The Trial of Callista Blake

"No. That's only what you've told me before. Drunk?"

"Of course."

"It keeps coming back to me that his face was burning."

"What?"

"His face was burning. It was the malaria. Wasn't it? You've told me yourself, he brought that home from New Guinea, latent but never cured."

"Oh, he had that, yes. A mild form."

"Mother, malaria is not mild if it gives you recurrent fevers and collapse. I've read up on it. I had to, trying to understand."

"You're very full of book knowledge, certainly."

"I've found more truth in books than in people. A mild form—why, two years later he died of it, didn't he?"

"Now, my dear, your father died, and I think you know this perfectly well, of pneumonia. The doctor informed me that the malaria was at most a—a complicating factor. The pneumonia was induced by exposure, and that in turn was caused by his passing out, as they call it, on a January night, in a drunken stupor, on his way home from a bar."

"A drunken stupor, or a blinding fever. I was seven; I remember hearing you answer the telephone—the hospital, I suppose it was, where they'd taken him. I'd been put to bed long before, but wasn't sleeping. You were having drinks or something with Cousin Trent, after Aunt Cora and Uncle Tom Winwood left. I even remember hearing Aunt Cora say good night, and then your voice going on a long time, to Cousin Trent. I don't suppose I heard many of the words, but I knew the tone, the one you always used when you were explaining Father's shortcomings."

"Callista!"

"Wait! I must tell you what I remember, but not about this; I mean the earlier time, two years earlier. Let me tell you what I remember of that, and then I'll go. I remember running into the studio, dragging my red fire-engine. Father was on the couch. He'd been working, the big table was littered with his things. He sat up and smiled and held out his arms to me. I climbed into his lap. When he kissed me his face was burning, his hands shaking. I know he talked to me, but the words won't come back. Except 'Draw me a big horse and a little horse.' Then I remember lying belly-down on the floor, working with crayons—the horses, I suppose. And he went out of the room, for quinine probably—he had an allergic reaction to atabrine in the Army, didn't he?"

"Something like that. Callista, I can't see—"

"It was morning, Mother. Sunlight in that east window. Shining aslant across the things on his work-table. From what I've learned, what I can remember and piece together, I don't believe my father would have been drunk in the morning."

"Callista, is this your time of the month?"

"No, God damn it."

"Really! Callista, I must ask you to control yourself."

"I was never colder. I think I must have a fuller memory than most. It comes back, how serious I was about the drawing, at going-on-five. Precocious. I still possess some talent that way."

"Callista, as you know, you have a quite considerable talent that way, if you would learn to discipline it, and—well, and outgrow your taste for the unpleasantly morbid and erotic subjects that seem to attract you so much. I have never understood in fact why you chose to be so childishly disagreeable a year ago when I ventured to show some of your—your less controversial drawings to the Thursday Society. Very well, I should have asked your consent, being merely your mother. Now Mrs. Wilberforce, who is after all an art teacher of somewhat wider experience than yours, to say nothing of having written and illustrated a number of altogether charming children's books, Mrs. Wilberforce felt that one or two of those drawings showed distinct promise. Distinct promise."

"Yes, Mrs. W.'s a nice lady. O Mother, so much comes back! Spring of 1945—he was invalided home a whole year before then, wasn't he? 1944? Didn't I have him a whole year before my face was burned? Why are you crying? Wasn't it 1944?"

"1944? Yes, he came home that year. And to think, she even offered to let you try some illustrations for one of her own books, was willing to instruct you, help you in every possible way!"

"Who?—oh, Wilberforce. Yes, she's nice—what a pity the books are garbage. Why are you crying? Cousin Trent? That little man?"

"Trent—why, I never—Callista, you are hysterical."

"I was never colder. 'Mother, you have my father much offended.'"

"What? What are you saying?"

"I'm not thinking of Cousin Trent—that doesn't matter. It couldn't matter if you sneaked into the sheets with him a hundred times—"

"Callista!"

"It doesn't matter, I said. The real infidelity was in the way you treated my father, day to day, the nagging, belittlement, the wearing down, little needles of disparagement, mental castration—but I don't think you ever managed that, I think he stayed a man. I was seven when he died—you think I couldn't feel what you were doing to him, and can't remember it? I do. Even more I think of how you've gone on since then, trying to destroy him for me—why, in your view nothing he ever did was good, or wise, or even honorable. Isn't that why you cut me off from Aunt Cora Winwood—because she knew better? Mother, he was one of the gentle ones—a fault if you like—is that what you held against him? That he couldn't black your eye when you needed it? Mother, I have three paintings he did to please himself, escape from commercial work. Just three. He must have done a great deal that was never sold. There must have been sketches, unfinished things, portfolios put aside. I never asked you this before, afraid of the answer I think: what became of that work?"

"I simply will not endure any more of this."

"What became of my father's work?"

"Oh, if you mean—well, when we moved here from New York, and there was so much—"

"I was right then. You threw it away?"

"If you will control yourself and listen reasonably: yes, your father did leave certain drawings and paintings which were very obviously done to please himself, as you put it. They were—I am sorry, Callista—they were vile. No one could call me a prude, but there are certain limits—"

"Now it's out."

"Callista, I must ask—"

"They were all destroyed, all his visions? Everything beyond the level of, say, the Thursday Society—destroyed? Everything? You didn't save one charcoal sketch, one line drawing, one bit of a doodle on scratch paper? If you did I'll stay, to beg you for it—or steal it if I can. I want nothing else from you, ever, but for one scrap of my father's work I'd go on my knees."

"Callista, you are out of your mind."

"'Mother, for love of grace, lay not that flattering unction to your soul, that not your trespass but my madness speaks.'"

"Oh, this morbid dramatizing, this neurotic—quoting 'Hamlet' at me as if I—are you laughing?"

"Not very much. I was thinking how neither poor Herb nor Cousin Trent fits the picture very well—it doesn't matter. There's more than one way to pour poison in the ear of a king. You did it with words, millions of little nibbling words, all the years he lived with you and—and for a final dirty joke of the fates, begot me—but I think he knew I loved him, as much as a child's capable of loving, maybe it gave him something, after all he couldn't see ahead. And I was thinking: I must write to Aunt Cora, I think she'd remember the crazy brat who adored her and then couldn't come to see her any more, because Tom Winwood d-r-rinks! She might have some of his work, and might send me to friends of his, people you never knew. I was thinking, Mother, how differently you'd feel if his work could be recognized, now that he's been safely dead for twelve years. What a change! Then you'd be—what, his inspiration?"

"Callista, don't! Stop it! Do you have to break my heart completely? What have I done?"

