Phoenix rubbed his face with a sigh.
"Okay, we don't have long," he said, picking the dust out of his eyes and leaning against the building's wall. "Please tell me you've got something for us."
"Um, before we do..." Luke shifted on his feet with his hands behind his back. "Dr Wallace?"
"Mm-hm?" was the only sound the doctor made.
"You were so anxious about your bonsai tree, so..."
Luke brought his hands into view, revealing that he was clutching a familiar porcelain pot in his fingers.
"Oh, thank god." Dr Wallace snatched the pot out of the teen's hands and hugged it to his chest. "It was killing me not knowing if it was okay!"
"See, Doc?" said Trucy. "You didn't have to worry about anything! Stefan's doing great!"
"Stefan?" Luke asked with a frown.
"The name he picked for his tree!" Trucy replied. "Cute, right?"
The Professor adjusted the brim of his hat with that familiar friendly smile.
"It's a very beautiful plant, Doctor," he said. "You have every right to be concerned for it."
Dr Wallace ran his fingers over the bonsai tree's branches with the kind of tenderness usually reserved for the gentlest of lovers. The leaves trembled as a cold breeze washed across the hill and he cradled the pot as though it were his child.
"Thank you," he sighed.
Phoenix resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Was it really so hard to keep on track with what they were supposed to be doing?
"At the moment, however," said Layton, "we have far more important things to worry about."
Oh thank god. At least there was one person who knew how to stay focused.
The doctor, however, was frowning.
"Did you dig through my files?" he asked.
Luke tugged at his scarf.
"I hate to admit it," he said, "but we had to."
Phoenix pushed himself away from the wall and straightened up. This godforsaken trial was getting more frustrating by the second.
"I understand that doctor-patient confidentiality is important," he said to Dr Wallace, "and there's probably a whole bunch of legal things about it that I don't know about, because I'm American and an idiot, but this could literally end up being a matter of life and death."
Dr Wallace's eyes seemed to flash with venom for a moment.
"Mr Wright, this day has already been stressful enough," he replied. "I don't need your childish exaggerations on top of everything else."
Phoenix slipped one hand into his pocket so that nobody could see him clenching his fist.
"With all due respect, Doc," he said, "the last time I stood trial in a place like this, they literally threw people into fire pits. What I've seen of these people's feelings towards you has me thinking they aren't that different."
He glanced up at movement in the corner of his eye; Luke was grimacing, clearly uncomfortable at the memories Phoenix had dredged up, and Layton was frowning in accompaniment.
Never mind. They weren't important right now.
"If you don't want to be thrown into..." Phoenix waved his hand, searching for a good comparison. "...I don't know, some kind of ice pit, you'll have to tell us what happened in yesterday's appointment with Mr Oldfart."
The doctor was frowning too. It wasn't easy to blame him; trials that ended in violent witch burnings weren't exactly in the realm of the sane.
He fiddled with one of his bonsai's leaves and turned to look at the pair of English gentlemen.
"I'm curious to know what these two found out first."
Good lord was that an accusatory tone.
"Very well," said Layton, either not noticing or not caring about the doctor's antagonistic demeanour. "I'm grateful to you for your organisational skills, Dr Wallace. Luke was able to find your data from yesterday far more easily than I worried he might."
"You hacked my computer?!" cried Dr Wallace.
"Your password is 'bonsai' with a 0 and a 1 instead of O and I," Luke responded. "It wasn't all that hard to guess."
Dr Wallace looked down at his pot with a guilty frown.
"...that's fair," he said weakly.
"I printed out everything I could find about your appointments yesterday." Luke snapped his satchel open and rummaged around. "Mr Oldfart, was it? Let me see..."
"As Mr Wright said," added Layton as Luke dug into his bag, "you need to tell us everything you can. Although if this village had a fire pit, I fail to see why the citizens would use it for executions instead of heating."
"Yes, I know," Dr Wallace groaned, "but I don't know what you expect me to tell you. The appointment was just..." He rubbed his tired eyes. "...just standard. Nothing special at all!"
"Oh, here we are!"
Luke whipped a sheath of papers out of his satchel and held it up for all to see.
"Let me see!" cried Trucy.
She ran over to Luke, who kneeled down so that she could see what was on the papers, but frowned before her eyes had scanned even halfway down the page.
"...ibboo... proffen?" she read aloud. "What's ibbooproffen?"
"Hang on..." Phoenix kneeled down beside her and read over her shoulder. "I think that's pronounced 'ibuprofen', sweetie."
"Only ibuprofen?" asked Layton. "You prescribed an off-the-shelf painkiller?"
Phoenix looked over the page he and Trucy were holding. The prescription details specified four hundred milligrams of ibuprofen and said that this was two pills, to be taken at intervals of a minimum of six hours. The patient's name was Wrenkley Oldfart, doctor's name was Bill Wallace, there was even a timestamp noting the last time these details had been edited at 5:29pm... everything was in order. Just like the doctor had said. Nothing strange whatsoever.
"Look, I asked all the questions I was supposed to ask, alright?" said Dr Wallace. "Everything he told me lined up with your common-or-garden migraine, so I prescribed him standard painkillers and told him to come back the next day if his symptoms persisted. That's it. I have no idea where this crowd of complaints came from and I just want to get back to my clinic and do my goddamn job!"
Phoenix heard Layton hum in thought as he opened his journal to their near-empty evidence list and scrawled another entry:
Appointment details
Notes on Mr Oldfart's appointment. Prescription was 400mg of ibuprofen (2 pills). Last edited at 5:29pm.
"Mr Wright," said the Professor, "could you tell me what's happened in the trial so far?"
Phoenix closed his journal gently, remembering again how much the doctor had disliked it snapping shut. Sure, they were outside and the sound wouldn't really resonate, but the last thing he wanted was to upset his client.
"We've been here for about an hour so far," he said as he straightened up. "It feels more like five hours and we've gained about five minutes' worth of information."
"There were these witnesses who just stood on the stand and complained the whole time!" cried Trucy, crossing her arms like a stern teacher. "They didn't even witness anything! They ended up arguing with each other on the stage! I thought the trial was going to stop being malpractice and turn into divorce!"
"Nobody's said what symptoms the victim is exhibiting," Dr Wallace explained. "For all I know, he could have contracted Black Death. If somebody would just say exactly how this man was supposedly 'poisoned' this nightmare might get a little more bearable."
Layton rubbed his chin with another little hum of thought as Luke slotted the papers back into his satchel.
"Is it possible he overdosed?" asked the Professor. "Maybe he took too many pills?"
Phoenix found himself thinking back on what the prosecutor had said. A new witness who was more qualified than anybody else...
This could get troublesome.
"That could be possible," he said. "I have a feeling who our next witness could be, so the next part of this trial might finally fill in some of these holes. The fact that everybody's just throwing around 'malpractice' and 'poisoned' rather than stating any symptoms is..." He sighed and rubbed his head under his hat. "...it's annoying, to say the least."
"It wouldn't surprise me if he did overdose," said Dr Wallace. "Sometimes people get impatient. They take a pill, don't feel its effects, take another pill and still don't feel anything, and then everything kicks in all at once and suddenly you're plunged into the time vortex with no hope of a TARDIS."
He jabbed a thumb in the courtroom's direction.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I told him to take two pills with supper and that was it. That's 400mg. The only reason anybody would have a bad reaction is if they had some undiagnosed allergy to one of the ingredients."
