Snare of Serpents (20 page)

“Yes, I think she does.”

He took my hands and gripped them hard. “Bear up,” he said. “We are going to get there.”

I was thinking: Zillah is my friend, but I never feel I know what is in her mind. As for Jamie, I knew too well what was in his, and it meant that his love was not strong enough to bear this trial.

T
HE NEXT DAY
Jamie went into the witness box.

“You and Miss Glentyre met by chance in the street?” he was asked.

“Yes. She was lost.”

“I see, and she called on you for help?”

“Well … I saw that she was lost.”

“You took her home and arranged to meet again?”

“Yes.”

“And you became engaged to be married?”

“It was not official.”

“Because you, as a student, were unable to support a wife?”

“Yes.”

“What did Miss Glentyre tell you about her father?”

“That he had forbidden her to see me.”

“Yet she continued to do so?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that was becoming conduct?”

“I was upset by it.”

“You hated deceiving Mr. Glentyre?”

“Yes, I did.”

“But Miss Glentyre insisted?”

Ninian was on his feet. “I protest at the question,” he said.

“Miss Glentyre could not force the witness to the tryst. He must have gone willingly.”

“A forceful young lady,” said the Justice Clerk. “But this was a man in love. The court will realise he went to the meeting willingly as Mr. Grainger insists.”

The questions were resumed. “What did you propose to do about the matter?”

“We were to wait until I had finished my training.”

“That would be in two years’ time at least?”

“Yes. Miss Glentyre suggested …”

“What did she suggest?”

“That we elope.”

I paused. I could see the picture the Prosecution was trying to build up of a forceful woman who knew exactly what she wanted and was determined to get it even if it meant eloping with her lover against her father’s wishes … or alternatively murdering her father.

“And you did not fall in with this suggestion?”

“I knew we could not do it.”

“Because you had no money of your own. All you had came from your family and if Miss Glentyre were cut off as her father had threatened she would have nothing either.”

I felt sick, praying for him to stop. I knew that Jamie was regretting that we had ever met; and that was the most cruel realisation of all.

It was Ninian’s turn.

“Had you discussed marriage with Miss Glentyre before you were aware of her father’s disapproval of the match?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that because she was indifferent as to whether you would be poor or rich she wanted to show her loyalty by being prepared to endure a few years of hardship before you could become established in your profession?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

It was the best he could do with Jamie, and I wondered if we had lost the advantage won by Zillah’s evidence.

Two
MORE DAYS
dragged on. The coming and going of witnesses continued. There were more doctors and a great deal of scientific terms which I could not understand, but I knew that it was not going well for me.

There was no news of Ellen’s whereabouts. I thought: there is only one consolation. It will soon be over.

Then something happened. Ninian visited me and I saw at once that he was excited.

He sat down opposite me and smiled.

“If this works out, we’ve done it,” he said. “Thank God for the divine Zillah.”

“What’s happened?”

“You remember she told the court that her husband had once confessed to taking arsenic?”

“Yes.”

“She has discovered a piece of paper, screwed up, she says, at the back of a drawer in which your father kept things like socks and handkerchiefs. A piece of white paper with the remains of a seal on it. She opened this paper. There was nothing on it … no writing to show what it might have contained, but she thought she detected a few grains of powder on it.”

“Powder?” I echoed.

He grinned at me, nodding. “In her husband’s drawer! She immediately thought … you know what she thought. Wise woman. She took it to the police. It is now being analysed.”

“What does this mean?”

“That if the paper contained what we hope it did, there is a possibility … a great possibility … that the dose that killed your father could have been self-administered.”

“When shall we know?”

“Very soon. Oh, Davina … Miss Glentyre … don’t you see?”

I had rarely seen anyone as overjoyed as he was at that moment; and in the midst of all my muddled thoughts I wondered whether he brought such feeling to all his cases.

E
VENTS MOVED QUICKLY
from there.

Dr. Camrose was recalled. There was no doubt that the piece of paper had contained arsenic.

The court was astounded. Zillah was recalled.

“Can you explain why this piece of paper was not brought to light before?”

“It was right at the back of the drawer.”

“Can you explain why it was not seen when the room was searched?”

“I suppose because the searchers were not careful enough.”

There was a ripple of mirth throughout the court.

Zillah went on: “You know how things get caught up in chests of drawers? It was not actually lying in the drawer. It had got caught up and really was midway between the upper and lower drawers, if you know what I mean.”

She smiled beguilingly at her questioner who grunted. But there was nothing he could do to spoil the impression she had made on the court.

Ninian said he had no questions to ask.

From that time the atmosphere changed and it was time for the speeches from the Prosecution and the Defense.

The Prosecution was first. The Lord Advocate spoke for a long time. He set out all the facts against me. First there was the disappearance of the elusive Ellen Farley which seemed highly suspicious. Then there was the fact that I wished to marry and my father had threatened to disinherit me if I did. There was motive for murder.

As I listened I thought how strange it was that so much that was innocent could be misconstrued.

When the day ended with this speech I felt that everything had turned against me.

Ninian came to see me.

“You look troubled,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“No. I am certain that you will soon be free.”

