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society’s desire for revenge. Now, word had gotten around that Darrow was an expert at manipulating juries, so this group was at least somewhat ready for him. But it turned out that he knew they’d been prepared, and instead of crying foul he used that fact to his advantage. In his opening remarks he addressed the rumors that he was going to try to bamboozle them with a lot of technicalities and theatrics. He solemnly pledged that he wouldn’t, because if he tried such trickery and failed, he said, the responsibility—and that’s a key ploy in Darrow’s arguments, responsibility—for Prendergast’s death would rest with him. And he refused, he said, in his plainspoken, humble way, to assume such a moral burden. So he promised that he’d be perfectly straightforward in his arguments—and if the jury decided that his honest attempts weren’t good enough, the responsibility for sending a lunatic to his death would rest with them—not him.”

“Clever,” Mr. Picton said, smiling slowly. “Very clever…”

“And complete nonsense, of course,” Marcus added. “I mean, in reality he used every trick he could think of, during the trial. He wept—actually wept—over the dead mayor, and the cruelty of a world that could produce a creature like Prendergast, and he begged the jury to let their humanity prevail. And most importantly, so far as we’re concerned, he went after the prosecution team personally. He turned what was supposed to be the trial of an assassin into an eloquent, sarcastic—the man has wit, there’s no doubting that—and relentless examination of the motives of the state and its men in prosecuting lunatics, even murderous lunatics. Any unlucky soul the prosecutors called as a witness was badgered and tainted with whatever kind of suspicion Darrow could dream up, so that the questioning became about them and their beliefs, not about Prendergast. By arguing constantly in the negative, instead of advocating his client’s cause, he turned the whole trial topsy-turvy.”

I turned to look at the Doctor, who was staring at the floor and pulling at the patch of hair under his lower lip. “But it didn’t work,” he said.

“No, not in the end,” Marcus answered. “The jury withstood the pressure, and upheld the earlier sanity verdict. But the important thing is that he made a close race out of what looked like it was going to be the pure and simple railroading of a lunatic.”

The Doctor sat back and sighed. “Unfortunate methods,” he judged quietly. “But I can’t say that I disapprove of his goal.”

“Maybe not in that case,” Marcus said. “But if I’m right about what he’ll try to do here, you may feel differently, Doctor.”

“Yes,” the Doctor answered with a small smile, “I suspect you’re right, Marcus.”

“I don’t understand,” Lucius said. “What can he try to do here? I mean, he can certainly find forensics experts who’ll argue our findings, and maybe even personal acquaintances of Mrs. Hatch’s who’ll disagree with our interpretation of her motives. But what about Clara? How can he argue with an eyewitness?”

“By attacking the man who’s behind the eyewitness,” Marcus said, still looking to the Doctor. “Or at least, the man he’ll paint as being behind her.”

“Yes,” Mr. Picton said, “I begin to get your point, Detective. And we can’t depend on Clara’s testimony alone to fend off such an attack. Young children—especially if they’re as fragile as Clara—are not the most reliable witnesses. They’re too easy to bully or cajole. That’s why it’s been so important that the Doctor continue working with Clara—so that she can learn to provide detailed explanations of her story that won’t fall to pieces the first time the defense goes after her.”

“The point is,” Marcus continued, “our roles will, in a very strange but potentially damaging way, be reversed in this trial: Darrow will be arguing the negative, knowing that no one wants to believe what we’re saying about Libby Hatch, and it will be up to us to advocate our cause. As you’ve surmised, Doctor, the man’s not going to come in with a lot of pious arguments about the sanctity of womanhood and maternity—he’s going to attack,