The Trial of Callista Blake

IV

Callista sampled and pushed aside the inoffensive meal. The state of New Essex was feeding her well. Treating her well too—a star prisoner. A room of her own and, now that the trial had begun, meals in private, on a tray no less. No utensils of course except a spoon. She rose and performed the infinite journey of three steps from the barred door to the barred window a few times: shorten stride and you could make it come out to four steps. Best room in the hotel, southwest exposure 'n' everything—gee! She adjusted the blanket on her cot to sharp military precision: it would make Matron Flannery happy. A pity to sit down now and spoil all that wonderful work. Anyway Biddy Flannery would be along in a minute for the tray, with her usual not unfriendly clash of keys; then back to the courtroom for the afternoon.

Callista gazed at the flat-faced wall where smears of old writing had been not quite obliterated—for everything in this building was more than a little tired, peevish, ineffectual. Indifferent mop or washrag took a swipe at the graffiti, to keep busy; the law took a swipe, the best it could manage, at the perennial smears of human confusion, dishonesty, violence. High up—the woman must have been tall—enough remained of a lipstick inscription to indicate a heart symbol enclosing a pair of names: DAVY & ——: the other name had defied Callista's months-long effort to decipher it. She tried again now, bemused, and once more gave it up, although somehow this time she did feel a bit nearer success. It was exasperating as a sore tooth.

She gave up also another effort to interpret the almost destroyed black-pencil picture below the heart, probably someone else's contribution. A thick phallus not quite erect, a baby with the facial features gone, perhaps just a round-petaled flower or geometric design? No use. Call it a Rorschach blot—but even for that, the months of seeing it had made it impossible to see it at all. Callista turned away, glancing with an amusement that held the warmth of gratitude at the third and last writing—off in the corner, tiny and squeezed, it had almost escaped the washrag's faint assault, and still transmitted a cocky, not too cryptic message: WE DID IT IN A SNOBANK ON LINCAN'S BIRTHDAY 1957.

In the death house too they would feed her well and treat her very kindly, within the meaning of the statute. Callista examined this, perplexed, trying to recall what form of the auxiliary verb her thought had used. Did the gray cells say WILL or WOULD?

She journeyed again, to the window that for all its cramped ugliness was a friend, because of its messages of night and day, cloud, sunlight, and the wheeling of doves. And returning, she made a discovery, with the suddenness of sunshine. She could read the red writing up there on the wall, the other name. Amazing that it could have eluded her so long:

DAVY & ME.

Bewildering too the quick starting of tears to her eyes. Why, I never cry. Well—once, when Edith helped me talk.

DAVY & ME.

"This helps too, dear." She must have said that aloud, for the cell was alive with the memory of a private sound. They couldn't take away the Me, could they? Shoplifter, whore, drunk, another murderer maybe? Doesn't matter. Went out of here to die, get drunk, go back to work in a cathouse or pushing dope—I don't care. They couldn't quite do it to you. Down the corridor, keys rattled. They couldn't take away the Me. Ever.

3

Once a trial judge or jury has determined, on conflicting evidence, a question of fact, that determination is final. It is binding upon the appellate courts. If there has been an error of law the defendant has a remedy by appeal. If there has been an erroneous finding of fact the defendant has no remedy. He is forever bound by the finding of the trial judge or of the jury.

Now it should be obvious that trial judges and juries aren't that good.

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER, The Court of Last Resort

I

Cecil Warner remembered the night, a corridor of hours, a windy darkness of winter streets, a homecoming to solitude and too much thought and the uncertain consolation of sleep.

After leaving Edith's studio a whim had urged him to walk home instead of calling a taxi. By that time the rain had stopped, the winter pavements were damp and harmless. It would have been pleasant to drive alone out of the city on quiet side roads, perhaps winding up in a suburban bar for an hour's casual amusement. Not so long ago he would have done it, but last year, after a few near-disasters, he had ruled out driving as too great a hazard for aging faculties, and sold his car: from there on the world could wait on him a little, a good enough arrangement so long as you can pay for it.

Walking was good for you, they said—in moderation, of course. Ten blocks, say half a mile and none of it uphill, from Edith's studio to the small old house on Midland Avenue that for the last twenty-five years had grown wrinkled and out of date along with him, dignity and seediness of antiquity together; maybe you couldn't have one without the other. Yes, a nice walk, colored by a grudging admission that there was no great harm in doing what they said was good for you, so long as you did it in moderation. A winter wind has many voices, not all of them edged by grief.

The best part of that walk was the long block past Trinity Church and its tiny cemetery where time had pushed many headstones aslant and long since worn down all grief to a stillness. No large extent of time really: Trinity was built in 1761, said its cornerstone: a mere two centuries, enough to give the more respectable ghosts the privilege of wearing three-cornered hats. In Trinity churchyard they were bound to be respectable and, through no fault of their own, quaint, like George Washington's wooden false teeth. Leaving there, crossing Quire Street, you passed too suddenly into a splash of gaudy twentieth-century glare, the uptown movie house. Cecil had gone by it last night when the theater was about to close, a late crowd spilling away presumably cheered by a long gulp of Bardot bosom and eye and flank. Then two decent residential blocks, other detached houses like his own yet virtually unknown to him, keeping their own counsel in the quiet street. And the three front steps that needed paint, the key, the cantankerous welcome from the squeak of the front door which could have been fixed in a minute by the drop of oil it wasn't going to get.

There was the not quite musty flavor of the little front hall: Cecil didn't like it but would have disliked its absence. At every homecoming there was the confidence, as he stumped into the shabby living-room, that Mrs. Wilks would have left everything just so before retiring to her world upstairs, except that of course she'd never learn not to put match-cards in ash trays. Some time the long sorrow that Mrs. Wilks lived with upstairs—a husband paralyzed for twenty years, unable to walk or feed himself, not quite able to die—would arrive at an end. Like all sorrow. Cecil had not gone up last night for his usual visit and chess game with Tom Wilks. Too late; too tired.

Now in the bleak courtroom remembering the night, relaxing in his chair beside Callista, still feeling thirty cents' worth of virtue for having resisted the siren voice of mince pie for lunch, Cecil Warner remembered—suddenly, like a reward of effort—one of the answers his mind had given him during the hours before he could sleep. Perhaps it was the only answer worth remembering out of many. There had been many, some no better than mumblings of fatigue. That one had come to him by the mind's magic when the night beyond his window was in a moment of supreme clarity and peace, and Trinity's delicate chimes had struck the morning hour of two o'clock, and the wind died: The defense never rests.

