The Sins of the Wolf - Anne Perry [126]
Hester looked for Kenneth Farraline but could not see him. Had he embezzled from the company? And when his mother found out, murdered her? Weak men had done such things before, especially if they were besottedly in love, and then, afraid of the consequences of a rash action, done something even more panic-stricken in trying to conceal it.
Would Oonagh conceal it for him?
Hester stared at her strange powerful face and could not even guess.
Connal Murdoch was talking about meeting Hester in the stationmaster’s office. It was an extraordinary thing to stand and hear it recounted through someone else’s eyes and be unable to speak to correct lies and mistakes.
“Oh certainly,” he was saying. “She appeared very pale, but quite composed. Of course we had no idea then that she herself was responsible for Mother-in-law’s death.”
Argyll rose to his feet.
“Yes, yes, Mr. Argyll,” the judge said impatiently. He turned to the witness stand. “Mr. Murdoch, whatever your own convictions, we in the court presume a person is innocent until the jury has returned a verdict of guilty. You will please remember that in your replies.”
Murdoch looked taken aback.
Argyll was obviously aching to put the criticism in his own words, far more decisively than the judge, and he was not to be permitted. Behind him Oliver Rathbone was sitting rigidly, motionless except for the fingers of his left hand, drumming on a sheaf of notes.
Hester looked at the rest of the Farralines. One of them had killed Mary. It was absurd that she should stand here fighting for her life, and be able to stare at their faces one after another, and not know which one it was, even now.
Did they know, all of them—or only the one who had done it?
Old Hector was not there. Did that mean he was drunk as usual, or that Argyll intended to call him? He had not told her.
Sometimes it was better to have someone else plan the defense and conduct the battle. And there were other times she felt so agonizingly helpless she would have given anything at all to be able to stand up and tell them herself, question people, force the truth out of them. And even while the thought raced through her mind, she knew it would be totally futile.
Gilfeather concluded his questions and sat down with a smile. He looked comfortable, well satisfied with his position, and so he should. The jury was sitting in solemn and disapproving silence, their faces closed, their minds already set. Not one of them looked towards the dock.
Argyll rose to his feet, but there was little he could say and nothing at all to contest.
Behind him Oliver Rathbone was fuming with impatience. The longer this evidence took, the more firmly entrenched in the jurors’ minds was Hester’s guilt. Men were reluctant to change a decision once made. Gilfeather knew that as well as he did. Clever swine.
The judge’s face also was narrow and hard. His words might be full of legally correct indecision, but one had only to see him to know what his own verdict was.
Argyll sat down again almost immediately, and Rathbone breathed a sigh of relief.
The next person to be called was Griselda Murdoch. It was a piece of emotional manipulation. She had recently given birth and she looked pale and very tired, as if she had traveled only with difficulty for so tragic an event. The sympathy from the crowd was palpable in the air. The hatred for Hester increased with a bound till it hung thick like a bad smell in a closed space.
For Rathbone it was a nightmare. He did not know whether he would have attempted to tear her apart rather than allow the sympathy to build, or whether it would only make matters immeasurably worse. He was almost glad it was not his decision to make.
And yet to sit there helplessly was almost beyond bearing. He looked at Argyll, and could not read his face. He was staring through furrowed brows at Griselda Murdoch, but he could have been merely listening to her with concentration,