He had no doubt. "Yes. If you look at those girls, especially Leda, the resemblance is startling. It is almost a mirror image, only distorted by the mouth. But you can see what she was meant to be. No one could look at them both and not think of it. She had not only one deformed child, Hester, she had two! No wonder she had to leave them behind her if she was going to make her way. She could never admit that to anyone. It's like having madness in the blood. What chance would Zillah have of marrying well?"

"But she's not related!" Hester protested, though her voice was hollow. She knew, as Monk did, that even if they knew Zillah was adopted people would not make that distinction. She was looking at him steadily, searching his face, waiting for him to go on.

"She knew I was looking into the family past, anything I could find that could have put Melville off marrying Zillah. She must have known that if I went on long enough I should find that Zillah was adopted. Perhaps if Melville had gone on fighting the case, I would even have traced her back as far as Putney ... and Samuel Jackson."

"If Keelin had lived?" She repeated the words in a voice little more than a whisper. "Are you saying that Delphine Lambert could have killed her?"

"I don't know ... perhaps I am." He watched her face, seeing her eyes widen and slowly belief follow incredulity.

"But how?" she breathed softly. "How did she do it? She was never alone with her ... you said so. In fact, you said there was no way anyone could have poisoned her. She didn't eat or drink anything in the court all afternoon." She shook her head. "You couldn't even work out how she could have taken it herself."

"So obviously we missed something." He poked his finger at the table in which his empty soup bowl rested. "She did take it. That is the one thing we can be certain of. It was done ... whomever by. We missed it."

She thought for a few moments in silence, her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her hands.

"Tell me about the day in court," she asked at length. "Describe it for me as if you wanted me to draw it for you, knowing I wasn't there. Treat it as if I had never been in a court before. Don't leave out anything you saw."

There was no point in it, but he obliged. He told her what the room was like, where everyone sat, how they were dressed and what function they filled. She listened intently, even though most of it was already familiar to her.

"And the adjournment?" she asked. "What happened then?"