‘On whose authority am I being held?’

Soutar turned his back and walked away.

‘On what evidence?’ he shouted as the policemen headed for the exit. ‘I demand to talk to McLevy.’

The door was opening as they approached it and he recognised the booming northern Irish accent before he saw the speaker.

‘You don’t get to make demands in here, Dr Raven.’

Raven gripped the bars as McLevy wandered over. ‘There has to have been some kind of misunderstanding, Mr McLevy. I was not even present in the house when Dr Banks passed away.’

‘You can prove you were somewhere else?’

‘It is well known where I was. Jarvis the butler knew to come and find me at number 7 Albany Street. I was tending to Mrs Banks, who had become ill.’

‘Tending to her?’ McLevy said with a knowing leer. ‘Yes, I am informed that you and Mrs Banks have become very close. I am also led to believe that Mrs Banks stands to inherit handsomely from her late husband. Furthermore, I am told that Dr Banks died from the over-inhalation of chloroform, an agent with which I believe you are particularly familiar.’

Raven saw it now.

‘You’ve been talking to Quinton. The man is a thief and his testimony cannot be trusted.’

‘My informant is a most respected and reliable individual. He tells me that not only were you indeed present at 52 Queen Street on the night that Dr Banks died, but that he saw you in an agitated and hurried state, impatient to lay hold of chloroform.’

‘I required the chloroform for a procedure I was carrying out at Albany Street.’

‘So you admit you just lied to me about being present.’

‘I was there but a few minutes.’

‘But a few minutes. And just how long would it have taken to render Dr Banks unconscious and then to pour the bottle over the sheets so that it appeared an accident? For Mr Quinton witnessed you the next morning discussing with Mr Jarvis how you wished to conceal the fact that chloroform had been responsible for Dr Banks’s death.

‘You have the reason, you had the wherewithal, and you had the opportunity, but even more than that, you sought to disguise what was wrought. There is no question that you will answer for this crime, Dr Raven. To me, the only doubt that remains is the extent to which Mrs Banks was party to this, and whether she is likely to hang too.’

SIXTY-NINE

aven slumped disconsolately to the floor, McLevy’s words winding him as surely as a punch to the gut. He squatted against the bars, fortunate to have dropped in one of the few spots not spattered by something that used to be inside someone else. He was reeling not merely from the words themselves but from the malevolent glee with which McLevy had spoken them. He knew Raven’s weak spot for sure.