remain there, in case niy learned friend has any questions to redirect to you."
Lovat-Smith rose, smiling, a small, satisfied gesture.
"No thank you, I think Mrs. Furnival by her very appearance makes the motive of jealousy more than understandable."
Louisa flushed, but it was quite obviously with pleasure, even a vindication. She shot a hard glance at Rathbone as she very carefully came down the steps, negotiating the hoops of her wide skirts with a swaggering grace, and walked across the small space of the floor.
There was a rustle of movement in the crowd and a few clearly audible shouts of admiration and approval. Louisa sailed out with her head high and an increasing satisfaction in her face.
Hester found her muscles clenching and a totally unreasonable anger boiling up inside her. It was completely unfair. Louisa could not know the truth, and in all likelihood she believed that Alexandra had murdered the general out of exactly the sudden and violent jealousy she envisioned. But Hester's anger remained exactly the same.
She looked up at the dock and saw Alexandra's pale face. She could see no hatred in it, no easy contempt. There was nothing there but tiredness and fear.
The next witness to be called was Maxim Furnival. He took the stand very gravely, his face pale. He was stronger than Hester had remembered, with more gravity and power to his features, more honest emotion. He had not testified yet, but she found herself disposed towards him. She glanced up at Alexandra again, and saw a momentary breaking of her self-control, a sudden softening, as if memories, and perhaps a sweetness, came through with bitter contrast. Then it was gone again, and the present reasserted itself.
Maxim was sworn in, and Lovat-Smith rose to address him.
"Of course you were also at this unfortunate dinner party, Mr. Furnival?"
Maxim looked wretched; he had none of Louisa's panache or flair for appearing before an audience. His bearing, the look in his face, suggested his mind was filled with memory , of the tragedy, an awareness of the murder that still lay upon them. He had looked at Alexandra once, painfully, without evasion and without anger or blame. Whatever he thought of her, or believed, it was not harsh.
"Yes," he replied.
"Naturally," Lovat-Smith agreed. "Will you please tell us what you remember of that evening, from the time your first guests arrived."
In a quiet voice, but without hesitation, Maxim recounted exactly the same events as Louisa had, only his choice of words was different, laden with his knowledge of what had later occurred. Lovat-Smith did not interrupt him until he came to the point where Alexandra returned from upstairs, alone.
"What was her manner, Mr. Furnival? You did not mention it, and yet your wife said that it was worthy of remark." He glanced at Rathbone; he had forestalled objection, and Rathbone smiled back.
"I did not notice," Maxim replied, and it was so obviously a lie there was a little gasp from the crowd and the judge glanced at him a second time in surprise.
"Try your memory a little harder, Mr. Furnival," Lovat-Smith said gravely. "I think you will find it comes to you." Deliberately he kept his back to Rathbone.
Maxim frowned. "She had not been herself all evening." He met Lovat-Smith's eyes directly. "I was concerned for her, but not more so when she came down than earlier."
Lovat-Smith seemed on the edge of asking yet again, but heard Rathbone rise from his seat to object and changed his mind.
"What happened next?" he said instead.
"I went to the front hall, I forget what for now, and I saw Thaddeus lying on the floor with the suit of armor in pieces all around him - and the halberd in his chest." He hesitated only to compose himself, and Lovat-Smith did not prompt him. "It was quite obvious he had been very seriously hurt, far too seriously for me to do anything useful to help him, so I went back to the withdrawing room to get Charles Hargrove - the doctor. . ."
"Yes, naturally. Was Mrs. Carlyon there?"
"Yes."
"How did she take the news that her husband had had a serious, possibly even fatal accident, Mr. Furnival?"
"She was very shocked, very pale indeed and I think a trifle faint, what do you imagine? It is a fearful thing to have to tell any woman."
Lovat-Smith smiled and looked down at the floor, pushing his hands into his pockets again.
Hester looked at the jury. She could see from the puckered brows, the careful mouths, that their