The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trial of Callista Blake, by Edgar Pangborn
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Title: The Trial of Callista Blake
Author: Edgar Pangborn
Release Date: May 28, 2012 [EBook #39826]
Language: English
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notes are to be found at the end of the text.
THE TRIAL OF
_Callista Blake_
EDGAR PANGBORN
There is no ethical absolute that does not arise from error and illusion.
--GEORGE GAYLORD SIMPSON, _The meaning of Evolution_.
St Martin's Press
New York
_Copyright_ © _Edgar Pangborn 1961_
_Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 61-13391_
_Manufactured in the United States of America_
_by H. Wolff, New York_
_The author wishes to express his thanks to William Morrow &
Company, Inc., for permission to use an excerpt from_ THE COURT OF
LAST RESORT _by Erle Stanley Gardner, Copyright 1952 by Erle
Stanley Gardner; to Yale University Press for permission to use a
quotation from G. G. Simpson's_ THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION; _and to
Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to use a passage from_ THE
STORY OF MY LIFE _by Clarence Darrow._
To the
Memory of
My Father
NOTE: All characters in this novel are fictitious, not intended to
resemble any actual persons living or dead. The locale is
semifictitious: for "New Essex" read "almost any of the northeastern
States within a 300-mile radius of New York City."
E.P.
THE TRIAL OF CALLISTA BLAKE
1
Now laws maintain their credit not because they are just, but
because they are laws. That is the mystic foundation of their
authority: they have no other.
MONTAIGNE, _Of Experience_
I
Doves wheeled above the city's winter morning, vanishing by a turn of
wings, reappearing in a silent explosion of light. Judge Terence Mann
saw smoke rising through windless cold from a thousand chimneys, and
saw, beyond a bleak acreage of city roofs, the apartment house that
contained his bachelor burrow; further on, the Veterans Hospital shone
not as a temple of sickness but a shaft of splendor in the sun. His eyes
smarted as he turned away from the brightness. That was partly from a
lack of sleep. The Judge remembered that, like this robing-room, the
detention cells also looked up across the long rise of land where, for
something like three hundred years, the city had been haphazardly
expanding, fattening on river commerce, and becoming--in the American
sense--old.
Some day, should the small gods in the state capital approve, the city
of Winchester would own a Civic Center near that hospital, with a new
county courthouse. Judge Mann had seen an architect's dream picture in
the Egypto-lavatory style, a kind of streamlined cake of
soap--optimistic in a time when Winchester's population of 80,000 was
remaining constant while suburbs oozed in heedless growth over the once
magnificent countryside. In any case this late-Victorian-Gothic firetrap
downtown would have to serve for the ordeal of _The People vs. Blake_.
He shoved the black sleeve clear of his wrist watch: 10:10. Short,
slight, his temples silvering at forty-seven; few wrinkles yet; a thin
flexible mouth suggesting kindness; in his square forehead the pucker of
certain chronic doubts. He checked his pockets for reading glasses and
aspirin while his attendant Joe Bass brushed at imaginary lint.
"Mr. Delehanty says there's quite a crowd, Judge."
"Do they need more bailiffs out there?"
"I wouldn't think so--just noisy. They all want in." Pink-faced, lightly
wrinkled, Joe could shift at will from a glorified valet to a literate
old man. "Maybe the rumors about the girl's deformity make them curious,
same as if she were a Hollywood dish."
"Oh, I understand her deformity's pretty slight. It's just the radio and
papers--sensationalism--public wants a circus. Well, I'm late."
"Technically, sir, you are. But after three years on the bench, you know
it isn't ten o'clock till you pass through that door."
"Uh-huh--Joshua never had it so good. Well, here we go ..."
"All rise!" Mr. Delehanty's tenor burbled the lusciousness of a
clarinet. "The Honorable Judge of the Court of General Sessions in and
for the County of Winchester!" Judge Mann saw them rise, for what the
tradition said he must be and therefore was. "All persons having
business before this honorable court draw near, give your attention, and
you shall be heard!" Seating himself with a twinge of annoyance at pomp
and circumstance, Mann observed a virgin scratch-pad beside his
minute-book. He suspected Mr. Delehanty of rescuing judicial doodles
from the wastebasket: to Mr. Delehanty any new judge was a potential
Great Man till the bloom wore off. "This court is now in session."
Three years a judge, less than a year in General Sessions--it had been
sure to come, the first case overshadowed by the death penalty. He had
faced the certainty and argued it out with himself, well before those
scrambled days of the election campaign two years ago which had settled
him securely in office after the uncertainty of an interim appointment.
He had supposed the answers he arrived at then were still valid: _The
law is man-made, therefore imperfect: as its servant, my function is
simply to interpret, trusting that time and natural process will permit
the law to continue growing, not petrifying, as men gradually become a
little wiser (if they do)._ And so on--respectable answers, unoriginal
but having the sanction of history, of just and generous minds. Yet last
night, after a final reading of the grand jury minutes in the Blake
case, he could not sleep. And this morning, so far, he was merely
insisting to himself that those answers had better stay valid, since the
sovereign state of New Essex was stuck with him for another twelve
years.
Perhaps, he thought, his uneasiness was not so much at the ethical
position as at the Blake case itself--too one-sided. He saw at present
no good prospects for defense counsel Cecil Warner except in delaying
actions, skirmishes, the unpredictable chances of courtroom drama, and
the doctrine of reasonable doubt--which is, to be sure, a doctrine broad
enough to take in the whole expanse of human affairs, philosophically
and not legally speaking.
He surveyed the arena, wiping his reading glasses, hoping his eyes
didn't look too bloodshot. The prospective talesmen spilled into the
rows beyond the press tables. Then the anonymous; and from outside, a
beehive snarl of the disappointed, who might dwindle away presently,
unless the papers had succeeded at blowing the case up into a sexual
circus. Portraits of the dead woman showed a pretty face, but Ann
Doherty had after all been a respectable suburban housewife, not a
glamor girl. Catering to the perennial hunger for a scapegoat, most of
the papers were writing of Callista Blake on a note of hate just inside
libel--Crippled Teen-Age Intellectual, Prodigy Girl in the Monkshood
Case. But that carried a phony note, for Callista Blake had managed to
remain so essentially unknown that so far there was really no one to
hate but a paper image. Some voices dissented, too. One sob sister had
declared Callista was a woman, with human needs, feelings, a tragic
childhood. That writer might have read an article on psychiatry--even
two articles.
There were certain letters, from Callista Blake to her lover James
Doherty, the last one written about a week before Doherty's wife was
found dead--poisoned and drowned. If those letters arrived in evidence
over the protests of Cecil Warner, they would demonstrate Callista
Blake's humanity more intensely than any journalistic gulping.
Judge Mann had read them, Cecil Warner and District Attorney Lamson
present. James Doherty, Lamson said, had handed over the first three
voluntarily. The fourth, found in Callista Blake's possession, had not
been mailed to Doherty. For Mann, to read them had been like blundering
into a private room where lovers clung together with locked loins and
tortured faces; like being compelled to watch, afterward, when the woman
was alone and wounded with loss. He had skimmed, his mind wincing aside,
knowing it was not possible to understand the letters under those
conditions. They had not been read to the grand jury. Some passages in
them might be construed as admissions of guilt--or not, as you pleased.
Warner evidently felt that this notion could be demolished.
As for beauty and glamor, the prosecution would introduce other
photographs of Ann Doherty that were no pretty portraits. Old Warner
would object routinely and be overruled; the jury would then meet the
unmitigated spectacle of a death by drowning. When Ophelia perishes
offstage you don't think of post-mortem lividity or foam on the mouth.
"Mr. District Attorney?"
Assistant District Attorney Talbot J. Hunter nodded briskly but
solemnly: he was being the man who profoundly regrets what he must do.
That had not been altogether predictable. Dealing with professional
crooks, T. J. could act downright jolly in a ferocious give-nothing way,
often sweeping a jury along. With a tiger's grace, handsome in spite of
too much chin and early frontal baldness, Hunter could have been
athlete, actor, singer. He was a near-professional with the Winchester
Choral Society, having once gone splendidly through the baritone solo in
the Brahms _German Requiem_ when the guest artist turned up with
laryngitis. Mann, himself a serious pianist, had heard that achievement,
and remembered it at times when Hunter's courtroom personality annoyed
him: the man could hardly have sung that well unless there was in him,
somewhere, the element of compassion. In the law, Mann supposed, Hunter
could use and enjoy his musical and histrionic abilities and at the same
time make a living. "Call the Blake case!" The voice, Mann observed, was
in top form, rich, melodious, and acceptably stern.
"Mr. Warner?"
"The defense is ready." Cecil Warner was standing also, heavy and old, a
man listening to other voices though capable of employing his own heavy
thunder. The other voices were conscience, tradition, books; overtones
of what witnesses and lawyers don't say. The seamed ancient face was
fat, the kindness obvious but not the strength. Mann wondered
occasionally whether Warner had ever, like Darrow, faced all the
implications of a certain pessimism that colored most of his opinions. A
fracture imperfectly set had crippled Cecil Warner's left arm in
childhood; he could not bend the elbow beyond a ninety-degree angle. And
Warner's mind, the Judge speculated, might suffer a similar limitation,
never hitting with quite all its power. He would need it all in the next
few days.
"The People of the State of New Essex against Callista Blake."
Reasonable words; but as Mr. Delehanty intoned them, the Judge's mind
perversely visualized an army of five or six million, uniformed, with
rifles, tanks, flame-throwers, advancing in ponderous wrath against one
cornered chipmunk with tinfoil helmet and paper sword. Foolish, he knew:
the individual was not alone, and faced not the People roaring and
multitudinous but merely their representative, who might be no more
powerful a champion than his own counsel. Yet the image had pestered
Judge Mann before now, and faded in the style of the Cheshire Cat.
At other times he could not avoid the impression that the adversary
system was too distressingly close in nature as well as origin to the
absurdities of medieval justice, in which truth could be determined by
the beef of a hired champion. Were prosecutor and defender today any
more concerned with truth than those bumbling muscle-men? Were juries?
And judges?
"Counsel to the bench, please." They approached, Hunter light on his
feet, Warner slow and carrying too much weight in the middle. "When we
get started, gentlemen, I intend to bear down on the formalities, some.
I think it's that kind of case. Anything more we should discuss now?"
Warner's hand rested on the bench. Mann noticed the pale freckles, the
frailty of deep-crinkled flesh, blurred rims of the irises of Warner's
melancholy brown eyes. Cecil Warner was sixty-eight. "Don't think so,
Judge, unless T. J.'s got some load on his mind."
Hunter murmured: "Can't imagine a plea--poison and drowning."
"My God, do you imagine us taking one?" Mann frowned; Warner's anger was
rumbling too loudly. "We're here for acquittal. My girl didn't do it.
It's that simple, and that's where we stand."
Hunter nodded gravely, courteously, unmoved.
In the night, Terence Mann had felt he was not asking himself the right
questions. If as prosecutor he could frame them, allowing rational
objections from himself as defender, perhaps as witness (or accused?)
he might find answers acceptable to himself as judge, jury, and
appellate court. But under torment of insomnia the many selves of the
mind may abandon the congress of reason and start a rat-race. And
now--well, this was full tide; he could not let counsel stand there
wondering what ailed him. "That's it, then. Let the defendant be brought
in."
As they returned to their places he sketched on the doodle-pad two
egg-shaped boxers: tangled eyebrows for Cecil Warner, for Hunter too
much forehead and shovel chin.
A police matron appeared, and a court officer. A hush, then a murmur,
each voice swelling but slightly, the crescendo joining others in one
uproar that expresses no more than the human need to make a noise under
stress. Heads turned, weeds under water. Mann heard the s-whispers,
water over sand: _Callista Blake--Callissssta_ ...
She walked with a barely noticeable limp--polio in childhood, Mann
recalled from the record. She was also very slightly hunchbacked, her
thin pale arms seeming too long. As Warner escorted her to the defense
section, Judge Mann saw she wore no make-up, though powder might have
hidden the narrow scar that ran from her left ear to her jaw. Dark blue
suit and white blouse were neat, unobtrusive, severe. A natural curl
held her black hair in lines of grace above a skin of porcelain white.
She was ignoring Warner's arm, and walked alone.
She was nineteen.
Her eyes were the blue of undersea. Mann searched for other compensating
beauty--hard to find. High cheekbones, large nose, small abrupt chin,
high forehead modified by the curls but still too high. The extreme
whiteness of skin made one think of marble, or heart disease. The
medical report declared that apart from the unimportant deformity she
was quite healthy. And the State's psychiatrist was prepared to testify,
following the quaint barbarism of the once useful McNaughton Rule, that
Callista Blake was legally sane. As the jargon had it, she knew the
difference between right and wrong, the nature and consequences of her
acts.
With no word yet, Callista Blake rejected sympathy, dared the world to
pity her, indicated a readiness to spit in its eye.
Warner said: "Give the clerk your name for the record."
Mann heard a strong contralto drawl; it might have sounded warm and
pleasant at other times: "Which is the clerk?"
Some idiot woman in the back row giggled.
Warner spoke quickly: "Up there, my dear, that's Mr. Delehanty."
The girl glanced casually at the clerk's dapper dignity, and resumed her
level examination of Judge Mann. "I am Callista Blake."
Judge Mann opened the record book and wrote: _State vs. Blake, Dec. 7,
1959_. Eighteen days to Christmas and he still hadn't bought that Diesel
train for David, his brother Jack's youngest.... The Blake girl sat
down, Warner on her other side where his bulk might partly shield her
from the assault of eyes. She moved with grace, the deformity a nothing;
the disturbing grace of a wild thing--a cat, a snake, a soaring bird,
who makes never one waste motion but appears to flow with no instant of
transition known. On the scratch-pad Mann's pencil labored through the
fussiness of Old English script:
Which is the Clerk?
He said: "If you're ready, Mr. Hunter, we can choose a jury."
The squirrel-cage squeaked. Mr. Delehanty called: "Peter Anson."
The bald stubby man waddling forward looked neither calloused nor
hypersensitive. Thirtyish; young enough not to be too congealed in
acquired prejudices, old enough to have rubbed off some of the
certainties the young must use in place of experience. Mann imagined
for him a cute pink-and-white wife, two kids, mortgage, Chevvy. Anson
might do.
As Mr. Delehanty called more names, Mann ripped off the top sheet of the
doodle-pad, to bury it in the minute-book instead of the wastebasket.
Never mind Mr. Delehanty's feelings. Some later page might show only
cats, mermaids, stripteasers--he could have that one.
