“Davina!” he said.

“Oh, Jamie, I’m so glad you came to see me.”

“This is terrible.”

“I know.”

“What will be the outcome?”

“We have to wait and see. The advocate is very optimistic.”

He put his hand to his forehead covering his eyes.

“Davina … they are saying the most terrible things.”

“I know.”

“You bought that arsenic. You signed for it. Your name is in that book with the date and everything … and soon after your father is dead … after you bought it.”

“I know that, Jamie. I’ve explained it all.”

“People are saying …”

“I can guess what they are saying, but Ninian Grainger is going to prove them wrong. He’s going to make them see the truth.”

“Can he?”

“He says he can, Jamie. And he must because it is the truth, Jamie. I believe you think … I did it.”

He hesitated for too long before he protested that of course he did not believe that.

“Your family?” I said. “What are they thinking?”

He bit his lip and did not answer.

“I suppose,” I went on, “it is not good for a minister to be caught up in this sort of thing … even if it is remotely.”

“Oh,” he said after a pause, “it is not good for anyone, is it?”

“I’m sorry, Jamie … so sorry to have involved you in this.”

He said: “I shall be called to give evidence at the trial. Everyone is talking about it. My fellow students … they think I know something. It’s horrible.”

“Yes, horrible things have happened to us both. But Mr. Grainger is sure everything will come right.”

“But … it will always be there, won’t it? People will remember.”

I stared at him in horror. I had not thought of that. I imagined that once Ninian Grainger had made the court agree with him that I was innocent, that would be an end of the matter. I would return home, marry Jamie and this would all become like a dream … not a recurring nightmare.

He had changed. He was remote. He was not the warmhearted lover I had known. Whatever he said there was doubt in his heart. I recoiled from him.

He was aware of this, but there was nothing he could do to hide his true feelings. We had changed towards each other.

The doubt was in his mind. It hung like a cloud between us; and for me there was the knowledge that the love he had had for me was not strong enough to bear this strain.

Jamie’s visit had not made me happier.

Alastair McCrae did not come to see me. I fancied he was congratulating himself that he was not sufficiently involved for the glare of publicity to alight on him; and he wanted to keep it like that.

MY TRIAL TOOK PLACE in the High Court of Justiciary. I felt dazed. The courtroom was crowded and it seemed that the object of everyone present was to scrutinise me. I had been prepared by Ninian Grainger for what I must expect. I should stand at the bar and the Crown would state the case against me when the Defense would endeavour to prove the accusation wrong.

My feelings were so tumultuous that it is impossible to describe them. They changed from moment to moment. Innocence is the greatest defence. It gives courage. If one tells the truth, surely that must prevail. That thought remains with one all the time. It is the greatest ally.

I looked at the members of the jury—those who would decide my fate; and they gave me confidence.

Even at this stage, after the weeks of waiting for this day, there was an element of unreality about it all. I … Davina Glentyre, the young girl who had gone to church with her mother, was now the prisoner at the bar in a court of law accused of murdering her father.

How could it have come about? It must be a wild mad dream.

There was silence through the court while the indictment against me was read.

“Davina Scott Glentyre, now or lately prisoner in the prison of Edinburgh, you are indicted and accused at the instance of Her Majesty’s Advocate for Her Majesty’s interest: that albeit by the laws of this land and of every other well governed realm, the wickedly and felonious administering of arsenic, or other poisons, with intent to murder, is a crime of a heinous nature and severely punishable. Yet true it is that you, Davina Scott Glentyre, are guilty of the said crime …”

It went on detailing the evidence against me—most damning of which was, of course, my buying the arsenic at Henniker’s shop, my signature in the poison book being an important piece of evidence.

Then came the witnesses.

Dr. Dorrington explained how Mr. Kirkwell, the butler, called him in the early hours of the morning. He was not surprised because Mr. Glentyre had, over a few months, suffered from bilious attacks. He had expected to find this just another, perhaps more severe than the previous ones, and he had felt it was unnecessary to call him out at such an hour. However, he had been shocked on arriving at the house to find Mr. Glentyre dead.