"Could that be a possibility?" asked Layton. "There's a chance Mr Oldfart was simply allergic to one of the ingredients and had never known it."
Dr Wallace shook his head.
"I don't think so," he replied. "He told me he'd taken ibuprofen only a week or two ago. That was the main reason I prescribed it. I've never known an allergy to develop that quickly, especially to an off-the-shelf medication."
Phoenix forced himself to tuck his pencil back behind his ear rather than itching to write more things down.
"We can't rule any of this out," he pointed out, "but I struggle to believe you would write the wrong thing on your prescriptions."
"It says right on there!" Luke pointed at his satchel. "Ibuprofen, 400mg!"
"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" asked Phoenix. "So either he OD'd, developed an allergy out of nowhere or..."
No. He didn't want to say it. It was too ridiculous to be seriously considered.
"Oh my gosh," Trucy gasped below him, "you think they're lying? "
Well, at least she had saved her dad the trouble of saying what he was thinking.
"When the answer is elusive, all factors must be considered," said Layton, holding up a finger like a childish stereotype of a scholar, "but we should never doubt that every puzzle has an answer."
He crossed his arms with a frown.
"Even if that answer is utterly absurd," he added, "it's an answer nonetheless."
Dr Wallace frowned right back at him.
"Why do I get the feeling you're speaking from experience when you say the answer is absurd?" he asked.
Now the Professor was smiling, and Luke laughed beside him with a flush of embarrassment.
"You have no idea!" the teen exclaimed.
Before either of them could elaborate on just what that meant, there was a knock on the door behind them.
"Just so you all know," said the voice of Jack the innkeeper, "we're reconvening in a moment."
"Thanks," Phoenix said without looking round. "We'll be right there."
"I leave the rest in your capable hands, Mr Wright," said Layton with yet another smile and tip of his hat.
"No, wait!"
Trucy jumped to get everyone's attention.
"Come join us!" she cried. "Join the defence!"
"Huh?" Luke frowned, nonplussed.
"What?" Phoenix reached for his daughter's shoulder. "Trucy-"
"They're more likely to believe you aren't making stuff up if the Professor is there to share what he and Luke found out!" Trucy spun around to make her point to her dad. "Plus they're British too!"
"Uh..." Luke tugged at his scarf again. "I hate to say it, but not all British people are friends with each other. Especially English and Scottish. I, um..." He looked over one shoulder at the village spread out below them. "I'm not sure if they've ever really forgiven us for Edward Longshanks."
The Professor, however, was still smiling.
"That doesn't mean we'll be unable to help," he pointed out. "Your daughter makes a valid point, Mr Wright, and I would be delighted to assist you again."
That look in his dark eyes... That was hope, wasn't it?
And with three other people here, there was no way to turn him down without looking like a jerk, was there?
Phoenix couldn't restrain another sigh.
"Alright," he said. "Fine. If we can fit you both behind what passes for a bench, then fine."
"We'd better go!" said Luke. "I don't want us all to get in trouble for being late!"
Phoenix tried to contain his enthusiasm.
"...yeah," he said.
O-o-O
The judge tapped his little silver hammer on his lectern, silencing the idle gossip in the gallery.
"Court will now reconvene," he declared.
"Hey, Professor?" Trucy leaned over to whisper to the elder of the defence's newcomers. "Do you know what that little silver hammer the judge uses is called? It probably has a name but I don't know what it is."
Layton smiled again.
"That, young lady, is a toffee hammer," he explained. "As the name suggests, they are typically used for breaking up hard toffee."
He looked up at the lectern where the hammer in question now rested.
"I suppose they couldn't find a gavel on such short notice," he pondered, "or perhaps they didn't have one to begin with. This is a rather small and isolated village."
At the sound of a faint giggle, Phoenix looked across the hall at the prosecution's bench.
"Mr Wright," said the woman standing behind it, "I must confess that I am a little disappointed, as you have a pair of new friends with you at the defence's bench and yet you have not thought to provide them with a proper introduction."
"Ah, my apologies." Layton tipped his hat to Michaela. "My name is Hershel Layton; I'm a professor of archaeology at Gressenheller University in London."
No sooner had he finished talking than the gallery erupted into hushed gossips again.
"Professor Layton! I knew I'd seen his face somewhere before!"
"He was on Time Team! I thought I'd just dreamed that!"
"Gosh, Marjorie. It's true what they say about cameras being unflattering, isn't it?"
"Isn't it just, Georgina? Goodness, if I were only twenty years younger..."
Layton's smile faded, and his apprentice grimaced in distaste.
"...ew," the poor boy cringed.
"Your Honour," Phoenix spoke up to quieten the stalkerish chatter, "I recommend we recommence proceedings immediately before my co-counsels leave in discomfort."
Michaela, however, clasped her hands in blatant glee.
"It is truly a delight to meet the fabled Professor Layton," she said happily, "and I assume the young man beside you is a student of yours?"
"Student?!" cried Luke. "I'm Luke Triton, the Professor's apprentice!"
"Are you truly?" Michaela adjusted her glasses. "It is simply that I cannot recall ever hearing about you in any of the great number of newspaper articles that I have seen regarding Professor Layton, nor is yours a face I have ever seen before today, so do forgive me if I doubt the authenticity of your claims, young man."
Luke growled in response.
Phoenix, on the other hand, sighed again.
"Your Honour," he said, looking up at the judge, "please?"
To his relief, the judge nodded in agreement.
"Of course, Mr Wright," he said, and looked down at the prosecution's bench. "Alright, Michaela- my apologies." He cleared his throat. "Ms Skellig, is your next witness prepared?"
"She is, Your Honour," Michaela replied, "and I believe she shall be more than capable of clearing up any doubts that remain in the defence's mind regarding our new doctor's guilt in this terrible matter, so please allow me to welcome a treasured member of our community to the stand."
O-o-O
She carried none of the stench of tobacco that had permeated from Mr Teeve when he had taken the stand, but her fingers cradled a long, silver cigarette holder with a cigarette slotted into its end. Her hat was a stump-like cap of downy feathers, echoing the fluffy down of her heavy-looking coat, and the dead animal draped around her skinny neck was a dirty shade of orange.
When she took a pull from her cigarette holder, she didn't blow out any smoke.
For whatever reason, this didn't strike Michaela as strange.
"Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself to the court by way of your name and profession?" she asked.
"OBJECTION!"
Luke thrust his finger in the witness stand's direction.
"I know I haven't been in a lot of trials before," he stated, "but I'm pretty sure the witnesses aren't allowed to smoke on the stand!"
The witness in question rolled her eyes with a sigh.
"You aren't going to take this brat seriously, are you, Michaela?" she demanded.
Michaela shook her head as Luke lowered his finger in crestfallen defeat.
"If it will allow the witness to be more comfortable in her testimony," the prosecutor said, "I request that she be allowed to carry whatever she desires, but I do also request that she give her name and occupation for the newcomers to our dear little town."
The woman puffed again on her scentless – and apparently smokeless – cigarette holder.
"I am Nosetta Oldfart," she declared, "the wife of our town's chicken farmer, Wrenkley Oldfart. To my friends, I am Nosie. To you," she pointed her cigarette holder at the defence bench, "I am Mrs Oldfart."
She rested one hand on her hip, or presumably where her hip was under the mass of fluff she wore over her body.
"Um..." Trucy tugged on Phoenix's sleeve. "...what's that thing on her neck?"