Relaxed and genial, T. J. Hunter spoke to the potential jurors as well
as to those first called: "I'm Talbot Hunter, assistant district
attorney who will try this case. Judge Terence Mann is presiding. At the
other table is Mr. Cecil Warner, defense counsel, and beside him is the
defendant Callista Blake. She's not a resident of Shanesville, by the
way, though she lived there till about a year ago. I don't think any of
you come from Shanesville--very nice town, about three miles beyond the
city line." Mann drew a lightning sketch of the Governor's mansion, and
wrote: _Nice town, but alas, T. J., wrong county!_ "Callista Blake is
the daughter, by an earlier marriage, of Mrs. Herbert Chalmers of
Shanesville. Callista's father, Kramer Blake, died in 1947. In 1951 her
mother married Dr. Herbert Chalmers, Associate Professor of English at
our own Winchester College. Miss Blake lived in Shanesville until July
of last year, when she took an apartment by herself here in
Winchester--21 Covent Street. Then, and up to the time of her arrest,
she was employed by a portrait photographer, Miss Edith Nolan--"
"Still is," said a thin red-haired woman among the spectators.
Mann's rap with the gavel was reflex action. "That can't be permitted."
The redhead sat frozen in evident astonishment at herself. It would be
Edith Nolan, Mann guessed; he could feel no genuine annoyance. "The
Court assumes the impulsive remark just made by a spectator was
inadvertent, an accident. Disciplinary action will be necessary if
anything like that happens again. All relevant statements will be made
properly, at the proper time. Go ahead, Mr. Hunter." A blush flooded
the woman's keen homely face; she nodded, no doubt a promise to behave.
In the early thirties, tense, intelligent, explosive, but without the
look of a crackpot; Mann expected no further trouble there.
Hunter said: "Please search your memories. Are any of those names
familiar? Blake? Chalmers? Nolan?... Don't worry if you've read or heard
of Mr. Warner. He's a very distinguished attorney. It'd be more
surprising if you hadn't heard of him. That's not the sort of
familiarity I mean--wouldn't disqualify you."
Mann noted the purloined Warner special. Now if the Old Man tossed his
opponent verbal violets he would appear imitative and absurd.
"Other names--Nathaniel Judd, senior partner in the real estate and
insurance firm of Judd and Doherty. Ann Doherty--that is, Mrs. James
Doherty.... Welsh? Jason? No familiarity? Good." Hunter swept on his
reading glasses, which were perhaps clear glass. "This paper I'm holding
charges that on the evening of Sunday, the 16th of last August, Callista
Blake, at her apartment at 21 Covent Street, Winchester, gave to Ann
Doherty, who was about to leave that apartment after a short visit and
return to her home in Shanesville, a drink of brandy containing the
poison aconite. It charges that within the half-hour thereafter Callista
Blake followed Ann Doherty to Shanesville, and found her near a small
pond which lies at the edge of the Dohertys' property. It charges that
Callista Blake, willfully, with malice aforethought, drowned Ann Doherty
in this pond. The State will ask for the verdict of murder in the first
degree."
Under spreading silence, words moved sluggishly in Judge Mann's
mind--words remembered from the hours when he could not sleep. He had
lurched sandy-eyed out of bed, prowled at the bookshelves, settled by
the chilling fireplace with a volume of the _Britannica_ and a shot
glass of brandy. "_The cerebrum is totally unaffected by aconite,
consciousness and the intelligence remaining normal to the last._"
His diaphragm twisted in a spasmodic yawn. He covered it swiftly, but
the reporters would have seen it. He thought: _Let them!_ But he must
not start woolgathering. Plump Mr. Anson had folded his arms and
declared that he was a plumber by trade. T. J. Hunter was asking: "Have
newspaper or radio accounts caused you to give any advance opinion?"
"No, sir, I b'lieve I can honestly say they haven't."
"Have you read the editorials in the Winchester _Courier_ or the morning
_Sentinel_ on this case?"
"Well, no, I kind of let the wife do the heavy reading."
Crowd laughter mildly rumbled; Anson evidently didn't mind it.
"Have you ever been the victim of a robbery or burglary?"
"No, sir, never was."
Routine questions continued a while, Hunter relaxed and casual yet
really wasting no time.... "Mr. Anson, my next question has been under a
good deal of discussion in recent years. Like any good citizen, you must
have given it thought. Have you, sir, any conscientious objection to the
death penalty?"
"Well ..." The man was unhappy. "I been asking myself that, ever since I
got called. All's I can say, if I was certain-sure about the guilt, I
mean the first-degree thing, I wouldn't hesitate to vote for the ch--for
the death penalty--if I was certain-sure, that's what I'd have to do."
"And you would do it?"
"I would," said Mr. Anson. "Seems--seems only right."
Another yawn assailed the Judge. He groped for causes of his weariness
other than lack of sleep. "_The world is too much with us_--" if too
much for Wordsworth long ago, what about now? A tractor-trailer answered
the thought, groaning through the street three stories below, a Cyclops
in anguish, rattling windows, sending elderly foundations into a
sympathetic shudder. Judge Mann wondered if he might be coming down with
a cold.
II
Edith Nolan studied eleven faces, and the twelfth now giving the
prosecutor stiffly reasonable answers. She wondered if Cecil Warner
would dislike, as she did, Mr. Francis Fielding's buttoned-in upper lip.
A statistician in the records office of Winchester's biggest department
store, forty, consciously literate, rather too good to be true. Edith
sensed the fanatic, the acrid mind that must be always right. But such a
disposition might harden in favor of acquittal instead of conviction.
Since her tasteless sandwich luncheon, the afternoon had been for Edith
a desert of echoes, all voices unfamiliar except Cecil Warner's. Fast
work, she supposed, to have a jury almost complete, and the hour not
quite four. The heat had been turned higher after the noon recess, the
courtroom growing sickly with a mustiness of flesh, disinfectant, dust.
Edith's head ached, a dull frontal throb. The hard seat nagged at thin
buttocks, unpadded backbone. When Callista looked her way, Edith
wriggled and grimaced, trying to add a mild humor to her silent message:
_Head up, Cal! We're going to win._ Briefly, Callista smiled.
Imaginary pressure of eyes at the back of her neck was a misery.
Callista's mother and stepfather were two or three rows behind. At the
noon recess they had been unwillingly jammed against her in the corridor
outside. Mrs. Chalmers would have liked to cut her then, Edith thought,
but washed together so in the loud human tide, that hadn't been quite
possible even for Victoria Chalmers. The Pale Professor might even have
rebelled at it--he was bravely friendly, pleased to stoop in his weedy
tallness and shake hands, keeping haunted uncourageous eyes obstinately
turned away from the great stone face. And so the Face had talked,
pronouncing deadly commonplaces in Victoria's public manner, which
always suggested the need of an organ obligato--a spate of commonplaces,
all of them somehow conveying the implication that Edith Nolan was at
the very least a Bad Influence.
Edith had never discovered much resemblance between Victoria and her
daughter, except for prominent cheekbones and uncommonly white skin.
Victoria's nose was classically straight, without the irregularity that
gave Callista's features an almost Indian cast. Victoria's smoky-pale
hyperthyroid eyes somehow lacked alertness, as though she could not be
bothered with anything so simple as direct observation. Her hands were
stodgy, unalive--nothing there of Callista, and nothing of Callista in
her mother's rugged frame and Madam-Chairman chestiness. Edith could
picture that bust inflating for voice projection when Victoria was about
to read a paper before the Thursday Society of Shanesville--they "did"
book reviews and current events. She had met Victoria on her home
grounds twice, when Callista had invited her out to Shanesville with wry
warnings. At home, Victoria was invincible, a conversational Juggernaut
riding over a crumpled evening with every adverb in place.
And yet now, Edith thought, Victoria was probably suffering, in her
fashion. She would be regarding Callista's trouble as an unwarranted
attack of the universe against Mrs. Victoria Johnson Blake Chalmers; but
with whatever strength of emotion remained, with whatever capability of
love may exist in a person who must be always right, Victoria would be
feeling a genuine distress for her maverick daughter, perhaps also for
dead Ann Doherty, even for Jim Doherty. Maybe. Or maybe Callista had
been right in the quick, casual, bitter remark that Edith remembered
from many months ago: "Something was left out when Mother's chromosomes
got slung together--I believe it was humanity."
Or the truth could lie as usual somewhere in the middle. In the noon
recess, it had seemed to Edith that she glimpsed flickerings of real
pain in Victoria--some kind of pain; under such conditions it might be
hard to tell the difference between grief and the pinch of a tight
girdle. Then the crowd had thinned enough to let them escape, and
Victoria, still resonantly talking nothings, had marched Professor
Herbert Chalmers away, a trainer jerking the leash on a shambling
mournful Great Dane.
The electric clock behind Mr. Delehanty clicked and twitched, another
scrap of eternity chipped off as Mr. Fielding declared: "I have no
objection to the death penalty, and would make no exception for a
woman."
The bald athlete Talbot J. Hunter stepped aside, and Cecil Warner,
wilted and ancient, took over. The Old Man was tired, his questions a
mere mopping up of areas Hunter had ignored: Fielding's newspaper
reading, length of residence in Winchester; perhaps he just wanted to
hear a few more overtones. In this case Cecil Warner--(Edith understood
it fully today for the first time)--was not interested in the fee, the
publicity, or the abstraction of justice. He was there because, with the
curious devotion of an old man, he loved Callista. To use one of his own
worn phrases, it was that simple. Since a woman of thirty-one does not
live in the world of a battle-worn man of sixty-eight, Edith knew she
could grasp the quality of that love from the outside only, with the
mind only: enough, to accept the fact. But didn't a defense counsel need
some inner coldness to sustain him?
She studied the twelve faces, their names already carved into her
memory. She would retain the look of them as vividly as though each
juror had sat in her studio under the clever lights while she examined
the faults, planes, good points, chatted with them to let
self-consciousness and vanity subside, searched for the portrait they
wouldn't see, and at last finished her shots--one to please the customer
if possible; one, if lucky, to please herself as a frozen instant of
relative truth.
Peter Anson--oh, if he were furry instead of bald you could use color
film and get a pink panda. That notion was not quite her own, but like
something Callista might have said in one of her fantastic moods, more
impudent than funny, more funny than spiteful. Anson's chubbiness would
be deceptive, his good nature not the kind that he would maintain under
serious pressure. His kindness would be limited to what he understood.
Beyond that limit, Anson could be cruel.
Dora Lagovski, twenty-four, mammal, housewife. Dora would want to be
photographed with a big mouthful of teeth, and you better do it.
Emerson Lake, newsdealer, sixty-five. If not born in a cool pocket of
the White Mountains, he should have been. Humanity gleamed in him like
an ember under the crust of a clotted briar pipe.
Emma Beales, forty, housewife. Smooth round conscientious face, all hell
on civic duty. Never plagued with an original idea, capable of talking
both arms off at the deltoids, but not a bad old girl. Edith estimated
that she must have made about twenty portraits of Emma every year; it
was only in the bad moods that they all looked alike.
Stella Wainwright, thirty-seven, grade school teacher. Her brown hair
curved in what Edith decided was a natural wave, not helped by her dowdy
muddy-brown dress. The kids probably liked her; she would not be
expected to teach them much about the passion and confusion of the
world: not for Stella the sweat and garbage, the sunrises and the music
of moon-drenched nights, the labors of love, the fields of cornflowers,
the screaming in the disturbed ward. They had people to take care of all
that stuff while Stella taught social studies. But on this jury Stella
would do her best, and it might be good enough.
Elizabeth Grant, twenty-six, housewife. How could life write on a face
of dough? Unfair, maybe; nevertheless Edith distrusted Mrs. Grant,
reflecting what atrocious cruelty can be accomplished by well-meaning
souls devoid of humor and imagination. The woman was opaque, her
simplest answers under voir dire examination sounding like quotations
from a wholesome family magazine.
Ralph LaSalle, thirty-one, shoe-store clerk. Cecil Warner and Hunter,
Edith supposed, would both have recognized the minority he represented.
His mask was good, the too-long blond hair and somewhat mannered accent
betraying it. Cecil Warner might be counting on LaSalle to show fairness
toward a white crow of another sort; Hunter possibly expected him to be
hostile toward all women. Both lawyers could be wrong; Edith expected
LaSalle to act and think simply as a human being with a good
intelligence and rational sympathies.
Rachel Kleinman, housewife, forty-eight. They would be needing Mother
Rachel at home; Edith hoped there was a daughter old enough to cook. But
Rachel would stay with it; warmth and gentleness were in her; she would
not knowingly burn another woman for a witch. And when Edith took the
stand, she might look for this woman Rachel to understand why Callista
Blake had smashed the heater and poured ice-water into her tank of
tropical fish when she knew she was to be arrested.
Emmet Hoag, hardware salesman, twenty-nine. A little bit handsome, Edith
noted--like a healthy pig. He would consider himself hell on the women
until snared and housebroken by some broad-beamed breeder who knew what
she wanted. A born No. 12 sure to go along with the majority: what else
could he do? Well, Edith thought in a gust of weariness, he could drop
dead.
Dolores Acevedo, secretary, twenty-nine--and actually not over
thirty-five. Hair midnight black and skin of honey brown, born to be
beautiful and surely knowing it with a simplicity too placid for vanity.
By rights Dolores should be a rich man's mistress, maybe was. Edith also
guessed that anywhere outside the region of sexual competition Dolores
might be generous and kind, even very kind--and admitted that it was no
more than a guess. For that matter, would a woman as outrageously lovely
as Dolores ever get far enough from the sex arena for other elements of
her nature to dominate? Nothing cold or contrived about _that_ kind of
beauty--warm as tropic night, Dolores. Yet she might also think, and
reason, and be kind--she just might.
Helen Butler, fifty-two, gift-shop proprietor. And a Sunday painter,
Edith doubtfully remembered. She had met Miss Butler a few months ago,
when prowling the gift shop for book ends. Callista had not gone along,
and Edith recalled she had not given Miss Butler her name, though they
enjoyed a quarter-hour of small talk. Books mostly; some deprecating
mention by Miss Butler of her landscape painting, or was it still life?
Nothing in that to make the lady disqualify herself from the jury, if
she remembered. A salty spirit with independent opinions, laughter
wrinkles at the eyes, unmalicious wit. A bit old-maidish, maybe no great
force of character. But intelligent, moderate, good.
They were the Twelve.
Edith looked again at the slight and silver-templed man in black. No
schoolmastery fuss from him at that bad moment of the morning when
impulse had betrayed her into speaking out of turn. Even a kind of
friendliness behind the rebuke he had been forced to make. He would be
harder to photograph than any of the jury, or ambitious Hunter. Harder
than anyone present except Callista herself, and Cecil Warner who had
posed for Edith in actuality a year ago.
