Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

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 rehearsed 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 pronounced 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 chum 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 assistance 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 assured 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?”