"I think it's a fox-skin scarf," Phoenix replied.
"That poor fox!" Trucy gasped.
"I don't even want to know how the chickens feel about it," said Phoenix.
"Hm," Layton said thoughtfully. "That reminds me of a puzzle..."
While Luke buried his face in embarrassment, Phoenix turned his attention back to the proceedings.
"Mrs Oldfart," said Michaela, somehow missing that friendly smile, "I understand that this must be a very difficult time for you, but I am afraid I must ask you to tell this court about what happened to your darling husband, so that we may understand just how terribly Dr Wallace's actions have affected you."
Nosie twirled her cigarette holder in her fingers.
Was that thing even lit?
"If you wish me to be honest," she huffed, "I can barely stand to be in the same room as such a monster. Look at him! Look at him sitting there watching us!"
Phoenix obediently looked over at his client, who simply sat in his chair, cradling his tree.
"Who knows which one of us he could be plotting against now?" cried Nosie.
The doctor just shrugged.
Mrs Oldfart, however, scowled at him.
"We don't know if there was any plotting to begin with," Phoenix interjected before this turned into yet another murder case. "That's what you're here for, Mrs Oldfart. You're here to help us clear this up."
"Ugh!" Nosie gasped in shock. "The nerve of these foreigners!"
"Nerve?" Luke leaned forward with a scowl of his own. "I thought he was rather polite!"
"Well, of course you would," Nosie said. "What are you, now? A millennial? Generation Z? Some other ridiculous designation you've conjured up for yourself for some petty sense of superiority?"
Luke growled again, his hands curling into fists on the bench.
"Don't pay attention, Luke." The Professor gently pressed the teen away from the bench. "If you let her get a rise out of you, you'll only be playing into her hands."
"Yup," said Phoenix. "I'm pretty sure that's one of the rules of the courtroom: never let your witnesses intimidate you, no matter how stuck up they are."
He looked back at Nosie just in time to see her take another pull from her cigarette holder and blow out absolutely no smoke whatsoever. There was no way that thing was lit.
"Anyway, Mrs Oldfart," said Michaela, "if you would?"
"Hmph!" Nosie jiggled her cigarette holder again. "This is barely even worth my time. Just arrest the man and have done with it, I say."
Phoenix gritted his teeth as he prepared his journal and pencil for note taking.
Not that this was anything new, of course. If he had a penny for every time a witness had treated him like garbage, he could've taken Trucy to Disneyworld like she had originally wanted.
Nosie turned her attention to the court at long last.
"I hadn't thought anything was amiss yesterday when Wrenkley and I left the clinic," she explained, "nor did anything seem strange when we climbed the hill to Bedfordshire last night."
She sucked on her holder again.
"He had taken his medication just as Dr Wallace had prescribed," she continued, "and yet I was awoken in the early hours of this morning by the most tremendous cries of pain! My poor husband is sickened to the point of being unable to leave his bed and it's all that dreadful doctor's fault!"
Another penny for witnesses who loved the sound of their own voices, Phoenix thought, and he could've taken Trucy to Disneyland and Disneyworld.
Michaela, contrary to Phoenix's annoyance, was smiling and twirling her hair around her finger.
"It must have taken a great deal of courage for you to stand before the court and tell us this, Mrs Oldfart," she said, "and I commend you wholeheartedly for your bravery in even setting foot in this courtroom this morning."
Phoenix hoped neither of them noticed his frown.
"Something tells me she isn't as scared as you're making her out to be," he muttered to himself.
"Nevertheless," said Layton, "I don't think I need to point out the contradiction in her testimony for you, Mr Wright."
Mr Wright took a deep breath.
"Well, uh..." he said hesitantly. "...we'll see."
"You're doing great so far, Daddy!" Trucy whispered hoarsely.
"And we're right here if you need help, Mr Wright!" added Luke.
Phoenix bit back the scathing comment he longed to make about how nobody was putting him under any pressure whatsoever and how grateful he was for it.
"...thanks," he said instead.
At least he could assure himself that this was far from the most maddening person he had ever cross-examined.
He cleared his throat to gain Nosie's attention.
"What time was it when you left the clinic?" he asked. "Do you remember?"
"I fail to see how that could be relevant," Nosie replied, "but very well."
She puffed on her unlit cigarette again.
"I estimate it to have been at around half past five in the afternoon," she said.
Phoenix flipped back to the appointment details he'd jotted down. It seemed right, but...
"That's quite late for a clinic to be open for appointments, isn't it?" he asked.
Nosie rolled her eyes again.
"This is hardly a large town, you idiotic American," she spat. "Just how busy would you have expected a doctor's clinic to become? It hardly matters if they cut into the evening."
"It still seems a little strange though," Luke said by Phoenix's side. "A doctor's appointment that late in the afternoon? When on earth did they have their supper?"
"It's possible they had anticipated the eventuality, Luke," Layton pointed out. "Perhaps they simply reheated some food from the previous night?"
"Hmph!" Nosie huffed. "What business is it of yours?"
"I wonder if the King's Arms does deliveries?" Trucy pondered, thoughtfully tapping her chin.
Phoenix tried so, so hard not to grind his teeth.
"I'm not sure if any of this is important," he said, "so let's move on."
He made a note of what Mrs Oldfart had told him all the same, but then his eyes fell upon the next part of her testimony that he had hurriedly jotted down.
"What exactly does that mean?" he asked.
Nosie's beady eyes fixed him with a glare.
"What exactly do you mean?" she demanded.
"Climbed the hill to Bedfordshire?" Phoenix elaborated. "I didn't think there were any other towns or villages around here, let alone called Bedfordshire. Isn't this village totally isolated except for, like, one bus?"
Yet another sigh and roll of the eyes. Didn't this woman know any other way to communicate?
"Ridiculous," she said. "You Americans. The least you could do before coming to our country is learn our colloquialisms!"
"I believe she was saying that she and her husband were going to bed," Layton explained.
Phoenix's jaw dropped.
"But why did she have to phrase it like that?!" he almost yelled.
"I guess she just wanted to," Luke said with a shrug.
"Maybe she wanted to test you to see how much English slang you know!" Trucy suggested.
"In the middle of a cross-examination?" Phoenix rubbed his head again. "Give me a break..."
"Hmph!" Nosie huffed yet again. "Thank you very much for proving me correct, you insufferable millennial!"
Phoenix could feel heat swelling into his face and hoped his cheeks weren't turning red enough for other members of the court to notice.
"So nothing happened all evening?" he asked, forcibly ungritting his teeth. "Your husband was totally fine?"
And yet again, Nosie rolled her eyes.
"For what it's worth, nothing was amiss," she explained. "All of my dear Wrenkley's symptoms developed during the night, while he was sleeping, and I didn't believe the doctor was responsible at first."
Oh, now that was something they could work with. Phoenix noted down what she had told him and checked her testimony to see what to ask next.
"So why did you suspect Dr Wallace was responsible for your husband's sickness?" he asked.
For the first time all morning, Nosie didn't reply with something scathing. She simply tapped the end of her cigarette holder against her pursed lips, clearly deep in thought, eyes narrowed and darting around the room.
"Don't tell me you don't even know," Phoenix sighed.
"Oh no," Luke groaned. "If it turns out she just wanted somebody to blame..."
"I can't quite put my finger on it," Nosie said at last, "but I knew something was wrong the moment I took a look at his prescription."