And Cal had drawn one of her three-minute cartoons of Warner, which
delighted the Old Man--their first meeting. Had he adored her then? Why,
then, a year ago, Cal's ordeal of love with Jim Doherty had not even
begun. It occurred to Edith that for the human race a magic power of
foresight would be a burden unendurable. Fair enough to guess, and plan
within limits, but no one should ever know to a certainty what will
happen in the next hour, or day, or year.
The time might arrive when Callista would be forced to know that--or
perhaps almost know it, and be tortured by a series of meaningless
reprieves. In Salem, less than three hundred years ago, they had crushed
Giles Corey to death by gradually adding rocks to the pile on his
breast. Edith warned herself sharply: _Stop that!_
Cecil Warner was moving away from the jury box, straightening his round
shoulders with a tired twist. "Thank you, Mr. Fielding. May it please
the Court, the defense is satisfied with this jury."
Mr. Delehanty announced: "The jury will rise." In Mr. Delehanty's pocket
a gleaming triangle of handkerchief shone, still perfect, spotless at
the weary end of the day. And the jury was standing.
Graceless in the group and clumsy, they mutely apologized to each other
for their elbows, raised their hands for the burbling of Mr. Delehanty
of the perfect handkerchief. They swore. Too much finality. A true
verdict render?--but what is truth? No, too much. Behind the half-comic
front, too vast a thing for the Hoags, Lagovskis, Kleinmans.
But, Edith thought, that's how it's done. And we persuade ourselves that
what we wish to call truth may emerge from it. We accept the ludicrous
fancy that you multiply wisdom when you multiply one by twelve.
Mr. Delehanty laid down the Bible. Flushed, important, the jury took
their seats. The prosecutor stood. Edith's stomach twisted. She bent
forward, covering her face. Too much.
She thought: But I _know_ Callista!
Frail, damaged, miraculous body; wild, difficult, exasperating, wholly
irreplaceable brain that understood, needed, desired so much--everything
that was Callista could be and might be charred to rubbish, to satisfy
the mythology of a still vengeful and superstitious race. Surely not
even guilty; but if she were--
Edith knew then that the same emotional storm would have struck her if
she had believed Callista Blake guilty of this and a thousand other
crimes. A storm including personal shame and horror at taking part, if
only by silent presence, in an act of barbarism.
_What are we doing here?_
III
Cecil Warner turned toward the cold gleam of the courtroom window; an
eastern window, the winter sunshine long gone. In the morning he had
watched a glint of the sun on Callista's black hair, and on the polished
bleakness of the table where her arm rested. The daily journey and
decline of the sun affected him more deeply now than in past years, left
him irrationally disappointed on the gray days, less willing to accept
the approach and arrival of night. On such days, or at the tired
conclusions of winter afternoons, the age of his body oppressed him--as
now, when he turned his heavy head and felt a wobbling sag of cheeks,
unwilling droop of eyelids, slight but irritating deafness, uncertainty
of his powers. And in all activities between foggy waking and not quite
desired sleep, a fading, a knowledge of relinquishment. If his eyes
sought and cherished (as now) the delicate swell of Callista's breast,
his mind said: _My hand will not follow that curve, not ever._ Or it
said: _Even the inner and almost hidden love that keeps the spirit alive
and sometimes strong and sometimes angry--even that is only for a little
while._
T. J. Hunter was up on his feet being stately and important. Warner
advised himself: he must not, would not fall into the dangerous error of
hating or even disliking T. J. Enact hostility, yes, whenever it might
have a useful effect on the jury--enact anything at all, from sputtering
rage to glacial contempt--_but don't feel it_! He could not afford to
feel it, without a far more flexible control of his private emotions
than he now possessed: much too easy for an angry man to look like a
fool. And yet not hating T. J. was going to be intolerably difficult at
times; for Callista could die, and T. J. was after all a good deal of a
bloody bastard.
Hunter said: "Your Honor, I see it's getting on to four. My opening will
be brief. If agreeable to the Court and Mr. Warner, may I make it now?"
Behind his mask Warner felt flustered and unready. He could protest;
Terence Mann would obligingly call an early adjournment; Callista would
have some rest, if you could give that name to her unknowable hours in
the detention cell. The advantage T. J. probably hoped for, in having
the jury sleep on his opening masterpiece, might be no advantage at
all--a jury can forget impressions as well as facts.... Startled, he
realized that Terence with his curious courtesy was deferring, looking
down from the bench with harmless reminders of a ten-year friendship in
his face, waiting for the defense to speak first. He said: "My client is
very tired. However, I assume from what Mr. Hunter says that his opening
will not run much past five o'clock--is that correct?"
"I'm sure it won't, sir. I only intend to summarize, to outline what the
State expects to prove."
_Sir from you?--gah!_ "In that case, the defense has no objection."
"Members of the jury, Callista Blake is the daughter of an artist, by
all accounts a loving father, who died when she was seven, and a lady
who is known to a wide circle of acquaintance as a devoted wife and
mother. This lady, and Callista's father and stepfather, gave the girl a
careful, decent upbringing. Callista's stepfather Dr. Herbert Chalmers
of Winchester College is a distinguished man, author of a textbook in
English widely used in the secondary schools. Her mother is active in
the Presbyterian Church, past president of the Shanesville P.T.A.--in
short I know of nothing in this girl's history or family surroundings to
account for her present situation unless you attach more importance than
I do to certain childhood accidents. As a baby she got a nitric acid
burn, later repaired by plastic surgery. She had polio, which left her
slightly lame, very slightly--as you can see, Miss Blake is not
disfigured, and not at all unattractive. And don't we all know of cases
where ugly accidents have happened to children without turning them
against the human race?
"What are the origins of crime? Does anyone know? Psychiatrists? Well,
the State is prepared to offer psychiatric testimony, if the defense
elects to do so. I can't see the necessity myself. I can't imagine an
insanity defense being made here. I think it's a case where the
individual must be held clearly responsible for a wanton and cruel act,
the one act that strikes most dangerously against the welfare and
security of human society: namely murder. It was, and the State will
prove it, a murder motivated by sex jealousy, but obviously not in any
gust of passion. No, it was coldly premeditated, planned, and
heartless."
Warner fought down the perilous anger. This was simply Hunter's opening
barrage. _I can roar, too._ Yet he wished that without disturbing her by
a touch he could will Callista to look toward him for comfort. He
checked an impulsive motion of his hand. Still-faced, she was watching a
spot on the wall above the gaunt grim skull of the juror Emerson Lake.
She would turn to him and listen if he whispered, maybe even smile. But
it might be that she needed those withdrawals, a kind of rest.
"In 1950, Mrs. Blake and her daughter Callista moved from New York City
where Callista was born, to Winchester. Mrs. Blake was employed in the
Registrar's office of Winchester College, and there met Dr. Herbert
Chalmers; they were married in 1951. Dr. Chalmers had bought a
Shanesville property a few years before--1946, I think. Callista lived
there till she graduated from the Shanesville High School, Class of
1958--with high honors by the way. Dr. Chalmers wished to send her to
college. She is a girl of exceptional intelligence, and don't forget
it." (_So, T. J.? She's on trial for unauthorized possession of a
brain?_) "But immediately after graduation, Callista Blake preferred to
seek employment, and found it as an assistant in a photographic
studio--Nolan's, on Hallam Street here in Winchester. Well, Dr. and Mrs.
Chalmers have always wanted to satisfy any reasonable wish of
Callista's." (_Have they?_) "They offered no objection to her taking
this job. In fact for her eighteenth birthday, July of last year, Dr.
Chalmers bought her a car of her own, a Volkswagen--it will be important
in the evidence."
Important enough, Warner admitted. If there were any way to deny or even
cast doubt on Callista's presence out there in Shanesville that
night--but there was not. Callista herself would not have it so. On the
stand, he knew, she would tell the truth so far as she knew it--the
whole impossible clouded story that left her no defense except a
reasonable doubt as to criminal intent. And if she did not take the
stand, there was no defense at all.
"In that same month last year, July, Callista took an apartment in
Winchester, at 21 Covent Street. Again her family indulged her and made
the best of it." _Indulged, you fool?_ It had been Callista's own money
from her father's estate, plus her salary from Edith. Warner felt some
wry pleasure, although it meant nothing, really, except an opportunity
to rub Hunter's nose in a minor blunder. "There was no break in the
family relation, members of the jury--so far as we know. We assume that
like many parents, they simply wanted the child to have what _she_
wanted." (_And now, T. J., do you think you can transform her from a
child into a woman fit for burning?_)
"Another family is involved, a family now broken up by murder. When
James Doherty, originally from Massachusetts, met and married Ann Pierce
in Philadelphia, he was twenty-seven. He had served in Korea, finishing
college on his return. They were married in 1955, and moved to this
neighborhood. Mr. Nathaniel Judd of Winchester is the father of a friend
of James Doherty's killed in Korea. Mr. Judd grew acquainted with
Doherty through correspondence, and in '55 offered him a partnership in
his real estate and insurance firm, now Judd and Doherty. In the spring
of '55 the Dohertys purchased a house and land in Shanesville township
adjoining the Chalmers place. I think Ann Doherty was a happy young wife
that year. She started a flower garden."
_Callista had a garden too; she poured ice-water in it._ Warner glanced
up to the spectators' benches, looking for Edith Nolan, feeling a warmth
for her that puzzled him by its sudden increase. He supposed one got the
habit of taking Edith too much for granted, of turning to her in trouble
or weariness (Callista had done it too) without remembering that Edith
also was vulnerable, quite as likely to be in the grip of fatigue or
sorrow. Edith would be remembering that magical water garden, the
emerald illusion of infinity, the darting, shifting arrows of living
light that could not move without grace. His first sight of it had been
about a year ago, an invitation to the little apartment at Covent Street
soon after Edith had done his portrait and Callista's rapid pen had
drawn that strangely affectionate cartoon of him, comedy without spite;
as if at eighteen the girl could incredibly glimpse the quality of
sixty-seven and find something there for the unhurtful entertainment of
both of them--and of Edith, who had remarked laconically: "What the hell
good is a camera?" Well, he thought, many thanks to the human species
for Red Nolan, and he would send her flowers tonight and take her out to
dinner like a boy with a date and why not? Never mind the boy--he was
dead long ago: take her out like an old man still capable of friendship
with a lively, tender, witty woman who understood friendship herself....
Edith met and acknowledged his look across the anonymous crowd--yes, she
would be remembering that water garden, and its end, untouchable beauty
transformed to a pathetic mess for the janitor to remove.
Two rows behind Edith he saw without pleasure the angular haunted
features of James Doherty, and the opaque calm of the black-clad man on
Doherty's left. It would be Father Bland's habit, Warner supposed, to
show at all times that careful benignity smooth as quartz. Without
pleasure, without much interest, he wondered in passing how it felt to
be certain of one's own serene rightness.
Hunter's noise--oh, geography. Giving them the lie of the land.
"Those properties are on the outskirts of Shanesville proper. You go out
Walton Road about three miles beyond the city line. There's a fork, and
the right branch, Summer Avenue, reaches the village limits of
Shanesville in a mile; Walton Road runs on south to Emmetville,
Pritchett, other towns at the south end of the county. The Doherty place
is near that right-angle fork of Summer and Walton, back from the road,
its drive opening north on Summer Avenue. The house itself stands about
a hundred yards west of the fork. The Chalmers house is south of
Dohertys'--entrance on Walton Road about the same distance from the
fork. Except for not very heavy traffic, the region's isolated.
Peaceful. Closest neighbor is about a quarter-mile down Summer Avenue
from Dohertys', a Mrs. Phelps Jason, who manages her twenty-acre place
as a wild-life sanctuary. The back land behind it is unused pasture and
woods belonging to the Chalmers property, which used to be operated as a
farm.
"The Chalmers and Doherty houses are separated by a grove of trees that
reaches all the way to Walton Road. On the west side of Dohertys' the
woods are continuous, except for Mrs. Jason's place, to Shanesville. You
can think of the Doherty place as a pocket cut out of woodland. The two
families used a winding footpath through the grove for visiting back and
forth. And you must imagine the region as it is in summer, leafed out so
that the two houses are quite hidden from each other. Maple, pine,
hemlock, oak--some very big pines at the edge of Walton Road.... In the
grove near the property line there's a natural pond, fed by a brook from
the Chalmers back land. Its outlet runs through the grove, into a
culvert near the fork of the highway. The pond is small, oval, fifteen
feet across at the widest, less than five feet deep last August because
of several weeks of drouth.
"From the spur path or the pond, you can't see either house in summer.
On the night Ann Doherty died there, it might have been possible to
catch a glint of light from the Chalmers house, through the leaves. A
hazy night, hot, a nearly full moon shining through the overcast. A
still and oppressive night."
And that night, Warner remembered, the night of Ann Doherty's death and
of Callista's longer and stranger ordeal, he had been at Mrs.
Willoughby's discreet establishment on River Street, sharing a
well-perfumed sheet with one of her young professionals. The memory
remained clear because there had been no more such nights since August;
the many other nights of hired love stretching back across thirty-odd
years tended to blur and run together--here and there a face remembered,
a word, a special instant of intensity, annoyance, amusement. The night
in August had been delightful; relaxed, no attempt to achieve a
counterfeit of youth, and no wish for it. Leisure of a sort was
possible--it ought to be, at Mrs. Willoughby's rates!--and the girl,
small, brown-eyed, pert, had been convincingly friendly; more so, once
she understood that the Old Man, in spite of being sixty-eight and too
fat, didn't care for elaborate variations but wanted only the
bread-and-butter-steak-and-potatoes of natural intercourse. They had
talked a while, he recalled, she comfortably smoking, braced up prettily
naked on a thin elbow and chattering--perceptive enough, by the way, not
to call him Daddy.... There might be no more such nights: a final
recession of the need, or perhaps a suddenly yielding blood-vessel, a
cancer taking over, a tumble in a slippery bathtub--_never mind_.... He
could almost remember walking home from River Street (thinking very
likely of Callista), but it must have been after the moon was down. A
hazy night--"_Out of the cradle endlessly rocking_--"
T. J. Hunter was still pausing over a drink of water. Warner
remembered--old things mainly, their intensity dissolved by distance in
time; remembered, under the illusion of detachment that can make
existence appear truly like a river, yourself able to look back upstream
at nearly forgotten vistas: trees, meadow and town, eddies, dubious
shoreline, floating trash. Warner shielded his face with his hand,
closing away even Callista, as he had found he must sometimes do.
Boyhood was the sound of ocean, medicinal reek of kelp washed in on the
night tide to wait for bare feet and a poking stick. It was the
breakers, green ridges advancing out of the ever-distressed Atlantic and
growing a snowy froth, never pausing yet seeming to pause when the froth
spilled over the crest. Then a toppling, crash, inward flow. A receding;
a mysterious acceptance of an end, soft hiss and sigh and aftermath,
swirl of light water become thin and harmless on the sand.