"'Such an act'—oh, poor Mother, nothing, nothing at all. Maybe that's the worst of it. You've done nothing, just lived inside the shell of your own vanity—as everyone does, I suppose. I'm sorry, Mother. It's all right, I'm going, and I won't come back. My own vanity tricked me into saying too much, but you'll forget, and go on in your own way. I haven't changed anything. 'Assume a virtue if you have it not'—remember? 'Forgive me this my virtue, for in the fatness of these pursy times'—you don't have one little scrap, a three-line scrawl on the back of an envelope?"

Callista's mother, weeping with her head on her arms, did not answer that. To Callista, standing in the doorway not yet able to turn and go, it seemed as though all hatred and resentment had drained away suddenly from within her; including the old dark aching hatred for herself, which until then had seldom released her except at certain times in the warm presence of Edith Nolan. She would have liked to cross the room, try for some physical contact implying comfort and forgiveness with that stranger over there who still made strangled sounds of self-pity and other kinds of pain, all of them real. But having no confidence in her skill at such gestures, no illusion that a relation thus broken could ever be repaired, and fearing to lose the new-found inner quiet, Callista only said: "Good night, Mother." Downstairs then, pausing on the landing, her hand tightening on the rail as she waited on the passing of a curious nausea. Too early for the sickness of pregnancy, wasn't it? Nothing else wrong, and the nausea did pass. "My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time."

She wondered, standing there still faintly sick, how the self of a week before could possibly have knelt in that wild garden, pulled up those innocently wicked plants, broken off the roots to be dropped in her handbag, and thought: This way would solve everything and hardly hurt at all. Yet the self of a week before had done that; the self of a few hours past had glanced at the brandy bottle, death dissolved and waiting, and had thought: Have it out with Mother—there could be some of his work, maybe buried in the attic where my searching never uncovered it—and then, then probably—

The self pausing on the landing, hand letting go the rail and moving again softly, shelteringly, over the secret life in the womb, had thought practically and sensibly: Throw away that stunk-up mess as soon as you get home. And the self of twenty minutes later, arriving at the apartment with a burden of abnormal fatigue and drowsiness, had forgotten—(is there any true forgetting this side of death?)—forgotten all about bottle and canister, everything except bed.

The self on the landing thought: It's all right, Funny Thing, look, it's all right, I'm going to bear you. I'm going to take care of you. I can do that. I will. Had wondered, incidentally, if the small bra wasn't already a bit tight. The girl on the landing ran a finger lightly along the column of her neck—wasn't there slightly more fullness, softness? Should go to a dentist too—and—oh, lots of little chores. Never mind anyhow, Funny Thing, never mind the details, it's going to be all right for you and me.

The self seated on the cot where Kowalski had left her stood up uncertainly, with a sense of listening, although she knew Kowalski was gone, Watson was keeping quiet, the night also was in a deep hush with no longer that occasional whine of wind beyond the barred glass. No one had spoken. Unless I did.

She glanced at the window, uneasy as though the blank of winter night beyond it had paled, and might show again some light or color if she stared patiently enough. No. Not that window. Not that blank. And no true sound of speech.

She stood with eyes closed and hands pressed over her ears. Waiting; and hearing at least the dull noise—muffled, as it ought to be on the other side of a closed door—of a bottle, heavy glass, drawn across resonant wood from the back of a shelf. Faint pop of a cork and clink of glass, and tap of high heels: "Callie, come on now! I poured a little drink for you." And that fool lying frozen on the bed down there—why, how long had that fool held herself frozen, knowing everything?

How long before that fool was telling herself: I didn't really hear her, I couldn't make out what she said—how long? Whining maybe before the Blank shut down complete: It wasn't anything I did, I wasn't there, I couldn't move, anyway how could I know she'd drink it herself? Saying later (O the Blank!) in righteous innocence to Mr. Lamson: "I don't know, I can't remember." Screaming in the secret heart where not even Cecil could hear it and understand: I don't want to know! I don't want to remember!

Eyes open, hands fallen, she noticed by the cot the handful of trifling possessions allowed her. She fumbled through it, unsure what she sought until her fingers held the lipstick pencil. To the wall then, dizzy and obliged to lean against the cool plaster while her hand labored, but the effort was interesting; she could feel wryly, justifiably certain that no hand had ever written these words on this wall, ever before. She stood back, dizziness gone, and saw how the red letters in the dim light took on a magnificence, a glory like tranquillity:

I AM GUILTY.

IV

Edith Nolan pressed her fingertips over eyes grown tired from work. Possibly when she opened them and looked again at the broad sheet of drawing paper on the table, she would know whether her curious urgency of the last hour, the sense of good achievement that had driven her to this exhaustion, had been something more than self-deception. A glance at her wrist watch before she closed away vision had told her it was past one in the morning. Time to quit, if she was not to arrive for the next courtroom session hopelessly unintelligent from weariness and lack of sleep.

She lowered her hands, looking very briefly down. The faces, hands, shadows of the big drawing did leap astonishingly into life; but she said half-aloud: "Not yet." She got up without another look at it and crossed the room to stand, huddling in the blue bathrobe stiff and a little cold, before Callista's watercolor of a pine tree on a windy hill. She could not quite see Callista's vision, or not as much of it as she wished; she resisted a while longer the pull of what waited for her back at the drawing table. It may be, she thought. This once I just may have done it.

In the past, no work of her own had ever pleased Edith Nolan enough to give her a complete sense of belonging by natural right in that small company who can now and then draw from the confusion of the world's raw material a new synthesis, a work of disciplined imagination worthy to last a while. She knew the company, in books, music, painting; and in at least one other person: Callista, who belonged there so inevitably that the girl had probably never even wondered whether she had a "right" to call herself an artist. In need of hard work and long study, yes, but Callista knew it, and while she had struggled and learned and enjoyed the struggle, she had still been drawing and painting as naturally as a robin sings in the morning.

Sam Grainger had considered that he did not belong. "I'm a performer," he said once, "so I may get well-to-do some day; and a performer, as of course you've noticed, Red-Top, can be an awful nice guy, but ... but God damn it, I can't compose, and I have a most un-American impulse to get down and lick the boots of anyone who can."

She remembered saying: "Why, you're creative." Sam had just grunted, inarticulately annoyed. In those days Edith had not been fully aware of the dismal condition rapidly overtaking that once honorable word, and Sam had been surprisingly insensitive to words and the rich changeable life of words, as if he could hear only one kind of music, or believed other kinds irrelevant. Nowadays Edith's skin crawled when the corpse of the word "creative" was being kicked around. It gave off a squashy noise; was almost as offensively decayed as the corpse of "heritage." Today everything's creative, including beauty culture, business letters, and the application of new superlatives to old laxatives. There was, Edith had heard, an operation known as "creative selling." We wait perhaps, she thought, for the day when the market will offer a creative toilet as an aid to positive thinking.

Reluctant, not quite frightened, Edith returned to the drawing table and looked down at twelve pen-and-ink faces. They returned the gaze, with intensity, with the force, savor, complexity of an authentic life that no exploration could ever exhaust. But—my hand—My hand?

