Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [151]
“You are stating the obvious,” Hargrave said with tight lips.
“Perhaps it is obvious to you why you did not mention the one wound that you did treat, but it escapes me,” Rathbone said with the smallest of smiles.
For the first time Hargrave was visibly discomfited. He opened his mouth, said nothing, and closed it again. His hands on the rail were white at the knuckles.
There was silence in the courtroom.
Rathbone walked across the floor a pace or two and turned back.
There was a sudden lifting of interest throughout the court. The jury shifted on their benches almost imperceptibly.
Hargrave’s face tightened, but he could not avoid an answer, and he knew it.
“It was a domestic accident, and all rather foolish,” he said, lifting his shoulder a little as if to dismiss it, and at the same time explain its omission. “He was cleaning an ornamental dagger and it slipped and cut him in the upper leg.”
“You observed this happen?” Rathbone asked casually.
“Ah—no. I was called to the house because the wound was bleeding quite badly, and naturally I asked him what had happened. He told me.”
“Then it is hearsay?” Rathbone raised his eyebrows. “Not satisfactory, Doctor. It may have been the truth—equally it may not.”
Lovat-Smith came to his feet.
“Is any of this relevant, my lord? I can understand my learned friend’s desire to distract the jury’s minds from Dr. Hargrave’s evidence, indeed to try and discredit him in some way, but this is wasting the court’s time and serving no purpose at all.”
The judge looked at Rathbone.
“Mr. Rathbone, do you have some object in view? If not, I shall have to order you to move on.”
“Oh yes, my lord,” Rathbone said with more confidence than Monk thought he could feel. “I believe the injury may be of crucial importance to the case.”
Lovat-Smith swung around with an expressive gesture, raising his hands palm upwards.
Someone in the courtroom tittered with laughter, and it was instantly suppressed.
Hargrave sighed.
“Please describe the injury, Doctor,” Rathbone continued.
“It was a deep gash to the thigh, in the front and slightly to the inside, precisely where a knife might have slipped from one’s hand while cleaning it.”
“Deep? An inch? Two inches? And how long, Doctor?”
“About an inch and a half at its deepest, and some five inches long,” Hargrave replied with wry, obvious weariness.
“Quite a serious injury. And pointing in which direction?” Rathbone asked with elaborate innocence.
Hargrave stood silent, his face pale.
In the dock Alexandra leaned a fraction forward for the first time, as if at last something had been said which she had not expected.
“Please answer the question, Dr. Hargrave,” the judge instructed.
“Ah—er—it was … upwards,” Hargrave said awkwardly.
“Upwards?” Rathbone blinked and even from behind his elegant shoulders expressed incredulity, as if he could not have heard correctly. “You mean—from the knee up towards the groin, Dr. Hargrave?”
“Yes,” Hargrave said almost inaudibly.
“I beg your pardon? Would you please repeat that so the jury can hear you?”
“Yes,” Hargrave said grimly.
The jury was puzzled. Two leaned forward. One shifted in his seat, another frowned in deep concentration. They did not know what relevance it could possibly have, but they knew duress when they saw it, and felt Hargrave’s reluctance and the sudden change in tension.
Even the crowd was silent.
A lesser man than Lovat-Smith would have interrupted again, but he knew it would only betray his own uncertainty.
“Tell us, Dr. Hargrave,” Rathbone went on quietly, “how a man cleaning a knife could have it slip from his hand so as to stab himself upwards, from knee to groin?” He turned on the spot, very slowly. “In fact, perhaps you would oblige us by showing us exactly what motion you had in mind when you—er—believed this account of his? I presume you know why a military man of his experience,