Boyhood was fishing boats and Montauk Light, gravely busy clam-diggers,
Manuelo whom Cecil wasn't supposed to play with. It was the unseen
journey of hollow-voiced titans in the fog; pressure and majestic riot
of storm. It was an afternoon of watching the disappearance of an
unknown sail over the southern curve of the earth. School, too. Helpless
rage at long division; Papa's dry-goods store that was always going to
do a little better next year; Manuelo in the empty boathouse showing off
how many times he could do it in half an hour; Great-aunt Harriet who
turned up every Thanksgiving, who liked to announce abruptly out of her
world of deafness that she'd been in Ford's Theatre when Lincoln was
shot--then she would read lips a minute while the company hollered how
wonderful that was, and then, eating loudly and cheerfully, she would
slip back contented into the mist of ancient times. Boyhood was windy
nights, and surf hammering the muffled drums of sand a quarter-mile
away; stillness also in the dark, and moonlight pouring into another
midnight of black water. Tide inexorably rising to clean away the dead
jellyfish and driftwood, blotting out barefoot stories written on the
low-tide beach; clear sunshine over the whitecaps; and long gray days.
_Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child,
leaving his bed, wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot ..._
He had been twelve--anyway it was soon after Mother died--when he
discovered Whitman. One of the volumes chastely silent behind glass, in
the parlor over the store, undoubtedly a book of Mother's. Carried off
to his room and secretly saved from disaster when his stepmother
dismissed all the books in the parlor that didn't have pretty red or
brown bindings. The fury of that ancient wound stirred. At sixty-eight,
Cecil Warner smiled slightly, unknowingly, and shifted in the
disagreeable courtroom chair to ease a discomfort in his defective left
arm.
So much, so many million other images, reflections, happenings,
accidents, in the forty-nine years of the river's journey before
Callista Blake was born, the nineteen years since then! None of it (said
the doctors) totally forgotten. "_I, Cecil, take thee, Ellen...._"
He remembered making the necessary uproar about his bad arm's
disqualifying him for military service; most of it sincere enough too,
in spite of a deep private happiness with his young wife. He remembered
damning the Kaiser. The murky spooks of Stalin and Hitler bulked so much
larger in the years between, in front of them the mushroom cloud--hard
to reconstruct true images of 1917. Then 1918, and influenza, and Ellen
dead. She couldn't be--not abruptly, incomprehensibly _gone_ like that;
but she was. He returned half willingly to a winter day of 1959.
At sixty-eight it is possible to look ahead--some; to form a purpose,
with caution, remembering that if you don't make it, they'll say
charitably: "Think of that! Sort of getting on, wasn't he?"
He would not drink tonight. Well--dinner with Edith, maybe (and
flowers), so maybe a glass or two of wine, nothing more--
_Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what
there, in the night,
By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there aroused--the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me...._
T. J. Hunter dropped the folder of notes he had been studying, possibly
for effect, and turned back to the jury.
"In May of this year--the State will prove it--an illicit relation
developed between Callista Blake and James Doherty, the husband of that
Ann Doherty whose death, as you know, is the reason for this trial. Not
to mince matters, the word is adultery, and I must remind you now,
members of the jury, that Callista Blake is not here on trial for
adultery. She is on trial for murder, nothing else. The State will prove
the fact of adultery to establish motive--which, as you may also know,
is not legally required, yet I think a rational mind is bound to demand
it. How can we reasonably condemn anyone without at least some
understanding of what made him act as the factual evidence says he did?
"I want to make one thing clear. In a case of this sort the husband is
automatically suspect, the chance of conspiracy so obvious that the
police would be derelict in duty if they didn't examine it to the last
scrap of a clue. That's been done. If anything at all had been uncovered
involving James Doherty in this crime, you know he would not be at
liberty. Nothing of the sort has been found; everything points the other
way. He decisively broke off the affair more than a month before the
murder. He tried to make amends for his folly. The State is convinced
that in the death of Ann Doherty, Callista Blake, consumed by hatred and
jealousy--and by a certain fear for herself, since she was
pregnant--acted entirely alone.
"I am sorry for her--who wouldn't be? You will be. Her difficulty was
great, her position tragic. But as the State's representative, I remind
you that instead of the many fair and decent solutions for her trouble
that she might have chosen, the one she did choose was premeditated
murder.
"On the evening of Sunday, August 16th, Ann Doherty called at Callista
Blake's apartment, 21 Covent Street, leaving at 8:30. No third person
was present, no one knew she was going there except Callista Blake who,
by her own admission, had telephoned and asked her to come. James
Doherty had gone to New York City by train the morning of that Sunday
and did not return until Monday evening.... Before leaving Callista's
apartment, Ann had a little drink of brandy for the road. It was
poisoned, with aconite.
"On her way home, Ann was stopped by a state trooper because her driving
was a bit erratic. The trooper dismissed her with a warning, and then
followed her home because he thought she might be ill, felt uneasy about
her welfare till he saw her drive in safely at her house on Summer
Avenue--8:43 by his notebook. This trooper, Carlo San Giorgio, is the
last person known to have spoken with Ann Doherty before her death. He
will testify.
"At 9:10, less than half an hour after Ann reached home, Callista
Blake's Volkswagen was parked on Walton Road, between the fork and the
Chalmers house, hidden by the trees. At 9:40, another half-hour later,
Callista Blake drove that car part way into the Chalmers drive, backed
out and drove off in the direction of Winchester--no stop, no visit to
her mother's house, just in and out and away.
"Ann Doherty died, by drowning in that pond in the woods, between
quarter to nine and quarter to ten; this we know from medical evidence.
We have excellent circumstantial evidence for most of Ann's actions
after San Giorgio saw her reach home. She stopped her car in the
driveway, off the gravel, almost colliding with the front porch. She
turned off headlights and motor but left the car door open. Her key
ring, with house and car keys, fell by the porch steps. She dropped her
handbag on the path leading through the woods to the Chalmers house.
Aconite causes numbness of the extremities, nausea, thirst, general
muscular collapse, but usually no impairment of the intelligence.
Evidently Ann's mind was at least clear enough to remember her husband
was away, and the nearest help in her sudden sickness would be at the
Chalmers house. She probably couldn't recover the key ring after her
numb fingers dropped it, and that's why she couldn't get into the house
and reach the telephone. She had locked up when she left, her custom
whenever Jim was away.
"Coming down that path, Ann fell several times, she vomited, she lost
one of her shoes. She fell again, half-way down the spur path leading to
the pond. Why did she go that way, and not straight on to the Chalmers
house? We don't know, for certain. Took the wrong turn in the moonlight,
being sick and confused?--possible. She was found in the water, drowned.
Stumbled and fell in, couldn't get out?--that also is possible, remotely
possible. Admittedly the circumstantial evidence is imperfect at this
point, and it's one of the questions of fact that you, members of the
jury, will be called on to decide."
Grim, slow, brooding, Hunter returned to the prosecution's table for
another sip of water, and Warner's gaze wandered to the face of Judge
Terence Mann. _What are you going to do to us, Terence?_
In a sense, the Judge would do nothing. Warner assumed without
reservations that the quiet introspective man up there would try his
best to preserve an ideal impartiality. It seemed to Warner that Mann
was almost devoid of vanity, incredible as that might seem in a judge.
No fanaticism in Terence Mann, no insistence on the rightness of a view
because it was his own, no false identification of self with idea.
Incredible until you remembered that Terence was a judge more or less by
accident, an interim appointment later confirmed by an election in which
he had peacefully refused to do any serious campaigning.
Warner recalled their first meeting ten years ago, soon after Mann had
been appointed special prosecutor for an investigation into county road
construction frauds. The rats were running, and Terence, a youngish
thirty-seven, appeared to be enjoying it. In the book-leather and walnut
surroundings of Mann and Wheatley, Terence had looked at first like a
revised version of his uncle Norden Mann who had died the year before. A
superficial resemblance. Old Norden had been a born pettifogger, loving
legal labyrinths for their own sake. Terence, skeptical, a bit sharp,
would look for the simplest way to pass through a labyrinth and come out
on the other side. Terence had served his apprenticeship in Norden's
firm, re-entering it after his discharge from the Army. Until that
graft-hunting appointment no one had heard much of him. Warner had gone
to the office on Wilson Place off Main Street--"Lawyers' Hollow"--for a
luncheon engagement with Joe Wheatley. Terence had been halted for a
handshake, and Warner had fallen into a pose he could not always avoid:
the aging lion. Terence wasn't scared. "Do you intend to be a famous
prosecutor? Scourge of the unrighteous, huh?"
The loaded questions--they came out too, Grandfather roaring. Terence
hadn't minded. "No, sir, I don't exactly see that ahead of me." No word
of what he did see. Later they met at the University Club and began a
more relaxed acquaintance over a few drinks. Then an invitation to
Terence's apartment that became an evening of Chopin and Bach. Music was
an aspect of Mann's life unsuspected, discovered by Warner with the
abruptness of an opened door. The lawyer vanished; the hands were
"beyond technique"; the keyboard voice spoke with the authority of
intense feeling governed by insight.
And Warner recalled another meeting with someone else, in an almost
empty bar, a few days after the election that confirmed Terence Mann in
office. Idle for the afternoon and in a cool beery mood, he had glanced
down the damp mahogany and noticed a sagging red-veined blob, the face
of Boss Timmy Flack of the Third Ward--who, in a way, _was_ the
politics of Winchester, the half-submerged and partly useful human
force, neither honest nor demonstrably a crook, The Man You Went To See.
Himself honored and ancient, professionally secure, in any case seldom
giving a damn what others said of him or of the company he kept, Warner
had moved down the bar and bought Timmy another drink before The Man
could buy him one. "Hear tell we got a new judge."
"Uh-huh."
"Happy, Timmy? Civic virtue and so on?"
"Shit."
"If not happy, what are you going to do about it?"
"You needling me, Counselor?"
"Little bit."
"What the hell's anybody going to do, now he's in? The son of a bitch
doesn't _want_ anything!"
Which was certainly not true, but just as certainly true in Timmy's
sense. And Cecil Warner understood that he now feared Terence Mann only
because Terence's mind demanded demonstration, when a demonstration of
relative truth may be more arduous than any labors of the gods.
"Yes, she might have stumbled and fallen in. The State contends this is
not probable. You will of course hear all the evidence that has led us
to this conclusion. The State contends that Callista Blake followed Ann
Doherty, searched her out, found her there helpless on the path, dragged
her the rest of the way into the water. Perhaps even held her under, the
way you might drown an unwanted kitten."
Chilled by the voice in spite of forty courtroom years, Warner saw
Callista gazing down at her fingertips, frowning slightly as if bothered
in the midst of concentration by an irrelevant uproar in another room.
"On Monday, August 17th, Detective Sergeant Lloyd Rankin of the
Winchester Police was sent to Callista Blake's apartment, acting on
information received from the State Police at Shanesville. The poison
aconitine was found there, in two forms--in an opened bottle of brandy,
and in a canister that held chopped-up monkshood roots, the source of
aconitine, steeping in brandy. The State will prove Callista's
opportunity to secure monkshood roots ten days earlier, from her
mother's flower garden in Shanesville.
"The State contends that Ann Doherty could not have received that poison
by accident. The State contends that Callista Blake gave it to her with
malice aforethought, with full intent to cause her death. The State
contends that the final act, the drowning, was done by Callista Blake,
and that she is guilty of murder in the first degree."
Hunter was sitting down and mopping his face. Warner discovered that he
himself had risen, for now his body was wavering in vertigo and he must
grab the back of his chair and wait. The clock hands stood at three
minutes past five. The Judge was gazing distantly down the slant of an
unmoving pencil. "Your Honor, a word before adjournment if I may?"
Terence's voice was soft and friendly. "Certainly, Mr. Warner."
"The defense will waive the opening. At this time, before evidence,
before the jury has had opportunity to learn the truth, I have nothing
to say except that my client is innocent."
_Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whispered me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,
Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word DEATH ..._
IV
Judge Mann followed Joe Bass to the elevator that clanked them gravely
to the relative holiness of the sixth floor, where Mann's chambers
occupied a corner with a north view. The windows were dark, under a
windy spatter of unexpected rain. Mann glimpsed gold blurs of downtown
windows, white hurry of headlights, a flow of them two blocks away at
the corner of Main and Court, Winchester going home to suburban
bedrooms. "Nasty night," said Joe Bass. The red eye closed, the green
eye opened; a file of wet bugs poured up the Court Street hill. "Going
home directly, sir?"
"I think so. You were in court, weren't you, Joe?"
"Yes. I ducked out before the end of Mr. Hunter's speech. Did Mr. Warner
waive the opening?"
"More or less...." Joe Bass never hovered, or clucked. A sure instinct
had told him Judge Mann preferred to light his own cigarettes. But he
did not like to be dismissed before the Judge went home, preferring to
read or meditate in the anteroom until any hour of the night. He had not
much to go home to--a boarding-house bedroom uptown, his wife dead,
children married and gone. "I wish Mr. Warner would cut down that belly.
Too much work for the heart at sixty-eight."
"Sixty-eight, Judge?--I hadn't realized." Joe chuckled faintly in the
shadows. "I'm sixty-seven. Apropos of old age, I took the liberty of
browsing through your Thucydides a while ago--have the same paperback
edition at home, and very good, I'd say--may I?" He was already drifting
to the bookshelves. For Joe, there was always a quotation. It seemed to
Judge Mann that this was at least the magpie instinct at its noblest,
for Joe did not gather them as random bright beads, but for personal use
and to be shared. "It's from a speech of Pericles at the funeral of
those who first died in the war--and I wonder sometimes if the
Peloponnesian War wasn't as great a disaster as the latest? If the
Greece of Pericles could have survived--well.... Here it is: 'As for
those of you who are too old to have children, I would ask you to count
as gain the greater part of your life, in which you have been happy, and
remember that what remains is not long, and let your hearts be lifted up
at the thought of the fair fame of the dead. One's sense of honor is
the only thing that does not grow old.'"
Judge Mann thought: What of one who dies young?--a child hit by a car?
Ann Doherty? What of one who dies young by act of the State, with no
fair fame? "I think, Joe, we've become a more complex people."
"Aren't the essentials much the same?"
