Page 85 of Weighed in the Balance (William Monk 7)

“Dr

. Gallagher, you are now of the opinion that the poison of the yew tree was the cause of Prince Friedrich’s death. Can you tell us how it was administered?”

“It would have been ingested,” Gallagher replied. “In either food or drink.”

“It is pleasant to the taste?”

“I have no idea. I should imagine not.”

“What form would it take? Liquid? Solid? Leaves? Fruit?”

“A liquid distilled from the leaves or the bark.”

“Not the fruit?”

“No sir. Curiously enough, the fruit is the one part of the yew tree which is not poisonous—even the seeds themselves are toxic. But in any case, Prince Friedrich died in the spring, when trees do not fruit.”

“A distillation?” Harvester persisted.

“Yes,” Gallagher agreed. “No one would eat yew leaves or bark.”

“So it would have been necessary for someone to gather the leaves, or the bark, and boil them for a considerable time?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you told us that the Princess never went to the kitchens. Did she have apparatus in her rooms in which she could have done such a thing?”

“I believe not.”

“Could she have done it over the bedroom fire?”

“No, of course not. Apart from anything else, it would have been observed.”

“Was there a hob on the bedroom fire?”

“No.”

“Did she go out and gather the bark or the needles of the yew trees?”

“I don’t know. I believe she did not leave the Prince’s side.”

“Does it seem to you reasonable to suppose that she had either the means or the opportunity to poison her husband, Dr. Gallagher? Or, for that matter, any motive whatsoever?”

“No, it does not.”

“Thank you, Dr. Gallagher.” Harvester turned away from the witness stand to face the courtroom. “Unless the Countess Rostova knows some major fact of which we are unaware, and she has chosen to keep it from the authorities, it would seem she cannot believe so either, and her accusation is false, and she knows it as well as we do!”

* * *

Henry Rathbone had been in court that day, as he had the day before. Oliver visited him in the evening. He had an intense desire to get out of the city and as far away as was practical from the courtroom and all that had happened in it. He rode through the sharp, gusty late autumn evening towards Primrose Hill. The traffic was light, and his hansom made swift progress.

He arrived a little after nine and found Henry sitting beside a blazing fire and looking at a book on philosophy, upon which he seemed unable to concentrate. He put it down as soon as Oliver entered the room. His face was bleak with concern.

“Port?” he asked, gesturing towards the bottle on the small table beside his chair. There was only one glass, but there were others in the cabinet by the wall. The curtains were drawn against the rain-spattered night. They were the same brown velvet curtains that had been there for the last twenty years.

Oliver sat down. “Not yet, thank you,” he declined. “Maybe later.”

“I was in court today,” Henry said after a few moments. “You don’t need to explain it to me.” He did not ask what Oliver was going to do next.