The Twisted Root

conspiracy and murder. The courtroom was packed to suffocation, people sitting so close to one another that when they moved in discomfort the sound of fabrics rubbing together was audible. The shuffling and squeaking of boots were broken by a cough and the occasional murmur.
    When the business of calling to order, reading the charge and pleadings had been accomplished, Robert Tobias opened for the prosecution. He was a man Rathbone had faced several times before and to whom he had lost as often as he had won. Tobias was of a fraction less than average height, slender in his youth, and now, at sixty, still supple and straight-backed. He had never been handsome, strictly speaking, but his intelligence and the power and beauty of his voice made him remarkable—and both intimidating and attractive. More than one society lady had begun by flirting with him for her own entertainment and ended by caring for him more than she wished to, eventually being hurt. He was a widower who intended to retain his freedom to do as he chose.
    He smiled at Rathbone and called his first witness, Sergeant Michael Robb.
    Rathbone watched as Robb climbed the short staircase to the witness stand and faced the court. He looked unhappy and extraordinarily young. He must have been in his mid-twenties, but he had the scrubbed and brushed look of a child sent off to Sunday school and who would far rather be almost anywhere else.
    Tobias sauntered out into the middle of the open space of the floor with the jury on one side, the witness ahead of him, and the judge to his right, high up against the wall in his magnificent seat, surrounded by panels of softly gleaming wood and padded red velvet.
    "Sergeant Robb," Tobias began politely, "this whole case is very distressing. No decent man likes to imagine two women, especially when one is young and agreeable to look upon and the other is entrusted with the care of the sick"—he lifted his hand very slightly towards the dock—"would be capable of conspiring together to commit cold-blooded murder for gain. Fortunately, it is not your task, nor mine either, to determine if this is indeed what happened." He turned with a graceful gesture to face the jury and gave a little bow in their direction. "It is the awful duty of these twelve good men and true, and I do not envy them. Justice is a mighty weight. It takes a strong man, a brave man, an honest man, to bear it."
    Rathbone was tempted to interrupt this piece of blatant flattery, but he knew Tobias would be only too happy if he did. He remained in his seat, nodding very slightly as if he agreed.
    Tobias turned back to Robb. "All we need from you is a simple, exact account of the facts you know. May we begin with the discovery of the body of James Treadwell?"
    Robb stood to attention. Rathbone wondered if it was as apparent to the jury as it was to him how much Robb disliked his task. Would they imagine it was repugnance for the crime, or would they know, as he did, that it was a deeper knowledge of complex tragedy, right and wrong so inextricably mixed he could not single out one thread?
    How did people judge? On instinct? Intelligence? Previous knowledge and experience? Emotion? How was evidence interpreted? How often he had seen two people describe a single chain of events and draw utterly different conclusions from it.
    Robb began by talking with bare, almost schoolboy simplicity of having been called out to see the dead body of a man who had apparently died of a blow to the head.
    "So you decided immediately that he was the victim of murder?" Tobias said with surprise and evident satisfaction. He barely glanced at Rathbone, as if he half expected to be interrupted and took it as a sign of Rathbone’s foreknowledge of defeat that he was not.
    Robb breathed in deeply. "From the kind of marks on his clothes, sir, I didn’t think he’d fallen off a coach or carriage, or been struck by one that maybe didn’t see him in the dark."
    "Very perceptive of you. You judged the matter of great seriousness right from the outset?"
    "Death is always serious," Robb answered.
    "Of course. But murder has a gravity that accident does not. It is a dark and dreadful thing, a violation of our deepest moral order. Accident is tragic, but it is mischance. Murder is evil!"
    Robb’s face was pink. "With respect, sir, I thought you said you and I were not here to judge, just to establish the facts. If you don’t mind, sir, I’d prefer to stick to that."
    There was a