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Patterson nodded and sat back in his great carved seat.
Juster continued to question Hester and draw from her piece by piece a vivid description of the blood transfusion machine. She began with how blood was drawn from Charlie and Maggie, but it was added to so that it would not clot and coagulate.
‘What was added?’ he asked.
‘I think it ill advised to tell you,’ she answered, ‘in case anyone might attempt such a thing themselves. It is highly skilled.’
‘I see,’ he nodded agreement. ‘Can you tell the court how it was administered?’
She described Radnor’s treatment, his recovery, and then relapse. Juster questioned her about her abduction from the hospital and finally how she was rescued by Monk and his men.
No one interrupted her. The court was so quiet that the faintest of movement was audible: the rustle of fabric on wood, the creak of a chair as someone moved their weight.
‘And did you attempt to escape during this time?’ Juster said at last.
‘No. I could not leave the children behind,’ she answered.
‘And your patient?’
She hesitated.
‘Mrs Monk?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘He had one bad crisis, and I don’t think Miss Radnor could have dealt with it.’
‘Did you think of escaping?’ Juster insisted. Rathbone had warned him that Colbert would press the issue. He could not afford to ignore it.
‘Yes, I thought of it,’ Hester said very softly. ‘But the children were growing weaker. He took too much blood from them. They are very small, very thin . . .’ Her voice wavered.
Colbert looked up sharply and started to rise.
Juster turned towards him. ‘Your witness, Mr Colbert.’
Rathbone immediately thought that Juster had let Colbert take over too soon. There were other things he could have asked Hester, let the jury see her courage and dedication more clearly.
It was too late. Colbert rose to his feet, walked out into the body of the court to stand below the witness box and stared up at Hester.
Rathbone lost his certainty. It was too long since he had been in the courtroom. His judgement was blunted. He was too personally involved.
‘You have been very specific, Mrs Monk,’ Colbert said with a slight smile. ‘We are grateful to you. Most of us here are laymen when it comes to medical details such as you describe. Help us, please. Do I understand you correctly that Dr Rand was taking an amount of blood from two of these children and then placing it, through a very fine needle and a machine that he had created, into the veins of his sick patient? And after this treatment, the patient showed considerable recovery? Is that a fair description of what you assisted him to do?’
‘It is incomplete,’ Hester replied, her voice perfectly level. ‘But it is not inaccurate as far as it goes.’
‘What did I miss?’ Colbert looked puzzled.
‘Mr Radnor did not have insufficient blood,’ she explained. ‘His blood was diseased. Dr Rand had tried once some time ago to perform this transfusion with other patients, and other donors. Apparently these three children, the youngest as well, had blood that worked on all upon whom he used it. No on
e seems to know why that is. But the children are young, very small and increasingly weak.’
‘You mentioned that,’ Colbert was still polite. ‘But it did work, did it not? Mr Radnor was alive and apparently gaining strength when Mr Monk and his men broke in and forcibly stopped the treatment. They arrested Mr Rand and Miss Radnor, and brought all of you forcibly back to the city? Yes or no will do, Mrs Monk.’
Rathbone stiffened. Whatever way she answered he would trip her up. If she said ‘yes’ then she was admitting that Monk had effectively damaged Radnor’s chances of recovery. If she said ‘no’ she would be suggesting that she knew more than Rand did about his disease and recovery.
‘I don’t know,’ Hester said with the shadow of a smile. ‘I could tell you his pulse rate, temperature, whether he was eating or not, and sleeping. What that meant with regard to his recovery, and whether it was temporary or permanent, I do not know.’
Colbert masked a slight irritation, but Rathbone saw it.
‘Do you always refer to a doctor, Mrs Monk? Surely in your heroic experience in the battlefield you had to take major decisions yourself when a man was critically injured? My research into your career tells me that at times you performed surgery right there on the grass. You even amputated limbs from dying men, and saved their lives!’ He invested his tone with intense awe, drawing the emotions of the court with him. ‘You were less circumspect then, far less timid.’