Phoenix flipped back to the note he had made about the appointment details, but he couldn't see anything wrong. 400mg of ibuprofen? There wasn't anything wrong with that. At this rate, he had a feeling he was going to need this prescription for himself by the time this day was over.
"I have that prescription with me right now, Mr Wright," Michaela cut into his thoughts, "if you wish to take a look at the evidence of this terrible man's wrongdoing with your own, untainted eyes."
Part of Phoenix wished he could steal Dr Wallace's composure.
"You didn't have to phrase it like that," he said, "but sure."
Michaela nodded, still wearing that faint smile, and walked across the hall to personally deliver the slip of paper into Phoenix's hand. She presented it to him as though offering the world's most valuable treasure, but Phoenix let Trucy be the one to accept it because with his mood at that moment, there was no way he'd be able to resist crushing it in his fist.
"Okay," he sighed as Michaela walked away, "let's have a look."
Everything looked in order. Dr Wallace's signature at the bottom, beside the patient's signature, notes about what the medication was needed for...
"There's certainly something odd about this prescription," said Layton. "Do you see it, Luke?"
"I think I do, but..." Luke trailed off.
Then Phoenix noticed it. Right there in the medication details. He flipped back to his evidence list and jotted down a new entry:
OG Prescription
- Instructions for Wrenkley Oldfart's medication: 4000mg of ibuprofen (20 pills)
"...but that can't be right!" cried Luke.
"Ssh! Not so loud!" Trucy whispered hoarsely. "I don't think anybody else noticed!"
Phoenix looked at his note on the appointment details again. 400mg of ibuprofen was 2 pills, wasn't it? But this prescription... there were a couple of zeroes that definitely did not belong there.
"Yeah, I see it now," he said, and straightened up before the defence's little gathering started to look suspicious. "Your Honour?"
"Yes, Mr Wright?" asked the judge.
"I would like Mrs Oldfart to add the details regarding her husband's prescription to her testimony."
"Very well. Nosie, if you would?"
Nosie tutted, fidgeting with her holder again.
"Only because you asked kindly, Angus," she said. "Wrenkley took 4000mg of ibuprofen, just like Dr Wallace had recommended."
Phoenix only needed to look in Luke's direction for the boy to open up his satchel. With a satisfied smile, he turned back to the witness stand.
"And therein lies the rub," he said.
"Hmm?" Nosie glared at him down the length of her nose. "What are you talking about?"
Still smiling, Phoenix held out his hand to Luke, who rested the papers in his waiting fingers. Phoenix held up the printout for all the court to see.
"I have here a printout of the details Dr Wallace had noted down," he explained, "regarding his patient and the prescription he had written..."
He slammed the papers on their bench.
"...for four hundred milligrams of ibuprofen."
"I beg your pardon?!" Nosie cried in horror.
The Professor reached across the bench and pulled the papers close enough for him to read.
"The details don't lie, Mrs Oldfart," he said calmly. "This information was printed from the clinic's office computer and brought directly from here to this hall. I can promise you now that none of us modified these details in any way, shape or form."
He held up the papers and pointed at the note about the dosage.
"The prescription you provided to the court was incorrect," he stated.
Nosie gave a shuddering gasp and flipped her cigarette holder around in her fingers. Before Phoenix even realised what she was doing, she chomped down on the cigarette and bit it in two.
She ate half of the cigarette.
No, wait, was it a candy cigarette? Did she seriously put one of those in a posh silver holder?!
"Interesting," said Michaela, who apparently didn't think any of this was strange. "Mrs Oldfart, do you know anything about this?"
"O-of course not!" Nosie removed the half-eaten cigarette and replaced it with a fresh one. "I swear I didn't know a thing about this!"
"OBJECTION!" Luke slammed both of his hands down on the bench hard enough to shake it. "It isn't possible for you to have NOT known something was wrong with this, Mrs Oldfart!"
He snatched up the prescription and brandished it for her to see.
"A standard ibuprofen tablet is 200mg, so 400mg is two of those pills," he pointed out. "4000mg is ten times that much! Didn't you think something was strange about your husband taking a grand total of twenty pills?!"
Nosie's gaunt face flushed in visible embarrassment.
"...the pain he had told me about was very serious," she said, "a-and I trusted the doctor's judgement..."
"Not only that," Phoenix interrupted before her excuses could go any further, "but even if the details we have with us hadn't disproved this fishy scrip, I would've thought common sense would come into play somewhere." He stroked his chin in a mocking display of thought. "I know that if my doctor recommended I take twenty pills just for a migraine, I would assume that either I actually had a brain tumour or there had been a misprint."
Luke's hand whipped out as he pointed at Nosie with all the drama he could muster.
"Your accusations have no basis in logic!" he declared.
The onlookers in the gallery descended into gossip once again.
Phoenix couldn't help but stare at Luke. Who'd have thought that the tiny boy from two years ago could have developed such an authoritative voice? And that was an expertly executed point he had going on. One that caused Phoenix to wonder if perhaps this kid was taking some cues from those other trials he had helped with.
"Wow, Luke!" said Trucy. "You're good at this!"
"Really?" Luke lowered his arm with a bashful blush. "I was worried I'd jumped the gun a little!"
"To practise law requires an assertive mind, Luke," said Layton, who was positively beaming with pride. "I wouldn't think it possible to jump the gun if you recognised there was a problem."
As the judge slammed his little hammer and called for order, Phoenix's gaze wandered down to the papers laid out on their tabletop. He picked up the prescription and the printout and held them up, side-by-side, so that he could look at them both at once.
"This is strange though," he pointed out.
"What is?" asked Trucy.
"Take another look at this scrip," Phoenix told her, "and compare it to-"
"Mr Wright," Michaela interrupted, "it would appear that you have something to say, so would you be so kind as to share it with the rest of the court?"
Phoenix lowered the papers so that he could look at her, still smiling, happily twirling her hair around her finger. It seemed like she wanted to look sweet and innocent, but she'd landed squarely in the ballpark of smug.
"Sure," he said, and turned the papers around for her to see (if she was even looking at him). "There's another problem with this prescription Mrs Oldfart provided."
"Then by all means," Michaela said happily, "enlighten us as to what that problem is."
He laid the papers back down on the tabletop.
"Let's compare the scrip to the details Dr Wallace had written down during his appointment," he said. "In this printout, we can see a recommendation of 400mg and a clarification that he means 2 standard pills. If we look at the scrip, it becomes impossible to chalk this up to a typo; not only does it say 4000mg, but it also clarifies that it means 20 pills."
He leaned back and rested his hands in his jacket pockets.
"Even if I was given until the end of this month," he continued, "I don't think I could list every reason this is wrong."
"Then allow me to provide a summary, Mr Wright," Layton added, "by way of a question: why would Dr Wallace not only make the same typo twice, but one that directly contradicts his log of the appointment?"
"Objection."
Michaela adjusted her glasses again. She couldn't have looked more condescending if she'd tried.
"Is it not possible that he simply revisited the log in question to correct his misprint," she suggested, "little knowing that the prescription he had already printed out contained that dangerous, potentially deadly mistake?"
"OBJECTION!" Luke snatched up the printout. "Your Honour, I'd like you to take a look at the timestamp on this printout. It shows when the document was last edited."
He jogged over to the judge's lectern and presented the paper for him to see. The judge accepted the printout and held it close, narrowing his eyes as he scanned over the details.
