Pitt took a small drink from his cider. “That won’t work with the butler.”

“I know,” Juster agreed, pulling his lips into a grimace. “And Gleave will know it too. He’ll try a different approach altogether. If it were me, I would flatter him, take him into my confidence, find a way of suggesting that Fetters’s reputation depended on his death having been an accident rather than murder. Gleave will do the same, I’d wager money on it. Reading character, finding weaknesses is his profession.”

Pitt would have liked to argue, but he knew it was true. Gleave’s subtle face was that of a man who saw everything and scented vulnerability like a bloodhound on a trail. He knew how to flatter, threaten, undermine, probe, whatever was needed.

Gleave’s skill made Pitt angry. The hard lump inside which prevented him from eating was outrage as well as fear of failure. He was certain Martin Fetters had been murdered, and if he did not convince this jury of it, then Adinett would walk away not only free but vindicated.

He returned to the witness stand expecting an attack and determined to face it, to keep his temper and not allow Gleave to fluster or manipulate him.

“Well now, Mr. Pitt,” Gleave began, poised in front of him, shoulders squared, feet slightly apart. “Let us examine this curious evidence of yours, on which you hang so much weight and from which you draw so villainous a story.” He hesitated, but it was for effect, to allow the jury to savor his sarcasm and prepare for more. “You were sent for by Dr. Ibbs, a man who seems to be something of an admirer of yours.”

Pitt nearly retaliated, then realized that was exactly what Gleave would like. Too easy a trap.

“A man who apparently wished to make sure he did not miss any significant fact,” Gleave went on, nodding very slightly and pursing his lips. “A nervous man, uncertain of his own abilities. Or else a man who had a desire to cause mischief and suggest that a tragedy was in fact a crime.” His tone of voice dismissed Ibbs as an incompetent.