“How can you be so certain?”

He leaned towards me. “Experience,” he said.

“Tomorrow …” I began fearfully.

“Tomorrow is our turn. You shall see.”

He took my hand and put it to his lips and we looked steadily at each other for a few moments.

“This means more to me than anything,” he said.

“I know. There has been a great deal of notice given to the case. If you win you will have that partnership surely.”

“Perhaps. But I wasn’t meaning that.”

Then he released my hand.

“Now you must have a good night’s sleep,” he said. “I’ve asked them to give you a mild sedative. Please take it. It’s necessary. You have been through a trying ordeal and now we are nearing the end. But remember this: we are going to win.”

“You are so certain.”

“I am absolutely sure. We can’t fail. Things looked black at the start, I admit. But it’s working out now in our favour. A good night’s rest … and I’ll see you in court tomorrow. I promise you you won’t be there much longer.”

I fell asleep thinking of him.

He was magnificent. His eloquence carried the jury along with him. He was so confident.

“Members of the jury, can you convict this young woman who is so clearly innocent?” He went through it all. I had met a young man. Most young women meet young men at some time in their lives. I was carried along on the stream of young love. I had been prepared to elope and lose all chance of my inheritance. Was that the attitude of one who could plan cold-blooded murder?

He went on at length about my father. A man who had fallen violently in love with the beautiful woman who had come to the house as a governess. She was many years younger than he was. What would a man do in such circumstances? Who could blame him for trying to recapture his youth? And when he thought he had a chance of doing so, rather naturally he took it. He had admitted taking arsenic. It seems likely he obtained it when he was abroad. He had tried it and knew it was a dangerous practise so he stopped. But then he married a young woman. Let us say that he had a little of the poison stowed away somewhere. He found it and once more experimented.

He had one or two bouts of illness which were obviously due to what he had been taking. This did not deter him, however, and on that fatal night he took the remains of that packet. It was more than he realised. In fact it was a very large dose. He screwed up the paper and put it in the drawer where it became caught up with the drawer above and was missed when the place was searched.

“You, members of the jury, will agree with me that that is a logical explanation of what happened that night.

“Members of the jury, you see before you a young girl. How many of you have daughters of your own? Those of you who have will understand. Think of your own daughter … or the daughter of a friend whom you love well. Think of her caught up in a chain of circumstances over which she has no control … and suddenly finding herself—as this young girl did—in a court of law facing a charge of murder.

“You have heard the evidence. If you have the shadow of a doubt you cannot find this young girl guilty. She is not the perpetrator of crimes but a victim of peculiar circumstances.

“You are observant. You are shrewd and when you think over the evidence, when you consider all we have heard in this court, you will say to yourselves and each other: ‘There is only one verdict we can give. That is Not Guilty.’ “

There followed the summing up by the Justice Clerk. He went through the evidence very carefully.

I was young and that must influence them. But this was an indictment of murder. There was the mysterious Ellen Farley who, according to me, had asked me to buy the arsenic for her and this I had done. The signed book at Henniker’s drug shop was evidence of that. But no one had heard Miss Farley ask me to buy arsenic; no one had seen the rat in the dustbin except— it might be—Ellen Farley. And Ellen Farley was unavailable. So that was a piece of evidence about which the jury would have to come to some conclusion. Did the mysterious Ellen Farley ask the accused to buy arsenic for the rats? Or did the accused buy the arsenic for the purpose of killing her father? She had reason. He was going to disinherit her if she married her lover.

On the other hand, the deceased had confessed to his wife that he had taken arsenic at some time and this he may have procured outside this country, which meant that it was impossible to trace the purchase. Did he find what was left in the packet, misjudge the amount, and so kill himself?

“That is what you have to decide, and only if you are convinced that this is not so and the arsenic was administered from the almost empty decanter by the accused who put it there— only then can you find the accused guilty.”

It was a fair summing up and the Lord Justice Clerk had made the jury’s duty clear to them.

They went out to consider their verdict.

I
WAS TAKEN BELOW.
How the time seemed to drag. An hour passed and there was no verdict.

What would happen to me? I wondered. Could this be the end? Would they condemn me to death? That was the penalty for murder. I wondered how many innocent people had been sent to their deaths.

I should be taken back to the courtroom. I should see Ninian … tense and waiting. And yet he had seemed so sure.

The Kirkwells would be there … Bess … Jenny … the whole household. Zillah would be waiting. If I were found Not Guilty I should owe my life to her. Jamie had shown me quite clearly that what he had felt for me was not true and lasting love.

I kept remembering incidents from my life, as they say people do when they are drowning. Well, I was—metaphorically— drowning.

I tried to look ahead. Suppose Ninian was right and I came through this? What would it be like? Nothing would be the same. Everywhere I went people would say: “That is Davina Glentyre. Do you really think she did it?”

No … nothing would ever be the same. Even if I walked free out of the courtroom, the memories of it would be with me forever … with others, too.

The jury was out for two hours. It had seemed like days.

As soon as I went up I was aware of a breathless tension in that room.

The jury had filed in. The Lord Justice Clerk asked them if they had reached a verdict and would they let the court know what it was.