vomit again while you were there?"
"No. Very shortly after I arrived he fell into a kind of delirium. He seemed very weak. His skin was cold to the touch, clammy, and of a blotchy appearance. His pulse was erratic, insofar as it could be found at all, and he was in great internal pain. I admit I... I was in fear for his life from that time on. I held very little hope he could recover." He was ashen himself, and looking at his rigid stance and agonized face, Rathbone could well imagine the scene as Gallagher had struggled desperately to help the dying man, knowing he was beyond all human aid, watching his suffering and unable to relieve it. It was a profession Rathbone could never have followed himself. He vastly preferred to deal with the anguish and injustices of the mind, the complications of the law and its battles.
"I imagine everyone here can conceive your distress, Doctor," he said aloud and with sincere respect. "We can only be grateful we were not in your place. What happened next?"
"Prince Friedrich failed rapidly," Gallagher answered. "He grew colder and weaker. The pain seemed to subside, and he slipped into a coma from which he did not recover. He died at about quarter to four that afternoon."
"And you concluded from what you had seen, and what you already knew of the case, that he had bled to death internally?"
"Yes."
"A not-unnatural conclusion, given the circumstances as they were then," Rathbone agreed. "But tell me, Dr. Gallagher, looking back now, is there anything whatever in those symptoms which is indicative not of internal bleeding but of poison? For example, the poison from the bark or leaves of the yew tree?"
There was a sharp intake of breath around the room. Someone gave a little squeal. A juror looked very distressed.
Zorah fidgeted and frowned.
As always, Gisela remained impassive, but her face was so bloodless she might have been dead herself, a marble figure of a woman.
Rathbone put his hands in his pockets and smiled sadly, still facing the witness. "In case you have had no occasion recently to remind yourself of what those are, Doctor, let me enumerate them - for the court, if not for you. They are giddiness, diarrhea, dilation of the pupils of the eyes, pain in the stomach and nausea, weakness, pallor of the skin, convulsions, coma and death."
Gallagher closed his eyes, and Rathbone thought he swayed a little in the stand.
The judge was staring at him intensely.
One of the jurors had his hand up to his face.
Gisela sat like stone, drained as if all that mattered to her, all that gave her life, had already left her.
In the gallery, a woman was weeping quietly.
Zorah's race was pinched with unhappiness. She looked as if she had lived through the pain and grief of the day all over again.
"There was no diarrhea," Gallagher said very slowly. "Unless it occurred before I arrived and I was not told. There were no convulsions."
"And dilation of the pupils, Dr. Gallagher?' Rathbone almost held his breath. He could feel his own pulse beating.
"Yes..." Gallagher's voice was little more than a whisper. He coughed, and coughed again. "Yes, there was dilation of the pupils of the eyes." He looked wretched.
"And is that a symptom of bleeding to death, Doctor?" Rathbone kept all criticism from his voice. It was easy... he did not feel it. He doubted any man in Gallagher's place would have thought of it.
Gallagher breathed out with a sigh. "No. No, it is not."
There was a gasp in the gallery.
The judge's face tightened, and he watched Rathbone gravely.
"Dr. Gallagher," Rathbone said in the prickling silence, "are you still of the opinion that Prince Friedrich died as a result of bleeding to death from the wounds sustained in his fall?"
The jurors stared at Gisela and then at Zorah.
Zorah clenched her fists and moved forward an inch.
"No sir, I am not," Gallagher answered.
There was a shriek from the gallery and the gasping of breath. Apparently someone fainted, because several people started to rise to their feet and jostle to make space.
"Give her air!" a man commanded.
"Here! Smelling salts," someone else offered.
"Burn a feather!" came the call. "Ushers! Water!"
"Brandy! Has anyone a flask of brandy? Oh, thank you, sir!"
The judge waited until the woman had been assisted, then gave Rathbone leave to continue.
'Thank you, my lord," Rathbone acknowledged.
"Can you name the cause of death, Dr. Gallagher, in your best judgment? So long after the event, and without any