The Sins of the Wolf

“That is what she said to you?” Gilfeather demanded.

“Indeed sir, it is.”

“And what did you do, Dr. Ormorod?”

“Well, at first, I confess, I did not entirely believe her.” He pulled a face and glanced at the jury. One or two of them obviously sympathized with him. There were nodding heads. At least two thirds were middle-aged to elderly gentlemen of high repute, and were used to the vagaries of women, especially young women in a delicate condition.

“But what did you do, sir?” Gilfeather insisted.

Ormorod returned his attention to the matter. “I conducted an examination, sir, in some considerable detail.” Again he waited, for dramatic effect.

Gilfeather kept his composure.

Rathbone swore under his breath.

Argyll sighed silently, but his expression was easily readable.

Ormorod’s face tightened. This was not the reaction he had intended.

“It took me a long time,” he said tightly. “And I was obliged to conduct a full postmortem examination, most particularly the contents of the stomach of the deceased. But I concluded that there was no doubt whatsoever that Mrs. Farraline had met her death as a result of having been given a massive overdose of her usual medicine, a distillation of digitalis.”

“How massive a dose, sir? Can you say?”

“At least twice what any responsible practitioner would prescribe for her,” Ormorod answered.

“And you have no doubt of that?” Gilfeather persisted.

“None whatsoever. But you do not need to rest on my opinion alone, sir. The police surgeon will have told you the same.”

“Yes sir. We have the result of that to be read into evidence,” Gilfeather assured him. “And it confirms precisely what you say.”

Ormorod smiled and nodded.

“Did you form any opinion as to how it had been administered?”

“By mouth, sir.”

“Was any force used?”

“There was nothing to suggest it, no sir. I would think it was taken quite voluntarily. I imagine the deceased lady had no idea whatever that it would do her harm.”

“But you have no doubt that it was indeed the cause of her death?”

“No doubt whatsoever.”

“Thank you, Dr. Ormorod. I have no further questions for you.”

Argyll thanked Gilfeather and faced Dr. Ormorod.

“Sir, your evidence has been admirably clear and to the point. I have only one question to ask you. It is this. I assume you examined the medicine chest from which the deceased’s dose had been taken? Yes. Naturally you did. How many vials were there in it, sir… both full and empty?”

Ormorod thought for a moment, furrowing his brow.

“There were ten full vials, sir, and two empty.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Yes… yes, I am positive.”

“Would you describe their appearance, sir?”

“Appearance?” Ormorod clearly did not see any purpose to the question.

“Yes, Doctor; what did they look like?”

Ormorod held up his hand, finger and thumb apart. “About two, two and a half inches long, three quarters of an inch in diameter, sir. Very unremarkable, very ordinary medical vials.”

“Of glass?”

“I have said so.”

“Clear glass?”

“No sir, dark blue colored glass, as is customary when a substance is poisonous, or can be if taken ill-advisedly.”

“Easy to see if a vial is full or empty?”

At last Ormorod understood. “No sir. Half full, perhaps; but completely full or quite empty would appear exactly the same, no line of liquid to observe.”

“Thank you, Doctor. We may presume one of them was used by Miss Latterly on the previous evening, the other we may never know… unless Miss McDermot should choose to tell us.”

“Mr. Argyll!” the judge said angrily. “You may presume what you please, but you will not do it aloud in my court. Here we will have evidence only. And Miss McDermot has said nothing about the subject.”

“Yes, my lord,” Argyll said unrepentantly. The damage was done, and they all knew it.

Ormorod said nothing.

Argyll thanked him and excused him. He left somewhat reluctantly. He had enjoyed his moment in the limelight.

On the third day Gilfeather called Mary Farraline’s own doctor to describe her illness, its nature and duration, and to swear that there was no reason why she should not have lived several more years of happy and fulfilled life. There were all the appropriate murmurs of sympathy. He described the medicine he had prescribed for her, and the dosage.

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?”