The air was still today, pure and sharp, the sky a clean splendor above the smear of the city. Something of it could be felt through the high eastern window behind them. Callista would have looked upward into that strong blue of infinity through the detention cell bars. She liked the brilliant days. They would enrich her artist's vision, he supposed, revealing depth and detail that duller eyes saw without seeing. A pleasant day, a good (light) lunch, and T. J. Hunter at the moment engaged in nothing more harmful than getting a police technician's map of the Shanesville properties admitted in evidence. A fine map, laboriously honest. Nothing required right now except an outward appearance of grumpy indifference suitable to the Old Man.

His gaze passed over the Twelve, the ordinary, respectable, appalling faces, and turned aside. He studied his blunt, unskillful hands, examining the blur of an old scar. A small racing unthinking motion of Terence Mann's fingers up yonder reminded him of the last occasion when he had spent an evening at Terence's apartment. Quite a while ago—July, he thought, anyway some time before Callista's trouble. A hot evening, Terence reviewing some of his Army habits of speech when the old building's air-conditioning unit goofed.

Terence that night had been in a Chopin mood; temporarily fed up with Mozart, he said, the weather too hot for Brahms. In passing Cecil wondered what the little guy would be working on these days. Something certainly; Terence liked to keep two or three compositions currently at concert pitch—no reason, he claimed, except that it satisfied a whim. The reason could lie deeper than that. With only a listener's knowledge, Cecil felt that music might have lost something important when Terence Mann went into the law. Something held back, possibly some old unhappiness or inhibition, when Terence said his keyboard ability—and he would have to call it that, instead of talent or spark or musicianship!—fell far enough short of the top so that it wasn't worth exploiting for more than private enjoyment.

Get with it, Old Man!

Spotless law and order was taking the oath. Sergeant Shields of the State Police would never allow any dust on the sparkle of his shoes; undoubtedly he could dissect his .32 and reassemble it in the dark. Yet he was also young, and human. A sidelong glance gave Warner Callista's face, composed, neutral. As usual, too remote. During the police testimony, the jury might not resent that too much, might vaguely understand her need for self-control. Later on he must make another attempt to persuade her that you can't just brush off the human race—not when it's after you.

"Your full name and occupation, please?"

"Samuel Arthur Shields, Sergeant, New Essex State Police. I have been stationed at Emmetville Barracks for general duty since January of last year."

"How were you employed on Monday morning, August 17th last?"

The Sergeant's notebook rested in his hand; Warner guessed he was not likely to need it. "I was operating State Police Car No. 48 on highway patrol between Shanesville and East Walton."

"Is Car 48 equipped with two-way radio?"

"Yes, sir."

"In your own words—I believe you don't need any coaching in the requirements of legal testimony—in your own words, Sergeant, please state what you did and what you observed, in line of duty, at or about 10:30 and subsequently, that Monday morning, August 17th."

"At 10:36 I received a radio call directing me to proceed to the house of Dr. Herbert Chalmers on Walton Road south of the junction with Summer Avenue, in Shanesville township. I was informed that the body of a woman, apparently drowned, had been discovered in a pond near that house. No further particulars were given me by radio. I drove to the site immediately, arriving at the Chalmers house at 10:40. I knocked, received no answer, saw no one until I walked around to the back. There I found Dr. Herbert Chalmers, who is and was then known to me by sight as a member of the Shanesville Presbyterian Church, to which I belong. He was sitting on the top step of the back porch, and appeared to be ill or in shock: white, breathing with difficulty, leaning against the porch rail with his eyes shut. When I spoke to him he roused, recognized me. I learned from him that he had found the body of a woman, whom he named as his neighbor Mrs. James Doherty, in a pond in the woods bordering his land. He pointed out a path into the woods."

"Will you indicate it on this map for the jury, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. Here it is." Warner watched him from under the famous lowered brows. A good boy, decently ambitious, standing by the map's tall frame, a brisk young schoolteacher interested in facts. He stayed there erect and impressive as he went on talking: "Dr. Chalmers mentioned a heart condition, saying he didn't feel able to go with me to the pond; afraid of blacking out, or words to that effect. He told me his housekeeper, Miss Maud Welsh, had also seen the body and had gone back to the pond after telephoning my headquarters. I followed the path to this spot here, where you see a short spur path leading to the water. There Miss Welsh saw me, from the pond-side, and called to me. I asked her to stay where she was, since I had noticed footprints and other marks that ought not to be disturbed until examined. These marks were all in this area here, along the spur path; none on the main footpath where the ground was quite hard and dry." He stepped back to the witness chair. And nothing, Warner thought, would ever influence or shake the boy except more facts, the sharp and tangible truths that you can weigh or photograph or look up in a textbook. And yet the continuing actions of the mind, the swift and dark events gone in a moment, misunderstood or "forgotten" or never glimpsed at all: Those are facts too, Sergeant: did you know?

"Go on, please."

"I went to the pond along the undisturbed ground at the side of the spur path. In the pond, submerged, I saw the body of a woman dressed in a light blue skirt and jacket and white blouse. Later in the day I measured the pond and found the maximum depth to be forty-two inches; a high-water line on the banks indicated that when full the greatest depth would be about five feet. On August 17th, however, the inlet was a mere trickle, the outlet practically dry—there's probably some underground drainage. Before stepping into the water I saw that the woman's arms were somewhat extended, and the hands were not clenched as I have seen them in other drowning cases."

"You have seen a number of them, Sergeant?"

"I have, sir. Boating, swimming accidents, a few suicides."

"You stepped into the pond?"

"I did. On lifting the body I found that rigor was complete, and post-mortem lividity noticeable in the face and hands."

"Please explain those terms for the jury, will you?"

"Rigor mortis is the stiffening that takes place, usually from two to six hours after death, and may continue from twelve to forty-eight hours. Post-mortem lividity is a discoloration caused by the settling of the blood to whatever parts of the body are lowest when the heart action ceases."

"Did that trickle into the pond create any current?"

"No, sir, hardly a ripple. Too small."

"Later on did you check the temperature of the water?"

"Yes—evening after dark. The weather that Monday evening was about like the evening before. The pond water at 9 P.M. Monday was at 68 degrees Fahrenheit."

"Was the water clear?"

"Some roiling, before I stepped in. The bottom has a layer of dead leaves and silt. Miss Welsh told me she had gone into the pond—her skirt was wet. I'd also noticed (I forgot to say) that Dr. Chalmers' slacks were quite wet, consistent with what he told me. The body was that of a woman in the early twenties, of slight build, about five feet two. Since there was no question of life remaining, I let it back into the water, to disturb the situation as little as possible before examination by my superiors. The foam on the lips was noticeable, but less than one expects to see in a drowning."

"What is the significance of foam on the lips, in a drowning?"

