," Argyll said unrepentantly. The damage was done, and they all knew it.
Ormorod said nothing.
Argyll thanked him and excused him. He left somewhat reluctantly. He had enjoyed his moment in the limelight.
On the third day Gilfeather called Mary Farraline"s own doctor to describe her illness, its nature and duration, and to swear that there was no reason why she should not have lived several more years of happy and fulfilled life. There were all the appropriate murmurs of sympathy. He described the medicine he had prescribed for her, and the dosage.
Argyll said nothing.
The apothecary who had prepared the medicine was called, and described his professional services in detail.
Again Argyll said nothing, except to ascertain that the medicine could have been distilled to become more concentrated, and thus twice as powerful, while still in the same volume of liquid, and that it did not need a nurse"s medical knowledge or skills to do so. It was all totally predictable.
Hester sat in the dock watching and listening. Half of her wished that it could be over. It was like a ritual dance, only in words, everyone taking a carefully rehea.r.s.ed and foreordained part. It had a nightmarish quality, because she could only observe. She could take no part in it, although it was her life they were deciding. She was the only one who could not go home at the end of it, and would certainly not do it all again next week, or next month, but over a different matter, and with different players walking on and off.
She wanted the suspense to stop, the judgment to be made.
But when it was, then perhaps it would be all over. There would be condemnation. No more hope, however slight, however little she set her heart on it. She thought now that she had resigned herself. But had she really? When it came to the moment that it was no longer a matter of imagination that the judge put on the black cap and p.r.o.nounced the sentence of death, would she still really keep her back straight, her knees locked and supporting her weight?
Or would the room spin around her and her stomach churn and rise in sickness? Perhaps after all she needed a little longer to prepare herself.
The next witness was Callandra Daviot. Somehow word had been whispered around until almost everyone in the gallery knew that she was Hester"s friend, and they were therefore hostile to her. A battle of wits was expected. It was almost as if there were a scent of blood in the air. People craned forward to see her stiff, broad-hipped figure walk across the floor of the courtroom and climb the steps to the witness stand.
Watching her, Monk had an almost sickening lurch of familiarity. It was as if she were not only a woman he had known in the last year and a half, and who had helped him financially, a woman whose courage and intellect he admired, but as if she were a part of his own emotional life. She was not beautiful; even in her youth she had been charming at best. Her nose was too long, her mouth too individual, her hair was too curly and tended to frizz and fly away at odd and uncomplimentary angles. No pins had yet been devised which would make it sit fashionably. Her figure was broad at the hip and a trifle too rounded at the shoulders.
And yet the whole had a dignity and honesty about it that superceded the elegance of other Society women, a reality where artifice ruled. He ached to be able to help her, impossible as that was, and was disgusted with his own sentimentality.
He sat in his seat with his body rigid, all his muscles locked, telling himself he was a fool, that he did not care overmuch, that his whole life would continue much the same in all that mattered, regardless of what happened there. And he did not feel one iota better for any of it.
"Lady Callandra." Gilfeather was polite but cool. He was not naive enough to imagine he could charm her, or that the jury would think he could. He had occasionally overestimated the subtlety of a jury; never had he erred in the other direction. "How long have you known Miss Hester Latterly?"
"Since the summer of 1856," Callandra replied.
"And the relationship has been friendly, even warm?"
"Yes." Callandra had no alternative but to admit it. To deny it might have strengthened her embracement of Hester"s honesty, but it would have required explanation of its own as to why it was cool. She and Gilfeather both knew it and the jury watched her with growing understanding of all the nuances of both what she would say and leave unsaid.
"Were you aware that she intended to take the position with the Farraline family?"
"Yes."
"She informed you of it?"
"Yes."
"What did she tell you about it? Please be precise, Lady Callandra. I am sure you are aware that you are on oath."
"Of course I am," she said tartly. "Added to which, I have no need and no desire to be anything less."
Gilfeather nodded but said nothing.
"Proceed," the judge directed.
"That she would enjoy the journey and that she had not been to Scotland before, so it would be a pleasure in that respect also."
"Are you familiar with Miss Latterly"s financial position?" Gilfeather asked, his eyebrows raised, his flyaway hair wild where he had pushed his fingers through it.
"No I am not."
"Are you quite certain?" Gilfeather sounded surprised. "Surely as a friend, a friend with considerable means of your own, you have ascertained from time to time whether she was in need of your a.s.sistance or not?"
"No." Callandra stared back at him, defying him to disbelieve her. "She is a woman of self-respect, and considerable ability to earn her own way. I trust that if she were in difficulty she would feel close enough to me to ask, and I should have noticed for myself. That situation has never arisen. She is not someone to whom money is important, provided she can meet her commitments. She does have a family, you know-who would be perfectly happy to offer her a permanent home, did she wish it. If you are trying to paint a picture of her as desperate to keep body and soul together, you are totally mistaken."