Certainly no other. Technique of course; that much, after long effort of years, Edith could take for granted. But this—wasn't it beyond technique?

For the first time that evening—it had been nowhere near her while she was deep in work—Edith recalled Daumier's "The Jury." She took down the volume of his work, not trusting memory. After the comparison she could say No: a round, unworried, satisfying No. This curious thing of her own, this hating-fearing-loving-pitying distillation of the jury in People vs. Blake, owed no more to Daumier (or to Callista) than any work should honestly owe to whatever the artist has encountered in the past. Conception, development, fulfillment—unmistakably a Nolan original. Perhaps the first.

The drawing frightened her then in a different way, grown temporarily larger than her mind's resistance. These people were all looking at her, as the twelve faces of flesh and blood had seemed to for a moment in the afternoon, when someone in the row behind her had a loud coughing spell. They looked at her now, bloated Hoag and ancient Emerson Lake and cloth-brained Emma Beales and kindly Helen Butler, and by a trick of her exhausted mind they made her no longer Edith Nolan but a woman at the defense table, whose life would end or begin afresh somehow according to the will of those twelve imperfect beings. Who meant well; who wanted to "do the right thing," whatever that was; who (except maybe Hoag) wouldn't dream of turpentining a dog or pulling the wings off flies or starving a child.

She forced herself out of that illusion. Well, the illusion was at least fair evidence of power in the work. She warned herself: Discount everything: tired; the illusion is strong because of personal involvement in People vs. Blake; by morning the pen-and-ink may be ashes. But leaving it, turning out the light, Edith almost knew that it would not.

And she marveled, with something like the wonder of a child to whom all discovery is fresh and nothing worn down to the stale and bromidic, at the stubborn power of life to draw out of mold and decay an oak tree or a flower; out of confusion or sorrow a work of enduring good.

5

I

Answering T. J. Hunter's inquiry about her occupation, Mrs. Phelps Jason of Shanesville replied in her own time and manner: "I am a widow with a limited private income, not employed in the usual sense, certainly not unemployed in the sense of idle. I manage my Shanesville property as a wild life sanctuary, and am Secretary of the Winchester County Anti-Vivisection League."

Judge Mann exhaled. One of those; human, however. In the minute-book, belatedly, he entered the date, December 9, and the witness's name. On the pad he sketched a dour bluejay cuddling field glasses.

"Mrs. Jason, how did you spend the afternoon of Friday, August 7th?"

She made no fussy business of verifying the date. "On that day I attended a picnic given by my neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Chalmers."

"Who were the others present, if you recall?"

"Besides Dr. and Mrs. Chalmers, there were Mr. and Mrs. James Doherty, Mr. Nathaniel Judd, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wayne of Shanesville with their two children. Also Miss Maud Welsh and Callista Blake."

"Are you well acquainted with the defendant, Callista Blake?"

"Reasonably well. I met her first in 1951, when she was eleven. That is eight years." Mann sighed and relaxed. Eight years ago, law practice at Mann and Wheatley already routine: 1951 was the Forman will case; and spare-time reading in constitutional law with old Joe Wheatley, Uncle Norden a dusty memory; and creeping up on forty.

"You've been continuously acquainted with Miss Blake all that time?"

"Yes. Of course I saw less of her after she moved to Winchester."

"At that picnic, August 7th, did you have any talk with her?"

"No. We waved or nodded I suppose, when I arrived. Those picnics are quite informal. The fact that I had no talk with her was accidental; I was engaged with the other guests, and she was spending her time with the Wayne children."

"All her time?"

"Why, yes, until about 3:30 anyhow."

"Did anything noteworthy happen then?"

"I don't know if I can judge what's noteworthy, Mr. Hunter."

Mann's attention sharpened at the hint of hostility. Was this State's witness by any chance intending to pull the rug out from under Hunter?

"I'll rephrase my question. At 3:30, did anything happen important enough so that you now remember it and wish to tell it under oath?"

"It's not a question of my wishing to tell it, Mr. Hunter. I do not. If I may use an old-fashioned and unpopular word, it's a matter of duty. At 3:30 Callista went alone into a wild garden back of the lawn."

"Are you yourself familiar with that wild garden?"

"Yes."

"I ask you to show the jury, on this map, the location and extent of the wild garden. And describe it in your own words, if you will."

Tense but self-contained, Mrs. Jason stood by the map, her hands moving intelligently, her voice firm and rather pleasant. Mann recalled that she had given her age as forty-seven; his own age; more weathered than himself in the face, but an outdoor type, possibly better preserved, her figure attractive and graceful. "The wild garden area is roughly square, about a hundred feet on a side. It's closed away from the lawn by a mixed hedge of forsythia and lilac. There's only one break in that hedge, an angled passage about two feet wide. It's marked here—"

"Angled—you mean the opening is on a slant?"

"Double slant, zigzag. The hedge is ten or twelve feet thick—that forsythia will take over everything. I understand the little passage has to be pruned out fresh every year."

"If it's a zigzag, then you can't look through from the lawn area into the wild garden—is that correct?"

"Correct. From the lawn it looks like an unbroken hedge. Well, the wild garden itself is just a patch where everything's been left more or less natural. There's an old paper birch. Hardy perennials."

"In earlier testimony, the plant monkshood was mentioned in connection with that wild garden. Have you seen it growing there?"

"Yes." She spoke reluctantly, returning to the witness chair.

"After 3:30, when did you next see Callista Blake?"

"About quarter past four, getting into her Volkswagen."

"You didn't see her come out of that wild garden?"

"No, I didn't happen to. I think I'd gone indoors for a while."

"You're quite certain she went into the wild garden alone? The children couldn't have gone with her, or perhaps ahead of her?"

"No, they didn't. Shortly before 3:30 Doris Wayne—she's ten—started an argument with her younger brother Billy. Mrs. Wayne reproved them, told them to sit by the picnic table and restrain their voices. They did." Mrs. Jason glacially smiled. "The origin of the argument—"

"Well, that might lead us too far afield. Just—"

"If the Court please—" Cecil Warner cleared his throat with sudden but stately sonority—"I submit that, to appease the curiosity of all present including myself, the casus belli between Doris and William Wayne, though doubtless not part of the res gestae, should be made known." Cecil was even standing, making a production of it, announcing with eyebrows and twinkle that all he wanted was to have a bit of ponderous fun and relieve the tension: what could be more innocent?

Risky, but Mann wanted to play along. He said: "Mm, yes. The rules of evidence should not debar us from ascertaining the gravamen of this ancillary conflict." How'm I doing, Cecil? Gravamen, ancillary, each five dollars, please. Hunter looked uneasy, not prepared with any elephantine humor of his own.