"Hmm..." His eyes widened slightly when he found what he was looking for. "5:29pm. Interesting."
"Mrs Oldfart," Luke said as he took the paper back, "what time did your husband's appointment end?"
"It was..." Nosie twirled her cigarette holder around and around in her fingers. "...I think it was around 5:30."
"There we have it, Ms Skellig," Phoenix said as Luke made his way back to the bench. "The last edit made to this document was before the appointment even ended."
He reaccepted the printout and slammed it down on the bench as hard as he could.
"It isn't possible that the log was revised!"
Man, these people took any excuse to gossip. The gallery was buzzing like the most furious beehive this side of the Atlantic.
"HOLD IT!"
And then they all fell silent again at the sound of the scream from the witness stand.
Nosie puffed again on her cigarette holder even though it was pretty obvious by now that she wasn't smoking a goddamn thing.
"I don't appreciate these insolent young people standing up in front of this entire village for no reason other than to paint me as a liar!" she shouted at nobody in particular.
"Our apologies, Mrs Oldfart." Layton once again adjusted his hat by the brim. "We had no intention of causing you to feel vilified. As the defence, it is simply our sworn duty to interpret the words of witnesses to the most accurate degree that we can."
In other words, Phoenix considered, they hadn't put this woman in any graves that she hadn't dug for herself.
"Oh, well..." Nosie, it seemed, hadn't noticed the Professor's meaning. "...apology accepted."
"Heh," Phoenix chuckled quietly. "Smooth move, Professor."
"Hmm..." Trucy was tapping on her chin again. "I'm not sure."
"What is it, Trucy?" asked Luke.
"I'm a bit confused," said Trucy. "If Dr Wallace really didn't make a mistake on the scrip, then..."
"Then how in the world did these incorrect figures come to be printed upon said prescription to begin with?" Michaela finished for her.
Trucy's face fell.
"Yeah," she said. "What she said."
Phoenix slapped himself in the forehead for being such an idiot.
"Crud," he muttered. "I hadn't thought of that."
"You hadn't?!" Luke exclaimed.
"I-I'm on vacation, alright?!" Phoenix spluttered. "I'm rusty!"
"Ah, thank you," Nosie said happily to the woman behind the prosecutor's bench. "I can always rely on you to speak sense, young Michaela."
"It is my absolute pleasure, Auntie Nosie," Michaela replied, "and I promise you that no matter what, we shall find the truth about this doctor's crime and justice shall be won for your poor, bed-ridden husband."
There it was again. They really did like talking about this guy, didn't they? Not that it wasn't meant to be a subject of discussion, considering he was a victim in this case, but all the same...
"...hm." Phoenix found himself rubbing his chin again.
"Is something wrong, Mr Wright?" asked Layton.
"Trust me," said Phoenix, trying to stay quiet enough for Michaela not to hear. "Plenty is wrong right now, but what stands out to me is just how often people talk about how sick the victim got because of this supposed malpractice. I can't help thinking..."
"Do you really think he might be faking?!" Trucy gasped.
"But if he is, then why?" asked Luke. "What would be the point? To get rid of Dr Wallace? If so, then why would he want to do that?!"
"I will admit," Layton added thoughtfully, "that the circumstances of this case do strike me as suspicious." He echoed Phoenix in chin-stroking. "As we have already discussed, Dr Wallace hasn't even been here for a full 24 hours, yet here he is, on trial for malpractice. If not suspicious, then that's at least rather odd."
Michaela cleared her throat. Phoenix's heart dropped; evidently, she had heard them.
"The defence would appear to have forgotten," she said, "that this hall was designed so that sounds would be amplified by echoes no matter how quietly a person spoke, and I would like to ask the gentleman in the top hat a question regarding his suspicions: what reason would Wrenkley Oldfart have to lie about this malpractice?"
Now even she was pressing them for an answer, huh?
"My apologies, Ms Skellig," Layton responded. "I can't answer that question."
There was that smug smile again...
"It's quite alright, Professor," Michaela said, "as there is no shame in a lack of knowledge."
"You're right there, Ms Skellig," Phoenix interjected before any more of his friends could be insulted. "There is a lack of knowledge here. We still don't have anywhere near enough information about what happened yesterday."
Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and when he turned to check it out, he noticed the judge shaking his head.
"Much as it pains me to say," the old man said, "I agree."
He looked up at the witness stand.
"I believe further testimony may be in order, Mrs Oldfart."
"Ugh," Nosie sighed. "This is ridiculous. What in the world am I supposed to talk about?"
"How about..." Phoenix had already started talking by the time he realised he didn't know what to suggest. What was there? What could he suggest? Hmm...
What could end up the most beneficial to their defence?
There was one option that held some potential, but it could end up being a dead end...
"How about telling us more about what happened after you left the clinic?" he suggested anyway.
Just as before, Nosie fixed him with a glare. If looks could kill, she'd be on trial for genocide.
"What in the world does that have to do with anything?" she demanded.
"Well," Phoenix said, "if you told us, we could figure that out."
There was something satisfying about how angry she was at his statement. Maybe if she could be pressed a little further, they might even be able to get some honesty out of those shrivelled up lips.
"Specifically, Mrs Oldfart," Layton added, "we'd like to know if you and your husband met with anybody after you departed Dr Wallace's clinic. Any details you could provide would be immeasurably helpful."
Again, Phoenix felt impressed. He should've known that was a possibility.
Nosie, of course, rolled her eyes with a sigh.
"Very well," she huffed, "but only because you asked nicely."
"Be not afraid, Auntie Nosie," Michaela instructed her witness, "as I shall not allow these uncouth gentlemen to say anything that would cause you distress."
Layton withdrew under his hat.
"...uncouth?" he repeated.
Phoenix almost burst out laughing. He had never known a grown man to sound so incredibly hurt at the sound of a single word. The poor guy seemed like he could start crying at any moment.
He forced down his smile and got ready to take notes again.
There was no telling how helpful this testimony would turn out to be.
Mrs Oldfart drew herself up to her full height and cleared her throat.
"I can't recall anything out of the ordinary after we left the clinic," she told the court. "We walked home past the Sacred Well and managed to make it inside before the sun set."
Even though there was still no point in puffing on that cigarette holder, she still continued to do so. This woman was doing everything she could to look like she wanted to skin a dalmatian.
"We shared dinner – just the two of us – and Wrenkley took his medication after we had eaten," she explained. "After that, we simply sat and listened to the Minstrel's playing until we were ready for bed. It wasn't until the next morning that my poor Wrenkley was awoken by terrible pains in his stomach."
As Phoenix drew to the end of his notetaking, he noticed that the judge was nodding in understanding. Michaela, meanwhile, was beaming from ear to ear.
"Mmm, the Minstrel really does play beautifully, doesn't he?" asked the judge.
"I cannot help wondering if perhaps he would accept a request," Michaela pondered, "as I would love to be ushered to sleep in the evening by a rendition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata played on the Silver Violin."
There was that mention of the Minstrel again.
The last time Phoenix had heard that word in a conversation, it had been followed by five Psyche-Locks flashing into his vision. He couldn't see any right now, so obviously this wasn't supposed to be a secret, but what the heck were any of them talking about?
The Silver Violin? Some special instrument that was only meant to be played at night, when everybody else was hiding inside from the cold and... other things he didn't want to think about?
Why?!
Phoenix tried to shake himself out of his thoughts and back into the courtroom.