"I was not," Gilfeather a.s.sured her. "I was thinking of something far less pitiable, and understandable, Lady Callandra, simply greed. A woman without pretty things, who sees a brooch she likes, and in a moment of weakness takes it, then is obliged to conceal her crime by an infinitely worse one."
"Balderdash!" Callandra said furiously, her face burning with anger and disgust. "Complete tommyrot. You know little of human nature, sir, if you judge her that way, and cannot see that most crimes of murder are committed either by practiced villains or else are within the family. This, I fear, is one of the latter. I am quite aware that it is your professional duty to obtain a conviction, rather than to seek the truth...which is a pity, in my view. But-"
"Madam!" The judge banged his gavel on the bench with a clap like gunfire. "The court will not endure your opinion of the Scottish legal system and what you believe to be its shortcomings. You will answer counsel"s questions simply and add nothing of your own. Mr. Gilfeather, I suggest you endeavor to keep your witness in control, hostile or not!"
"Yes, my lord," Gilfeather said obediently, but he was not as entirely angry as perhaps he should have been. "Now, your ladyship, if we may address the matter in hand? Would you be good enough to tell the court exactly what happened when Miss Latterly called upon you on her return from Edinburgh, after Mrs. Farraline"s death. Begin with her arrival at your home, if you please."
"She looked extremely distressed," Callandra answered. "It was about a quarter to eleven in the morning, as I recall."
"But surely the train arrives in London long before that?" he interrupted.
"Long before," she agreed. "She had been detained by Mrs. Farraline"s death, and advising the conductor, and then the stationmaster, and finally by speaking to Mr. and Mrs. Murdoch. She came straight from the station to my house, tired and deeply grieved. She had liked Mrs. Farraline, even in the short time she had known her. She was, according to Hester, a remarkably charming woman, full of humor and intelligence."
"Indeed, so I believe," Gilfeather said dryly, glancing at the jury and then back at Callandra. "She is already deeply missed. What did Miss Latterly tell you had happened?"
Callandra replied as accurately as she could remember, and no one else stirred or made a sound while she was speaking. She went on, at Gilfeather"s prompting, to tell how Hester had gone upstairs to wash and had returned with the gray pearl pin, and what had transpired after that. Gilfeather tried his best to keep her answers brief, to cut her off, to best rephrase his questions so that a confirmation or denial would be sufficient, but she was not to be led.
Rathbone sat still behind Argyll listening to every word, but his eyes as often as not were upon the faces of the jury. He could see their respect for Callandra, and indeed that they liked her, but they also knew that she was biased towards the prisoner.
How much would they discount for that reason?
It was impossible to tell.
He turned to watch the Farralines instead. Oonagh was still composed, her face totally calm, watching Callandra with interest and not without respect. Beside her, Alastair looked unhappy, his aquiline face drawn, as if he had slept poorly, which was hardly surprising. Did he know about the company books? Had he begun his own inquiries since his mother"s death? Had he suspected his weaker younger brother?
What quarrels were there in that family when the door was closed and the outside, public world could neither see nor hear?
It was not surprising that none of them looked at Hester. Did they know, or at least believe, that she was innocent?
He leaned forward and tapped Argyll on the shoulder.
Very slowly Argyll leaned backward so he could hear if Rathbone bent and whispered.
"Are you going to play on the family"s guilt?" he said under his breath. "It is very probable at least one of them knows who it is-and why."
"Which one?"
"Alastair, I should guess. He is head of the family, and he looks wretched."
"He won"t break as long as his sister is there to support him," Argyll said in reply so softly Rathbone had to strain to hear him. "If I could drive a wedge between those two, I would, but I don"t know how yet, and to try it and fail would only strengthen them. I"ll only get one chance. She is a formidable woman, Oonagh McIvor."
"Is she protecting her husband?"
"She would, I think, but why? Why would Baird McIvor have killed his mother-in-law?"
"I don"t know," Rathbone confessed.
The judged glared at him and for several moments he was obliged to keep silent, until Callandra again earned the judge"s disapproval and his attention returned to her.
"Fear," he whispered to Argyll again.
"Of whom?" Argyll asked, his face expressionless.
"Play on fear," Rathbone replied. "Find the weakest one and put him on the box, and make the others fear he or she would give them away, either out of panic and clumsiness or to save his own skin."
Argyll was silent for so long Rathbone thought he had not heard.
He leaned forward again and was about to repeat it when Argyll replied.
"Who is the weak one? One of the women? Eilish, with her ragged school, or Deirdra, with her flying machine?"