"Well, your Honor, Callista had been showing Doris Wayne how to make a squeak by blowing across a grass-blade held between the thumbs. The effect on neighboring eardrums is impressive. The argument I mentioned arose when Billy wished to perfect himself in the same peculiar art and was informed by his sister that he was not old enough."

Mann let the courtroom rumble while Cecil Warner sat down poker-faced. Now the jury could never quite forget that this was a girl who could play with children; that the children must have liked her; that children are often "judges of character" and so—maybe—

Callista this morning was looking different. Since she first appeared Judge Mann's gaze had been repeatedly drawn to her as he tried to discover the nature of the change. No make-up, dressed the same, the white blouse more wilted. But her cheeks showed faint color; her mouth was not set in such a bitter line. Once or twice when Warner whispered to her she smiled, a flash of light almost shocking in its unexpected sweetness. And when her thin face was relaxed, perhaps the only word for it this morning was—peacefulness. With no change in the circumstances, with the troubled honest woman on the stand obviously about to do a little more toward destroying her from a sense of duty, what had Callista Blake to do with peacefulness? He noticed also that redheaded Edith Nolan had managed to get a seat one row nearer the arena, and her candid blue eyes seldom left the face of her friend.

"Mrs. Jason, did you notice Callista Blake talking with anyone but the children that afternoon?"

"When she was leaving, I saw Dr. Chalmers standing by her car talking with her, and the children ran over to say good-bye."

"No one else?"

Mrs. Jason shrugged. "Everything informal—acquaintances of long standing, no occasion for formal gestures."

"How was Miss Blake dressed that day?"

"Brown skirt, green blouse, very nice with her color."

"Did you notice a shoulder-strap bag?"

"Yes."

"Were you aware of any constraint, or hostility, between Callista Blake and any of the guests at that picnic?"

"Conclusions of the witness."

Mann said: "I'll rule it admissible. But limit yourself to the single question, Mrs. Jason."

"The answer is no, I wasn't aware of any such thing."

"Early this year, before the first of May, did you learn—by direct observation—of anything unusual about the relation existing between Callista Blake and James Doherty?"

"Objection! Leading the witness. No relevance established."

"The relevance is direct, to the question of motive."

"Objection overruled."

"Exception."

"Shall I repeat my question, Mrs. Jason?"

"You needn't. The answer is no."

"What about after the first of May?"

"I learned on the 12th of May that there was a love affair between Callista Blake and Jim Doherty." Her brusque answer, shoving aside legal caution, came on a note of regret that Mann thought could not be false. Her mind precise, somewhat fanatic, Mrs. Jason would be a truth-teller at any cost. Never knowingly unjust according to her own standards, she might wish to temper duty with kindness, but her habits of self-rule would not allow much of that. "Shall I tell of this in my own words?"

"Yes, please."

"Very early on the morning of May 12th, about two o'clock, I was walking up Summer Avenue toward the junction with Walton Road. I take walks at night sometimes, to observe the activities of wild things, also because I sleep poorly. A short walk is sometimes helpful. I knew Mrs. Doherty was away for a visit of a few days with her parents in Philadelphia, by the way. As I walked down the road toward the Doherty house there were no lights in it. I was wearing tennis shoes, walking quietly. Near the Dohertys' driveway I heard the voices of Jim Doherty and Callista, both very individual voices and of course familiar to me. They were standing together in the drive. Jim's car was there, pointed toward the road. Moonlight—I was partly hidden by roadside bushes—I'm sure they didn't see or hear me. As I was about to retreat, they sat down on the grass near the car and were then turned more toward me, would almost certainly have seen me if I had moved. The—the situation was such that I could not let them know I was there—too painful for all three of us."

"But I must now ask what if anything you saw or overheard."

"Oh—Jim said: 'What are we going to do?' And Callista said: 'There aren't so many solutions, Jimmy. Find a little strength anyway, it isn't the end of the world.' And he—I did not hear his answer."

"What else was said?"

"Callista said: 'The only real solution is one I'm not ready to face, Jimmy.' I heard nothing else that she said."

"They were just sitting there on the grass?"

She frowned. Judge Mann saw her lips move.

"I'm afraid the jury didn't hear you, Mrs. Jason."

"I said, she was holding his head to her breast."

"Your witness, Mr. Warner."

Warner stood by the defense table, one hand maintaining contact with it. "In that overheard conversation, Mrs. Jason, the name of Ann—Mrs. Doherty—was not mentioned by either of them?"

"No, sir. I've repeated everything I heard."

"Did they learn of your presence there?"

"No. I slipped away. I saw the car—well, if it matters—"

"Go ahead."

"When I was nearly to my house, I saw the car come out of the drive and go toward the Walton Road junction."

"All you learned, actually, was that some sort of love relation had evidently developed between these two?"

"Yes, sir, that's all I learned."

"Mrs. Jason, I take you to be a literate person and a lover of truth. As such, I ask you to consider the thing you've quoted Callista as saying: 'The only real solution is one I'm not ready to face.' Would you agree that such a remark, made under the conditions you have described, could be interpreted in many different ways?"

"Yes, certainly."

"For example, whatever it was she referred to may have seemed, at the time, to a nineteen-year-old girl, like 'the only real solution,' and yet the words don't give another person any actual clue as to what she meant?"

"That's true."

"As a lover of truth, would you also agree that you do not know, at first hand, one single fact, or group of facts, which would justify an inference that the love relation between these two people was responsible for the death two months later of Ann Doherty?"

T. J. Hunter was examining his fingernails with labored disgust. Mrs. Jason said at last: "That is true. I know they were in love with each other for a while; I know Ann died. So far as genuine knowledge is concerned, that's all I do know, Mr. Warner."

"Thank you. No further questions."

If he had been defense counsel, Mann was thinking, he would probably have gone too far with the woman, perhaps losing everything in the hope of winning a little more. For a lawyer I'm not the damn type. And Mann reminded himself that there is no type. You recognize a few general patterns, but the simplest human individual is not to be duplicated in a billion centuries.

A ruddy gray-haired man was being sworn in. Paunchy, scant of breath, his prominent eyes had the directionless belligerency of a man in some habitual dread of being laughed at. "Nathaniel Judd, sir, senior partner in the firm of Judd and Doherty."

"The junior partner is Mr. James Doherty, correct?"

"Yes, sir. Since 1955."

"Your business is real estate and general insurance?"

"Yes, sir." Judd spoke breathily on a while about that. Overweight, poor and changeable color, slow motions when his body's natural habit should have been a jerky aggressiveness—maybe what he feared was not only laughter. Jack, with his comprehensive doctor's glance, might have seen Nathaniel Judd as a candidate for a coronary, if the man hadn't already suffered one. Judd was telling how his only son, killed in action in Korea, had been a close friend of James Doherty's overseas. Doherty had written when the boy died, and had looked up Judd after his discharge. "Much as anyone could," said short-breathed Judd, "he's been like another son to me. Took him into the firm, 1955. Fine head for business. Good boy. Sixty-one myself, not too active nowadays."