"Not quite. I think there's even a new humanitarianism, new in the last
hundred and fifty years. In the time of, say, Edmund Burke, there was
still officially approved slavery even in England, where they got rid of
it before we did. Hangings as public entertainments. Cats burnt alive
for fun on Guy Fawkes Day. The modern stomach pukes up that sort of
thing. Alongside the mushroom cloud, the decade of insanity that was
Hitler's bloom, the damned impersonal devices for butchering unseen
millions by throwing a switch, you try setting up the way people
actually live, or try to live, from day to day: there's a difference. If
the difference means as much as I think it does, if we get through
another hundred years without blowing up the planet, modern medicine
should have a great share of the credit." Joe looked puzzled. "In a time
when any bad sickness or injury was probably a death sentence, a general
fatalism would be almost unavoidable, don't you think?"
"Mm, yes."
"Cruelty and beastliness got taken for granted. If we value life more
now, it's because we know more about maintaining it and reducing its
miseries. It doesn't have to be 'nasty, brutish and short.'"
"'One's sense of honor'--I liked that part."
"Other things don't grow old. Knowledge. What you learned as a child is
with you at sixty-seven. Some kinds of love remain young, so long as the
body can support our curious brains where love is born."
2
It is extraordinary that a system hoary with age, extravagant and
wasteful to the highest degree, should not be supplanted by some
method of getting at facts directly, and having them passed on by
men who understand the controversies that they seek to solve.
CLARENCE DARROW, _The Story of My Life_
I
The wolves sat on their haunches, or stood, or crouched belly to earth
with snouts on forepaws, while others maneuvered in the shadow beyond
the tree-border of the clearing. On the other side of that border spread
such a blackness as the mind imagines for the sea a mile down, yet here
and there it was relieved by the gray of stone; everywhere, also, a
coldness. Grayness in the clearing too; no flowers, nothing of the sun,
but phallic-bodied toadstools and a ground-vine twisting a serpentine
life among scattered rocks. Callista remembered being told that someone
had died in there, in the blackness where no one could see it happen.
The wolves would have eaten the body.
The wolves were old, possibly several thousand years old. "A
geeolawgical malformation," said the child in her lap, speaking with
precocious insight.
Callista moved her hand with its dangling bracelet over the fine black
hair, tiny ear, bony shoulder, indistinct body. Her intention was a
caress; likely the child knew it. She grew interested, not urgently, in
learning the child's sex. What was the difficulty?--not a diaper.
Apparently the little thing possessed only a negative pink blank
between skinny thighs, like the crotch of a plastic doll. "The Merican
Ideal," said the brat, rolling china-white eyes. "See?"
"Well, shut up, darlin'," Callista said. The wolves had crept closer
during her preoccupation. Such was their habit (she had been told) if
you neglected to look them straight in the eye. She watched them in
contemplative pain resembling fear, and they continued moving, slowly, a
stirring and gliding that seemed aimless until Callista understood one
of them was being pursued, a thin bitch wolf, scar-faced, nearly black,
with a crooked leg, devil-eyed but in her demoniac way pathetic.
Callista was moved to remark: "Hasn't a chance."
And yet, poor beast, her own wickedness was plain. You could see the
drip of poisonous saliva from her mouth, and the fetuslike thing impaled
on a lower tooth--it couldn't be her own, so she must have stolen it
somewhere. No wonder they were after her. Serve her right! (Or if the
fetus was her own she ought to have taken better care of it)--therefore
one could understand the primitive justice of it as the gray jaw of a
pursuer hooked over her narrow rump. His hind legs massively firmed
themselves. Callista could observe the sudden scarlet erection, sense
the weight of the one lifted gray indifferent paw; but he did not swing
about to rear up and clamp her loins, he merely held her in the angle of
his jawbone and under that paw while others closed in to slit her
throat--she womanly now lying on her back as a clean white fang thrust
out of a surgical mask to run deftly down from the throat along the
mid-line of the body, opening up the internal apparatus not for eating
but for a better clinical view.
"Like a theater Oh-doctor," said the child's intelligent profile in
Callista's arms. Someone said: "Gentlemen, this is the pancreas--a
remarkably pancreative bitch to be sure, aware of nature and
consequences. Notice the inadequate uterus, a primipara yes yes, but
evidence of miscarriage early in term--and by the way, Potter's Field is
bungfull of that type."
"I resent that," Callista said. Able now to pick up the child and walk
away with her through the woods where all light was granite-gray, she
did so, seeking her father to show him a long overdue report card on
progress in pancreation. The little girl--naturally, a little girl, with
that lyre waist and tumbling hair and dainty genital groove--said to
her: "I am so sorry, Callista Johnson Blake, I have to stop here and
paint a picture. Can I look at that thing?"
"I got my paw stuck in it."
"Irrelevant," said the little girl. "Incompetent Callista."
"All right," Callista said, and walked away from her through the
grayness, uncertain whether she could find her father. He sat (she
thought) behind a gray screen, by a lighted window. "_Daddy, please!_--"
Now the bracelet on her wrist had caught, snarled itself in a tangle of
black vines, and Callista called: "Daddy, I can't seem to fix it. Can I
go now?"
She could not go, because in front of her beyond the vines were the two
doors, so very nearly alike, and someone--NOT Daddy, because Daddy NEVER
said anything so unkind--someone said: "It's one or the other."
Callista tried then to scream with all her power: "_Daddy! My back
hurts_--" nothing in her throat but a mumble, hardly even that, a scream
in silence without breath: "Daddy! _Please_ come--my back hurts--"
Callista sat up drenched in sweat that soaked her pajamas, and
shivering. No relief at first, rather a frustrated anger, since in
another moment her father might have been able to hear and answer.
Comprehension then; reorientation; qualified relief--_Is waking any
better?_
It was, of course. Steadier, anyway. The familiar exchange of selves:
What I was in the dream, I am not; what I am, I was and was not in the
dream.
The grayness before her eyes yielded the image of a cross, and a second
horizontal bar grew visible--there all the time. A window, the same one
through which yesterday, by straining on tiptoe to the limit of pain,
she had succeeded in watching the wheeling of doves. The same effort now
would give her the field of winter sky before dawn. If the rain had
stopped, a few stars incorruptible, indifferent.
She did not rise, but pulled her feet under her for warmth and drew
closer the scratchy antiseptic-smelling blanket. At this hour the cells
were quiet. Another prisoner snored, probably the old woman who had been
brought in drunk last night, her high defiant monotone of obscenities
temporarily hushed.
A few months ago Callista would have reached for the notebook by her bed
to write down what she could recapture of the dream. Edith had wondered
if all that intensive reading in psychology wasn't too one-sided,
introspective-making. "Maybe, Cal, you ought to be meeting people more
and thinking less about their insides." But to meet one person is to
meet a thousand selves; and it seemed to Callista that she had remained
critical, as Edith probably feared she wouldn't. "Cal, I wish you had
more counterbalance, too, for those psychologists in print. I've read
them. They don't look out of the windows enough. Why not contrast them
with the exact scientists?--who often have the same fault but in a
different style?" Something in that.... "There isn't one of those boys,
going back to Papa Freud himself, who wouldn't be improved by a
refresher course in first-year biology."
And Edith had gone on to urge her, once more, to go to college next
year--Callista, inwardly, very nearly ready to agree. She recalled the
crystal April afternoon, and Edith standing, her back turned, looking
out the studio's north window, the light a clear perfection on her red
hair--why must Edith imagine herself homely? "Here--may I say
it?--you're not quite far enough away from your Mom."
"A million light years."
"Of course, darling, but not in the flesh. And I keep thinking that
right now maybe you ought to be farther from me." Edith shrugged and
sighed. "For your sake, that is, certainly not for mine. Right now I
could be a little too rich for your blood."
"No. If not for your sake, then not for mine."
Edith had come back to her then, standing with the great cool light at
her back, looking down in one of her sudden moods of softness and
gravity. "All right, Cal. But think about college for next fall?"
In agreement more than half sincere, Callista said: "I will--I'll think
about it. You ought to marry, Edith."
"Narrow pelvis, distaste for an overpopulated world. I don't think it's
my dish. I like men. The few that I've thought I'd like for keeps turned
out to be guys who didn't want me, or at least not that way...."
But as for the reading in psychology, Edith's opinion remembered was
still not quite acceptable. Freud and his successors still seemed to
Callista like the best available guides into the nearest and most
tormenting section of the jungle. One could rule out those who had
fallen into worship of the sofa-pillow god Adjustment, and in doing so
lost sight of the individual self or never noticed it. One could also
remain critical of any guide, since the self must learn the sound of its
own voice and discover its own country.
Yes--but all that was before Ann Doherty drank poison.
Once more laboriously, appearing to herself rather like a high school
child hungry for a good mark, Callista attempted to review her knowledge
of that night last August. Not only as it would be presented when she
took the stand (as she must do whether Cecil thought best or not) but as
it would be declared to the court of her own intelligence before that
court could grant any acquittal. The face of Judge Mann intruded,
however, again and once again, when her toiling revery reached the
Blank, the lost moment, the miserable blur of amnesia where the crucial
thing, the one answer Callista must have, was surely lying hidden. A
quiet face, probably wise and certainly not vain, with the small chronic
frown, the sense of cleanness and good health, the gentleness that
Callista believed no face could wear if it were functioning as a
mask--very well then: admit the face of Judge Terence Mann to this
lonely privacy and make use of it.
Let the empty wall beside the barred door dissolve a little. Blur the
flat plaster, doubtless reinforced within; it looks like stone and by
daylight shows a few sad scribblings of the last tenant, not quite
scrubbed away: _Why can't they let me read what the wench wrote and
criticize her bit of a drawing that might now be either a baby or a
phallus?_--blur that, and let the high walnut bench stand there. Give
him the gown--_black, please!_--and the pencil, and the look, startled
but not unkind, that he wore when the spiteful child said: "_Which is
the Clerk?_" He would be less ghostly if now and then, there in the
foggy opening of the wall, he could move his thin hand in the
writing--could it possibly be drawing?--up there in the dignified
isolation where even Mr. Delehanty, the Clerk-which-is-the-Clerk,
couldn't watch it. _All right now? Go ahead!_
Begin with the talk, the flustered moment when Ann came into the
apartment a little fogged up with wondering what it was all about. If
she was wondering--hard to be sure, since dewy-eyed confusion was one of
Ann's best faces: look-how-cute-I-am-when-I'm-thinking-about-something.
Not that a talk with Nancy could ever decide anything except that she
would continue certain of her own placid rightness. _Your Honor, it had
a bearing on my state of mind--and by the way, my cantankerous cattiness
and unfairness are duly noted and admitted. I couldn't stand her. I
never could stand her, even before--before Jim. I can't stand people who
cuddle continually inside one ready-made idea like babies growing old in
the crib. Yes--granted--they can't help it._
_YOU ARE ADMITTING YOU HATED YOUR LOVER'S WIFE?_
_No, I'm not. I said I couldn't stand her. It's not the same thing._
Wasn't that correct? A difficult point, but not too difficult for Judge
Mann--he with his calm face, his busy pencil: without the black robe, in
ordinary clothes, what would you take him for? Doctor? Scientist?
Teacher? _Besides, your Honor, on that night he was no longer my lover.
That was the night of the 16th of August, with a hazy moon. He had been
my lover from the first of May to the sixth day of July._
_DO YOU WISH TO TESTIFY ABOUT THAT?_
_I think I should like to have the hazy moon admitted in evidence._
_CALLISTA, WILL YOU NEVER UNDERSTAND THAT MOST HUMAN CREATURES ARE
AFRAID OF LAUGHTER? GET TO THE POINT._
_All right._
She could skim over the first half-hour of that talk. It had been mere
sparring, Ann vaguely friendly on the surface, chattery, perhaps sensing
just enough of trouble to want to hold it away. Then Callista had made a
stumbling approach of blurted hints, Ann gradually comprehending because
she had to, gradually perching nearer the edge of her chair, hands not
in their usual flutter but folded and tightening in her lap, her lovely
face abnormally attentive; listening--she had to, that once!--watchful
and still. Not openly resentful or hating, never entirely distorted out
of beauty. Incredible, but it must be that Ann had never guessed, and
Jim had been a better actor than Callista dreamed. Ann had not even been
hurt, really; not inside. Too secure. And then--"Poor Callie!"
_Your Honor, I then said: "Oh, for Christ's sake!" and was sick to my
stomach._
She lived again (nearly forgetting the ghostly, not unkindly seated
figure in the blurred wall) her blundering rush for the bathroom with a
handkerchief at her mouth. Ann had followed, of course. Callista had not
quite slammed the door. Ann was out there, bleating, and then inside.
"Callie, you mustn't feel so bad! Don't you see? God will forgive you.
If you'll only take the right attitude!"
_Yes, your Honor, I retract the word "bleating." "Her voice was ever
soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman"--Lear, Act Five,
last scene, I forget the number of the scene, do you mind? She also put
her arm around me while I was heaving, and_--
"_Let me alone!_"
"_Poor Callie! It's all right. Let me get you something._"
"_God damn it, Ann, go away!_"
Ann had not gone away, not then. Callista remembered running from her
again, into the bedroom, slamming that door and locking it, dropping on
the bed unable for a while to move or cry out. The beginning of the
blank, probably. A mental door slammed, but surely not locked. But mind
is continuing action: it doesn't have doors, levels, thresholds. _I
know, your Honor, I know; I'm tired out, therefore thinking in stupid
terms, because I wish I could go back to sleep. The blanket stinks, but
I do wish_--
_WHY DID YOU ASK HER TO COME AT ALL, MISS BLAKE?_
_I believe I thought we might be able to talk of it like adults, but I
never even got as far as telling her I was pregnant. When half the truth
was out I saw it was no good. I'd forgotten her God had a blueprint for
all these little difficulties. I goofed.... This business about doors:
admittedly Freudian slanguage is treacherously pictorial, deceptively
so, as Edith pointed out once, only, damn it, it FEELS like a slammed
door. Not quite locked. Now may I--please_--
Once upon a time there was an orange-gold-brindle kitten named Bonnie
who lived (happily ever afterward) at Aunt Cora Winwood's flat in
Greenwich Village, and she was sentimentally tame, small enough to curl
up in two human palms. Which Aunt Cora liked to demonstrate,
transferring the sleepy morsel to Callista's hands. They had called it
"pouring the kitten." After Papa died, reason after reason why she
mustn't go visit the Winwoods. Only three subway stops away, and Papa's
own sister. "Tom Winwood drinks, dear, and is not reliable. I do not
intend to have My Little Girl exposed to Anything Like That. Nor do I
wish to be reminded, Callista, that your father approved of your going
there. His judgment was not _always--entirely--sound_. Mr. Winwood
was in fact largely responsible for certain aspects of your father's
Condition. Now I think I need say no more." _Yes, Mother, and No,
Mother. Yes, Mother, now and forever you need say no more._
Eyes closed, cheek wincing at the blanket--but twitching over to the
left side would be no better--Callista resolved not to remember nor
count the days since she had last drawn down her lover's face to her,
seen gaunt cheekbones grown large beyond vision above her, accepted the
pressure of his desire and her own. And therefore, inevitably,
remembered and counted the days. Sometimes his hands sweated and were
cold.