"Sounds like this Minstrel is a big part of the village," he muttered to his impromptu companion.
"The night-time violin music is normal, it would seem," Layton agreed. "I must admit that's reassuring to hear."
"That doesn't make it any less creepy!" Luke whispered hoarsely.
With this kid's wide eyes and the Professor avoiding eye contact with either of them, Phoenix could tell that not only had they both heard that music as well, but they didn't seem to have had anywhere near as good a time as he and his daughter had.
Meanwhile, said daughter was tapping her chin again.
"Do you think you can work with this, Daddy?" she asked. "I don't know if she said anything all that useful."
Phoenix got ready to write again and tried to put that curiosity out of his mind.
"We won't know that for sure until after I've pressed as much as I can," he pointed out, "so let's get to work, shall we?"
Part of him wished that there could be some device that transcribed everything they were saying as they spoke, so that he could just go back and check the statements in text rather than hurriedly scribbling notes and referring back to what little he'd been able to jot down.
His handwriting was terrible enough as it was. He really didn't need a time limit on top of that. Especially one as tight as he'd had to put up with both today and yesterday.
He checked that he wasn't going to try to write with his eraser and that he had enough room for his notes.
"So the circumstances of your departure from the clinic were completely normal?" he asked.
"Yes," Nosie replied bluntly. "We paid for the appointment and bade farewell to the doctor, and to Posy as she was in the waiting room, and then we simply walked out the door and past that ruffian that was playing in the street."
Phoenix hesitated.
"Ruffian?" he repeated in hopes that someone could fill him in.
He cast his eyes sideways as Luke hummed in thought.
"I think she means the little boy who was playing with rocks outside the library," he suggested.
"Ah yes," said Michaela, "little Tim Chanter does enjoy playing around with whatever he can find in the square near the Sacred Well, as I believe he would like to climb the bell tower if he thinks that nobody is looking and that he will be able to get away with it."
Great. As if this village wasn't weird enough already, they even had a resident Creepy Child to top things off.
"What, uh..." Phoenix was almost afraid to ask. "What does he do out there all day?"
"He gave Luke one of the stones he had been playing with," Layton told him, "saying that it would allow him to 'see what's really there'."
"But what the heck does that mean?" asked Phoenix.
It took him all of two seconds to regret asking that question. Layton set his jaw as the colour drained out of his face, and he turned away from Phoenix, pulling his hat's brim down over his eyes.
Phoenix looked to Luke to ask what this was about, but found the boy shrinking away from him, nervously fiddling with one of the toggles on his coat.
"Let's get back on topic, shall we?" asked Layton.
The ex-lawyer he was addressing decided this was a subject best left for later.
"Good call," he said. "Mrs Oldfart?"
"Yes?" Nosie snapped.
"Did you speak to anybody on your way home?" Phoenix asked.
Nosie pursed her lips again.
"No," she replied.
"Hmm..."
Phoenix looked down at the source of that thoughtful little hum.
"Something up, Truce?" he asked.
"I, uh..." Trucy had her wide eyes fixed on Mrs Oldfart with the most intense focus Phoenix had seen all week. "I'm not sure. Let's keep going for now."
"Right, okay, uh..." Phoenix pencilled in the biggest question mark he dared to draw. "Can you please tell the court where you live, Mrs Oldfart?"
"Hmph!" For a moment, she looked as though she was about to eat her cigarette again. "I would hardly think that was any of your business!"
"Mr and Mrs Oldfart live just down the hill from here and at the end of the road," Michaela thankfully explained, "tucked away among the towering rocks, beneath the mountain from which the Minstrel regales us with his wonderful nightly concerts from the Pictish Shrine."
She clasped her hands in glee as she remembered that Minstrel again.
"A mountaintop shrine?" Layton said thoughtfully. "I wonder if they would allow me to take a look?"
"Given the reception we've had so far," said Luke, "I rather doubt it."
Phoenix tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the page he'd been writing on.
"What, um..." Hopefully she wouldn't bite his head off at this question as well. "What route do you take to get home?"
To his relief, she gave him the faintest of smiles.
"The Sacred Well is such a beautiful landmark," she replied, "and the bell tower is a proud piece of our village's history, so of course we followed that path to get home."
"If it would please the defence," Michaela spoke up stepping out again from behind her bench, "I have here a map, drawn by myself some years ago, of our dear village that may give a better understanding of the route that Auntie Nosie and Uncle Wrenkley followed in order to return to their home, bearing in mind that they live in the small chicken farm beneath this hall."
She rested another sheet of paper on the defence's bench, and Phoenix pulled it closer for a good look as she walked away.
So the building with the cross was the clinic, was it? Phoenix traced the route from there to the Oldfarts' house with his finger.
"Well," he said, "I can see how they'd run into Mr and Mrs Teeve. Look how close they live to the clinic."
"Quite a sparse little village, isn't it?" asked Layton.
"It's more like a hamlet than a village," commented Luke.
The cursive in the corner caught Phoenix's eye.
"What's the Painted King?" he wondered aloud.
"Evidently it's something – or someone – that calls this village home," said Layton.
"Hmm..."
Phoenix ripped his eyes away from the map and saw that Trucy was still staring, intent as can be, at their witness.
"Trucy," he said, "I can tell you have something on your mind. What's up?"
"I, um..." She continued tapping her chin. "I'm still not sure. Keep going, Daddy. I need a better look."
Oh, so that was what she meant.
"I gotcha," Phoenix assured her, and he raised his journal again.
"A better look at what?" asked Layton.
"You'll see," Phoenix replied.
He turned back to his evidence list and scribbled in another entry:
Village Map
- Unofficial map of Fatargan
"How many pills did Mr Oldfart take?" he asked, because this was the most obvious question that he couldn't believe nobody else had thought to ask yet.
"Hmph!" Nosie huffed yet again. "I can't watch my husband every second of the day! How am I to know how many of those pills he swallowed?"
"Given our suspicion that he had actually overdosed," Layton chimed in, "I would say that this information is quite pertinent."
"Well, I'm sorry I can't provide it," said Nosie, and sucked on her pointless cigarette holder again. "I'm not about to help you people conjure up fairy tales about how this wretched doctor is actually innocent!"
Luke slammed down on the bench again.
"We don't have any proof of his guilt!" he argued. "Until we do, please cooperate with the court!"
"Ugh! Gracious, such insolence! " Just as Phoenix had feared, Nosie took another bite out of her cigarette – looking closer, it was definitely just candy. "Michaela, could you please go over there and slap some sense into that silly little boy?!"
Michaela remained where she was and adjusted her glasses.
"My apologies, Mrs Oldfart," she said, "but I am not permitted to physically abuse any members of the court, defence or otherwise."
"Oh, thank god," Phoenix sighed.
He checked the notes he had taken on the testimony again.
"So you had dinner," he recalled. "Just the two of you?"
Nosie glared at him yet again.
"Yes," she replied.
"There it is!"
This time, when Phoenix turned to Trucy, she was smiling excitedly and bouncing up and down on her chair.
"Okay, Trucy-Goosy," Phoenix said with a smile of his own. "What do your elf eyes see?"
"It happens when she talks about being alone with her husband that night," Trucy explained. "See how she's holding that cigarette holder?"
She pointed at Nosie, who was eyeing them with blatant suspicion.
"When you ask whether anyone else was there," Trucy told him, "her fingers get all twitchy. She kind of rubs her fingertips on the metal. It's really small, so I'm not surprised you missed it."