"Did you meet Mrs. Doherty also that year—1955?"

"Yes, sir, soon after they settled in Shanesville, they invited my wife and me to dinner. Very nice. Met her then. Played bridge."

"Did you meet the Chalmers family then too? And Miss Blake?"

"That summer anyhow. Miss Blake was fifteen." For a lumpily modeled face, Judd's was expressive. When he mentioned her, the blobby features sagged.

"You went to a picnic at the Chalmerses', 7th of August, this year?"

"Yes. Can't add anything to what Ella Jason testified."

But Hunter fussed at it a while. Mann's attention wandered. No individual like another, no one replaceable, not vague soft Judd for instance or any other. A commonplace: why go on worrying at it, insisting that no one is expendable? Expendable—the stink of that word lingered from a war already part forgotten, obscured by a more vast and quiet terror. Under the new terror the politics of 1959 had been squirming in a fantastic display of the passions of a disturbed ant hill. Expendable: well, the first to express this obscenity must have been some thick-browed operator of prehistory, who found his fellows could be manipulated by appropriate grunts and chest-thumpings into doing a concerted job of skull-busting and rape on those Bad People with a better campsite and interesting females. As the original inventor of advertising was the one (man or woman?) who first got the idea of tying a rag on the genitals.

Mann remembered how in the war years most people, having gagged a bit at the gnat of that word expendable, had then swallowed the camel of the fact with no great strain. How does it happen that a man who transferred to the Medics mostly out of distaste for carrying a rifle is now a judge of General Sessions, in a state that keeps the death penalty on the books?

"Have you met Miss Blake often since she moved to Winchester?"

"No, sir, hardly at all. We—hadn't much in common."

"I see. No ill feeling between you, was there?"

"No, sir, not that. I get along with people—try to." Judd looked more unhappy; perhaps he felt the prosecutor's silence pushing him. "Well—when I thought about it at all—guess I supposed she'd outgrow that cynical attitude, atheism, all that stuff."

"I object!" Warner spoke quietly and, for once, coldly. "Again the prosecution allows a witness to express loose, incompetent opinions."

"Objection sustained."

Hunter elaborated a patient smile. Judd looked bewildered and dismayed: what had he done? Warner said: "My thanks to the Court. I will express the hope that religious bias will not again be injected."

Hunter's face flamed. "There's no religious issue injected!"

"The witness has chosen to call my client an atheist. The statement is incompetent: Mr. Judd has never actually learned Miss Blake's opinions on religious matters. Why should he? And since the question of religion is totally irrelevant here, what was the purpose of that remark if not to inflame prejudice? What was the purpose?"

Callista Blake—white, cool, unreasonably peaceful—did not look up, remaining in the country of her own thoughts.

Mann said: "Mr. Warner's objection has been sustained, because the Court agrees that the witness's remark was out of order. But Mr. Warner, you are out of line too in suggesting an intent to prejudice the jury. The witness spoke carelessly, as he should have been instructed not to do. It must not be supposed that he did so with malice. If it should later appear that a religious issue is relevant, then let discussion of it be carried out in the closing arguments of prosecution and defense, not in the course of testimony, which must deal with facts. Counsel to the bench a moment, please."

Callista Blake did look up then, as Warner left her side. Mann felt the puzzled study of her eyes as the lawyers leaned to him, T. J. Hunter starting to whisper some comment on the clash, which Mann shut off with a wave of his hand. "Not that. T.J., your witness isn't looking good. Has he ever had a coronary, do you know?"

Hunter was startled. "Don't think so. Never said so."

"Was he that short of breath the last time you talked with him?"

"Sure. Just out of condition, I think, Judge."

Warner unobtrusively appraised Judd, and said nothing.

"All right. Watch it, both of you. Can't have him conking out."

"Mr. Judd, as a friend and business partner of James Doherty, have you often visited at his house in Shanesville?"

"Oh yes. Real often. Pretty near every month."

"Did Miss Blake ever call there when you were present?"

"No. Wait—I do remember one time. Before she moved to Winchester. Not a call exactly. Mrs. Judd and I had stayed with the Dohertys overnight, the weekend. Remember now, the girl came over Sunday morning when the four of us were getting into Jim's car to go to Mass. The Chalmerses wanted to give Jim and Ann some maple syrup they'd made on the place, and it was Miss Blake who brought it over. Spring of last year. Come to think, that was the last time I saw Miss Blake before she moved to Winchester."

"And after that, you say, you saw her hardly at all?"

Judd flushed and paled. "To be exact, sir, just once."

"Can you give us the exact date?"

"Friday, June 19th."

"And the place, and the time of day?"

"My office in Winchester. About ten in the evening."

"Please describe this occasion in your own way."

"Well, my secretary Miss Anderson had been out sick several days, so Jim and I were swamped with work. I left the office my usual time, took home some stuff. Jim said he'd stay and work late. Evening, found I'd forgotten something, drove back for it, near ten o'clock. Light on in Jim's office, door of the outer office braced open way I'd left it, for fresh air—guess that's how I came to go in so quiet, wasn't trying to, certainly. Passed doorway of Jim's office, saw Miss Blake was—in there." Judd swallowed and coughed. "Compromising situation."

"Do you mean they were embracing, something like that?"

"Call it that. Divan. Jim's office. Wouldn't've believed it."

"Was an innocent interpretation possible? She'd felt faint, or—"

"Nothing like that, sir. Slacks, underthings, arm of divan."

"Are you saying Miss Blake was nude?"

"Wearing a—a blouse."

The listeners were too intent to snigger.

"Was Doherty also undressed?"

"Part—partly."

"Were they, to your knowledge, engaged in sexual intercourse?"

"They—yes, they were."

Short of breath, the courtroom sighed.

"What did you do, Mr. Judd?"

"Stepped back—got papers I wanted—left."

"They didn't learn of your presence, so far as you know?"

"No," he said, his breath still a burden to him. "No."

"You can be certain they didn't see you in the doorway—how?"

"Their eyes were closed."

"Your witness, Mr. Warner."

Warner remained by the defense table, standing, his hands pressing heavily on the back of his chair. Callista looked as though she had heard some dull distasteful gossip about a neighbor. "Mr. Judd, did you speak of this episode later to James Doherty—or to anyone?"

"To Jim, yes." Judd's face showed unhealthy mottling. "Following Monday. Only right, I thought—had to have it out."

"You told him what you had inadvertently seen?"

"Yes. Felt I owed him that. Said—you want what I said?"

"I think you might give the substance of the conversation."

