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The court had already been called to order. The jury was empaneled and the charge had been read and answered. With immense dignity, head high and voice steady, Sir Herbert denied his guilt absolutely. Immediately there was a rustle of sympathy around the body of the court.
The judge, a man in his late forties with brilliant light gray eyes and a clean-boned, lean-cheeked face, flashed his glance around but refrained from speech. He was a hard man, young for such high office, but he owed no one favors and had no ambitions but the law. He was saved from ruthlessness by a sharp sense of humor, and redeemed by a love of classical literature and its soaring imagination, which he barely understood but knew he held to be of immense worth.
The prosecution was conducted by Wilberforce Lovat-Smith, one of the most gifted barristers of his generation and a man Rathbone knew well. He had faced him frequently across the floor of the court, and held him in high regard, and not a little liking. He was of barely average height, dark-complexioned with a sharp-featured face and heavy-lidded, surprisingly blue eyes. His appearance was not impressive. He looked rather more like an itinerant musician or player than a pillar of the establishment. His gown was a fraction too long for him, indifferently tailored, and his wig was not precisely straight. But Rathbone did not make the mistake of underestimating him.
The first witness to be called was Callandra Daviot. She walked across the space between the benches toward the witness stand with her back straight and her head high. But as she climbed the steps she steadied herself with her hand on the rail, and when she turned to Lovat-Smith her face was pale and she looked tired, as if she had not slept well for days, even weeks. It was apparent that either she was ill or she was carrying some well-nigh-intolerable burden.
Hester was not present; she was on duty at the hospital. Apart from the fact that financially she required the employment, both she and Monk believed she might still learn something useful there. It was a remote chance, but any chance at all was worth taking.
Monk was sitting in the center of the row toward the front, listening and watching every inflection and expression. He would be at hand if Rathbone wanted to pursue any new thread that should appear. He looked at Callandra and knew that something was deeply wrong. He stared at her for several minutes, until well into the beginning of her evidence, before he realized what troubled him about her appearance even more than the gauntness of her face. Her hair was totally, even beautifully tidy. It was quite out of character. The fact that she was in the witness box did not account for it. He had seen her at far more important and formal occasions, even dressed before departing
to dine with ambassadors and royalty, still with wisps of hair curling wildly out of place. It touched him with an unanswerable unhappiness.
“They were quarreling about the fact that the laundry chute was apparently blocked?” Lovat-Smith was saying with affected surprise. There was total stillness in the courtroom, although everyone in it knew what was coming. The newspapers had screamed it in banner headlines at the time, and it was not a thing one forgot. Still the jurors leaned forward, listening to every word, eyes steady in concentration.
Mr. Justice Hardie smiled almost imperceptibly.
“Yes,” Callandra was offering no more than exactly what she was asked for.
“Please continue, Lady Callandra,” Lovat-Smith prompted. She was not a hostile witness, but she was not helpful either. A lesser man might have been impatient with her. Lovat-Smith was far too wise for that. The court sympathized with her, thinking the experience would have shocked any sensitive woman. The jurors were all men, naturally. Women were not considered capable of rational judgment sufficient to vote as part of the mass of the population. How could they possibly weigh the matter of a man’s life or death as part of a mere twelve? And Lovat-Smith knew juries were ordinary men. That was both their strength and their weakness. They would presume Callandra was an average woman, susceptible, fragile, like all women. They had no idea she had both wit and strength far more than many of the soldiers her husband had treated when he was alive. Accordingly he was gentle and courteous.
“I regret having to ask you this, but would you recount for us what happened next, in your own words. Do not feel hurried….”
The ghost of a smile crossed Callandra’s mouth.
“You are very civil, sir. Of course. I shall tell you. Dr. Beck peered down the chute to see if he could discover what was blocking it, but he could not. We sent one of the nurses for a window pole to push down the chute and dislodge whatever it was. At that time …” She swallowed hard and continued in a hushed voice. “We assumed it was a tangle of sheets. Of course the window pole failed.”
“Of course,” Lovat-Smith agreed helpfully. “What did you do then, ma’am?”
“Someone, I forget which of the nurses, suggested we fetch one of the skivvies who was a child, and very small, and send her down the chute to clear it.”
“Send the child down?” Lovat-Smith said very clearly. “At this time you were still of the belief it was linen blocking the way?”
There was a shiver of apprehension around the room. Rathbone pulled a face, but very discreetly, out of view of the jury. In the dock Sir Herbert sat expressionless. Judge Hardie drummed his fingers silently on the top of his bench.
Lovat-Smith saw it and understood. He invited Callandra to continue.
“Of course,” she said quietly.
“Then what happened?”
“Dr. Beck and I went down to the laundry room to await the blockage.”
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why did you go downstairs to the laundry room, ma’am?”
“I—I really don’t remember. It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. I suppose to find out what it was, and see that the quarrel was resolved. That is why we intervened in the beginning, to resolve the quarrel.”
“I see. Yes, quite natural. Will you please tell the court what occurred then?”
Callandra was very pale and seemed to require an effort to maintain her control. Lovat-Smith smiled at her encouragingly.
“After a moment or two there was a sort of noise….” She drew in her breath, not looking at Lovat-Smith. “And a body came out of the chute and landed in the laundry basket below it.”
She was prevented from continuing immediately by the rustles and murmurs of horror in the public gallery. Several of the jurors gasped and one reached for his handkerchief.
