been attracted to women who had chosen someone else before. It happened to almost everyone. It had stung his vanity more than his heart. He had felt embarrassment, even self-doubt and despondency at times. But to be rebuffed by Vespasia, however softly or reluctantly, would wound him in a place he had considered invulnerable. He must not allow it to happen. The friendship was important enough to him that the loss of it was frightening.
So he sat alone near the front of the gallery as the proceedings began. The jury was called and sworn in, and the charge was read. Symington was willing to defend Hythe free of charge, simply for the interest and fame of the case. But clever, inventive, and individual as he was, Narraway was concerned. Not only the evidence but the mood of the court was overwhelmingly against Hythe.
Hythe stood in the dock, high above the well of the room. He looked so pale as to seem almost gray. He made no movements, no sounds, except to state his innocence in a voice so quiet that the judge had to ask him to repeat it.
Maris Hythe would be waiting outside, perhaps alone. She would not be permitted to hear the evidence, in case she might be called to testify. Could there be a more exquisite torture of the mind?
The charge did not include murder, only the brutal rape and beating. In his opening statement, Algernon Bower, Queen’s Counsel for the prosecution, faced the jury and spoke with a soft but curiously penetrating voice. He was not a large man, barely of average height, but he had a presense that could not be ignored. His face was powerful, with a dominant nose and keen eyes. He had a high forehead where, Narraway knew, his dark, straight hair was beginning to thin; although today, of course, Bower wore the lawyer’s costume of a white wig.
“We will prove to you, gentlemen,” he said levelly, removing almost all emotion from his tone, “that the accused man was having a love affair with the dead woman, Catherine Quixwood, and that he visited her late on the evening of her death. She herself was the one who let him into her home. No servants saw him, but that is because she wanted it so. She herself had dismissed them.”
The jurors stared at him, somber and unhappy. There was a distinct rustle of movement in the gallery.
Next to Narraway, a large man pursed his lips in disapproval. His thoughts were almost as clear on his face as if he had spoken them aloud.
“We may never know exactly what happened,” Bower continued. He looked at the jurors as an actor regards his audience, weighing them. “But we will prove beyond any doubt at all that there was a terrible quarrel, which became physically violent. You may surmise the cause of it to be that Mrs. Quixwood had grown tired of Mr. Hythe’s attentions, or even that her conscience had at last asserted itself and she had decided to think again of her loyalty to her husband.” He held up a hand, although Symington, in his seat on the other side of the aisle, had made no move to interrupt him.
“We will prove to you, through medical and other evidence,” Bower went on, “that this quarrel ended in the most brutal rape and beating of Mrs. Quixwood, leaving her broken and bleeding on the floor. Later she crept on her hands and knees over to the sideboard, where she poured an overdose of laudanum into her glass of Madeira wine and thus took her own life.”
There were head-shakes in the jury box. A woman in the gallery let out a cry of horror.
Narraway winced. Despite the heat in the room, he was cold, as if despair were settling inside him and filling his body. It was as well he had not asked Vespasia to be here, even had she been willing to come. This was, in a sense, the beginning of a public execution. She could be spared that.
Bower finished and Symington stood up. His face looked as it had in his office when Narraway had engaged him on the case: smooth, handsome, younger than he actually was. The light caught his pale wig, which concealed almost all his hair, but there was no sign whatever of his quick, wide smile or the totally irresponsible sense of humor that was ordinarily characteristic of him. Watching him now, Narraway had no idea if Symington had a