"Well, I—said it wouldn't do. Said, what about Ann? Jim was perfectly frank, honest. Told me he realized—whole affair—terrible mistake, shouldn't've started. Said he was breaking it off. Of course I—only too glad to leave it at that, trust Jim's conscience, religious upbringing and so on. Least said, soonest—and so on."

"There was no question of dissolving your partnership with him?"

"Dissolving—heavens no! Never entered my head."

"You could find it in your heart to forgive him?"

"Not the way I'd put it, sir. You just can't condemn a man for—for one moral lapse. Could happen to any hotblooded young man."

"You are describing James Doherty as hotblooded?"

Callista Blake lowered her face in her hands. She was not weeping; her breathing was slow and regular. Perhaps, Judge Mann thought, she needed to shut away the voices, the faces, the nearness of her accusers. He noticed the newsmen scribbling busily a moment, and heard among the spectators a rustling, shifting, sighing, as if they were in some manner bound to her and could not move till her motion released them.

"I don't know. Jim's a good boy. Just sort of slipped."

"The woman tempted him?"

Hunter protested: "Counsel has strayed far from the matter of direct examination, and is trying to put words in the witness's mouth."

"Rephrase your question, Mr. Warner."

"I'll withdraw it." Warner was speaking gently, absently. "Mr. Judd, you were deeply concerned for James Doherty?"

"Of course. Terrible thing, specially if Ann—"

"Yes, you were concerned for Mrs. Doherty too, weren't you?"

"Of course."

"For anyone else?"

"What? Why, if you mean myself, I suppose—oh, I don't know."

"You weren't concerned for anyone else?"

"I don't get your drift."

"If you don't understand that question, I have no others."

"I—I—"

"I have no other questions, Mr. Judd."

Disturbed, not immediately certain of the cause, Judge Mann asked: "Do you wish to make a redirect examination, Mr. Hunter?"

"No, your Honor, not necessary. I—"

Judd's right hand groped toward his left arm and sagged away. He looked not exactly frightened, more as though shocked by some astonishing news. He said: "I wish I—" As if meekly, apologetically, he tumbled out of the witness chair in a slow sprawl.

II

The clock said half past one. Callista watched Judge Mann hurry into the courtroom, all business, dark pucker of a frown, the black robe too priestlike. It seemed to her that all present including herself were distorted by the magnifying power of ritual. As Father Bland, in the back row beside (my late acquaintance) James Mulhouse Doherty, would appear deceptively beyond life-size if he were wearing his magic vestments and saying a Mass.

"This Court is now in session." Mr.-Delehanty-which-is-the-clerk.

When did judges start wearing black robes, and why black? How long has the office of judge existed at all? How about the wig—(O the opportunity for mice!) and why did the American States do away with it?—unfair to bald American lawyers. Subject for a thesis—relation judiciary to priesthood—ecclesiastical courts—modern veneration for office of judge—has judiciary ever become really secular? In fact could it, ever? My ignorance—

"Members of the jury," said Judge Mann, "your attention, please. I have just been talking on the telephone with Dr. Garcia at St. Michael's Hospital, where Mr. Judd was taken after his collapse this morning when he had finished testifying." (Talking-to-Edith, compare ignorance to an unplowed field.) "It was a heart attack, as you probably realized, and the outlook for him may not be good. In Dr. Garcia's opinion, Mr. Judd's condition has probably been developing for quite a long time." (The soil itself is ready, indifferent, to produce flowers, nice fat potatoes, or stinking weeds.) "The attack occurred, please remember, when his testimony was done. Legally the situation is this: Mr. Judd's collapse has no bearing on the case you must deal with. He had completed what he had to say; Mr. Hunter had announced he didn't intend to make a redirect examination. During this long noon recess I have talked with both counsel; neither side felt there would have been any occasion to recall Mr. Judd. While he testified, I think you'll agree, Mr. Judd was in full command of his faculties, so far as anyone can tell. Give his testimony the same weight, no more and no less, that you would if his breakdown had not happened; simply try to shut it out of your minds. To my certain knowledge, neither counsel was aware of the bad state of Mr. Judd's health. Both counsel believed him as well able to stand the emotional strain of giving testimony as any other witness. Mr. Judd undoubtedly believed this himself. Dr. Garcia tells me Mr. Judd had neglected medical attention for a long time and was unaware of his heart weakness. I charge you now, and will again: remember this thing happened outside of the trial."

The Judge was laboring, Callista understood, laboring too much perhaps, to defend Cecil Warner and through Warner herself, against the chill poison of unspoken words, illogical notions. If Nathaniel Judd died, no one would blame Mr. Hunter for summoning him, but many would recall Cecil Warner's words: "If you do not understand that question, I have no others." For certain minds it would be no strain to argue: Judd died, therefore the Blake girl is guilty.

It could be true that Warner's words might have helped to topple old Judd, by making Judd sense for an instant some failure of charity and of perception in himself. Ill, embarrassed, he might not have rallied self-justifications quickly enough, so Warner's words might have caused a brief stab of conscience, enough to send him over the edge. But if he dies the chief fault is mine. I am guilty. To live is to destroy—true or false? I am small; my only real quarrel with Hunter is that if he has his way I shall never grow. How stubborn the life that can't desire to die!

Last August she had desired it, or thought she had, until a moment of that Saturday night, on the stairs, her mother weeping in a room left behind, her mind visited strangely by Victoria's grandchild the Funny Thing. She had begun to desire death earlier—in July, after Jim's letter, the only one he ever wrote. Stilted, timid; needless doubletalk; the awkwardness and misspelled words not endearing or funny but rather shocking, evidence of the blindness of her love.

I will not say part of me died when I read that dismal thing. We die and regenerate with every breath. All that happened (I-would-say-to-Edith) was that my journey had taken me beyond the region where I met Jimmy and learned some aspects (not all) of a passion called love.

Notice also (am-I-still-talking-to-Edith?) how the laughing-crying devil-angel that Jimmy woke up in me has not died, but rouses me even in the prison night, stinking bare-light-bulb night, starved for the pressure, the almost-anger, furious crescendo, meteoric release. Oh, in an enlightened society I could have been a splendid high-class whore!

"You may call your next witness, Mr. Hunter."

"Sergeant Lloyd Rankin!"

Callista heard Cecil Warner's short involuntary sigh, felt his hostile stiffening and alertness. Detective Sergeant Lloyd Rankin of the Winchester Police came down the aisle and held up a flat hand for the oath, the slab-faced sober man. His gray hair under the cold light glinted like dull steel, his eyes a lighter gray but opaque, oyster gray. Draw him as a bulldozer—Cecil might like it. She ran her fingers softly over the wrinkled hand, lifted away the idle pencil and drew his scratch pad toward her.