"Well, sir, a medical expert—"

"Just drawing on your own experience and police training."

"Well, it means a struggle for air. Air and water mix with the secretions of nose and throat."

"So, if a body not breathing enters the water, you won't see foam?"

"That's correct, sir."

"And in this case there was some, but less than normal?"

"Sir, I don't think I'm qualified to say what would be normal."

"Well, again, Sergeant, I just want to draw on your police experience. You said, I think, 'less than one expects to see'—correct?"

"Yes, sir, I can go that far, but it's only a—a layman's opinion. I've been with the state police only three years altogether. In that time I haven't seen any large number of drowning cases."

Warner suppressed a smile. T.J. should have known better than to push this man. His retreat was quick and graceful. "Quite right, Sergeant, and maybe I was a bit out of line. Would you now please describe the elevations of the ground in that area? I notice our map omits that."

The Sergeant looked pleased to be on his feet again; he might have been happier still with a pointer and a blackboard. "Here, where the spur path begins, the main footpath is going over a rise of ground. The spur itself runs level for about half its distance, then there's a ten-foot slope to the pond, rather steep." Hunter seemed bothered, perhaps getting more than he wanted. "That slope is the only one in the area you could call steep. Elsewhere the ground slopes toward the pond more gradually."

Yes, it was steep. Falling there, in the hazy night, sick with a cruel poison, Ann Doherty could easily have rolled down that short slope into the water. In cross-examination, this level-minded fact-lover would willingly say so. Sick—Warner's body involuntarily shuddered. He felt suffocated, and as though he too were falling in a darkness, nothing upholding him but a single thread of belief: Callista had no criminal intent. A belief that could never be demonstrated as a truth; never at least by the sort of demonstration that would be rightly, intelligently demanded by such a man as Sergeant Shields. No criminal intent: how do I know? No answer except the legally unacceptable and meaningless answer of trust, friendship, insight, love: I know because I know.

Sergeant Shields cheerfully continued: "The Chalmers house is on another moderate rise of ground, and going toward Dohertys' on the main footpath from the beginning of the spur, there's a gradual slope as far as the place where the pond's outlet crosses the path—just a little ditch you step over; then another slight rise to the Doherty house. The outlet runs fairly straight through the grove—just barely enough drop of the ground level to carry it into the culvert near the fork."

"Thank you." Much pleasanter for T.J., Warner guessed, to have the blocky sandy-haired athlete sitting down. "After letting the body back in the water, what did you do next, Sergeant?"

"I made a superficial examination of the ground. Then with Miss Welsh I went back to the main path, and requested her to stay there in sight of the pond while I went to report. After doing so, I returned to the edge of the woods and remained with Miss Welsh, in sight of the pond, until others arrived: Lieutenant Kovacs, the photographer Sergeant Peterson, Trooper Walter Curtis who brought equipment for making plaster casts, and Trooper Morris. The coroner's physician Dr. Devens arrived soon, and the undertaker's vehicle from Shanesville. However, Dr. Devens directed that the body be taken to the Winchester City morgue, where I understand there are better facilities. Trooper Morris and I lifted the body from the water, and Dr. Devens made a brief examination at the scene. We then placed the body in the vehicle, Dr. Devens gave his car keys to Trooper Morris, and went himself in the undertaker's vehicle. Trooper Morris followed with the doctor's car."

Smart and careful boy. It might still be necessary for T.J. to soothe down little Dr. Devens if he got snippy about testifying to the same technicality. Common sense says: Who's going to switch bodies on the doctor? The law says: All right, but let's just make sure nobody does. Not for the first time, Warner thought: Granted, the law is an ass; but better listen when it brays. Sometimes it's right.

"Go on, Sergeant."

"Under Lieutenant Kovacs' orders, I examined the pond's banks and the immediate area, with Peterson and Curtis. Eliminating the marks made by Dr. Chalmers, Miss Welsh and myself, only two sets of footprints were found near the pond. Mrs. Doherty's were identifiable by the high-heeled print of one shoe, and the stocking print of the other foot. The second set was size six, low-heeled, blunt-toed, the right shoe showing a slightly different sole-pattern from the left. I assisted Trooper Curtis in making casts of the prints, and initialed them as he did. Mrs. Doherty's footprints ended on the spur path, at the top of that slope I mentioned. Where they ended, a blurred mark on the fairly soft ground suggested that someone had fallen. It was not a very clear mark; all it really indicated was some recent disturbance of the earth. And from my experience of woodcraft and trail-reading—I think I can honestly claim a bit of expert knowledge there, by the way—I would say that all the marks from the beginning of the slope to the edge of the water were quite indefinite; that is, I think they could be interpreted in several different ways, all except one."

"And that one?"

"A heel-print belonging to the second set, the low-heeled set, superimposed on the blurred mark where someone had apparently fallen. And this mark told nothing except that whoever made it set her heel—that is, the heel of a low shoe, size six—on top of the other mark."

"Only one heel-mark?"

"Only one. The sole, and the other foot, must have rested on the hemlock needles and other loose stuff. The ground was only partly bare."

"Could you tell whether the person was standing or squatting?"

"Not for certain. I'd say standing, but I could be wrong."

"Where else were the footprints of that second set?"

"On the left bank of the pond—that is, left as you approached by the spur path. Two fairly clear imprints, left and right, pointed toward the water. The ground was somewhat moist there. We found a few other, partial prints of the size six shoes in that area, all partly obliterated by other footsteps. That left bank is the place where access to the water is easiest. That's where Miss Welsh had stepped in and out, and Dr. Chalmers had stumbled out on the left bank, slipping once by the way, although he had approached the pond from the other side."

"You say the marks on the slope of the spur path were indefinite. But would you describe them a little more, Sergeant?"

"They just weren't readable, Mr. Hunter. Mere disturbances of the earth. Let me put it this way, sir: simply on the basis of the trailmarks, Mrs. Doherty might have fallen and rolled into the water—it's just about steep enough for that; or she might have been pushed after she had fallen; or she might even have crawled or dragged herself into the pond. At the bottom of that slope, by the water's edge, the top of a wide flat boulder is exposed. Most of it's under water, but the top is bare, a shelf of rock that would show no marks if a person slipped over the edge into the water. And the water there is almost as deep as in the middle of the pond."

"Did you extend your search beyond the pond area?"

