PART III

One

Was it very hot in the court? Or very cold? Elinor Carlisle could not be quite sure. Sometimes shefelt burning, as though with fever, and immediately after she shivered.

She had not heard the end of the Prosecuting¹ Counsel’s speech. She had gone back to the past—gone slowly through the whole business again, from the day when that miserable² letter came to themoment when that smooth-faced police officer had said with horrible fluency³:

“You are Elinor Katharine Carlisle. I have here a warrant for your arrest upon the charge ofmurdering Mary Gerrard by administering poison to her on the 27th of July last, and I must warnyou that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be used as evidence at yourtrial.”

Horrible, frightening fluency… She felt caught up in a smooth-running, well-oiled machine—inhuman⁴, passionless.

And now here she was, standing⁵ in the dock in the open glare of publicity⁶, with hundreds ofeyes that were neither impersonal⁷ nor inhuman, feasting upon her and gloating….

Only the jury did not look at her. Embarrassed, they kept their eyes studiously turned away…She thought: “It’s because—soon—they know what they’re going to say….”

 

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