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“Of course not,” he said very quietly. “But the gratitude and dependence of a patient are quite different. One knows to accept it as related to one’s skills, to the patient’s natural fear and pain, and not as a personal emotion. Its intensity is transient, even if the gratitude remains. Most men of medicine experience such feelings and know them for what they are. To mistake them for love would be quite foolish.”
Fine, Rathbone thought. Now stop, for Heaven’s sake! Don’t spoil it by going on.
Sir Herbert opened his mouth and then, as if silently hearing Rathbone’s thoughts, closed it again.
Lovat-Smith stood in the center o
f the floor, staring up at the witness box, his head a little to one side. “So in spite of your experience with your wife, your daughters, your grateful and dependent patients, you were still taken totally by surprise when Prudence Barrymore expressed her love and devotion toward you? It must have been an alarming and embarrassing experience for you—a happily married man as you are!”
But Sir Herbert was not so easily tripped.
“She did not express it, sir,” he replied levelly. “She never said or did anything which would lead me to suppose her regard for me was more than professional. When her letters were read to me it was the first I knew of it.”
“Indeed?” Lovat-Smith said with heavy disbelief, giving a little shake of his head. “Do you seriously expect the jury to believe that?” He indicated them with one hand. “They are all intelligent, experienced men. I think they would find it hard to imagine themselves so … naive.” He turned from the witness stand and walked back to his table.
“I hope they will,” Sir Herbert said quietly, leaning forward over the railing with hands clasping it. “It is the truth. Perhaps I was remiss, perhaps I did not look at her as a young and romantic woman, simply as a professional upon whom I relied. And that may be a sin—for which I shall feel an eternal regret. But it is not a cause to commit murder!”
There was a brief murmur of applause from the court. Someone called out, “Hear, hear!” and Judge Hardie glanced at them. One of the jurors smiled and nodded.
“Do you wish to reexamine your witness, Mr. Rathbone?” Hardie asked.
“No thank you, my lord,” Rathbone declined graciously.
Hardie excused Sir Herbert, who walked with dignity, head high, back to his place in the dock.
Rathbone called a succession of Sir Herbert’s professional colleagues. He did not ask them as much as he had originally intended; Sir Herbert’s impression upon the court in general had been too powerful for him to want to smother it with evidence which now seemed largely extraneous. He asked them briefly for their estimation of Sir Herbert as a colleague and each replied unhesitatingly of his great skill and dedication. He asked of his personal moral reputation and they spoke equally plainly that he was beyond reproach.
Lovat-Smith did not bother to pursue them. He made something of a show of boredom, looking at the ceiling while Rathbone was speaking, and when it was his own turn, waiting several seconds before he began. He did not exactly say that their loyalty was totally predictable—and meaningless—but he implied it. It was a ploy to bore the jury and make them forget this impression of Sir Herbert, and Rathbone knew it. He could see from the jurors’ faces that they were still completely in sympathy with Sir Herbert, and further laboring of the point risked insulting their intelligence and losing their attention. He thanked the doctor at that moment on the stand and excused him, sending a message that no further colleagues would be required—except Kristian Beck.
It would have been a startling omission had he not called him, but apart from that, he wished to sow in the jurors’ minds the strong possibility that it had been Beck himself who had murdered Prudence.
Kristian took the stand without the slightest idea of what awaited him. Rathbone had told him only that he would be called to witness to Sir Herbert’s character.
“Dr. Beck, you are a physician and surgeon, are you not?”
“I am.” Kristian looked faintly surprised. It was hardly necessary for the validity of his testimony.
“And you have practiced in several places, including your native Bohemia?” He wanted to establish in the jurors’ minds Beck’s foreignness, his very differentness from the essentially English, familiar Sir Herbert. It was a task he disliked, but the shadow of the noose forms strange patterns on the mind.
“Yes,” Kristian agreed again.
“But you have worked with Sir Herbert Stanhope for more than ten or eleven years, is that correct?”
“About that,” Kristian agreed. His accent was almost indiscernible, merely a pleasant clarity to certain vowels. “Of course we seldom actually work together, since we are in the same field, but I know his reputation, both personal and professional, and I see him frequently.” His expression was open and candid, his intention to help obvious.
“I understand,” Rathbone conceded. “I did not mean to imply that you worked side by side. What is Sir Herbert’s personal reputation, Dr. Beck?”
A flash of amusement crossed Kristian’s face, but there was no malice in it.
“He is regarded as pompous, a little overbearing, justifiably proud of his abilities and his achievements, an excellent teacher, and a man of total moral integrity.” He smiled at Rathbone. “Naturally he is joked about by his juniors, and guyed occasionally—I think that is the word—as we all are. But I have never heard even the most irresponsible suggest his behavior toward women was other than totally correct.”
“It has been suggested that he was somewhat naive concerning women.” Rathbone lifted his voice questioningly. “Especially young women. Is that your observation, Dr. Beck?”
“I would have chosen the word uninterested,” Kristian replied. “But I suppose naive would do. It is not something to which I previously gave any thought. But if you wish me to say that I find it extremely difficult to believe that he had any romantic interest in Nurse Barrymore, or that he would be unaware of any such feeling she might have had for him, then I can do so very easily. I find it harder to believe that Nurse Barrymore cherished a secret passion for Sir Herbert.” A pucker of doubt crossed his face, and he stared at Rathbone very directly.
“You find that hard to believe, Dr. Beck?” Rathbone said very clearly.
“I do.”