Not the first time, that May-Day afternoon in the woods--why, then (at
first) Jim had been almost pagan, natural, free, coming on her suddenly
in the damp green hollow where spring growth was riotous. Startled
and--yes, temporarily set free. He must have been, or he could not have
acted with such quick certainty, tenderness and aggression blended for
once in a most invincible rightness. In the very first moment, when he
pushed aside the hemlock branch and saw her, his face had been comically
legible as his mind abruptly discovered a woman in place of
Homely-Blake-Girl-Who-Used-to-Live-Next-Door. To the best of her memory,
Callista had not smiled; only sat waiting where spring sunlight lay
scattered, random gold; waiting and looking up, needing words no more
than a grown-up Bonnie would have needed them at the first cruel-kind
approach of a yellow-eyed lover across a back fence. Still she had used
words, a few, standing up, leaning back against the rough gray body of
an oak, something foolish: "Oh--I'm afraid you've started up a dryad."
He might not even have heard that, his hands pressing the tree on either
side of her face, his growing need as obvious as the sunlight. _I think
he never so desired Ann. Such hungers (I know he thought this) are not
for good women._
His first kiss had fallen in the thin hollow of her shoulder. He had
carried her to a softness of hemlock needles. _I think I helped him a
little with my shorts._ Pain of course, the wrench of the torn hymen a
required crash of dissonance in the symphonic flow. _I suppose I
screamed--had my teeth in his shoulder for a minute--he understood that.
Drowsy exhaustion afterward deeper than his_--
_Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda...._
"_What, Cal? What did you say? Was that Italian?_"
"_Latin. Thing--happened to remember._"
"_Oh._"
She had come wide awake then: no Kotex of course, tiresome clinical
necessity of a handkerchief for the unimportant bleeding--and had
presently given him some sort of English translation that stumbled along
on two left feet: "Suns may set and rise, but when our brief light is
gone, the night is an eternal sleep." Jim hadn't liked any of that,
much. The Latin, or the bleeding. That must have been the first time
that the worry-wart crinkle appeared between his thick black eyebrows,
the first time the poor guy had said: "Cal, darling, what the devil are
we going to do?" _I think I laughed at him, a bit. Not inside me of
course._
_SHOULDN'T WE (MY DEAR) GET BACK TO THE PEOPLE VS. BLAKE?_
_Very well, Your Honor, but I don't admit that the episode of adultery
(terminology by T. J. Hunter) is irrelevant._
_NOT IRRELEVANT (MY DEAR)--BUT WEREN'T WE DISCUSSING THE DEATH BY
VIOLENCE OF ANN PIERCE DOHERTY?_
_All right. I lay frozen in my bedroom wishing the good little bitch
would go away, and I DO NOT KNOW whether or not I heard what she was up
to in the kitchenette. You're not helping, Judge. You're not helping me
remember._
Eyes wide, she saw the dull wall had grown a little brighter with dawn,
and wished that the man on the bench might appear as a genuine visual
hallucination: it would be interesting. But he lived in the brain only;
her outer eyes would not create him. _I did hear her knock on my bedroom
door, call my name, say something else stupid, go away with a tap of
little high heels. Get it, Judge? This is the Blank, this is the thing
you're not helping me remember:_
_If I did hear her take that brandy bottle out, if I wasn't too
hysterical to remember what was in it and why, then_--
(_Spot of soup on Cecil's coat sleeve. Old, half-sick, drinking too
much, his wife dead long ago and nobody to look after him--when he's
dead who'll even remember what he was, the courage and the kindness?
Cesspool known as the world--people are already forgetting Darrow,
aren't they? and every other who's tried to clean it out, dig channels
to drain away the filth of human stupidity?_)
_If I heard her and remembered what was in the bottle, then I murdered
her. If I didn't, then as a potential but incompetent suicide I was
merely maintaining a public nuisance. As a good man well known to you
would say, it's that simple. But that is the Blank, Judge, and you're
not helping me._
_I therefore address my closing remarks to other gentlemen of Winchester
County, specifically District Attorney Lamson and his subordinate Talbot
Jesus-wept Hunter. I wish to apologize to them for laughing, being
convinced that the noise just heard in my apartment was laughter and not
rats. I have no wish to laugh and hurt your feelings, but it IS funny.
Honest, isn't it funny how the judge and jury inside me (with some
inconsequential imaginary help from that rather nice joe Judge Mann) can
make me squirm and whimper like a gut-shot rabbit, while YOU CAN'T?_
II
Edith Nolan watched the cherries wobbling on Maud Welsh's hat as the
woman perched in the witness chair, a sparrow ready for flight. T. J.
Hunter purred and soothed. "Your occupation, Miss Welsh?"
"Guess you could say housekeeper." The voice was dry, brittle as the
woman's skin. Merciless morning light played on Maud's wrinkles; bad
judgment had tricked her into using dabs of make-up.
On her two visits to the Shanesville house, Edith had been aware of Maud
as not much more than a background flutter and squeak; Callista had
filled Edith in on the family history that explained her. Long ago, long
before Herb Chalmers and Callista's mother were married and while Herb's
father Malachi Chalmers was still alive, Cousin Maud had been asked to
come and keep house. She stayed. Father Malachi had been a Full
Professor, also a sort of _fin de siècle_ Great Man who wrote a book (or
something) and whose memory, Edith gathered, served as a squashy but
invincible paperweight holding down the remainder of Herb's polite life.
Maud Welsh had evidently done much to keep that memory functional. By
the power of the meek, and because she _was_ useful _and_ a cousin, she
just stayed, a small household tyrant given to vigorous church
attendance and good works, enlarging on the time when the Professor was
alive as a golden age to keep his degenerate son in line, dusting and
sweeping intensely at unseasonable hours, putting up interminable
preserves, and carrying on a picayune war with Victoria Chalmers, a war
of sniffles and grievances which (Callista said) both of them enjoyed so
much that there was never any serious question of sending Maud on her
way. In the cellar, said Callista, there were five six-foot shelves of
plum jam alone--Maud's atomic reserve. Anyhow, she raised quiet
Presbyterian hell if any of it was used. And Callista in the studio had
drawn a pen-and-ink of Maud lurking all alone underground in a
desolated world, grown obese (in garments meant for a thin woman) on a
thick diet of plum jam. Edith had said: "Oh, damn it, Cal, after all!"
and kept the sketch.
"Where are you employed at present, Miss Welsh?"
"Well, see, I'm kin to--"
T. J. Hunter showed half-amused worry wrinkles. "Just my question,
please. You know, limit your answers to the question."
"Oh, you did tell me that, didn't you? Well, I live in with the
Chalmerses, I mean Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Chalmers of Shanesville."
"Doctor--that's an academic degree, isn't it?"
"Uh--oh yes. A Ph. D." Her voice made it an ailment.
Hunter's morning sleekness annoyed Edith, who felt dowdy and unkempt
after a bad night. Aspirin, insomnia, a dripping faucet in the bathroom,
meaningless noises in the studio--probably mice.
"Is there a street number on the Chalmers house?"
"No, just Walton Road. Same's when The Professor was alive and we lived
in Winchester, all you had to say--"
"Yes, I understand. Just limit your answers, please."
"I'm sorry. I'll try."
Judge Mann also was dark under the eyes, as if his sleep had been poor.
He was not busy with his pencil. His ignoring of Hunter's wry glance was
perhaps a way of saying: She's your chicken. Callista, drooping and
still-faced, was again partly hidden by Cecil Warner, who looked a
little better this morning with a fresh shave. The flowers last night,
the rather elaborate too-expensive dining out, the antique
gallantry--very sweet of him, Edith thought, and in his idiom not at all
strange. He had wanted of course to talk about Callista, but at dinner
and later, after toiling upstairs to the studio for drinks and quiet, he
had hardly been able to, seeming happier when Edith carried the
conversation away to more impersonal regions.
Edith twisted in her seat, winning a timid nod from Herb Chalmers, a
calm glare from Victoria. Back of them was Jim Doherty, again with
Father Bland. Jim did not acknowledge her glance either, but probably
because he didn't see it, a man alone on an island and hurt, trying to
interpret contradictory voices in the wind. Edith twitched her skirt
back into place and settled herself to endure the first day of
testimony.
"Are your duties as housekeeper fairly general, Miss Welsh?"
"Might say so. I do everything but heavy cleaning, we have a woman on
Tuesdays for that. I cook, see to things."
"You go away on vacations?"
"Visit my sister in Maine two weeks every summer, two in the fall."
"You did so this year?"
"In June, not the fall. Because of the trouble, I thought I should stay,
couldn't do less."
"Were you in Shanesville on Friday, August 7th of this year?"
"The 7th--oh, the picnic. Yes, I was."
"No, limit your answers, _please_. I just want to verify your presence
on certain dates. Were you at Shanesville all day Sunday and Monday,
August 16th and 17th?"
Arthritic claws clenched on her handbag. "Yes, I was."
"At about 10:30 Monday morning, August 17th, who beside yourself was
present, to your knowledge, at the Chalmers house or on the grounds?"
"Just Herb, I mean Dr. Chalmers. I think Mrs. Chalmers'd gone to the
supermarket in Shanesville, anyhow she wasn't home at 10:30."
"Where exactly were you at that time?"
"On the back porch fixing snap beans for lunch."
"What part of the grounds could you see from that spot?"
"Well, part of the lawn runs around the north side of the house, between
it and the grove, and there's the vegetable garden in back."
"Is there a path through the grove?"
"Yes, from our house to Dohertys' place."
"Will you describe that path, please?"
"Just a footpath, tramped ground, pine needles." Maud Welsh swallowed.
"Goes near a pond that's right about on the Dohertys' line."
"From the back porch could you see the opening of that path?"
"Yes."
"Did you see Dr. Chalmers at 10:30 or thereabouts?"
"Yes, he came out on the porch and we talked some. Weather mostly I
guess. It was a scorcher, and real humid."
"What did he do after your conversation?"
"Went to look at the vegetable garden, then into the grove--not by that
path though: he went into it at a place beyond the garden, where our
brook goes under the trees. We were watching that brook on account of
the drouth."
"When did you next see him?"
"A few minutes later. He came out of the woods, by the path that time,
stumbled, shouted to me. I dropped the beans and went to him. I saw his
clothes were wringin' wet, and he looked awful white. I helped him into
the shade on the back porch. He talked kind of--"
"Just the substance of the conversation, please. That is, if he
explained what had happened to upset him--did he?"
"Not--not to say explain, exactly. He said--"
"I think we'll just omit the conversation and go on to what you did
next. Just what you did, you understand. After helping him into the
shade, what did you yourself do?"
Clearly the biddy was already giving T. J. Hunter a case of jitters.
Cecil Warner's crooked half-smile underlined the fact for Edith. Would
he now be able to bring out poor Herb's first addled words, whatever
they were, in cross examination? Would they help, if he did? And if he
testified for the defense, what would Herb himself do about them? Last
night Cecil had said, into the bright depth of his second Martini:
"First law of the courtroom: never count on a jury's respecting logic."
"Well, sir, I went to the pond. His clothes wet, I knew it--"
"Just what you did, not what you thought. You went to the pond--wait a
minute. We'll go back a little at this point, Miss Welsh. You were well
acquainted with Ann Doherty--Mrs. James Doherty?"
"Well, I sh'd hope--I'm sorry, sir. Yes, I was."
"When did you first meet her?"
"In 1956. They moved in that year. Good neighbors, her anyway."
Edith saw the Old Man rising, and steady too, monumental. "May it please
the Court, the defense is not concerned with the character of James
Doherty, but I object in principle to that kind of innuendo."
"Sustained." The Judge's voice was cool. "The witness's last remark
beginning with the words 'good neighbors' will be stricken."
Edith relaxed, aware of the primitive quality of her gratification: one
for our side. Not that Jim belonged to the defense--Jim was lost, or
trapped. All the same, the defense had spoken. She also recalled
unhappily other words Cecil had spoken to that Martini: "Why did I order
that thing? I was going to make it wine. Will you slap my fat wrist if I
do it again?" He had made it wine, at the studio, and gone home sober.
After, of all things, kissing her hand.
"Miss Welsh, was your relation to Mrs. Doherty one of close
acquaintance? Casual? Just what was it?"
"Kind of close. We'd--oh, visit back and forth."
"When was the last time you saw Mrs. Doherty alive?"
"Two days before--I mean Saturday, August 15th. She came over for some
bacon. She'd forgot it in shopping."
"Did you, for instance, call each other by your first names?"
"Ayah, did, matter of fact. I'm a mite old-fashioned, but we did."
"All right. Now back to the Monday morning. You went to the pond. What
if anything did you find there?"
"She--in the water--I couldn't reach--"
"Miss Welsh, try to be impersonal, won't you? Remember the jury never
knew these people. Now: when you came to the pond, just describing
things impersonally, what did you see?"
"I saw--the body of a woman in the water."
"How was she dressed?"
"White blouse. Powder-blue skirt, blue jacket to match."
"Any head covering?"
"No. I saw her hair, that real pretty reddy-gold--auburn--"
"Could you reach the body from the bank?"
"No. I went in a few steps. A mud bottom--I--"
"Do you feel all right?"
"I'm all right. I touched her, the whole body turned--"
"We can spare you those details, I think. You turned the body until you
could see the face, right? And knew positively that it was--?"
"It was Ann--Mrs. Doherty. I couldn't lift her out, anyway she
was--cold. I went and called the state police, thought I should--"
"Did you talk again with Dr. Chalmers?"
"Yes, he was still on the back porch. I just said I'd called the police,
said I'd go back to the pond, way they told me. So I did."
Maud Welsh, Edith thought, might have loved Ann in whatever flustered
way she was capable of loving. For Edith the memory of Ann, met only
three or four times, hung suspended in the past like an antique picture:
something by Fragonard, say, in a frame of fussy gilt. Dainty, a bit
undernourished--Ann pestered herself with diets now and then--and
insipid. You couldn't quite imagine the angelic face distorted or
transfigured by extremes of passion, or wrinkled by thought. With no
overtone of spite, Callista had said once: "Ann isn't vain. I think she
likes to share her prettiness in a nice way, the way you'd share a box
of candy. She feels it was very pleasant of God to make her so pretty,
and so going to Mass and keeping confession up to date like a good bank
account, that's a matter of genuine gratitude as well as a sort of
spiritual hygiene."
"While you waited for the police you didn't move or change anything?"
"No, sir, I just sat there and prayed for her."
Most of the jurors looked vaguely gratified. The faces of Terence Mann
and Cecil Warner were politely blank as a church door on Monday morning.
