“Now, Mrs. Todhunter,” he would say, softening his voice to the point of reverence. “In the matter of your departed husband, the former Union Army Major Todhunter-”
Several of the war veterans on the jury would stiffen each time he used that phrase, and Gerald Hillyard, the young prosecuting attorney, would mop his brow with his handkerchief-and hope that he had enough evidence to carry the day.
He was to be disappointed in that hope.
The medical evidence was clear enough regarding the symptoms of arsenic poisoning that Philip Todhunter had certainly displayed. Both doctors were adamant in their assertions that the dying Philip Todhunter had every sign of someone poisoned with arsenic: clammy skin, uncontrollable vomiting, esophageal pain, blood-tinged diarrhea, and finally a coma followed by death. The postmortem testing confirmed their opinion: arsenic in the internal organs- even in hair samples and nail cuttings taken from the deceased. Hillyard had felt confident that he was winning the case, despite Russell’s theatrics, until the defense began to present its own case.
The servants were questioned first. With each of them, Russell was charming and confidential. “Now here’s the person who knows what goes on at the Todhunters’,” he said to a stern-faced Mrs. Malone. “I always say that the cook is the heart of the house.”
The portly woman sniffed disdainfully. “I don’t know about that,” she said, but Russell’s exuberance was boundless.
“Now, Mrs. Malone,” he said, with a winning smile. “You were in charge of the kitchen, of course.”
“And you’ll find no tainted meat or bad mushrooms in my larder!” she informed him.
“Naturally not. And did Mrs. Lucy Todhunter give you instructions about what to cook?”
“Now and again,” the cook conceded. “But not what you’d call regular. She never seemed to care what she ate.”
“And was she much of a help to you in the kitchen? Buying the food? Or chopping vegetables, perhaps? Preparing the pastry?”
Mrs. Malone’s incredulous stare suggested that Patrick Russell and his senses had parted company. “Not while I know it!” she replied. “I can’t remember the last time I saw Miz Lucy in the kitchen. And if I saw her do a hand’s turn of work, that
“So she didn’t prepare any meals for former Union Army Major Todhunter during his last illness?”
“No more did I. He wouldn’t take so much as a bowl of gruel. Said his stomach wouldn’t stand for it.”
“But a cup of tea, perhaps? Or a glass of spirits?”
“Not that I ever saw.” A thought struck her. “Except his beignet.”
“Ah, the beignet!” Russell nodded encouragingly. “His breakfast pastry-an acquired taste from New Orleans. Could you tell us a bit more about that?”
“She used to take him one of my fresh-baked beignets every morning. It was a custom of his. He didn’t want anybody else to bring him his pastry, only Mrs. Todhunter. And she always did, except the couple of days he was sick. That day he was mortally stricken, she took him a beignet to keep up his strength, but it was no use, rest his soul.” Despite the piety of her words, she did not seem unduly grieved by her employer’s demise.
“And she never took him anything else during his illness?”
Mrs. Malone shook her head. “She wouldn’t leave his bedside, most times, unless she was so tired that she collapsed in her own room. So mostly I took up broth and juices, or I sent one of the girls up with it. Not that he’d touch a mouthful of it.”
“Was Mrs. Todhunter herself taken ill during her husband’s final days?”
“No, sir. She wore herself out sitting up with him, but she was fit enough.”
“And the other members of the household? All hale and hearty?”
Mrs. Malone’s lips tightened. “We were sound as a bell, all of us! I told you that no contagion came out of my kitchen, and there’s your proof!”
Russell thanked the cook profusely and excused her from the witness stand. He followed her testimony with that of the housemaids, who whispered agreement to Mrs. Malone’s version of the events. “And did Mrs. Todhunter ever take the broth or pastry, or whatever you brought, and add anything to it?” Russell asked gently.
“No, sir,” said the terrified kitchen maid. “That is, I couldn’t say for most days she didn’t, but that last day, she surely did not.”
“Well, perhaps she took the tray from you and sent you back downstairs so that she could give the broth or pastry to Mr. Todhunter herself?”
“No, sir.” The girl shook her head: a definite no. “She always made me stand there and wait so I could take the tray and dirty dishes back to the kitchen. And the slop bowl, too, like as not.”
“Caring for invalids is an arduous task,” said Russell sympathetically. “But I’m sure you were a great help in the family’s hour of need.”
“Besides, Mr. Todhunter wasn’t taking any nourishment by then, anyhow. Dreadful ill, he was.”
The other maid said much the same, but with considerably more terror in her voice at the prospect of being on display in such a menacing place as a courtroom. Patrick Russell called Dr. Humphreys and Dr. Bell to the stand, with a deference suggesting that they were on loan from the Oracle of Delphi. They were popular men in Danville, and Russell knew it. He did not challenge their statement that the patient had succumbed to arsenic poisoning.
“Now, Dr. Bell, I’ll ask you the same as I’ve asked Dr. Richard Humphreys. Did you ever see Mrs. Lucy Todhunter administer anything potable to her unfortunate husband?”
Bell’s eyes narrowed. “I did not. But I suspected she had. During my stay with the patient, I searched the rooms, and sure enough, finally after Todhunter’s death, I found arsenic-”
“You did find arsenic, Doctor? Tell us the circumstances.”
“It was white powder in a small glass jar. I suspected what it was, of course, and I took a sample away to be tested.”
“Oh, yes. And the results confirmed your suspicions, did they not?”
“They did. The substance in the jar was arsenic trioxide, a fine white powder that puts one in mind of sugar.”
“Humphreys says the same,” mused the attorney. “And one of you was with the patient at all times until the end?”
“Yes. Or Norville or her cousin Mary Compson.”
“Yes. And do you know, Dr. Bell, Mrs. Mary Hadley Compson of Maysville, North Carolina, has testified to the same statement-that at no time did she see Lucy Todhunter administer anything to her ailing husband, the late Union Army Maj-”
“You haven’t asked Norville yet!”
“Let me remedy that at once, Doctor,” said Patrick Russell with a courtly bow.
Richard Norville came to the stand, wary of justice among strangers, but willing enough to tell what he knew. “Yes, I escorted Mrs. Todhunter to her husband’s room the day he took sick,” he told the court. “She wanted to take a tray up to him from the breakfast table, and I wouldn’t allow her to carry it.”
“And they say the Union had no gallant officers!” said Patrick Russell solemnly.
Norville seemed discomfited by snickers from the spectators, but he resumed his testimony. “I took the tray up to Philip’s room and went in with her. She handed him the plate of beignets and he ate most of it. Then he sank back as if he were taken ill again.”
Russell heard the buzz from the back of the courtroom, but he did not turn around. “He had an attack at once, did he? Well, that could have been the pastry, but it seems unlikely that it would work so quickly. What happened next?”
Norville squirmed in his seat and muttered something.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Norville? I couldn’t quite hear what you said.”
“I said: ‘And then she ate the rest of the beignet herself!’”
Russell raised his eyebrows, giving a convincing imitation of someone who is hearing startling news for the first time. “You say that Mrs. Lucy Todhunter herself consumed a piece of the same pastry her husband had eaten? The very same one?”
“Yes. There were half a dozen on the plate. He chose himself one at random. We had all eaten one.”
“And did you see her add anything to that particular pastry? More powdered sugar, perhaps?”
