Once in the courtroom, which was packed, Marcglanced up at Beth in the side-gallery nearest him and then up atthe prisoner standing in the dock. The judge entered the courtroom,the indictment was read, and McBride, resplendent in his robes,rose to give the opening address to the jury. He outlined the caseas prime facie open and shut. The defendant had been discovered bya policeman moments after the fatal blow had been struck – acidtossed into the face of an innocent woman of stature in thecommunity, which caused her to fall and impale herself on a spike,resulting in her death. The charge was murder. The motive was rageat the rejection of the accused’s attentions to the lady. Witnesseswould be called to corroborate this contention. Moreover, theaccused had been caught red-handed with the empty vial of acid inhis hand and the victim’s scratches on his face. McBride sat down,well satisfied.
Marc was brief. He said the evidence wouldshow that someone other than the defendant committed the murder,seconds before the policeman arrived, and that there were otherswith stronger motives and opportunity to commit the crime.
McBride then called the Crown’s firstwitness: Dr. Angus Withers.
McBride leaned on his lectern and said, “Goodafternoon, Dr. Withers. Let me begin by asking you when you arrivedat the murder scene?”
“I got there, apparently, about fifteenminutes after Constable Wilkie came upon the scene,” Witherssaid.
“And what did you find, sir?”
“I found Constable Wilkie and ConstableRossiter standing near a woman’s body lying prone on the ground.Another man was sitting nearby. Constable Rossiter was keeping theonlookers back and Constable Cobb was keeping an eye on the seatedman.”
“Do you see that man in the courtroom?”
“I do. It was the prisoner in the dock.”
“Did you examine the body of the woman on theground?”
“I did. She was dead, recently dead. She waslying on her back. Her throat had been pierced by a sharpobject.”
“And could you identify that object?”
“Yes. There was blood on one of the sharpspikes that constituted the low fence around the front lawn ofRosewood.”
“You know the house?”
“Everybody does. And I recognized the womanimmediately as Mrs. Cardiff-Jones, an occupant of Rosewood andwidowed daughter of the Attorney-General.”
“What else, besides the gash on the throat,did you notice about the body?”
“The cheeks and lower jaw had been singed oreaten away by what could only have been acid thrown in herface.”
This brought a murmuring from thegalleries.
“Could that have been the cause ofdeath?”
“No. While infinitely painful, it would nothave killed her.”
“Were you able to determine the type ofacid?”
“Yes. The police gave me the vial found atthe scene, and in it I found traces of hydrochloric acid.”
“What, then, was the cause and manner of herdeath?”
“I can only speculate that the acid wasthrown in her face by someone very close to her and that as shespun away and fell forward, she landed on the low, spiked fence andsevered her jugular – causing her to bleed to death.”
“Did she die right away?”
“No. She was found on her back, so she musthave turned and staggered forward again before collapsing forgood.”
“Did you examine the victim’sfingernails?”
“I was asked to do so by the police.”
“What did you find?”
“I found blood and bits of skin.”
“Belonging to the victim?”
“No, sir. There were no other marks on thebody except the ruined face and the slashed jugular.”
“Were you asked by the police to examine ascratch on the accused’s face?”
“I was.”
“And what did you find?”
“I found evidence of his left cheek havingbeen recently scratched.”
“Was it consistent with the blood and skinunder the victim’s fingernails?”
Marc was on his feet. “Milord, there is noway of Dr. Withers determining whose blood and skin was under thevictim’s fingernails.”
“Yes,” said the judge, a veteran of theQueen’s bench named Laidlaw. “That calls for an opinion the coroneris not able to substantiate. Move on, Mr. McBride.”
“But the accused had been very recentlyscratched and you found foreign blood and skin under the victim’sfingernails?”
“The blood had scarcely dried on thescratches,” Withers said.
“We may reasonably assume a cause and effectbetween the two items, may we not?” McBride said smoothly.
“Milord,” Marc said, rising, “the Crown issumming up.”
“You know better, Mr. McBride,” said thejudge, but Mc Bride had already made his point.
“I have no more questions, Milord,” saidMcBride, sitting down.
“Your witness, then,” Judge Laidlaw said toMarc.
Marc rose to his lectern. “Would the victimhave had enough strength to scratch the defendant’s face in themanner suggested by the Crown?”
”Only as a reflex action. Perhaps, if theperpetrator still had the vial in his hand, she thought she wasunder attack again and lashed out instinctively.”
“But that is highly speculative?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You said that the acid was not the primarycause of death?”
“Correct. Death was a result of the loss ofblood.”
“Then whoever threw the acid intended only toharm the victim, not to kill her?”
“She might have died eventually as a resultof the wound to her flesh.”
“But that is not certain?”
“No, sir.”
“Strictly speaking, then, Mrs.Cardiff-Jones’s death was an accident, an unforeseen result of theacid throwing?”
“Possibly. But only if the acid was thrownfirst. There could have been an initial struggle, the victim couldhave been pushed onto that spike, then acid thrown to disfigureher.”
“But that is mere speculation, and, I put itto you, it is highly improbable.”
Dr. Withers, an old pal of Marc’s, smiledwryly. “I suppose so.”
“No more questions, Milord.”
Next up was Constable Ewan Wilkie. He steppednervously onto the witness-stand, where he stood drumming hisfingers on the rail.
“There is no need to be nervous,” McBridesaid in a somewhat patronizing tone. “Just answer my questions asbest you can in plain and simple language.”
“Yes, yer Honour,” Wilkie said.
McBride winced, but carried on. “ConstableWilkie, tell the court exactly what you saw on the evening of thecrime as you were on your patrol along Front Street.”
“Well, sir, I was walkin’ east and it wasgettin’ dark, but up ahead, in front of Rosewood, I seen a manhunched over somethin’ on the ground.”
“You didn’t see right away that it was abody?”
“No. I just saw this fellow hunched over,with somethin’ in his hand.”
“You weren’t alarmed at first?”
“No, sir. Then I thought the fellow might behurt so I started to walk faster towards him.”
“Then what did you notice?”
“I seen that a woman was layin’ on the groundand the man was hunched over her. He had a glass vial in one of hishands.”
“This was the same vial that the coronerfound to have contained hydrochloric acid?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did you know that the woman wasseriously hurt or perhaps dead?”
“When I got up to the man, I saw blood allover the lady’s chest and the ground around her. Her eyes were openbut she wasn’t seein’ anythin’.”
“And what did the man with vial do then?”
”He looked up at me and he looked realscared.”
“And you saw a fresh scratch on hisface?”
“Yes, sir. It was still bleedin’.”
“What did you assume had happened?”
Marc rose. “The question calls for asubjective opinion, Milord.”
“This is a policeman on the stand, Mr.Edwards. I’ll allow it.”
“Constable?”
“I saw the scorched face on the lady, thevial in the man’s hand, and I figured he’d tossed acid or lye orsomethin’ on her face and then stabbed her.”