Phoenix nodded.
"Right," he said. "Nice catch."
Layton chuckled softly at the little girl's enthusiasm.
"Quite the observant young lady, aren't you?" he asked.
Once he was done admiring how smart his little girl was, Phoenix turned back to the witness stand and slammed one hand on the bench to make sure Mrs Oldfart was listening.
"Mrs Oldfart," he said as sternly as he could.
Nosie rolled her eyes. It was a miracle they hadn't fallen out of her face yet.
"What?" she asked.
"Forgive me for my insolence," Phoenix said, "but I don't believe you're being entirely honest with us."
"Hmph!" She slotted a fresh cigarette into her holder. "Well, I never! Have I given you any reason to doubt my testimony?"
"I'm a lawyer, Mrs Oldfart," Phoenix replied. "Doubting comes with the territory."
He leaned back from the bench and rested his hands in his pockets again. The last thing he wanted was to hint to this woman that she intimidated him in the slightest.
"You say that you didn't encounter anybody on your way home except for a young boy," he recounted, "and that you and your husband were alone together for the rest of the evening, but are you really telling the truth?"
"How dare you?!" Nosie's beady eyes flashed with fury. "It isn't even possible that we would meet anybody either on our way home OR after we had returned!"
It was very difficult not to smile again.
"And that's a good example of the things I have to doubt," Phoenix told her.
"Is it now?" Nosie stared holes into his face down the length of her nose. "What proof do you have that I might be lying?"
Phoenix made as much of a show as he could of pulling the map closer to himself and turning it around so that it was facing her.
"Mrs Oldfart," he said, and pointed down at the map to trace the route again. "Your path home takes you through half the village and past the other half. The sunset is later here than it is at sea level, and I recall seeing a woman working on an ice sculpture while my daughter and I were making our way to the King's Arms."
He picked up the map and held it up in case she couldn't see it.
"Is it really possible that you didn't encounter anybody on your way home?" he asked.
"Ugh!" Nosie gasped again.
This time, the mutters from the crowd were accompanied by glances and brief points in Phoenix's direction, as well as a number of angry or nervous looks towards the witness stand. It almost seemed as though the tide could be turning in their favour.
"Trucy, how did you notice what she was doing with her fingers?" asked Luke. "I didn't see anything!"
"It runs in my bloodline, my friend," Trucy said proudly, hands on her hips. "I have special, super-powerful eyes that let me see when people are hiding something!"
"It runs in your bloodline, does it?" Layton smiled and looked up at Phoenix again. "Would either of your parents happen to share this ability?"
Phoenix gulped and hoped nobody noticed.
"Daddy's got something different," Trucy explained, "but he can see people's secrets too. He's got a magic amulet!"
"Trucy, don't go blurting my secrets out to the courtroom, okay?" Phoenix warned.
"Oh, sorry!" Trucy gasped, and she slapped her gloved hands over her mouth.
Phoenix couldn't help but smile. It was impossible to stay even slightly mad at her when she was just that adorable.
"It's fine," he assured her, and he turned back to the witness stand. "Mrs Oldfart, you are a glamorous woman, but secrets are unbecoming of you."
Nosie's hand trembled, her grip so tight on her cigarette holder that it seemed as though she might break it, and her lips were pursed as though she were chewing on a lemon full of wasps.
"Did anybody meet with you or your husband following his appointment with Dr Wallace?" Phoenix asked.
If this was what she was getting worked up about, then it had to be true, didn't it? She wouldn't have been trying to hide something and giving off the tic Trucy noticed if she really had spent the entire evening alone with her husband, like she had previously said.
Would she?
"I..." Nosie choked. "I-I..."
She slowly lowered her hand, head bowed in shame. For such a large presence of a person, she certainly seemed to have shrunk a whole lot.
"I can't say," she said.
Phoenix frowned.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I can't!" cried Nosie, now clutching her cigarette holder in both hands and twisting it.
"OBJECTION!" Luke accompanied his shout with another slam on the bench. "'I can't' isn't a good enough excuse, Mrs Oldfart! Explain to the court what's preventing you from telling the truth!"
Nosie swallowed hard and took a deep breath. She straightened up, shoulders still slumped in defeat, and when she looked back up at the court, her expression was noticeably downtrodden.
"I am sworn to secrecy," she explained, "in the name of the Painted King."
Her statement sparked more gossip in the gallery, but this time it was hushed and frightened. The few audible whispers were along the lines of "no wonder" and "the poor dear" and "how dare that foreigner bully her so harshly!"
The judge, however, was nodding in understanding, while Michaela just retained her soft smirk and coiled a lock of pale blonde around her finger.
"I understand," said the judge.
"Then you may retain this secret as your own, Auntie Nosie," said Michaela.
Mrs Oldfart bowed her head again.
"Thank you," she mumbled.
Phoenix's frown deepened. How was this statement enough not only to convert the entire courtroom to this woman's side, but also shove her off that high horse she had been riding so proudly?
"Why is everybody talking like that makes sense?" he asked.
"There's that name again," said Layton, tapping one finger on the map's corner. "The Painted King?"
"Professor." Luke tapped on Layton's arm to get his attention. "Once this is all done, I think we should go to the library to read up on this."
"Good idea, my boy," Layton replied.
"Mr Wright." Again, Michaela's soft voice somehow carried all around the hall. "The witness has been forbidden from revealing the details of whether or not she and her husband met with any persons following their departure from Dr Wallace's clinic, and I would like to request that any further questioning in regards to that subject be met with a charge of contempt of court."
To Phoenix's dismay, the judge nodded.
"I agree," he added, and raised his little hammer. "This line of questioning is hereby discontinued."
He brought the hammer down with a resounding clap.
Phoenix's breath caught in his throat.
"...huh?" was all he managed to say.
"Hold it!"
This time it was the Professor who smacked a hand down on the bench.
"Your Honour," he said sternly, his dark eyes narrowed in anger. "The defence has reason to believe that further questioning will reveal the truth of this supposed malpractice. Please understand that we-"
"Objection."
Michaela was slowly shaking her head.
"Did you not hear Mrs Oldfart?" she asked, and continued without waiting for any reply. "She is sworn to secrecy in the name of the Painted King; therefore she cannot reveal those secrets without putting her soul at great risk, and to press her further would also bring great risk to your souls as well, so I suggest that you settle down and refrain from attempting to pursue this line of questioning."
"OBJECTION!"
Luke's voice somehow seemed even louder in the courtroom's crushing silence.
"But where does that leave us?" he asked. "How are we supposed to find out the truth about this matter if-"
"If it pleases the defence," said Michaela, "I do have another witness."
Luke weakly lowered his arm in shock.
Phoenix, however, could only find it in himself to roll his eyes.
"Of course you do," he commented. "So who's this one? Someone who happened to look out the window at around the same time the victim was leaving the clinic?"
Michaela chuckled that musical little laugh at his question.
"Nothing so vague, Mr Wright," she giggled, "as it is nobody less than the victim himself."
"WHAT?!" Trucy almost fell off her chair.
"Interesting." Layton, meanwhile, stroked his chin in thought.
Somehow, Phoenix almost felt relieved again.
"I forgot he was still alive," he remarked. "I'm so used to handling murders that it's weird to have a victim who's still kicking."
