Hester looked more closely, and saw there was a gold wedding band on her hand, not the one she had worn earlier, but a new one. For an instant she forgot the present ache of fear and tragedy.
But it was brief. Reality returned with Riley's answer.
"He was also very severely injured," he said quietly.
There was barely a sound in the room. There were faint rustles, tiny movements, a sigh of breath. The jurors never took their eyes from the proceedings.
"A great deal of blood?" Goode pressed.
Riley hesitated.
No one moved.
"No..." he said at last. "When a person is kicked and punched there are terrible bruises, but the skin is not necessarily broken. There was some, especially where his ribs were cracked. One had pierced the skin. And on his back. There the flesh had been ripped."
There was a gasp of indrawn breath in the room. Several of the jurors looked very white.
"But Sergeant Evan said that the accused's clothes were soaked in blood, Dr. Riley," Goode pointed out. "Where did that come from, if not from his injuries?"
"I assume from the dead man," Riley replied. "His wounds were more severe, and there were several places where the skin was broken. But I am surprised he bled so badly."
"And there were no wounds on the accused to account for such blood?"
Riley pressed.
"No, there were not."
"Thank you, Dr. Riley."
Rathbone rose. It was a forlorn hope, but he had nothing else. He must try anything, no matter how remote. He had no idea what Monk would produce, and there were always the possibilities that involved Arthur and Duke Kynaston.
"Dr. Riley, have you any way of knowing whose blood it was on Rhys Duffs clothes?"
"No, sir," Riley answered without the least resentment. The smooth expression of his face suggested he had no conviction in the matter himself, only a sadness that the whole event should have happened at all.
"So it could belong to a third, or even a fourth person, whom we have not yet mentioned?"
"It could... were there such a person."
The jury looked bemused.
The judge watched Rathbone anxiously, but he did not intervene.
"Thank you," Rathbone nodded. "That is all I have to ask you, sir."
Goode called Corriden Wade, who reluctantly, pale-faced, his voice barely heard, admitted that Rhys's injuries could not have produced the blood described on his clothes. Not once did he look up to the dock where Rhys sat motionless, his face twisted in an unreadable expression, a mixture of helpless bitterness and blazing anger. Nor did Wade appear to look towards the gallery where Sylvestra sat next to Eglantyne, both of them watching him intently. He kept his eyes undeviatingly on Goode, confirming that the events of that night of his father's death had rendered Rhys incapable of communication, either by speech or by writing. He was able only to nod or shake his head. He expressed the deepest concern for his well-being, and would not commit himself to any certainty that he would recover.
Goode hesitated, as if to ask him further as to his knowledge of Rhys's personality, but after the vaguest of beginnings, he changed his mind.
There was nothing for him to prove but the facts, and to explore the growth of motive only opened the way for Rathbone to suggest insanity.
He thanked Wade and returned to his seat.
Rathbone took his place. He knew Wade was as sympathetic a witness as he would get, apart from Hester, whom he could find no excuse to call.
And yet he had nothing to ask Wade which would not do more harm than good. He needed something from Monk as desperately as he ever had, and he did not even know what to hope for, let alone to seek, or to suggest. He stood in the middle of the floor feeling alone and ridiculous. The jury were waiting for him to say something, to begin to fight back. He had done nothing so far except make a gesture about the blood, one which he knew no one believed.
Should he ask Wade about the deterioration of Rhys's character, and lay grounds for a plea of insanity... at least in mitigation? He thought it was what Sylvestra wanted. It was the only thing which was comprehensible for such an act.
But it was not a defence in law, not for Rhys. He may be evil, acting from a different set of moral beliefs from anyone else in this crowded room, but he was not insane in any sense that he did not understand either the law,