Midnight at Marble Arch - By Anne Perry Page 0,100

stated.

Brinsley leaned forward over the railing of the witness stand, his face flushed. “I am saying it was approximately four times the usual medicinal dose, Mr. Bower. She appears to have drunk it voluntarily, but whether she put the laudanum in the wine herself, or it was added by someone else, I have no idea, and—so far as I know—neither do you.”

Bower’s eyes flashed with temper but he did not retreat. “Is it possible that, out of shame at her betrayal of her husband, and the pain and humiliation of being raped by her lover—which inevitably her husband would come to know of—she deliberately took her own life?”

Brinsley glared at him. “I am not going to speculate, sir. I am a doctor, not a clairvoyant.”

“Have you known of women who have been raped who have taken their own lives?” Bower said between his teeth.

“Of course. People take their own lives for all sorts of reasons, and frequently we do not ever fully understand them,” Brinsley answered.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Bower responded with exaggerated patience. “Your witness, Mr. Symington.”

Symington rose and strolled over to the witness stand. He looked up at Brinsley and smiled.

“You must see many tragic and distressing cases, Dr. Brinsley.”

“I do,” Brinsley agreed.

“You have described poor Mrs. Quixwood’s wounds in some detail for Mr. Bower. I won’t ask you to go over them again. I think all of us are distressed enough. Just tell me one thing about them, if you please. Were they all sustained during that one awful attack?”

Bower stood up slowly. “Is my learned friend suggesting some other attack took place that same evening, my lord? That is preposterous! There are no grounds whatsoever for such a suggestion. And even if there had been such a … a mythical attack, how would Dr. Brinsley differentiate one wound from another?”

Symington looked at Bower as if he had taken leave of his wits.

“Good gracious,” he said incredulously. “Such a thing never occurred to me. She would hardly have let a second attacker into the house after sustaining one attack. What on earth are you saying?”

“It was your suggestion, sir!” Bower all but spat the words.

“Not at all,” Symington shook his head. “I was thinking that if her lover was prone to violence, then there might have been old bruises, half-healed scars, abrasions, from earlier quarrels. A deep bruise can take some time to disappear altogether.”

“I saw no older injuries at all,” Brinsley replied, but now his face was keen with a spark of interest.

“Then would it be reasonable to assume, from the evidence, of course, that the attack was sudden, and would have been completely unexpected?” Symington pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned back a little to look up at the doctor on the stand.

“It would indeed,” Brinsley agreed. “In fact, if the same man had ever shown any violence toward her, I imagine she would’ve been very careful not to let him in without male servants well within earshot. We can’t say for certain, but I think it is safe to assume that it was unexpected.”

“Then one may also assume that she was not afraid of him?” Symington waved his hands in denial. “Oh, I’m sorry. That was simply my own thought. Foolish of me. Of course she was not afraid of him, or she would not have let him in. Thank you, Dr. Brinsley.”

Bower half stood, then changed his mind and sat again, his face hard-edged and angry.

The court adjourned for luncheon. Narraway glanced up at the dock and saw Alban Hythe rise to his feet, looking back at the court only once before the jailers led him away. His face was white, terrified, and despairing, searching for even one person who believed in him.

Was Narraway such a person? He thought he was, but even still, he was glad Hythe had not met his eyes, or recognized him, because he was not certain what his own eyes would’ve revealed. The only thing he was sure of beyond any doubt at all was that he had no idea how to help him.

IN THE EVENING NARRAWAY sat alone in his study and weighed in his mind everything he knew or believed about Catherine Quixwood and Alban Hythe. He had read Catherine’s social diary. Was it really credible, as Hythe claimed, that she had been seeing him in order to learn more about major investments her husband might have made.

Did she actually know or understand enough of Quixwood’s finances to fear that he would lose badly? There