"HOLD IT!" Luke pointed as hard as he could. "We've heard time and again that Mr Oldfart is too sick to leave his bed, let alone leave his home! How is he going to testify to this court?!"
Michaela just kept coiling her hair around her finger.
"All shall be revealed, young man," she replied, "but I request a recess in order to prepare, and I believe that ten minutes may be enough."
She turned to look at the judge.
"Uncle Angus?" she said.
"Of course, dear," the judge responded, and he looked over at the other side of the hall. "I suggest the defence take this time to reconsider their manners towards the witnesses."
He raised the hammer again.
"That said," he said, "this court is now in recess."
And with that, he brought the hammer down.
O-o-O
Trucy kicked uselessly at a frozen puddle.
"How are they going to get Mr Oldfart to testify if he can't even leave his bed?!" She stomped and almost slipped on the ice, but Phoenix caught her before she could fall.
"I have a hunch," he admitted, "and I really hope it's wrong."
The frosty ground crunched under Layton's feet as he paced back and forth, watched by his apprentice and the doctor he was helping to defend.
"It's fairly clear by now," he said in the most teacherly voice Phoenix had heard in months, "that another person met with the victim and his wife in the evening after they left your clinic, Dr Wallace. Even if Mrs Oldfart refuses to speak of it, it isn't difficult to tell."
"Sworn to secrecy..." Luke was sitting on the ground beside Dr Wallace, resting his chin on his interlaced fingers. "...Painted King? Who's the Painted King? Why is his name so important?"
"I wish I knew," Dr Wallace sighed. "He wasn't mentioned on any of the sites I visited when I was researching my new posting."
Phoenix looked around just in time for Layton to pause in his pacing.
"Dr Wallace," he said, "you will have to educate me. I'm knowledgeable in many things, but I have very little medical expertise. Could you describe the symptoms of an ibuprofen overdose?"
"Hmm, let's see..." The doctor traced his fingers over the pot holding his best friend. "Like with any overdose, you've got your mild symptoms and your severe symptoms. The mild ones are things like tinnitus, heartburn, nausea and vomiting, stomach pain, diarrhoea, dizziness, blurred vision, sweating and sometimes a rash."
"...those are mild? " Phoenix muttered to himself.
"Your more severe symptoms," Dr Wallace continued, "are more in the area of slow or difficult breathing, convulsions, hypotension – that's low blood pressure if you don't know – seizures, little-to-no urine production, severe headache and/or coma."
Layton responded with a slow nod.
"I see," he said. "That's quite the list."
"You have to be careful with any medication," said Dr Wallace, "or else you'll end up in a much worse state than before you took it."
Luke raised his head from his fingers.
"Four thousand milligrams is definitely an overdose, isn't it?" he asked.
Dr Wallace nodded. "The maximum dosage for an adult is 800 at a time-"
"-or four pills?" Phoenix asked for clarification.
"-right," the doctor confirmed, "and you definitely should not take more than 3200 in any given day. That's sixteen pills."
Trucy tapped on her chin again.
"So 4000 is totally an overdose," she concluded.
"Exactly," Dr Wallace replied. "And I would NEVER prescribe such a ridiculous amount, especially for something as simple as a migraine."
Layton went back to pacing around.
"Can I see that prescription again?" asked Luke. "Not my printout. The one from yesterday."
Phoenix reached into the pocket he'd hastily shoved the scrip into and passed it to the teen's waiting hand.
"Knock yourself out," he said.
Luke pulled the printout back out of his satchel and held it up beside the scrip. His eyes darted back and forth between the pair of documents, growing narrower and more suspicious with every near-imperceptible flicker.
After what seemed like ages, he lowered the printout and stared even closer at the scrip, causing his mentor to pause again.
"Have you noticed something, Luke?" the Professor enquired.
Luke's eyes suddenly widened.
"I thought so!" he cried. "Professor, look at this!"
He beckoned Layton closer, but Phoenix and Trucy joined in coming to see what he had discovered.
"It's difficult to see," Luke said, pointing at the listed dosage, "but these extra 0s... the other letters and numbers are a bit closer to those than they are to each other."
"Can I see?" asked Trucy.
Luke handed her the scrip and she too squinted down at the paper.
When Phoenix noticed it, his veins filled with ice.
"Oh my gosh, you're right!" cried Trucy.
Phoenix gulped and prayed that he was wrong.
"O-okay," he stammered. "I'm an old fogie. I don't know anything about computers and even less about prescriptions. What does that mean?"
Luke gently took the scrip out of Trucy's fingers.
"It means this prescription was edited," he explained. "I think..." He tapped on the too-close numbers. "I think what happened was that someone scanned it, then they edited in the extra 0s and printed it off to pass as the real thing."
While Trucy ooh-ed in understanding, Phoenix gritted his teeth and pulled out his journal to edit the evidence notes.
Prescription
- Instructions for Wrenkley Oldfart's medication: 4000mg of ibuprofen (20 pills) Edited following the appointment.
"S-scanned it, huh?" Phoenix prayed that nobody asked why he was tripping over his words. "So our third party is somebody with a scanner?"
"I don't know if that narrows it down," Luke said sadly. "Scanners are pretty common these days."
"The one in my clinic doubles as a fax machine and triples as a printer," added Dr Wallace.
"Impressive," Layton said happily. "Modern technology truly is a marvel!"
Phoenix took a deep breath.
It was okay. This wasn't his. It wasn't him who had presented this as genuine.
It wasn't his crime.
He was innocent.
He didn't do it.
He was innocent.
He pushed himself back up to his feet and hoped nobody had seen the horrified expression he'd probably had just then.
"In any case," he said, and rubbed his tired eyes again, "we don't have time to go around to every house in this village and ask to see if they have a scanner on their computer, do we?"
"I can go and ask!" Trucy shot one hand into the air.
"Trucy, no," said Phoenix. "Not only would all those houses be empty because of everyone being at this trial – and I am NOT letting you break into private property two days in a row – but if we can get to the truth by the end of this trial, this scrip being edited might end up being irrelevant."
"I assume that you're referring to your suspicion that no malpractice or overdosing took place to begin with?" asked Layton. "That the Oldfarts are lying?"
Phoenix nodded. Seemed like nobody had noticed.
"I feel like I should thank Ms Skellig," he commented. "Getting to ask the victim about this mess directly might just be exactly what we needed."
"Ugh, I hope so," Luke groaned. "If it turns out the Painted King made him shut up as well..."
Trucy responded with a giggle.
"Good thing Daddy and I can tell when people have secrets, huh?" she asked.
Layton laughed along with her.
"It certainly is," he agreed, and he turned his attention to her father. "I hope that you can tell me a little more about this remarkable power once all of this is sorted out."
Phoenix found himself reaching into his jeans pocket, sliding his fingers over the smooth, jade-coloured surface.
What the heck would these people say if they were holding this thing? If they could see what he was trying to keep hidden? Would they still want his help? Would they still want to be his friends if they knew what had happened to him?
Would they even want to look at him anymore?
No. No, they wouldn't. Not if they had any sense about them.
No way would they want to spend another minute with such a failure of a human being.
"...yeah," he said numbly. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."
Oh no, he did not like the way Layton was looking at him right now. This man was just itching to ask the most uncomfortable question he could.
*tap-tap-tap*
Thankfully, before he got the chance, they were interrupted by Jack knocking on the door beside them, and she nodded her head in the direction of the hall's interior.
Their ten minutes was up.
Time to reconvene.