‘There we agree, Mrs Linux. However, it’s your speculation about this murder that points the finger at my client.’

‘I believe it’s for the jurors to say where the finger points.’

‘But you believed it was the prisoner who had done this dreadful thing?’

‘It’s His Majesty’s government that says so.’

‘Doesn’t His Majesty say so because that is what you told His Majesty’s constable?’

‘There had been a murder. Two murders! And the master – the master . . .’ She breaks off into a sob, raises her kerchief. ‘So, when I found poison among her possessions, and when I found that . . . thing, I reported them. Naturally.’

‘Thinking that, since my client had purchased arsenic, she must have been planning to stab someone to death?’

She hesitates.

‘Mrs Linux. Why would a woman who’d gone to the trouble of buying and hiding poison stab her victims to death? And this receipt for arsenic you claim to have found, why, it’s like Cobbett’s red herring, leading the hounds away from the hare! Isn’t it a fact that arsenic is used frequently by quality ladies for their complexions? Had Mrs Benham had receipts for arsenic from Mr Jones before? Careful now – I will call him here if need be.’

‘Your client threatened them, that very night. She cannot lie her way out of it now. Twenty people heard her. All the master’s guests.’

‘You say she lost her temper, flew into a rage, killed one, got upstairs, killed the other, and then in an instant fell into such a deep sleep you had to pour water over her to wake her? How would that have been done?’

‘That is a question she should be asking her own conscience.’

She stands, and stares. The silence always feels heavy in court. It is a room full of words, perhaps that’s why. They echo even when none are being spoken. Words are all your trade, you lawyers. You spoon them in, or knife them in. Flatter, cajole. Dripping with malice or kindness, depending on your purpose. Tricks. Hooks. You nod at her and glance down at your brief. Gentle your voice. ‘You see, Mrs Linux . . . there were reasonable explanations . . . yet you and Constable Meek went haring about after the prejudicial ones, ruling out all others without any further enquiry.’

She turns to me. And there’s such hatred on her face. She and I are the same. The thought twists like a serpent. She and I are the same. Equal in our devotion. Equal in our anger, too.

You wait, but still she says nothing. ‘Don’t you know your speculation could hang my client, Mrs Linux?’ you say quietly. ‘Don’t you care?’

She tucks her lips in.

‘You say there’d been a disturbance in the drawing room, during the soirée?’

She breathes out. ‘Yes. The prisoner making threats.’

‘Did anyone hear a commotion upstairs after your master and mistress went up for the night?’

‘No.’