Shades of Murder by Ann Granger Page A

jury benches across the room in a similar situation against the far wall. The witness box was to Stanley’s left. In front and to the right of him, on the benches set across the room, facing the judge, sat counsel. Behind them was an empty row, half of which was partitioned off to form the dock. Behind this rose the grey-painted public benches in ascending ranks. They were rapidly being filled by said public, which was jostling its way through the entrance at the top of the room.
Packed like sardines
, jotted Stanley,
and nearly as smelly
.
    The public was at last seated, waiting, holding its breath in anticipation for the moment of drama. It came. Like the devil in a stage play popping up through a trapdoor, the defendant, William Oakley and his escort appeared, first their heads, then their bodies, up the narrow stair that gave access to the subterranean tunnel running between the prison and the courtroom. Oakley was led to his place in the dock, the heads of those seated above craning to look down on him. This was the man they’d come to see. This was the murderer! The escort took its seat on the remaining half of the row, forming a stiffly uncomfortable red-faced mass of heavy wool uniforms.
    Preliminaries were briskly completed, the defendant entering a plea of Not Guilty in ringing tones. There was undisguised satisfaction on the public benches. A plea of Guilty would have seen the whole proceedings despatched in minutes and everyone sent home, other than the condemned man and those who would escort him back through the tunnel to prison, and ultimately to his appointment with the hangman.
    Counsel for the prosecution, Mr Taylor, tall, thin, with an elongated neck, rose to his feet and clasped the front edges of his robes in either hand.
    ‘We’re off!’ murmured the Reuter’s man.
    The courtroom held its collective breath.
    ‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ Taylor began, ‘we are here in the presence of a dreadful crime, dreadful in its concept and execution, and rendered more dreadful by the hand of Fate.’
    Good start, thought Stanley, scribbling. The old boy’s got a nice turn of phrase.
    ‘The accused, William Oakley,’ Taylor was saying, ‘married a rich wife and during their marriage administered her money and kept an eye on her business interests. This was convenient for him, because he’s aman who needs money, a gambler, a follower of the turf and a womaniser. Mrs Oakley had been very young, only eighteen, at the time of the marriage and was accustomed to defer to her husband’s judgement. However, as the years went by, Mrs Oakley became aware of her husband’s incessant philandering and, being now a mature lady in her thirties and not a girl of twenty, was resolved to do something about it. The final straw which broke the proverbial camel’s back was an affair begun between the accused and the nursemaid, Daisy Joss.
    ‘Mrs Oakley made it clear she was prepared to indulge her husband no longer. Not only would she cease to make money available to pay his debts, she might even have come to consider a legal separation. It was then that William Oakley hatched a scheme to rid himself of his wife. It probably came to him during a routine visit to London Chemicals, a factory in which his wife had interests. Arsenic, that well-known and readily available poison, was used at the factory in the manufacture of rat poisons. Secretly to procure a small amount would be easy. But to poison his wife by the usual method, that is introducing it into her food, presented difficulties. He had no reason to visit the kitchen where the food was prepared. They shared the same meals, served by one of the maids. But at London Chemicals he was able to observe the way in which arsenic crystals are obtained from the ore, and was told that in the process, a highly toxic gas is produced. William Oakley, gentlemen, had found his means.
    ‘Having abstracted a small amount of arsenic ore from the factory, William Oakley now had to