a road before and behind with no turning, and at the same time to crush in on you and have no size at all. To say one or two minutes is only a guess, made afterwards using intelligence. It was one of the most dreadful moments I can recall."
"Why? Because you knew someone in that house, one of your personal friends, had murdered General Thaddeus Carlyon?"
Again the judge glanced at Rathbone, and Rathbone made no move. A frown crossed the judge's face, and still Rathbone did not object.
"Yes," Hargrave said almost inaudibly. "I regret it, but it was inescapable. I am sorry." For the first and only time he looked up at Alexandra.
"Just so," Lovat-Smith agreed solemnly. "And accordingly you informed the police?"
"I did."
"Thank you."
Rathbone looked at the jury again. Not one of them looked at the dock. She sat there motionless, her blue eyes on Rathbone, without anger, without surprise, and without hope.
He smiled at her, and felt ridiculous.
Chapter 10
Monk listened to Lovat-Smith questioning Charles Hargrave with a mounting anxiety. Haigrave was creating an excellent impression with the jury; he could see their grave, attentive faces. He not only had their respect but their belief. Whatever he said about the Carlyons they would accept.
There was nothing Rathbone could do yet, and Monk's intelligence knew it; nevertheless he fretted at the helplessness and the anger rose in him, clenching his hands and hardening the muscles of his body.
Lovat-Smith stood in front of the witness box, not elegantly (it was not in him), but with a vitality that held attention more effectively, and his voice was fine, resonant and individual, an actor's instrument.
"Dr. Hargrave, you have known the Carlyon family for many years, and indeed been their medical adviser for most of that time, is that not so?"
"It is."
"You must be in a position to have observed their characters, their relationships with one another."
Rathbone stiffened, but did not yet interrupt.
Lovat-Smith smiled, glanced at Rathbone, then back up at Hargrave.
"Please be careful to answer only from your own observation," he warned. "Nothing that you were told by someone else, unless it is to account for their own behavior; and please do not give us your personal judgment, only the grounds upon which you base it."
"I understand," Hargrave acknowledged with the bleakest of smiles. "I have given evidence before, Mr. Lovat-Smith. What is it you wish to know?"
With extreme care as to the rules of evidence, all morning and well into the afternoon Lovat-Smith drew from Hargrave a picture of Thaddeus Carlyon as honorable and upright, a military hero, a fine leader to his men, an example to that youth which looked to courage, discipline and honor as their goals. He had been an excellent husband who had never ill-used his wife with physical violence or cruelty, nor made excessive demands of her in the marriage bed, but on the other hand had given her three fine children, to whom he had been a father of devotion beyond the normal. His son adored him, and rightly so, since he had spent much time with the boy and taken great care in the determination of his future. There was no evidence whatsoever that he had ever been unfaithful to his wife, nor drunk to excess, gambled, kept her short of money, insulted her, slighted her in public, or in any other way treated her less than extremely well.
Had he ever exhibited any signs whatever of mental or emotional instabUity?
None at all; the idea would be laughable, were it not so offensive.
What about the accused, who was also his patient?
That, tragically, was different. She had, in the last year or so, become agitated without apparent cause, been subject to deep moods of melancholy, had fits of weeping for which she would give no reason, had absented herself from her home without telling anyone where she was going, and had quarreled violently with her husband.
The jury were looking at Alexandra, but with embarrassment now, as if she were someone it was vulgar to observe, like someone naked, or caught in an intimate act.
"And how do you know this, Dr. Hargrave?" Lovat-Smith enquired.
Still Rathbone sat silently.
"Of course I did not hear the quarrels," Hargrave said, biting his lip. "But the weeping and the melancholy I saw, and the absences were apparent to everyone. I called more than once and found unexplainably that she was not there. I am afraid the agitation, for which she would never give me a reason, was painfully obvious each time she