II
Ferrol was mad as a hatter, I thought as I thanked him. Afterward I wondered whether it could have been in a lucid moment or in a fit of abstraction that he had married the woman who was charged with his death.
But the trial enlightened me, and now, in the dining-room at Oriol, the panorama of it returned. I was seated again at the press table and heard the ominous command:
“Janet Ferrol to the bar!”
Into court the woman limped and shrank, rather than sat, in a chair just beyond me.
Never have I seen a face so spectral. It was not guilt that it expressed, nor was it innocence. It was horror. Her skin was white as white paper, and that whiteness was accentuated by her weeds and by her eyes, which were black and burning. In the fashion magazines she had seemed very beautiful, slightly disdainful, sure of her charm. On that charm horror had dropped like a veil.
Beside her was Bundy, a large man, quite stout, with a face like a brandied cherry. Adjacently was another man with a gravely virile air and, for her, a look of extreme solicitude. His name, a brother reporter whispered, was Asher, and he had come up from Virginia to befriend her.
At the moment I had no time for further consideration of either of these men. Melvale, the district attorney, a dramatic person with the face of an elderly demon, was up and at it.
“May it please the court—Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury!”
With three bows and this ritual he opened for the State, and began at once outlining the case for the people.
According to his account of it Ferrol was a wealthy recluse, and the defendant a woman insatiable of pleasure who, in pursuit of it, hesitated at nothing, not even at crime. Among her effects was a bottle containing muscarin, and with this poison she had rid herself of Ferrol and inherited his estate.
Melvale wheeled.
“This Brinvilliers killed her husband sordidly, for his money.” He paused and dramatically added: “And passionately, for another man!” As Melvale spoke, he pointed. “There he sits!”
He was pointing at Asher, who, with an air of contempt which seemed to me enormous, looked him up and down.
“Who was Brinvilliers, and how do you spell it?” a brother reporter asked.
But now Bundy was on his feet.
“I object to the district attorney prejudicing the jury against the lady, my client.”
The objection was not sustained.
“And I except to your honor’s ruling,” Bundy, with a bulldog look, threw up at the bench.
Melvale continued.
“There, gentlemen, is the crime; there, too, the motive. To finish the picture, evidence will be produced.”
As I sat in the dining-room I could see the picture, the frame as well—the court, vast, high-ceiled, close-packed, filled with spectators who had begged or badgered their way there; with men and women whom you would recognize as first-nighters, with others whom you would not recognize at all. For it is great sport to see a woman tried for her life. Yet when you have known her, or known of her, what more could you decently ask, except to have her convicted? That she would be, everyone was convinced. The sight of her spectral face was enough.
But public opinion is a wave that thinks, changes its mind, thinks again. As the trial proceeded, no one was quite so sure. It is true, that spectral look had vanished.
On the stand, meanwhile, witnesses succeeded one another. Already the muscarin had been admitted in evidence and marked “Exhibit A.” “Exhibit B” was a certified copy of Ferrol’s will. “Exhibit C” was a bundle of Asher’s letters.
Concerning the muscarin, toxicologists for the State swore that it leaves no traces. In rebuttal, toxicologists for the defense swore that it does. The usual jest circulated. The mendacious were subdivided into liars, damned liars, and expert witnesses. Meanwhile it was shown that reagents employed at the autopsy had determined slight discolorations, which, it was also shown, might be attributed as well to natural causes as the reverse. Between the two you could pick and choose. It was a great privilege.
Ferrol’s will was different. It was very plain sailing. By it he devised all his property, of whatever kind, nature, and description, and wheresoever situated, to his wife and her heirs and legal representatives forever. Nothing could have been clearer.
As regards Asher’s letters, it was generally felt that no self-respecting woman should have preserved them. They were too alarmingly dull.
Additional testimony was supplied by servants, one of whom testified to having seen Ferrol in a state of great excitement two or three hours before his death, which, it was shown, had occurred shortly after midnight.
Where was the defendant at the time? It was Bundy who asked the question, it was the defendant who answered it. Bending to her, Bundy had requested her to take the stand.
It was then that the spectral look fell from her. Yet that was perhaps only natural. It is the fear of danger that affrights; but on the firing-line, while there may be death, fear and depression are gone.
Janet Ferrol displayed neither. Her face still was very pale; but to it, as the examination proceeded, gradually its former charm returned. Color diffused it, and once she smiled, very disdainfully and at Melvale, but the smile was there. It lighted her up for what she was—a rarely beautiful creature.
III
“Mrs. Ferrol,” Bundy began, extending one ample hand at her, the other at the jury, “will you be good enough to tell these gentlemen how Exhibit A, alleged to contain poison, came in your possession?”
With lifted eyes, in a clear, level voice, she answered:
“I removed it from Mr. Ferrol’s study.”
Bundy bowed.
“Thank you. Now the district attorney has given these gentlemen to understand that you benefited substantially by your husband’s