"Yes, sir, with Sergeant Peterson. We went to the Doherty house, examining the footpath. In the brush by the path, we found two marks of falling; at one of these places, evidence of vomiting. At the ditch where the pond's outlet intersects the path, I found a blue shoe, a right, matching the left one on the body. The footpath ends at a gravel turning circle in front of the Doherty house. There we found a blue and white four-door Pontiac sedan, later identified as belonging to Mr. James Doherty. The front bumper was almost in contact with a pillar of the porch. Tire gouges on the gravel indicated the brakes had been slammed on at the last minute. The front door on the driver's side was open. The ignition had been turned off and the key removed; because of the open door, the inside light was still burning."

"Does the gravel drive extend to Summer Avenue?"

"Yes, sir. We examined it for signs of another car, but found none. That drive would take no mark when dry except the kind the Pontiac made."

"Did you find anything else by the house?"

"A key ring, on the porch by the door. After the leather case of the key-holder had been checked for fingerprints, I tried the keys. They fitted the Pontiac and the outside doors of the Doherty house—those doors were all locked at that time, when Sergeant Peterson and I arrived there. On the driveway, near the opening of the path into the woods, I found a woman's blue handbag, monogrammed A.P.D. Its catch was open, and a lipstick pencil and compact had tumbled out."

"Did you check the other contents of the handbag?"

"Yes, sir." Sergeant Shields at last opened his notebook. "Lipstick pencil of a light shade, gold compact monogrammed A.P.D., one handkerchief unused, three Kleenex folded, engagement book of red imitation leather, mechanical pencil with chromium finish, single stub from motion picture theater, fifteen dollars in bills, one dollar and fourteen cents in coin in change purse, page torn from a memorandum pad with date August 15, 1959 and with writing evidently a grocery list, four bobby pins, a scrap of green rayon possibly a dressgoods sample, identification card belonging with handbag but not filled out, a—a paper clip."

Warner watched the histrionic tenderness of T. J. Hunter's hands. They moved over the already identified garments, not quite touching but with the sense of a caress. Corn, of course, but how marvelously served up! Gently the hands lifted a plastic bag.

"Sergeant, this bag has a tag with your initials—is this your identifying mark?"

"Yes, sir."

"And do you identify what I show you here, a woman's blue slipper, size five?"

"That is the slipper I found on the path in the woods, between the pond and the Doherty house, the morning of last August 17th."

Sit still, Old Man! No protest possible that the jury would not resent. How can you make legal protest against the gentleness of a pair of hands? Against a voice that by its very restraint compels the subject to cry aloud? Ann's garments, her poor fallen possessions, needed no advocate: four bobby pins, a paper clip. Best to sit still, the face a little hidden, as Callista was still, and hidden.

And to wait, because the defense never rests.

"Your witness, Mr. Warner."

He wondered whether it was worth the trouble of rising. Maybe. As a fact-lover, the Sergeant understood the existence of grays between black and white. One dim blur of gray across the clarity of Shields' testimony might stir a slight wonder in a few jurors. "Sergeant, when you found Dr. Chalmers on the back porch, did you speak first?"

"Yes, sir." Quite as polite as he had been to the prosecution.

"He roused at once and answered you?"

"He did, sir." Yes, polite, and well aware of what was coming.

Mildness and indifference were needed here: "What did he say?"

Then the expected noise: "Objection! This conversation wasn't introduced in direct examination."

Mildness, indifference? "Your Honor, I submit that the substance of the conversation was introduced."

"Yes—admissible in cross examination. Objection overruled."

T. J. Hunter shrugged and let it go. A masterly shrug.

"Well, Sergeant, what did Dr. Chalmers say?"

Sergeant Shields also was mild. Not indifferent; on the contrary, the level fact-loving eyes were kind. A contemplative kindness that could do the defense no service even if the jury were able to glimpse it and grope at the meaning of it.

"Dr. Chalmers said to me: 'Sam? My God, Sam, I can't believe it.' I said: 'I just got here. What's happened?' And he said: 'Ann—Ann Doherty—she's killed herself.'"

II

Weariness had grown like an external pressure, the encroachment of a rising tide, the waters of darkness. Callista had supposed that when Cecil walked over there to cross-examine the tide might recede, even release her entirely. It had not, not entirely, but it might be no longer rising; maybe this was the turn. She had heard Cecil speak, and had listened. Listening, she had felt within the weariness that hint of inarticulate continuing surprise which is an element in any manifestation of love. It did not seem to her that she had actually understood what he said, or what the Sergeant said. "Ann Doherty—killed herself." What? Oh—he was repeating what poor Herb had said to him. Herb could always be trusted to say something idiotic.

Important as testimony?—nobody thinks she killed herself. But the tide might very well be turning. Her eyes were no longer blurred. She could discover the thousand crow's-foot wrinkles in Cecil's face over yonder. Callista understood that she would not faint, nor collapse, nor die for some little time to come.

Threescore and ten is also a short time. Long enough to wear down a rugged boy's splendor to a burden of exhausted flesh—Cecil must have been a magnificent youth. Hardly long enough (Edith suggested once) to comprehend the pattern of a May-fly's wing, since for that you'd have to comprehend the protein molecule. When we can do that, Edith said, we shall still be ignorant, learning all new things with reluctance, initial rejection, stubborn retention of obsolete notions, superstitions, cruelties. Maybe, Edith said, the sickly bromide "at the last analysis" is the most arrogant verbalism human beings ever slung together.

What? Cecil's voice had spoken something more. With effort and a little panic, Callista recaptured it out of the counterpoint of thought. It was very simple. He said: "No further questions."

Edith had gone on to wonder how the coming centuries would handle their heretics. Burn and hang them like the seventeenth and earlier centuries? Listen to them a little, unwillingly, like the nineteenth, until revolution stiffened into respectability, congealed in half-truths? Wall them off, like the twentieth, with the soft barrier of democratic smugness or a steel barrier such as Marxian demonology? Maybe, Edith grumbled, the twenty-first century would return to punishing dissenters with open savagery: they'd be locked in delightful rooms with plastic food dispensers, ingenious mechanical attention to all the body's other needs (sure, all of 'em) and not a God-damned thing to do except watch television.

Cecil was coming back to her.

Cecil would agree with Edith; and in agreeing would not remind her how much farther his own life had ranged within the threescore and ten, how much of wonder and experience, speculation, pleasure, suffering had burgeoned in him during the half-century that spread between his age and her own: for he was kind.

Surely if now she cautiously turned her eyes toward the wall clock, the hands would have struggled a little nearer to five. The Old Man was sitting down by her, covering her hand briefly, his own heavy and hot. The clock hands had pushed a small weary way beyond two. "Are you all right, Cal? You don't look good."

"I'm all right. What's happening now?"

"Looks as if T.J. was going to try a bit of redirect. Sore too. Nothing makes a prosecutor madder than an impartial policeman."