A bulldozer has its own squat dignity. If it's directed to knock over some little house loved by generations, that's no fault of the dozer. The blade advances, the Diesel bellow swells to the roar of a caged hurricane. Old timbers—nobody wants them—crumble like dry cheese. And look!—the picture grew in swift lines and leaping shadows—look, a doll! Left behind maybe under the eaves years ago. It had tumbled into brief light in front of the caterpillar treads, which would of course move on. Too bad, but no time to stop.

She knew idly that the small brilliant drawing was good. Light lived in that doll, the rest a melancholy gray, a darkness. And turning the sketch face down, she wondered if she had done right in telling Cecil Warner of Sergeant Rankin's curious lapse on that afternoon last August when the world fell apart. In the Old Man's steady glare at Rankin—maybe he hadn't even felt her take the pencil—she glimpsed a blaze that would have suited the eyes of a male tiger about to drive another way from his mate and if possible gut him to ribbons. Her own half-welcomed excitement, private elemental anguish akin to the neural riot of approaching orgasm, was just as irrelevant, just as far from any notion of discovering truth—in a courtroom, of all places! For what after all did Rankin's moment of rutty brutality have to do with the truth or falsehood of her story? Accused of it—(he will be!)—Rankin would flatly deny it, the word of a respectable policeman against that of the Monkshood Girl.

Gravely, to the prosecutor, he was admitting twenty-two years of service with the Winchester Police, twelve of them with the Detective Division. An honest policeman, Rankin, an up-to-standard product of what must be a tight, hard school; a product chipped at the surfaces but wearing well. And what is honesty?

She supposed that for Lloyd Rankin it would mean being no more dishonest than a majority of his peers. It would mean: don't take big bribes, and don't be an unpopular holy joe about the percentages from bookies and pimps and what-not: that's sort of like a tax, see? No compromise with major crime, but don't stick your neck too far out except in the obvious line of duty. There, in that clear line of duty, be ready to risk your life all the way and maybe lose it. Certainly give him that, she thought. He had all the earmarks of what is called a brave man, who could probably say with a bullet lodged in the bone: "It's the job." To Sergeant Rankin honesty would mean that obeying orders comes first; the top brass is paid to think, so when in doubt follow the rules. And Sergeant Rankin would believe (this she knew) that all criminals once caught are somewhat outside the human race, no longer protected by the common laws of charity and fair play. The professionals among them are The Enemy; the nonprofessionals, the one-shot wife-stabbers and other grown-up first offenders—his mind would balk at those, fretful and baffled: why couldn't they act like other people? Or perhaps he would be wedded to some one of the superficial formulas, substitutes for thought, derived from religion or popular psychology. Sensing no contradiction, Rankin would also believe in his heart that the world is more or less a God-damn jungle where every man (including this man Rankin) has his price.

"What is your present assignment, Sergeant?"

"Attached to Homicide Bureau, sir, the last four years."

"I ask you to recall the events of Monday, the 17th of last August. Did anything happen that day in the line of duty that had to do with the defendant Callista Blake?"

"Yes, sir."

"Give your own account of it, please."

Sergeant Rankin slipped on his reading glasses, appearing in that owlishness no less a cop, and consulted his notebook. "Late on the morning of August 17th of this year, Chief of Detectives Daniel Gage directed me to go to the apartment of a Miss Callista Blake at No. 21 Covent Street, this city, in response to a telephone call that Miss Blake had made to the local precinct station. The station had passed on the substance of her call to our headquarters, and Chief Gage relayed it to me. Miss Blake had told the desk sergeant she wished to give information to someone in authority concerning the death of a Mrs. James Doherty in Shanesville the previous night. She had said further that she was ill, and gave this as the reason why she did not wish to come to the police station herself. Chief Gage had communicated with the State Police, and he passed on to me what he learned from them about the death of this Mrs. Doherty, who had been found, apparently drowned, in a pond at Shanesville."

"All the persons involved—Miss Blake, Mrs. Doherty, and others you may have heard about later—were at that time unknown to you?"

"Yes, sir. Routine assignment to follow up information received."

"Go on, please."

"I reached Covent Street around noontime. I was in plain clothes of course. Miss Blake admitted me, and before looking at my identification remarked: 'Fast work! I've only been waiting an hour.' I don't know if this was sarcasm. There had been no unnecessary delay."

Wanting to soften the intensity of Cecil's glare, she whispered: "It was a noise to crack the silence. He stood in the door like a zombi, the dear man, so's to make me speak first." She won from the Old Man only a start, and a drowned look. He wasn't quite with her.

"Go on, Sergeant."

"I asked for her name, gave her mine, entered the apartment at her invitation after showing my credentials. I inquired how she came to know of Mrs. Doherty's death, and she said, first, that her stepfather had telephoned her about it, but then immediately, and without questioning from me, she said: 'Oh, I knew it, I knew it last night.'"

"Did you inquire what she meant by that?"

"Not right away. I first asked about her stepfather's call. I wanted to get the identification and relations of these people clear in my mind. She gave me the name Dr. Herbert Chalmers, said he had called her about eleven o'clock and told her Mrs. Doherty's body had been found in the pond. I engaged her in some general talk: who Dr. Chalmers was, and what was her connection with Shanesville, with Mrs. Doherty, how long she had lived there at Covent Street, things like that. She said she had called the precinct station right after her stepfather hung up—which checked, as to time. That first remark of hers—"

"I think we'll come back to that later. You say that in her call to the precinct station Miss Blake had said she was too ill to go there. Did she appear to be ill when you saw her?"

Rankin frowned. "I wouldn't say so. Dark under the eyes. I noticed a tremor in her hands. Nothing that couldn't be explained by—oh, nervousness perhaps."

"In that general talk, were her answers clear and satisfactory?"

"I learned nothing later to contradict them."

"I see. Well, did she then tell you what information it was she wished to give—what she had in mind when she called the precinct?"

"Yes, sir. When I inquired, she said Mrs. Doherty had come to the apartment the evening before. I asked what time; Miss Blake said Mrs. Doherty had come at about quarter to eight and left at eight-thirty."

"Did she give the occasion, the reason for Mrs. Doherty's visit?"

"Miss Blake said she had telephoned to Ann Doherty, asking her to come. I inquired the reason for this, what it was she wanted to see Mrs. Doherty about, and she refused to tell me."

"Did Miss Blake explain her refusal?"

"No, sir. Just said: 'I won't tell you that.' I didn't press it. I wanted to get on to other facts, facts she was willing to tell me."

"And she did give you other information?"

"She did, sir, freely enough."

"Just summarize it, please."

