Sharyn McCrumb - If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

“Naturally not. And did Mrs. Lucy Todhunter give you instructions about what to cook?”

“Now and again,” the cook conceded. “But not what you’d call regular. She never seemed to care what she ate.”

“And was she much of a help to you in the kitchen? Buying the food? Or chopping vegetables, perhaps? Preparing the pastry?”

Mrs. Malone’s incredulous stare suggested that Patrick Russell and his senses had parted company. “Not while I know it!” she replied. “I can’t remember the last time I saw Miz Lucy in the kitchen. And if I saw her do a hand’s turn of work, that would have been a day.”

“So she didn’t prepare any meals for former Union Army Major Todhunter during his last illness?”

“No more did I. He wouldn’t take so much as a bowl of gruel. Said his stomach wouldn’t stand for it.”

“But a cup of tea, perhaps? Or a glass of spirits?”

“Not that I ever saw.” A thought struck her. “Except his beignet.”

“Ah, the beignet!” Russell nodded encouragingly. “His breakfast pastry-an acquired taste from New Orleans. Could you tell us a bit more about that?”

“She used to take him one of my fresh-baked beignets every morning. It was a custom of his. He didn’t want anybody else to bring him his pastry, only Mrs. Todhunter. And she always did, except the couple of days he was sick. That day he was mortally stricken, she took him a beignet to keep up his strength, but it was no use, rest his soul.” Despite the piety of her words, she did not seem unduly grieved by her employer’s demise.

“And she never took him anything else during his illness?”

Mrs. Malone shook her head. “She wouldn’t leave his bedside, most times, unless she was so tired that she collapsed in her own room. So mostly I took up broth and juices, or I sent one of the girls up with it. Not that he’d touch a mouthful of it.”

“Was Mrs. Todhunter herself taken ill during her husband’s final days?”

“No, sir. She wore herself out sitting up with him, but she was fit enough.”

“And the other members of the household? All hale and hearty?”

Mrs. Malone’s lips tightened. “We were sound as a bell, all of us! I told you that no contagion came out of my kitchen, and there’s your proof!”

Russell thanked the cook profusely and excused her from the witness stand. He followed her testimony with that of the housemaids, who whispered agreement to Mrs. Malone’s version of the events. “And did Mrs. Todhunter ever take the broth or pastry, or whatever you brought, and add anything to it?” Russell asked gently.

“No, sir,” said the terrified kitchen maid. “That is, I couldn’t say for most days she didn’t, but that last day, she surely did not.”

“Well, perhaps she took the tray from you and sent you back downstairs so that she could give the broth or pastry to Mr. Todhunter herself?”

“No, sir.” The girl shook her head: a definite no. “She always made me stand there and wait so I could take the tray and dirty dishes back to the kitchen. And the slop bowl, too, like as not.”

“Caring for invalids is an arduous task,” said Russell sympathetically. “But I’m sure you were a great help in the family’s hour of need.”

“Besides, Mr. Todhunter wasn’t taking any nourishment by then, anyhow. Dreadful ill, he was.”

The other maid said much the same, but with considerably more terror in her voice at the prospect of being on display in such a menacing place as a courtroom. Patrick Russell called Dr. Humphreys and Dr. Bell to the stand, with a deference suggesting that they were on loan from the Oracle of Delphi. They were popular men in Danville, and Russell knew it. He did not challenge their statement that the patient had succumbed to arsenic poisoning.

“Now, Dr. Bell, I’ll ask you the same as I’ve asked Dr. Richard Humphreys. Did you ever see Mrs. Lucy Todhunter administer anything potable to her unfortunate husband?”

Bell’s eyes narrowed. “I did not. But I suspected she had. During my stay with the patient, I searched the rooms, and sure enough, finally after Todhunter’s death, I found arsenic-”

“You did find arsenic, Doctor? Tell us the circumstances.”

“It was white powder in a small glass jar. I suspected what it was, of course, and I took a sample away to be tested.”

“Oh, yes. And the results confirmed your suspicions, did they not?”

