"You will know presently. And now, woman, answer the question I am about to put to you, as you will be compelled to answer it to God at the last great day—What was the nature of the drug which you or he mixed with the medicine prescribed for the late Mrs. Thorndyke?"
A spasmodic shriek, checked by a desperate effort, partially escaped her, and she stood fixedly gazing with starting eyes in my face.
The profoundest silence reigned in the court as I iterated the question.
"You must answer, woman," said the judge sternly, "unless you know your answer will criminate yourself."
The witness looked wildly round the court, as if in search of counsel or sympathy; but encountering none but frowning and eager faces—Thorndyke she could not discern in the darkness—she became giddy and panic-stricken, and seemed to lose all presence of mind.
"He—he—he," she at last gasped—"he mixed it. I do not know—But how," she added, pushing back her hair, and pressing her hands against her hot temples, "can this be? What can it mean?"
A movement amongst the bystanders just at this moment attracted the notice of the judge, and he immediately exclaimed, "The defendant must not leave the court!" An officer placed himself beside the wretched murderer as well as forger, and I resumed the cross-examination of the witness.
"Now, Mrs. Tucker, please to look at this letter." (It was that which had been addressed to Mary Woodley by her son.) "That, I believe, is your son's handwriting?"
"Yes."
"The body of this will has been written by the same hand. Now, woman, answer. Was it your son—this young man who, you perceive, if guilty, cannot escape from justice—was it he who forged the names of the deceased Mrs. Thorndyke, and of John Cummins attached to it?"