The silence had grown heavy. There was no rustling in the seats. No one coughed.

“Dr. Ibbs sent for me,” he replied to Juster. “He was not satisfied with all the circumstances surrounding Mr. Fetters’s death. He had worked with me before on other matters, and he trusted me to be discreet should he be mistaken.”

“I see. Would you tell us what happened after you received Dr. Ibbs’s call?”

John Adinett sat motionless in the dock. He was a lean man, but strongly built, and his face was stamped with the confidence of both ability and privilege. The courtroom held men who both liked and admired him. They sat in stunned disbelief that he should be charged with such a crime. It had to be a mistake. Any moment the defense would move for a dismissal and the profoundest apologies would be offered.

Pitt took a deep breath.

“I went immediately to Mr. Fetters’s house in Great Coram Street,” he began. “It was just after five in the afternoon. Dr. Ibbs was waiting for me in the hall and we went upstairs to the library, where the body of Mr. Fetters had been found.” As he spoke the scene came back to his mind so sharply he could have been climbing the sunlit stairs again and walking along the landing with its huge Chinese pot full of decorative bamboo, past the paintings of birds and flowers, the four ornate wooden doors with carved surrounds, and into the library. The late-afternoon light had poured in through the tall windows, splashing the Turkey rug with scarlet, picking out the gold lettering on the backs of the books that lined the shelves, and finding the worn surfaces of the big leather chairs.

Juster was about to prompt him again.

“The body of a man was lying in the far corner,” Pitt continued. “From the doorway his head and shoulders were hidden by one of the large leather armchairs, although Dr. Ibbs told me it had been moved a little to enable the butler to reach the body in the hope that some assistance could be given-”