“They did. The substance in the jar was arsenic trioxide, a fine white powder that puts one in mind of sugar.”

“Humphreys says the same,” mused the attorney. “And one of you was with the patient at all times until the end?”

“Yes. Or Norville or her cousin Mary Compson.”

“Yes. And do you know, Dr. Bell, Mrs. Mary Hadley Compson of Maysville, North Carolina, has testified to the same statement-that at no time did she see Lucy Todhunter administer anything to her ailing husband, the late Union Army Maj-”

“You haven’t asked Norville yet!”

“Let me remedy that at once, Doctor,” said Patrick Russell with a courtly bow.

Richard Norville came to the stand, wary of justice among strangers, but willing enough to tell what he knew. “Yes, I escorted Mrs. Todhunter to her husband’s room the day he took sick,” he told the court. “She wanted to take a tray up to him from the breakfast table, and I wouldn’t allow her to carry it.”

“And they say the Union had no gallant officers!” said Patrick Russell solemnly.

Norville seemed discomfited by snickers from the spectators, but he resumed his testimony. “I took the tray up to Philip’s room and went in with her. She handed him the plate of beignets and he ate most of it. Then he sank back as if he were taken ill again.”

Russell heard the buzz from the back of the courtroom, but he did not turn around. “He had an attack at once, did he? Well, that could have been the pastry, but it seems unlikely that it would work so quickly. What happened next?”

Norville squirmed in his seat and muttered something.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Norville? I couldn’t quite hear what you said.”

“I said: ‘And then she ate the rest of the beignet herself!’”

Russell raised his eyebrows, giving a convincing imitation of someone who is hearing startling news for the first time. “You say that Mrs. Lucy Todhunter herself consumed a piece of the same pastry her husband had eaten? The very same one?”

“Yes. There were half a dozen on the plate. He chose himself one at random. We had all eaten one.”

“And did you see her add anything to that particular pastry? More powdered sugar, perhaps?”

“I did not. Never took my eyes off her for a moment. She didn’t add anything. I’ll take my oath to that.”

“So you have, Mr. Norville,” said Russell, smiling. “Mrs. Todhunter gave her husband a beignet, and he became ill and died. But she ate from the same pastry and was not affected. Perhaps some secret antidote to the fatal dose?”

Norville shook his head. “There’s more to it than that. I told you: we had all eaten a pastry from that plate at breakfast before she took the tray up to his room.”

“You don’t tell me!” said Russell, slipping a bit of brogue into his performance.

“I do,” said Norville grimly. “All four of us-me, the Compsons, and Mrs. Lucy Todhunter-ate one of those baked goods from that very plate before it was taken upstairs to Philip Todhunter.”

“And this plate of pastries…” Russell leaned close to the witness, measuring his words by the syllable. “It never left your sight from the time you all ate one until the time Philip Todhunter took his last mouthful of sustenance on this earth from its contents?”

Patrick Russell gave a deep sigh and turned to face the jury. From the prosecution’s table, young Gerald Hillyard watched with a heavy heart. “There it is, gentlemen,” he said, without a single note of triumph in his voice. Hearing him, you might have believed that he was sorry to have to point out the inescapable conclusion to the assembled seekers of truth. “There it is, indeed. We have two eminent physicians who assure us that poor Philip Todhunter went out of this world on account of a few grains of arsenic that sickened his body. And I’m sure I don’t doubt the word of two fine, learned gentlemen such as these.” He nodded courteously at Bell and Humphreys, both scowling at him from just behind the railing. “And my earnest colleague Mr. Hillyard there-why, he would have you believe that the frail young lady whom I am defending, Mrs. Lucy Todhunter, did willfully poison her husband with that arsenic. There’s even been testimony by Dr. Bell that a jar full of the deadly substance was found hidden in the upstairs of the home. And yet, the beignets were tested. The kitchen sugar was tested. And the stomach contents of Mr. Todhunter were tested. All proved to be arsenic-free. Well, gentlemen of the jury, I suppose that leaves us with but the one question…” He looked at the jury, at Hillyard, and then stared down the crowd who had come to watch the trial.