To Callista the suave gentleman in the gray suit didn't look mad. "Sergeant, when you first saw Dr. Chalmers he was in a state of shock?"

"He appeared so. Color and breathing bad. Spoke brokenly, with difficulty. And as I said, later he mentioned a heart condition."

"In other words he was in a state where you'd hardly expect him to make a clear interpretation of anything he'd seen?"

"I can't answer that, sir, because I've noticed some people can think pretty straight in spite of a bad shock. I don't know Dr. Chalmers well enough to say whether he could or not."

She heard the Old Man exclaim under his breath: "Brother! good thing I didn't bother to object." But after Hunter's leading question Callista had seen the smooth jowls of juror Emma Beales bobbing with gratification at the way nice Mr. Hunter had gone straight to the point.

"Has Dr. Chalmers, in any later conversation with you, again brought up the theory that Mrs. Doherty might have committed suicide?"

"No, sir, he has not."

Hunter dropped it there. Callista was aware of the Sergeant rising, meeting her glance for an instant with something in his own not at all unkind. It was not understanding, perhaps not really compassion. He had never spoken to her. She thought she remembered his face among others at District Attorney Lamson's office during her worst time of questioning. He had said nothing then; would have given Mr. Lamson his information at some other time; maybe he had turned up there (if he really did) just to have a look at her. What she read in him now might be a simple adult refusal to condemn, by a busy man, not involved, not personally much excited or concerned, his thought and daily life filled with a thousand other matters. And now he was marching away. With nothing of the sarcasm that would have distorted the words if she had spoken aloud, Callista thought: Good-bye—nice to have known you.

The next witness, Sergeant Peterson the photographer, unwound his scrawniness from some part of the outer blur and strode into the arena to take the oath. Dark hair, a pallor as if bleached in his own hypo. Unexpectedly Callista's fingers itched for a pencil, to draw Peterson's lank face as an expanded kodak. She could ask Cecil for a pencil—no, he was getting up. Hunter had rather lovingly produced a big Manila folder, and now came Cecil's sonorous: "May it please the Court—"

Those would be the photographs of Ann Doherty dead, and Cecil would try to keep out the most lurid ones.

Over Callista swept a weight of memory. Even the smell of the District Attorney's office—tobacco, book leather, a peculiarly penetrating shaving-lotion stink. She saw again the half-star shape of a spot on the wall behind Mr. Lamson's shoulder, an imperfection in the paint like a chip flaked off the man's pinkish face; and the face itself in all detail, slightly ascetic in spite of that healthy glow, under carefully theatrical gray hair. She saw his manicured hand, womanish except for a scattering of black hairs, reaching across the desk to her, in a reek of too much hygiene and primping, presenting a Manila folder like the one Hunter now cherished, possibly the same one. "By the way, Miss Blake—" tone polite, fruity, luscious with some kind of enjoyment that perhaps the man himself did not recognize—"you might glance at this folder, if you will."

So I held her in my hand. Ann's arms reached upward in rigor out of the shadow of earth, for in that first photograph they had let the drowned girl lie on her back while the camera peered impersonally at wet skirt tumbled down from flexed thigh (the knee discolored), and soaked white underpants, the position pointlessly (accidentally?) erotic: Death, my lover. Accidental surely, for the camera had given a sharper focus to the bedabbled mouth, darkened cheeks, empty eyes. Why must the small breasts push up so urgently? Why, a happen-so: she was drifting face down, arms and bent knee probably holding her up a little from the pond's bottom, when rigor began—all right, I understand. The lifted hands were a blur, foreshortened, ghostly; innocently acquisitive hands transformed to shadows incapable of holding fast to anything, even pity.

The second picture was an enlargement of the face to life size, no detail spared. Drops of pond water blurred the eyes; a black twig was caught in water-soaked hair. Discoloration, and foam.

The third picture was one taken at the morgue, after rigor had passed off, and though the face was still a comment on the brevity, the insecurity of beauty and warmth, Ann's no longer vulnerable nakedness conveyed no great sorrow. It was just a portrait of death; apart from the drowned face, not unlovely. Callista remembered that in Mr. Lamson's office she had very nearly remarked aloud: "Never knew she'd had an appendectomy." The lividity, yes; but one could think of that as simply the shadow of death. This photograph, Callista supposed, would hardly go to the jury, for in the morgue nobody had bothered to toss a prudish towel over the innocent little triangle. Maybe they had fixed up another one for the purpose, that wouldn't distress the sensibilities of Mr. Emmet Hoag. Yes, granted, certainly, that Ann had been very pretty and desirable, a long time ago.

Callista recalled what it was she actually said aloud in Mr. Lamson's office: "I'd like to be sure I understand. If these pictures shock me, that's evidence of remorse, in other words guilt. If I don't display any shock, that means unnatural coldness; in other words, guilt. Is that correct?"

Someone behind the chair in Lamson's office where she sat facing the desk light had made a noise. Not T. J. Hunter; Sergeant Rankin maybe; or could it have been that young Sergeant, Samuel Arthur Shields? An indistinct word or suppressed grumble; not significant, but Mr. Lamson's cool gaze had flicked upward at the sound, not liking it. "No, Miss Blake, I don't think you have it quite correct. A girl of your intelligence and background ought not to be taking that world-is-all-against-me attitude. One expects it from common criminals—we look for it—but surely not from you."

"I've never thought the world was all against me. I used to think it was a place where you could get by fairly well by telling the truth, minding your own business, trying not to hurt anyone."

"You don't think so now?"

She herself had heard the wiry unpleasant note of pain in her voice: "No comment." And Mr. Lamson had heard it, and could not quite hide a brief flare of gratification, a thin spear of flame shooting up from an ember behind his eyes. Oh, he was doubtless a decent and respectable man, father of a family, pillar of the church. It would be only her sickened imagination that made him something with a whip out of Krafft-Ebing.

"Miss Blake, you ought to understand that what we are trying to do here is to discover the truth."

"What is truth?"

"No comment."

"Mr. Lamson, since she must have got the poison in my apartment, and since I shouldn't have had it there, I do feel remorse. But I am not breaking down and screaming at sight of these pictures, because that is not my way."

"Oh, now, the pictures aren't all that important, Miss Blake. No occasion to make such an issue of the pictures. I thought it might be to your interest to look at them, since a jury will. The whole point, my dear girl—the whole point is we just don't believe your story."

Cecil Warner came back from the side-bar discussion, looking rather blind. He murmured: "Couldn't do much, Cal. They're all going in. An open protest would just antagonize the jury."

"Does it really matter? She'd look the same whether she fell in or was pushed."

"Dear—I'll be saying that of course. But it assumes that twelve minds can respect logic."

