William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

cleared his throat huskily. “On the day the Prince was taken more seriously ill, I was summonedearlier than I had expected to call. A servant from Wellborough Hall came to my house and requested that I come immediately, as Prince Friedrich was showing symptoms of considerable distress. I asked what they were, and he told me he was feverish, had a very severe headache and was nauseous, and was experiencing great internal pain. Of course, I went immediately.”
    “You had no patients at that time?”
    “One. An elderly gentleman with the gout, a chronic condition for which I could do little but advise him to abstain from Port wine. Advice he declined to take.”
    There was a nervous titter around the gallery, and then silence again.
    “And how did you find Prince Friedrich when you saw him. Dr. Gallagher?” Rathbone asked.
    “Much as the manservant had said,” Gallagher replied. “By then he was in severe pain and had vomited. Unfortunately, in the cause of decency the vomitus had not been kept, so I was unable to ascertain the degree of blood in it, but the Princess told me it was considerable. She feared he was bleeding heavily, and she was in very great distress. Indeed, she seemed to be in greater agony of emotion than he was of body.”
    “Did he vomit again while you were there?”
    “No. Very shortly after I arrived he fell into a kind of delirium. He seemed very weak. His skin was cold to the touch, clammy, and of a blotchy appearance. His pulse was erratic, insofar as it could be found at all, and he was in great internal pain. I admit I … I was in fear for his life from that time on. I held very little hope he could recover.” He was ashen himself, and looking at his rigid stance and agonized face, Rathbone could well imagine the scene as Gallagher had struggled desperately to help the dying man, knowing he was beyond all human aid, watching his suffering and unable to relieve it. It was a profession Rathbone could never have followed himself. He vastly preferred to deal with the anguishand injustices of the mind, the complications of the law and its battles.
    “I imagine everyone here can conceive your distress, Doctor,” he said aloud and with sincere respect. “We can only be grateful we were not in your place. What happened next?”
    “Prince Friedrich failed rapidly,” Gallagher answered. “He grew colder and weaker. The pain seemed to subside, and he slipped into a coma from which he did not recover. He died at about quarter to four that afternoon.”
    “And you concluded from what you had seen, and what you already knew of the case, that he had bled to death internally?”
    “Yes.”
    “A not-unnatural conclusion, given the circumstances as they were then,” Rathbone agreed. “But tell me, Dr. Gallagher, looking back now, is there anything whatever in those symptoms which is indicative not of internal bleeding but of poison? For example, the poison from the bark or leaves of the yew tree?”
    There was a sharp intake of breath around the room. Someone gave a little squeal. A juror looked very distressed.
    Zorah fidgeted and frowned.
    As always, Gisela remained impassive, but her face was so bloodless she might have been dead herself, a marble figure of a woman.
    Rathbone put his hands in his pockets and smiled sadly, still facing the witness. “In case you have had no occasion recently to remind yourself of what those are, Doctor, let me enumerate them—for the court, if not for you. They are giddiness, diarrhea, dilation of the pupils of the eyes, pain in the stomach and nausea, weakness, pallor of the skin, convulsions, coma and death.”
    Gallagher closed his eyes, and Rathbone thought he swayed a little in the stand.
    The judge was staring at him intensely.
    One of the jurors had his hand up to his face.
    Gisela sat like stone, drained as if all that mattered to her, all that gave her life, had already left her.
    In the gallery, a woman was weeping quietly.
    Zorah’s face was pinched with unhappiness. She looked as if she had lived through the pain and grief of the day all over again.
    “There was no diarrhea,” Gallagher said very slowly. “Unless it occurred before I arrived and I was not told. There were no convulsions.”
    “And dilation of the pupils, Dr. Gallagher?” Rathbone almost held his breath. He could feel his own pulse beating.
    “Yes …” Gallagher’s voice was little more than a whisper. He coughed, and coughed again. “Yes, there was