"She began by saying that since some time in July she had been under the influence of what she called a suicidal depression, that she had some poison in the apartment, and that she was afraid Mrs. Doherty might have drunk some of it by accident. Miss Blake said she had become ill during Mrs. Doherty's visit, had gone into her bedroom and shut the door—'to get away from her,' as Miss Blake put it—and that while she was there, in the bedroom, Mrs. Doherty must have poured a drink from the brandy bottle which contained the poison. Miss Blake said she had been still in the bedroom with the door shut—locked, in fact—when Mrs. Doherty left the apartment. Then, according to her account, Miss Blake came out, found the bottle had been moved, and became alarmed for Mrs. Doherty's safety." The slight drawl and falling cadence of Sergeant Rankin's voice was effective, Callista noted; good theater; something to admire as a work of art. "She got her car out of the garage and drove to Shanesville, to the Doherty house, found the Dohertys' car in the driveway, found Mrs. Doherty's handbag fallen in the path, house dark and door locked. Miss Blake said she then followed the path toward her mother's house, assuming that Ann Doherty must have gone that way, and presently discovered her, dead, in that pond. At that point, Miss Blake said, she panicked, and was also ill again, and—drove home. You understand, sir, I am merely summarizing, as you requested. Actually in that preliminary talk with her, a summary was all I got—with, as I later learned, some omissions. As soon as I had a general idea of the situation, I called Chief Gage, using Miss Blake's telephone. Chief Gage himself arrived at Covent Street at about ten of one, with a fingerprint man—Sergeant Zane I think it was—a photographer, and yourself, Mr. Hunter."

"Did you inquire, before others arrived, about this poison Miss Blake said she had?"

"Yes, sir. She said it was aconitine, and said she had prepared it a week before, by steeping monkshood roots in alcohol—brandy. I asked where she got the roots. From her mother's garden in Shanesville, she said. I asked whether she still had the stuff on hand. She said: 'Of course.' Mr. Hunter, maybe I ought to say at this point that up to then Miss Blake appeared to have no idea at all that she might be accused of anything. I don't pretend to understand it, but that was my distinct impression. Well, she took me out to the kitchenette, and showed me a half-full bottle labeled brandy, which she said contained the poison, and also an ordinary kitchen canister with some chopped-up mess that she told me was monkshood roots. She herself remarked that the brandy bottle probably had Mrs. Doherty's fingerprints. I took these items back to the living-room later, and from then on they weren't out of my sight until Chief Gage arrived and had them sent safe-hand to the Department's toxicologist Dr. Walter Ginsberg, after a fingerprint check. Miss Blake was very composed, I'd say sort of indifferent, about all this. When she had shown me the brandy bottle and the canister in the kitchenette, I asked her: 'Miss Blake, what did you have against this Mrs. Doherty?—you might as well tell me.' She didn't answer, just looked at me as if the question was—well, foolish or surprising. I said: 'Why did you do it?'" Sergeant Rankin turned over a leaf of his notebook. "She replied: 'That's how it is? I've told you the truth, but it's going to be like that?' I told her yes, of course it would be like that, and I asked her who she thought would believe the kind of story she'd given me. Miss Blake then said: 'Who knows what anyone believes?' And she asked: 'Are you going to arrest me?' I said that would be a decision of my superiors. Then I—told her to go back to the living-room and remain in my sight while I used her telephone. She did so."

Callista felt the Old Man lean close. He was muttering at his mouth-corner: "Is that when he—?"

She nodded. "He's deleted five rather long minutes. Why not let it go? My word against his, nothing much happened anyway, and it hasn't any bearing." Warner growled indecisively. "Partly my fault too—should've remembered my skirt might be transparent against that sun." Warner's hand tightened and fell slack. She noticed Rankin's oyster-gray glance flick her lightly and pass on, for the first time since he had taken the stand.

"Before Chief Gage and others arrived, did Miss Blake do or say anything else you remember as significant?"

"Well—one thing—I don't know how significant. There was a fancy aquarium thing in her living-room, with fish, tropical fish I guess. When I'd finished my call to Chief Gage—well—should I take up the Court's time with this?—I don't know if it's relevant at all."

Surprisingly to Callista, it was Judge Mann who said: "I think, having started, you may as well tell it, Sergeant. We can stop you if it's too far afield."

"Well—when I'd finished my call, Miss Blake said: 'I'm getting something from the kitchen, I suppose you want to come with me?' I did so, and stood by while she got a pitcher and emptied the ice-cube trays from the refrigerator into it. I inquired about it, and she said: 'Don't worry, it's just ice.' She carried the pitcher back to the living-room. She pointed out where an electric cord from the aquarium was plugged into a wall socket and asked me to disconnect it. I did so, mostly to humor her, saw no harm in it—I don't know anything about aquariums, nice hobby I guess. Anyhow before I knew what she intended she had poured the whole pitcher-full of ice cubes into the tank, and lifted out a gadget—a heating-coil in a glass cover—and rapped it real sharp against the leg of the table so that the glass broke and scattered over the carpet. I asked her what on earth she did that for, but she didn't explain the action—that is, she said the fish were beautiful, said it as if that explained something, but I don't know what she meant. Then she just stood by the aquarium watching them die. Two or three of them were dead almost right away, anyhow a matter of a few minutes. She pointed one of them out to me, a very small red fish, said it was a—a live-bearer I think she called it, and she gave me the scientific name of it too, but I don't remember that—platy-something. She said that one was a female ready to give birth. I'd thought all fish laid eggs, but seems not. I asked her again what she wanted to go and do a thing like that for. She said: 'They were beautiful and I loved them. Now watch them die.'"

Again it was Judge Mann who asked: "Those were her exact words?"

"Yes, your Honor. I asked her then if she took pleasure from killing beautiful things, and she looked at me—rather strangely, I must say—and said: 'No, Sergeant, this is the only time I ever killed anything beautiful, or anything I loved.' I don't know why a person would do a thing like that."

Tight-voiced, dubious, like a man groping through uncertain country, Judge Mann asked: "Was she, in your opinion, overexcited—exalted—anything like that, Sergeant?"

Hunter just watched. Callista thought: Hunter isn't liking this.

Sergeant Rankin's voice echoed something of Judge Mann's perplexity; a true echo probably, for Callista sensed that Sergeant Rankin had never until this moment entertained the notion that the Monkshood Girl might be of unsound mind. And the notion might be, to Sergeant Rankin, interesting, without regard to the tender feelings of the District Attorney's office. For an accusation of physical coercion and threat of rape would be far less convincing from a psychopath. Cecil would be noticing the Sergeant's tentative nibbling at the idea. Cecil might be wishing that the Judge would make more inquiry along that line—for to Cecil, she knew, an insanity defense might still be a sort of last-ditch possibility in spite of her total refusal to go along with it. While she herself rather hoped the little man in the too priestlike gown would shut up and mind his own business. What's it to him? Perhaps it will be to him, and not to Cecil whom I love, that I'll find the courage to say: I am guilty.

Sergeant Rankin picked his way among words like a man stepping from hummock to hummock through a marsh. "I would say, your Honor, that there was, maybe, something like that about her—general behavior. But—a vague sort of thing—I don't know if I should express an opinion, just a—a layman's opinion anyhow—"