Hunter and Sergeant Peterson were being immensely fair. Finished now with the portraits of death, they were showing a photograph of a blunt-toed shoe superimposed on another mark. Peterson was even wordy and boring, explaining unnecessarily how you could tell that the footprint was made later. Then came photographs of the disturbed areas at other parts of the bank, and of the flat rock by the water's edge that would take no sign.

The rock. Cecil ought not to be looking so distressed for her. Behind her hand she whispered: "Peterson must have held his camera right where I stood. If the moon hadn't come out of a cloud—I wonder, Cecil—would I have refused to understand she was there? It was a small cloud but deep, suddenly come, suddenly gone. The rock—I used to sit there for hours when I was a little girl, and dabble my feet. It was the first thing I saw, and suddenly, you understand?—because of the moon."

"The moon—"

"Yes, 'the moon, the inconstant moon'—don't you remember I told you? The way the light strengthened in that gap of the hemlocks, and there was my rock, and then the whiteness in the water. Her arm, or that blouse—no, her jacket hid the blouse, she was face down. It must have been her arm, that whiteness, don't you think?"

"I suppose. Cal, this isn't the time—"

"I know. Hunter will ask: 'Why didn't you go into the pond, if your story is true? Why, Callista? She might have been alive.'"

"We'll deal with that in direct examination."

"He'll come back to it, though. 'How could you know, Callista? How could you know she was dead?' And then I say: 'Sir, dead or not, she was so quiet I couldn't disturb her rest.'"

"Cal, please!"

"Are you going to cross-examine Sergeant Peterson?"

"I don't think so—nothing to gain."

"Ah, I was hoping you'd ask him why his damned silly face looks like a camera bellows."

"Hush! Shall I come to see you this evening?"

"Oh—no—no, I am unwell. I mean—that is, I would so like to have two candles, one for you and one for—I'm sorry ... I'm all right now. I'll be quiet. But don't come tonight—I did mean that. It's something—I can't explain it."

"All right, my dear. Maybe tomorrow evening."

"Yes, without fail. Let me tell you one thing more?"

"What?"

"I think I'm discovering that I want to live."

III

Sergeant Peterson had droned his last and had been succeeded on the stand by Trooper Curtis, brisk and dry, with his plaster casts and fingerprints. Both men, Edith Nolan understood, were competent, honest, not deliberately wasting time. Hunter himself was not really unduly slow at this business of hammering home what was already clear and established: Callista had been there. The fingerprint evidence at Shanesville was quite negative: no prints except Ann's on handbag or key case, none but hers and Jim's on the Pontiac or the Dohertys' front porch. All right and so what? It was half past three before Hunter and Curtis were solemnly finished with that apparent futility. It had never occurred to Edith that any part of this ordeal could be a bore. But it was.

Then in a brief cross examination Warner brought out the fact that a police search of the grove between the pond and Walton Road had produced nothing at all. It could not matter. Curtis and Peterson had both acted rather pleased with their casts and photographs of the Volkswagen's tire marks on the shoulder of Walton Road. They liked things complete, well wrapped. But it couldn't matter, for in her statement to District Attorney Lamson Callista had admitted taking the Volkswagen first into the Dohertys' driveway, following the footpath, seeing Ann's body in the pond. She had admitted leaving then, driving around to Walton Road, parking there out of sight of her mother's house.

And the prosecution would surely not trouble to deny or even question Callista's story of what happened then, in that half hour. She had stumbled off into the thick second-growth woods on the other side of Walton Road, a tangle of saplings, briers, poison ivy, wiry bushes, and young locust trees thorny in the dark, to get through a miscarriage in secret like a wounded animal and have done with it. To Edith, on the first occasion when with Warner's help Edith had broken through the barriers and won a visit with Callista in the detention cell, Callista had said tersely, in haste to change the subject: "The brambles were the worst of it." And that visit was not a time when she would accept any word of consolation. Something held back, Edith knew, some private tormenting reason why, even to her, Callista could not speak freely about that agony in the woods. Later, maybe. Everything now must be qualified with such words: "later"—"some time"—"after all this is over, Cal, and you are free."

Curtis was gone. Something smart and bright-eyed was down there swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"Your full name and occupation, sir?"

"Sutherland R. Clipp. I own and manage Clipp's Garage on Duke Street, uptown—you know, repairs, gas, body work, matter of fact we do everything, you'd be surprised."

In startled disgust Edith thought: Everything? How lovely for you, Mr. Clipp! With the utmost geniality, Mr. Clipp went on to testify that on the evening of Sunday, August 16th, he had been driving home to Winchester by Walton Road, after delivering a 1956 Buick in the nicest condition you could imagine to a customer in Emmetville. He wanted to emphasize that the Buick was a dish, in spite of—well, low mileage. He had practically robbed himself, but that was his way, the customer came first, and it paid off—oh—yes, he'd been watching the time that evening because he had to pick up his wife after a church supper; got talking with that (completely satisfied) Emmetville client, and besides, the car he'd taken in exchange was kind of a sad heap that wouldn't safely do anything over forty, and you know how women are if you keep them waiting, not that she—yes, he had passed the junction of Summer Avenue and Walton Road between 9:10 and 9:15, no later. He had seen a maroon Volkswagen parked under the pines, not too well off the road either, careless parking, one reason why he'd noticed it, although he always did notice them cheap foreign cars, which weren't too bad if all you wanted was economical transportation, like, however—what?—no, there wasn't anybody in the Volks or near it, unless somebody was scrouched down back of the dashboard when his headlights got there, but you couldn't hardly do anything like that in them foreign cheapies—"Your witness, Mr. Warner."

Edith heard Hunter begin snarling: "What possible bearing—"

"None, sir. I just wanted to make sure Mr. Clipp hadn't left out anything. No further questions."

During the short courtroom roar, checked by the gavel, Edith thought she could read exasperated forgiveness in the face of Judge Terence Mann. But foreman Peter Anson, she saw, was not amused, nor Hoag, nor Francis Fielding. Business is serious: to make fun of a man when he's advertising is something like interrupting him in the men's room.

State Trooper Carlo San Giorgio, solemn, deceptively fresh-faced and young, followed Mr. Clipp. He had stopped a blue and white Pontiac, license JD1081, on Walton Road two miles beyond the city line, at 8:34 P.M., Sunday, August 16th. The driver was a young woman who gave her name as Mrs. James Doherty, which agreed with her driver's license. Her driving had been unsteady, with some wavering over the white line.

"Was she driving fast, exceeding the limit?"

"No, sir, rather slow. Just unsteady."

"Did she seem in good command of herself when you spoke to her?"

"Yes, but I did ask if she'd been drinking a little."