“Did you examine him?”

“Briefly. I saw at once that there was nothing I could do for him.”

“Did you suspect poison?”

“I thought there was something unusual about his sudden death.”

Other doctors followed. There was Dr. Camrose, professor of chemistry at the University. He had examined certain of the deceased’s organs and had found undoubted traces of arsenic. Another doctor was called and confirmed this. He said there had been a final dose which had resulted in death and which had obviously been taken in port wine. But there were traces of arsenic in the body which suggested that it had been taken over some little time.

There followed a great many scientific references which I was sure none but the specialists understood; but the fact emerged that my father had died through arsenical poisoning and that he had been taking it in smaller quantities over some time.

The doctors were asked if it were a common practise to take arsenic.

“It is said to have rejuvenating powers,” replied the doctor. He had known men take it for that reason. Women used it here and there, he believed, because it was thought to be good for the complexion. It was a dangerous practise.

At length it was time for the people I knew to take their places. I was alert, watchful of them. It seemed so strange to see them there, though stranger still for them, I supposed, to see me where I was.

On trial for murder! It was not the sort of thing one would think could ever happen to oneself. That sort of drama was for other people. And now here we all were … people who had known each other over the years … ordinary, simple people… all here in the centre of the stage, with the whole of Scotland … and perhaps beyond … watching us.

I could imagine the excitement which people were feeling. A young girl on trial for her life!

Mr. Kirkwell was questioned about being called by me in the early morning and dashing off to get the doctor.

“Did you go to the bedroom where Mr. Glentyre was dying?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did it occur to you that it was strange that he should be so ill?”

“Well, sir, he’d had one or two of these attacks. I thought it was just another … only worse.”

Mrs. Kirkwell followed her husband into the witness box.

“Mrs. Kirkwell, you were worried about the rats which had appeared near the house, were you?”

“Yes, sir. They were in the mews. I never had them in the house, sir.”

“Did you ever see any near the house?”

“Oh no. I couldn’t have borne that. Rats near my kitchen! Horrible things. Dirty. Hamish told me they were in the mews … stables and all that. But he got some arsenic and finished them off.”

“Was there any mention of getting arsenic because he had seen them near the kitchen door?”

“Never in my hearing, sir. I never knew they were in the dustbin. I would have been out of my mind, I can tell you, if I’d heard that.”

“So you would undoubtedly remember. Now I want you to cast your mind back. A young man, a Mr. James North, had been invited to the house, had he not?”

“Yes. He came once or twice. He was sweet on Miss Davina.”

“And Mr. Glentyre did not approve of the young man. Is that it?”

“I don’t reckon he had anything against him, but he was poor and wasn’t what Mr. Glentyre had in mind for her.”

“And there was a scene.”

“Well, sir. I just happened to be on the stairs with Bess …that’s one of the maids. The door of the study opened. I heard them shouting and Miss Davina flounced out. He was going to cut her out of his will if she married Mr. North.”

“And Miss Davina was upset, was she?”

“Oh terribly. She shouted back at him. She said he could cut her out if he wanted to. It wouldn’t change her mind … or something like that.”

Ninian rose and said: “Do you often listen to your employer’s private conversation, Mrs. Kirkwell?”

“No, I do not, sir. I just happened …”

“Just happened to be conveniently placed when Miss Davina flounced—I think you said—out of the study and went to her room. When did you hear all this conversation? It must have lasted more than a few seconds. Yet in that time you hear that Mr. Glentyre is going to cut her out of his will and her saying that she did not care.”

“Well, that’s what I heard.”

“I suggest that you heard voices and as time passed you imagined you heard those words spoken.”

“No, I did not.”

Ninian smiled and said: “That will be all.”

Mrs. Kirkwell, flushed and indignant, left the witness box.

Hamish was next. He looked slightly less jaunty than usual.