Edith could not see Callista, for Warner leaning forward at that moment
shut her away. And T. J. Hunter at the prosecution's table was fumbling
at a plastic bag.
"Miss Welsh, do you identify these garments as those that Ann Doherty
was wearing when you found her body in the pond at Shanesville?"
"Yes, I--let me see the blouse again--yes, sir, I do."
"These stockings: can you identify them as the ones Mrs. Doherty was
wearing?"
"Well, I suppose--I mean, that type, they look so alike."
"I'm putting my hand in this one, the right. Here's the heel. Now as
near as I can manage it, my wrist is about where an anklebone would
come--does that help you?"
"Oh, the hole! Yes, it's the same."
"When you lifted the body part-way from the water, you saw a hole like
this one in the right stocking, correct?"
"Yes, I did."
"As a housekeeper, you know dressmaking and such things?"
"You could say so."
"Does anything about this hole strike you as unusual, peculiar?"
"It's not where you'd get a run. I can't see how you'd get it unless you
bumped or scraped your ankle across something."
"When you found the body, was this hole visible above the line of a
shoe, do you recall?"
"Oh--the right shoe was missing."
"Only the right one, you're sure?"
"Yes, she was wearing the left."
"This blue left slipper I'm now holding. Do you identify it?"
"Yes," said Maud Welsh, and fumbled at her face with a sodden
handkerchief, while Edith's gaze swung in futile desperation to study
the jury. Mrs. Kleinman was crying and, rather surprisingly, the cool
black-haired beauty Dolores Acevedo. _So could I._ Instead, Edith looked
down. She held away the irrelevant pathos of those garments on the
State's table, the mud-spotted frilly blouse, crumpled blue skirt and
jacket, the single water-streaked shoe, by contemplating the dark green
tweed suit that she herself was wearing. Less than perfect. Needed
pressing. A small spot, maybe watercolor paint, near the bottom of the
skirt (_well, hell!_)--but having thought of it this morning, she could
wear no other costume, for once last winter at the studio, in March or
February, Callista had glanced up and remarked apropos of nothing:
"Fact, I love that thing on you. Makes your thatch a sort of bonfire off
in the green woods." And seeing it when she entered the courtroom,
Callista had smiled.
"Miss Welsh, we'll go back to the evening of Sunday, August 16th, about
nine o'clock. Where were you then and what were you doing?"
"Setting out on the front porch. It was dark enough so I'd put my sewing
things aside some time before. I'd gone out there about eight, I guess,
when the light was still good. Usually do."
"Did you see or hear anything you particularly remember?"
"Didn't see anything special. Heard a car stop, on Walton Road, out of
sight of me behind the pines."
"Did you notice any glow from its headlights?"
"I don't think I did."
"Anything distinctive about the sound of that car?"
"Well, a buzzy thing, and of course I--"
"Was the motor shut off?"
"Not right away--oh, I remember something. A rattle, while the motor was
running, loose metal, like a license-plate or something."
Edith saw Callista lean to Warner for a quick whispered conference; Cal
seemed unexcited, but the Old Man was pleased. His back turned, Hunter
would have missed it.
"Motor not shut off right away--how long did it run?"
"A minute, maybe, before the car door opened and shut."
"Can you establish the time you heard that car stop?"
"Yes; ten minutes past nine. Looked at my watch. You see, I wondered if
the Chalmerses were expecting anyone, didn't think they were. Anyhow,
all the talk you hear about juvenile delinquents in parked cars,
naturally I--" her voice dwindled and came alive again briskly: "My
watch runs good."
"Did you hear any other sounds beyond the pines, or maybe in the grove,
after you heard that car door close?"
"No, not for half an hour."
"Is there an outside light on the Chalmers' front porch?"
"Yes, shines right down the driveway."
"Was it turned on that evening, and if so, when?"
"It was, about 9:40."
"Half an hour after the car stopped. Did you turn it on?"
"No. Herb, I mean Dr. Chalmers, came out on the porch about half past
nine. He was the one turned it on--not right away though."
"Well--the car door closed at 9:10, then no sounds from that direction
for half an hour. You did hear something then? If so, what?"
"Car door again, motor started, same buzzy noise, and then the car came
into the driveway--it had just the dimmer lights on, I remember--and
that's when Herb turned on the porch light. It was that little German
car of hers, and she--"
"A moment. You're positive of the car? You read the license plate, or
something like that?"
"No, sir, I never memorized her license number, but I knew the car, the
shape, and the maroon color. Anyhow C'lista herself was driving it, I
could see her face in the porch light, just as plain. Alone, she was."
"Did she call to you, or wave?"
"No, sir, just backed for the turn and scooted off again, direction of
Winchester."
"Was Dr. Chalmers standing in the porch light?"
"We were both in plain sight, Mr. Hunter. That porch light, it's real
bright, lights up everything."
"When had you last seen Callista Blake before that appearance in the
driveway Sunday evening?"
"Evening before. Saturday. She came out to the house, about 8:30."
"An ordinary visit?"
"You never knew what was ordinary for Callista."
"Your Honor, I must object--the patience of the defense is not
everlasting." Warner had risen; Edith could see the heavy tremor of his
thick hand on the back of his chair. "This kind of spiteful
side-remark--inexcusable."
"The witness's entire last remark will be stricken. Mr. Hunter?"
"Miss Welsh, just state briefly the circumstances of Callista Blake's
visit to Shanesville Saturday evening."
"Well, I was on the porch same as the other time. Mrs. Doherty'd come
over for some bacon--guess I said that. I wrapped some for her, then I
remembered I wanted to show her an embroidery piece I was doing. I'd
already taken my things out to the porch before she came. We went out
there, were setting there when C'lista drove up to the house alone,
walked right by us, not a word except to ask kind of sharp where her
mother was. Ann had spoken--you know, 'Hello, Callie!' or something like
that, but I don't believe C'lista answered her. Anyhow I told her, I
said I thought her mother was upstairs somewhere, and she went on in.
Slamming the door."
The defense can't object, Edith thought, because those are facts. That
was Callista, no use denying it: the often needlessly cruel abruptness,
indifference to social necessities, inability to suffer a fool with
patience. On that black evening Maud Welsh and Ann had not even been
fools, just harmless little people acting as usual at a time when
Callista was burning, a tigress with an arrow festering in her side. And
today, in smouldering cherished resentment, Maud Welsh was not harmless.
"Did you see Callista Blake again that evening?"
"No, went to my room before she left. I did hear her, talking to her
mother upstairs in a wild sort of way."
"Wild? Do you mean quarreling? Loud?"
"No, sir, I give C'lista credit, she was never one to raise her voice,
anyhow I wasn't eavesdropping, only Mrs. Chalmers' bedroom happens to be
right over the porch where I was. Ann had gone home then and I couldn't
help but hear her crying, Mrs. Chalmers I mean, and the stuff C'lista
was saying about forgive me this my virtue."
"Miss Welsh--"
"Which didn't make any sense, besides being no sort of way to talk to
her mother, only I wasn't eavesdropping."
Edith winced at the courtroom laughter. At any rate the nervous uproar,
quickly subdued by Judge Mann's gavel, was probably directed more at
Maud Welsh than Callista.
"Miss Welsh, we established that you were at the Chalmers house on
August 7th, ten days before Mrs. Doherty's death. Does any particular
event fix that date in your memory?"
"Picnic. The Chalmerses gave a picnic that afternoon."
"Informal?"
"Ayah. We do it three-four times every summer. Mostly friends of Herb's
from the college, but that one was more for Shanesville folks. Hot dogs,
hamburgers and like that. Croquet, pitching horse-shoes, badminton. Real
informal."
"Do you recall who was present, August 7th?"
"Yes. Mrs. Phelps Jason--she's our nearest neighbor except the Dohertys.
Mr. and Mrs. Wayne of Shanesville and their two kids Billy and Doris.
Billy's nine, Doris going-on-twelve. Mr. and Mrs. Doherty of course. Mr.
Judd drove out from Winchester. And C'lista did too."
"What time was the picnic?"
"From two in the afternoon to about five, five-thirty."
"Do you know when Callista Blake arrived?"
"Early, near two I think."
"When did she leave?"
"Didn't see her go. Noticed her car was gone at four-thirty."
"How was she dressed, if you recall?"
"Green blouse, brown skirt I think. Anyway I'm sure of the green blouse,
she was partial to it for some reason."
"Any special accessories that you recall?"
"Big shoulder-strap bag. I remember thinking how those things are sort
of out of style, but C'lista liked that one because it was roomy, she
could carry her field glasses in it. Partial to Nature and stuff like
that--bird watching."
"Did she have her field glasses that day?"
"Didn't see them, Mr. Hunter. Just the bag."
"Are there bushes, scrubs, likely places for birds or nests, near the
part of the grounds where you had that picnic?"
"Yes. Back of the lawn there's a flower garden, and beyond that a sort
of half-wild area. Things planted there that more or less take care of
themselves--ground-cover, perennials. Pair of catbirds nested there last
summer, likely others."
"Are you familiar with the perennials in that wild spot?"
"With some of them." Maud Welsh cleared her throat and swallowed.
"Day-lilies, myrtle--monkshood."
"You have seen monkshood growing there, with your own eyes?"
"Yes. Mrs. Chalmers pointed it out to me once, wondering if she ought to
keep it, spite of the pretty flower it has. Yes, it grows there--I mean
it did last August. Of course the police--"
"Yes, never mind that. On the afternoon of August 7th, did you see
Callista go into that wild garden?"
"I did."
"Was she then wearing that shoulder-strap bag?"
"She was."
"Was she alone?"
"Yes."
"How long did she remain there?"
"I don't know for certain. Half an hour later Mrs. Chalmers wanted her
to lend a hand with the grill. I called her. When she came--which she
didn't right away--it was from there."
"Was she still alone?"
Edith thought: _She is always alone, Mr. Hunter. Clinging to that fool
Jim Doherty, she was alone. The one time when she cried in my arms, she
was alone._
"She was alone."
"Your witness, Mr. Warner."
III
Judge Mann watched Cecil Warner approach the witness chair like an old
bull: heavy step, flaring nostrils, lowered head, eyes communicating
nothing but a brooding truculence. He halted ponderously, an old bull
arriving at the dubious barrier of a fence, and--just stood there. Judge
Mann's pencil drifted across the scratch pad in a rapid script not much
like his normal writing:
Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
He grew fully aware of the writing with a partly pleased astonishment:
almost a true dissociation. His brother Jack might be interested; he
would save the page. It must have been three years since he had last
read _Hamlet_.
He understood also, waiting out the darkness of Warner's silence, how
his own self might become a battleground. Why fool himself? It had
already become one. The deeper occasions of the battle, the relative
wrong and right, his true position within it, not clear. _More light!_
He had been assuming two nights ago, and less certainly last night, a
mental clarity he had not yet won. Then look at it this way: the
assumption had been a folly and a vanity and a failure in
self-appraisal; therefore dismiss it. Accept for the moment simply the
fact of inner conflict; and then what? His pencil hand stirred and
advanced:
Sit you down,
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff....
The conflict itself was no illusion. He could oblige his mind to draw
somewhat apart and provide illusive imagery for what was no illusion; an
imagery, sharp enough, from happenings fourteen years ago that had been
(in their time) no illusion. Northern Luzon, 1945: all they'd done that
night was drop a few daisy-cutters. Why should he remember that night
and not some of the livelier ones? Perhaps because his mind had been
rather detached then too, his body not much scared, not much concerned.
A darkened earth, flares, smoky glimpses more deceiving than dark,
thunder of .75's and mad red flight of tracers; long drone overhead of
the angry bug evading crossed searchlight swords, or trying to--too high
for flak; we hadn't got the poor bastard. And a sudden sense in
Sergeant Terence Mann of the medics, who shortly before had been annoyed
mostly at the interruption of a poker game with himself three bucks
ahead, of the humanly vast forces involved, the courage and hate and
fear and death and love with which the stars are not concerned at all.
Trying for the supply dump near Dagupan, all Joe had got was the
backside of a church and two buffalos. Above, behind, including all, a
sense of the flow of time that renders every victory and every defeat a
part of eternity. And every moment of compromise ...
"Miss Welsh, were you with the Chalmers family in 1951 when Dr. Herbert
Chalmers married Victoria Johnson Blake?"
"Yes."
"Did you attend the wedding?"
"I did." She was biting her words now, not chattering.
"In what month were they married?"
"July."
"When did you first meet the defendant, Callista Blake?"
"Guess it was August that year, 1951." Warner studied his shoes. "Well,
I _know_ it was, because C'lista was away in girls' camp while they went
on a honeymoon, me with the house on my hands--" she clamped her mouth
shut, glaring. Mann found it possible to be sorry for the woman.
Warner's massive pauses were tough on any witness.
Warner said at last, mildly: "Thank you." The back row idiot briefly
giggled. "Callista was not present at her mother's wedding?"
"Certainly wasn't."
"Why 'certainly,' Miss Welsh? She was eleven that year."
"Because you never knew when she'd throw a tantrum."
"You consider that unhappy children should not have tantrums?"
Hunter declared: "Improper question, if I ever heard one."
Mann thought: _Sorry, Bud!_ "The Court will rule it admissible in
cross-examination. Answer the question, Miss Welsh."
"Well, I don't know what she had to be unhappy about, with--"
"Miss Welsh, may I have a responsive answer to my question?"
"Haven't a notion what the question was all about."
"It may be too difficult. I withdraw it. You have known Miss Blake, by
sight that is, for eight years. During that time, has your relation with
her ever been cordial?"
"Naturally I tried to put up with--"
"I will repeat the question. During the eight years since 1951, has your
relation with Callista Blake ever been cordial?"
On the doodle-pad a freshly drawn bull contemplated a tiny
spinster--angular long skirt, hat with cherries, defensive umbrella. No
fence between her and the beast. Mann drew one, post-and-rail, the top
rail fallen. He felt rather proud of the bull: a fine solidity in the
foreshortened barrel body; grandeur and melancholy. He sketched in grass
and bending daisies to answer the curves of huge elongated scrotum and
ponderous sheath. In the right foreground he added a miniature rabbit
bundled up in a black gown. Cecil might enjoy the damned thing, on some
relaxed evening far in time from the present hour.
"I don't--I don't understand the question."
"Very well--I withdraw it. Is that wrist watch the one you were wearing
on the evening of last August 16th?"
"Yes."
"Does it have a luminous dial?"
"No, I don't want radium and things in my system."
"But last August 16th, in the deep twilight after nine o'clock, you
could easily read it?"
She smirked, recovering. "Lights were on in the living-room."
Judge Mann watched Hunter's faint smile appear and fade.