"Was her response satisfactory to you as a police officer?"

"Well—yes, sir, it was."

"Did you notice any smell of alcohol on her breath?"

"A trifle." San Giorgio fidgeted. "Just barely noticeable."

"But according to your observation, she wasn't what you'd call drunk, is that right?"

"No, sir, she certainly wasn't. Spoke coherently, understood what I said—real polite and—and nice."

"Did anything in her appearance suggest she might be ill?"

"She was slightly hoarse. I'd stopped her car where there was a pretty good light from a house across the road, and I thought her eyes looked very slightly inflamed. Enough to suggest she might be—oh, perhaps coming down with a cold. You understand, sir, these were very slight things, otherwise I couldn't have let her drive on."

Back of all that, Edith knew—back of the hedging, the slowly chosen words, back of Hunter's questions blunted by the hearsay rule—was the thing that San Giorgio knew and keenly remembered and could not say. Warner's dark eyes had narrowed to cold watchfulness, and Judge Mann's pencil was still. There wasn't any hearsay rule in Mr. Lamson's office. But here in the arena, Carlo San Giorgio couldn't say: "She said she'd had one little shot of brandy. And I said: 'Oh well, Miss, I guess we won't throw the book at you for that.'"

Last night at dinner, Cecil Warner had done some thinking out loud about Trooper San Giorgio, who would have in his own young mind no reasonable doubt. San Giorgio could not repeat Ann's words on the stand. And yet if he could, the Old Man said, it ought (if juries were logical) to make no essential difference. For there was no defense, he said, except a reasonable doubt as to criminal intent. "Reasonable doubt!" he said, and set down his glass because his fat hand was shaking. "You see it, Red? T.J. can say that criminal intent and premeditation are proved up to the hilt by the mere presence of the poison in Cal's apartment. He will. He'll rub their noses in it. Against that and a flock of other circumstantial facts, we've got just one fact, the fact of something that happened in Cal's mind. Is it a fact?"

"You and I both know it, don't we? She had no intent to kill."

But instead of answering directly, the Old Man had said: "Red, do you understand she's not certain of it herself?"

Edith had not quite understood it, until then.

"Did you give her a ticket, Trooper?"

"No, sir. From the address on her driving license I knew she had only about a mile to go. I told her she'd better head straight for home, and I told her I'd follow along behind till she got there, which I did."

The youth was reliving it, Edith saw, and perhaps painfully. A pretty girl, hot night and hazy moon—had he hoped to be invited into the house for a quick check on burglars and a little drink? Oh, probably not. Ann had carried an obvious flag of conventional virtue. San Giorgio would have recognized and respected it, and done no more than a bit of summer's-night dreaming.

"You drove behind her car, as far as the house on Summer Avenue?"

"I did, sir. I saw her turn in at the driveway, and since she made it all right, I drove on."

"Did you note the time?"

"Yes, sir: 8:43."

"Mr. Warner?"

"No questions."

Later last night, up at her studio, watching the fire in the grate through the prism of his wineglass, the Old Man said: "Who started the legend that the law court is a place devoted to search for truth? Answer, lawyers of course. But not counsel for the defense, Red. We know our function is to persuade. The prosecution may fool itself now and then, and kick the word 'truth' around; we can't afford to."

Edith had said flatly: "The system stinks."

He wasn't startled; he only grumbled: "I agree. The adversary system stinks. But working inside of it, my own position has logic enough to satisfy me. I get it out of a hypothesis, Red—not abstract truth, but working hypothesis. I say a human being once born has a right to live, if the word 'right' is going to mean anything—or let's say, a right not to be murdered, judicially or any other way. In other words, I'd defend Cal if I thought she was guilty as hell."

Crew-cut gray hair and dignity marched to the stand, the face under the gray brush unknown to Edith but carrying a nearly unmistakable professional stamp. This would be bad. Look towards me, Cal! I'll wear this old green suit tomorrow, too. "Arthur J. Devens, M.D." Look toward me! But telepathy is like other kinds of magic, she knew: fun to play with as a notion; if it worked, we'd run screaming. "A.B. Columbia, 1930, M.D. from College of Physicians and Surgeons." And maybe soon, another century or so, there'll be no such thing as privacy on earth except in the dark center of a few minds not quite overwhelmed. The desert shall blossom like the rose: distilled sea water, atomic-power pumps, sure, nothing to it, but no room for roses, and no hiding place—"active as Coroner's physician for Winchester County, New Essex, since 1952." But friend, if something happens inside the mind I don't know, to make you remember me, to turn your head toward me, I will smile. I'll say with my lips: "We're going to win."

"—preliminary examination made on the scene. The body was that of a young white woman in the middle twenties, of slight build, height five feet two. Rigor was complete, a light reddish post-mortem lividity noticeable, the face not markedly cyanotic. A moderate quantity of white cohesive foam adhered to nose and mouth. The hands, though stiffened in rigor, were not clenched as one often finds them in drowning cases. The conjunctivae were congested. Cutis anserina—gooseflesh—was pronounced on the thighs and upper arms. Gooseflesh," said Dr. Devens politely and patiently to the jury, "is frequently evident after death by drowning, if the water is far enough below body temperature, as it ordinarily is even in the tropics. To sum up that preliminary, superficial examination: it suggested, but did not prove, that death had occurred with less struggle than is usual in a drowning. It did prove that life was not extinct when the body entered the water. There was at least some breathing, possibly the shallow breathing of unconsciousness, but enough inhaling and exhaling and choking reflex to cause that foam."

"Doctor, a hypothetical question: if a person were stunned, I mean knocked entirely unconscious, before falling or being thrown into the water, and then perished by drowning, would you expect to find the body, after twelve to thirteen hours of submersion, more or less in the condition of Mrs. Doherty's at the time you made that first examination?"

Edith saw Callista start as if struck in the face. Her dark brows gathered in that quick frown of hers, and she was leaning to Cecil Warner, whispering. She looked, Edith thought, more disgusted than angry. Cecil's poker face remained in control. He only listened, shook his head, patted her hand.

"Oh, hypothetical—well.... I dare say the findings wouldn't be inconsistent. Of course, Mr. Hunter, I looked for any sign of head injury, a matter of routine, and found nothing of the kind."

"Isn't it possible, Doctor, to receive a head injury, perhaps from a padded thing like a sandbag, that won't leave any marks?"

"No superficial marks, maybe. I think you'd find post-mortem evidence, likely subdural hemorrhage."

"Even from a blow that merely stunned?"

With some acid and faraway amusement Dr. Devens remarked: "Even as Coroner's physician, I'm not too versed in the lore of sandbags. But I think that a blow heavy enough to stun, followed very soon by death from another cause, would leave some internal evidence."

