The Trial of Madame Claire Martin (Le Défenseur! an unofficial challenge)

They called her Madame Martin.

The woman in the defendant’s chair had not moved once in forty minutes.

She wore a grey dress, pressed to perfection. She looked like a woman waiting for a train.

The advocate beside her had grown increasingly animated. One could see it in the grip of his fingers around the railing, in the sweat beneath his powdered wig, in the strange contortion of his body, caught between protest and despair. His name was Thomas Collins, and he was a man who had never lost a case.

Until now.

Madame Martin was on trial for the murder of seven choirboys. The papers called them "the silver throats.” All poisoned, one by one, during the Lenten season. All of them students in the choir she funded and supervised. She brought tea to their rehearsals, sat in the back with a shawl over her shoulders, and hummed along to the hymns she claimed had comforted her during widowhood.

A witness claimed he’d seen her lift a vial from her bag during a rehearsal. The choirmaster described her presence as “unsettling.” The doctor could not name the poison, but said the boys had “gone quiet, too quiet.” And one, the youngest, had said the word “tea” before slipping away.

Collins called it hysteria, misinterpretation, grief turned to blame. No motive. No inheritance. No history of violence.

The jury looked at the woman.

She met no one's gaze.

When the juror announced the verdict "Not Guilty" there was no outcry, and a hush fell upon the room.

Claire Martin turned to Thomas Collins and said, very softly, “You have a fine daughter.”

It was an odd thing to say.

He said nothing.

Later that evening, when he got home, he found Helen sitting by the window, quietly drawing in her sketchpad.

“Did she cry?” she asked.

“No.”

Helen nodded. “She didn’t strike me as someone who would.”

He poured himself a drink, but there was something odd about the feeling he got standing there in the room, and he ignored it.

Later that night, Helen played one of the boys’ hymns on the piano. He remembered her asking to attend rehearsals. He’d said no. She’d gone anyway.

She’d drawn the boys, all of them, in great detail. Their faces hung above her desk.

He found the brooch the next morning.

A silver lyre, identical to the one Claire Martin had worn in court.

It was tucked away in Helen’s drawer wrapped in some tissue right next to a half empty brown bottle. The label was all scratched off but he could still smell it sweet kind of like almonds but with something else in there that made his stomach flip.

Helen appeared behind him.

“I wanted to see if you’d ever notice,” she said.

Her voice was perfectly calm.

“She didn’t do it,” she added. “She only watched.”

He couldn’t speak.

“They didn’t sing properly,” Helen said. “They rushed the ends of the phrases. They breathed in the wrong places.”

He reached for the bottle, but Helene grabbed it.

“You always said the smallest details mattered, Father. You were right.”

She dropped it into the fireplace.

And sat down to play.