"Did you look for such evidence?"

"I did."

"Is that standard procedure, by the way, when there's convincing evidence of drowning?"

"I can't say that I lean very much on standard procedure. So far as I'm concerned, any case that reaches the Coroner's office is unique. When there's any possibility of homicide, I try to think of everything, including the apparently far-fetched. Yes, I examined the head: cranial section—well, I don't suppose you want those details. Head, neck vertebrae, all perfectly normal, uninjured. In fact the one and only injury on the entire body surface was a trifling abrasion on the right anklebone, which could have been caused in any number of ways—a fall, or the anklebone scraping against something: impossible to say. I also examined the palms for earth marks, such as she might have got if she'd fallen forward and tried to break the fall with her hands. There weren't any, but I dare say several hours' immersion would have removed them if they were ever there. The skin of the palms was perfectly clear."

"I see. Go on, please."

"The body was placed in the mortuary wagon from Shanesville, and at my suggestion was taken to the Winchester morgue. I accompanied it there; it was at no time out of my sight. I began the post-mortem at about 1:30 P.M., assisted by Dr. Miles Dennison and with the authorization of Mr. District Attorney Lamson. I think I should say at this point that shortly before I began the post-mortem, I was notified by Winchester Chief of Police Morgan Collins that there was a possibility Mrs. Doherty had drunk poison, thought to be aconitine. I therefore had this in mind before beginning the examination, and I consulted by telephone with the toxicologist Dr. Walter Ginsberg, and prepared the organs, blood samples and so on, that he told me he would need for his study. The body weight was one hundred and ten pounds, slightly undernourished. There was an appendectomy scar, old; no other scars, no evidence of chronic illness or disorder, no marks of violence; the subject had never given birth. The nasal cavities and bronchi contained some stiff foam and a few dark brown and black specks identified by microscopic examination as fragments of dead leaves. No algae were found. Some water was in the lungs, but very little. The heart, not markedly distended, contained fluid blood, but that is not diagnostic: clotted blood may appear in a drowning case. The viscera were quite noticeably congested."

"That is diagnostic?—congestion of the viscera?"

"No, sir—may appear in many other conditions."

"Including some kinds of poisoning?"

"Yes, Mr. Hunter."

"For example poisoning by aconitine?"

"Yes."

"Did you employ the Gettler test?"

"Yes—inconclusive. The blood in the left side of the heart had a slightly lower concentration of sodium chloride than the blood on the right. If that difference had been pronounced, you could call it fair evidence of inhalation of fresh water, but it was too slight. I don't attach any significance to it."

"Could the lack of a positive finding be significant?"

"I don't think so. It's a good test, but plenty of things may confuse it. For instance, a drowning may occur from pharyngeal shock—a spasmodic throat contraction that causes asphyxia before much water is inhaled. Logically still a drowning death, but no water to speak of, so there goes your Gettler test."

"You looked of course for evidence of aconitine poisoning?"

"Only in a limited sense, sir. Aconitine doesn't leave gross traces for post-mortem, it's a job for the toxicologist, a chemical job. Since I knew Dr. Ginsberg would be working on it, I simply bore it in mind, prepared what he needed, and kept my eyes open. I can say under oath that I found nothing inconsistent with aconite poisoning having occurred shortly before the drowning. But the actual immediate cause of death was, in my opinion, asphyxia due to immersion, in other words drowning."

"Doctor, will you give the jury a description of the effects of aconitine in a lethal or near-lethal dose?"

"Frankly, sir, I'll be drawing on textbook knowledge, because this is the only case I ever encountered. Homicide by aconite is decidedly rare. So is suicide." Callista looked up, not to the doctor who dutifully faced the jury and would not look at her, but searching the rows of spectators. "Aconitine will cause numbness, tingling in the mouth, also in the fingers, possibly cramps in arms and legs. There's marked salivation, nausea, burning sensation in stomach and throat." Edith moved in her seat, and smiled, and tried to call in silence: I'm here. But Callista's eyes, searching, immense, drowned, passed over her. "A slow, irregular, weak pulse is characteristic, with rapid shallow breathing, muscular weakness, a general collapse. Nausea and vomiting are usual; sometimes there are convulsions. The poison depresses the medullary centers of the brain, but the cerebrum is hardly affected, which means the mind stays pretty clear until the coma that may supervene at the end." Callista's eyes found what they were seeking. It would not be her mother, Edith knew: Victoria Chalmers sat over at Edith's left. "Those symptoms I've described begin soon after aconite is taken. I believe death, when it occurs, usually comes in about four hours—but it can happen in a matter of minutes."

Edith wished not to turn her head; she felt instead an unwillingness, distaste, reluctance to learn what would be written in the face of Jim Doherty. But she could not help it. Knowing where he was seated, she was forced to turn until a sidelong look gave her the image of him, completing at that instant the sign of the cross, his eyes lowered, his lips moving. But the man beside him was watchful, interested, attentive, probably missing none of the testimony.

"What is the minimum lethal dose, Dr. Devens?"

"About a milligram. Some individuals might take up to five or six, and recover. More than six milligrams would likely finish anyone, unless there was immediate medical attention—you understand, those figures refer to a pure concentration of the drug."

Callista's lips were moving also. As Edith looked to her again, she saw them shape unmistakable words: "Go away!" There would be no sound, Edith thought, even for Cecil Warner, who had taken hold of her hand and was showing the beginning of alarm. "Go away!"

"Is the drug readily soluble in alcohol?"

"Yes, Mr. Hunter."

Callista, be quiet! He can't hear you. He can't hear anyone.

"Assuming a person had taken four to five milligrams of the poison, Dr. Devens, he could still be saved by immediate medical attention?"

The girl said something to Cecil Warner, quick and possibly sharp; Edith caught the faint note of her voice under the dry dominating noise of Dr. Devens, the words indistinguishable, blotted out by his: "Certainly, sir, the patient could probably be saved. Stomach pump. Tannic acid I imagine, to render the poison inert. You'd give heart stimulants, say digitalis. A healthy patient would have a pretty good chance."

"Thank you, Dr. Devens. Cross examination, Mr. Warner?"

"No cross examination." But Warner was up, for once urgently quick-spoken. "Your Honor, in view of my client's exhaustion, may we have adjournment at this time?"

In the abrupt hush that followed Warner's question, Callista's voice, not loud, not really a cry, was surely heard by everyone, even by Jim Doherty. "Go away, my love!"

The Judge winced, speaking hastily: "The Court stands adjourned until ten A.M. tomorrow."

Edith also observed the press tables, and the jolly excited scramble for the telephones.