"Thank you for remembering that now, Miss Welsh. Is it your custom to
look at your watch when anything captures your interest?"
"I explained why I did that when I heard the car."
"Yes, you were concerned about juvenile delinquency."
"I didn't say that!"
"Why, I thought I heard a reference to the menace of juvenile
delinquents in parked cars."
"Oh, that--dare say I was thinking out loud."
"I see. Thank you. Had you other reasons to check the time?"
"Well, I wondered if the family was expecting C'lista, so I--"
"Miss Welsh, in direct testimony you said you wondered if the family was
expecting _anyone_, no names mentioned. Then you admitted this deep
concern about juvenile delinquents in parked cars. Now we learn the
family might have been expecting Callista. All three statements true?"
"Oh, what's all the fuss? I knew it was her car."
"But preferred not to say so in direct testimony. All right--how did you
know it was her car?"
"I _explained_ that. Loose license plate, and that buzzy noise."
"You did testify to hearing something like a loose license plate. You
didn't say Miss Blake's car had one."
"Well, it did, and I heard it."
"Miss Welsh, a hypothetical question. If, when the defense opens, you
learn that Miss Blake's Volkswagen had a garage check-up on Friday,
August 14th, and that the license-plate holder was repaired at that
time, would you, if recalled under oath, still claim you heard that
plate rattling on Sunday evening, August 16th?"
The passion of resentment simmering behind the woman's blinking eyes was
a kind of sickness. Once or twice she opened her lips without sound;
then: "All I got to say, it wasn't natural how men went crazy for
her--not even pretty--any man, garage man, anything in pants--"
Mann thought sharply: _Okay, that's torn it._ He saw Warner turn slowly,
facing the bench. "Your Honor, I respectfully request that this witness
be held in contempt of court."
Mann flipped the doodle-pad face down. He said: "There will be a
ten-minute recess. Counsel in chambers, please. The jury will remain."
Entering the dingy retreat off the courtroom, he was aware of T. J.
Hunter standing aside to let Warner precede him. "You don't want to toil
up to the sixth floor, do you? I suppose I could locate a nip of
something."
Warner said: "No, Judge, I'm too fat to ride that thing you call an
elevator. It busts, I'm liable for have-his-carcass."
"All right--shouldn't anyway. We'll settle for a smoke."
Warner sat down, an old man and weary, impersonally accepting the
impersonal courtesy when Hunter snapped a lighter for his cigarette. His
fat hand waved aside the curling fantasy of smoke between him and his
enemy. "Okay, T. J., I think you asked for it. Why couldn't you
establish _corpus delecti_ with Herb Chalmers? Could've, no sweat."
"Grab off a natural defense witness when I don't have to?"
"What makes you think I want Herb?"
Hunter chuckled and strolled to the window. "Just fishing."
Mann asked: "What's your view, T. J.?"
The back of Hunter's neck was calm. "Just among us girls, Welsh
certainly goofed. Honest, I sweated blood trying to give her the
rudiments of courtroom behavior. Seems it was mostly hooting down a
rain-barrel."
Warner said: "They goofed the same way over Joan of Arc."
Hunter swung around and exclaimed: "After all, Cecil!"
"No comparison between the principals," Warner said, "except age and
sex. You admire Joan? I don't, much. But there's an obvious parallel
between twentieth- and fifteenth-century attitudes toward the accused
maverick. Takes more than five hundred years for the human race to
learn anything important." His slow voice was acquiring a snarl. "You
know, T. J.--you know what the newspapers have been doing. Far as Welsh
is concerned, I don't care a fractionated brass-bound tinker's fart
whether she's held in contempt or not. I do care about keeping this
thing from turning into a witchcraft trial. I'm not sitting peaceful on
my fat ass, understand, while they turn my girl into a succubus."
Hunter said stiffly: "I think you could trust me to prevent any nonsense
of that kind." Warner studied him, dark eyes searching and sad in their
slightly yellowed and bloodshot fields of white. Hunter went on: "Your
hypothetical was a dilly, by the way. The defense introduces testimony
at this point? You want the State to pack up and go home?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Fine! You going to claim the Volkswagen wasn't there?"
Warner shook his head indifferently.
Mann said: "T. J., I still want your view, on Welsh. I'd be half minded
to throw the book, only I'm not sure Welsh is that important."
"Well, I don't think she is, Judge. But I'm sort of indifferent. The
facts of her testimony will remain with the jury, and that's all that
concerns me. The contempt thing--important to the Court, and to me as a
lawyer, but not so important to _People vs. Blake_."
"For a prosecutor," said Warner, "you're curiously frank, T. J. Now that
she's squeezed in her 'anything-in-pants' remark, you're content, you
can go fishing--that's what you're saying."
"Look here--"
Judge Mann struck the desk lightly with the flat of his hand. "Cecil, do
you have many more questions for her?"
"Not many, Judge. Ought to be done in a few minutes, before one o'clock
anyhow."
"Hope so--I'm unjudicially hungry and I'll be glad to see the last of
her. I'm not holding her in contempt, Cecil, unless she pulls another
one. It's not quite justified, I'm not even too sure of the ground,
and--" he rubbed out his cigarette, glancing at the somewhat frozen face
of T. J. Hunter--"I particularly don't want to make a martyr out of her.
Let's get back on the job."
Maud Welsh's rigid face told him the ten minutes of anticipation might
have been punishment enough. He had not intended that: merely a
courtroom happen-so. "Miss Welsh, contempt of court is a serious thing.
It must be, to preserve respect for law. For willfully disregarding the
instructions given you about limiting your answers and avoiding
prejudicial comments, you could, if this court so ordered, be severely
punished." _There she goes sniffling, and to some of the jury she'll
have the face of Mom._ "It is not the present intention of the Court to
hold you in contempt. You are being let off with a warning, for the last
time. Consider yourself fortunate. Mr. Warner?"
"Miss Welsh, I quote to you certain words: 'Assume a virtue if you have
it not.' Are those words familiar to you?"
Her streaked face glowing, perhaps with relief, Maud Welsh also looked
bewildered. "No--no, sir, I don't think so."
"Have you ever read Shakespeare's play _Hamlet_?"
"I'm sure we had it in school, but--" she smiled placatingly--"that's
quite a while. I never get the time to read much."
"Here are some other famous lines from the same source: 'Forgive me this
my virtue; for in the fatness of these pursy times virtue itself of vice
must pardon beg'--familiar?"
"That's what I heard C'lista say to her mother."
"Did you overhear anything else?"
"I wasn't eavesdropping, sir."
"You're not accused of it." Warner was speaking gently. "We're only
concerned with what you heard. Was there anything else?"
"Well, like I said, I heard Mrs. Chalmers crying."
"Can you be certain it wasn't her daughter you heard?"
"Yes. Their voices are mighty different."
"You had heard Mrs. Chalmers cry before?"
"Yes, sir, now and then."
"And Callista?"
"She never cried."
"Not even as a child, having tantrums?"
"No, she'd just go white and--walk away, or--is it all right to say
this?"
"Go ahead."
"Walk away, or sort of run away sometimes, I mean off into the woods or
like that, and practically have to be dragged home. I thought it
was--can I say this?--I don't want to say anything wrong, I--"
"Go ahead, Miss Welsh."
"Well, just--I thought it was real unnatural, that I never heard
Callista cry."
"No further questions."
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."
Mr. Clipp's hurt, astonished look inquired: _Is that all?_
Without rising, Warner asked: "You do front end alignment?"
"Well, no, sir, that calls for pretty tricky machinery. Still, the way
we're growing all the time--"
"Interior finish?"
"No, sir, that's mostly factory. Of course, in a pinch--"
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.
IV
The pavements throbbed with a golden, sometimes iridescent flame, which
could not deceive Cecil Warner, for he was not drunk. The time hadn't
come and never would when two bourbons on top of an average dinner could
make a fool of him. The dancing fire was nothing in the world but the
reflection of headlights on sidewalks wet with the return of winter
rain.
On his left a separate darkness kept pace with him, blotting out the
fire-ballet as he moved. _I cast a shadow. It is the nature of a man to
cast a shadow. This is done even by a few of the dead._
_No. 'Their works do follow after them'; but that's not shadow, except
by ill-advised figure of speech. That is what I shall term--(BAR AND
GRILL twenty paces ahead)--shall term the immortality of consequences,
of continuing events. Shadow's different. Shadow is the occlusion of
light rays by an impermeable mass, me for instance. Avoid all
ill-advised figures of speech. Go away, my love!_
He observed it was Hanlon's Bar and Grill, corner of Main and Willard,
damned if it wasn't--interesting, since he'd thought he was three blocks
further west. He advanced through the logical absurdity of a revolving
door. Quiet here tonight. He read the others at the bar in a practiced
glance: four nondescript males and a large platinum wench, all unknown.
He fumbled past his damp overcoat, drawing forth and consulting his thin
and ancient pocket watch of yellow gold. His inner vision recorded, as
always, the florid inscription he would see if his thumbnail opened the
hinged back of the case: _Ezra Allen Warner, 1880_. A gift from his
grandfather to his father, on the boy Ezra's graduation from college at
twenty-one. For the last thirty-odd years Cecil had not been able to
look on this delicate artifact without some dark stirring of the
thought: _I have no children._ The fantastically graceful hands declared
the present hour to be ten-thirty; they had been truth-tellers for
eighty years. "Evening, Tom. Bourbon and water."
"Sure enough, Mr. Warner. Raining again, isn't it?"
"A sprinkle. A certain piddling effort. Possibly the tears of the gods
are running thin in this latter age."
Tom's patient face was acknowledging him as a Character. "You could be
right." Tom would have absorbed every word on the Blake case that the
evening _Courier_ had to offer; adult, seasoned, sensitive, he wouldn't
mention it unless Warner did. He had even spoken Warner's name in a soft
tone that would not carry down the bar. He poured the bourbon, gave the
mahogany a needless swipe or two for friendship's sake in case the Old
Man wanted to talk, and drifted back to his post of command.
Two men, blurred by Warner's preoccupation, were discussing space flight
across the intervening blonde. Beyond them two others carried on an
argument that rose to audibility only now and then. The Old Man heard
and did not hear them; heard and did not hear the deeper counterpoint
within him.
Tomorrow, assuming tomorrow came, the attack would follow a different
line. Callista's adultery and deception, illustrative details by
courtesy of the neighbors and Nathaniel Judd, plus T.J.'s dreary
assertions and reassertions that the girl was being tried for nothing
but murder--perhaps T.J. could even manage to believe that himself, for
the duration. Callista's atheism; yes, almost certainly some one of the
State's witnesses would most casually drop in the word "atheist."
Protest, uproar, the Old Man scolding, T.J. doing a baritone solo on
religious tolerance; then the mockery (Terence himself would hate it) of
striking an answer from the record when no means existed to strike it
from the jurors' minds.
"It don't push against atmosphere up there, account there _isn't_ any."
"All right, I know that, but how _does_ it push, 's what I don't get?"
"No she didn't! She said, her exact words, 'you never knew what was
ordinary for Callista'--exact words."
"Were you there?"
"Hell no, like I told you, I couldn't get off from work, but the
_Courier_'s printing every word, so all you got to do is put two and
two--"
"--pushes against itself, see? The satellite _itself_ is the God-damn
resistance, like you're shooting a pistol, and the recoil--you ever
shoot a pistol?"
"Hate 'em. Sure way to get hurt."
Platinum said: "'S like this, Buck, what Sam's try'n'a tell you, you get
up 'ere in shpace, you just be'r not fart."
"Now, June," said bartender Tom, "you want to watch the talk."
"I di'n' say single thing."
"O_kay_, June baby, just watch it is all."
"What I mean is, everybody figures the girl is nuts, that old woman
Welsh and everybody. So what you're going to see, you're going to see an
insanity defense. It always happens--"
"No sumbishn barkeep's telling me how talk."
"June baby, I keep telling you--"
"Happens every time. She'll be put away a few years, and then let out,
do it all over again, like--"
"Only thing I'm try'n'a find out, what does it push against _behind_?"
"I'm beginning to think it's no use try'n'a explain it to you."
"Tom!"
"Hell, like a poisoner _always_ does! You want to bet? Happened a
million times. I read a book--"
"Tom!"
"Yeah? You better not have any more, June."
"Don't _want_ any more--not why I called you. Just wanted say, 'm sorry
'f anything I said gave 'fense. None 'tended. All's I want's everybody
be happy."
_But the defense_--
"Sure, June, that's okay."
"'S my whole life right 'ere, see? Ask anybody knows me."
"O_kay_, June!"
_The defense never rests._
"Okay he says, he keeps saying okay, Jesus Christ, you ought to listen
I'm telling you, not just keep saying okay, okay. Ever since I was
little girl, honest, all's I ever wanted was everybody be happy."
4
... O how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
SHAKESPEARE, _Sonnet CXLVIII_
I
Thought of work had halted Edith's aimless wandering on the
Christmas-spattered evening streets downtown. Now the drawing table and
empty chair in her studio brought Callista poignantly close in absence.
How arrogantly, like a beloved child, Callista had captured her life!
Window-shopping with no heart for it, necessary gifts already bought,
she had become fed up with Winchester, noise, people, sidewalk grit
flung by the wind; with gaudy lights desperately imitating good cheer,
drizzle-nosed bell-ringers and Santa Clauses, carols once pretty now
done to death, fed up with crowd faces till she recoiled from them as
from a rat-race of tragic masks.
Getting off the bus--she seldom used her car downtown, hating the
struggle of searching out a parking space--her skirt was twitched up by
the breeze for the lech of a pair of whistling teen-agers. Edith had
been dourly amused. _Try looking at the face some time, kids!_--and the
mood kept with her as far as her third floor walkup on Hallam Street.
The hour was nine-thirty, Papa Doorn just closing his delicatessen on
the ground floor, giving her a gentle "Good night, Miss Nolan!"
No mail but a swatch of ads drenched in the season's gladness, and the
janitor would never provide a wastebasket in the entry. She dumped the
mess in the studio trash-box, glancing at the cameras, screens, props,
at the dim end of the studio. A fantastic way to earn a living, close to
the mainstream of human vanity. But at this end, with the north light,
wall-shelves, drawing table, work could be done after survival was taken
care of. Callista's work for a year, and Edith's own. The
bread-and-butter end of the studio was already dusty. Edith had canceled
portrait engagements for the duration of the trial, disinclined to hire
a temporary helper: why knock oneself out immortalizing the fish-faced?
She touched the table, symbolic touching of a hardness-without-coldness
that was one element of Callista Blake. _Stop it, Red! She's not here._
She took down a folder of Callista's drawings--some careful, some swift,
all begotten of a mind that could see, laugh, pity, understand. Also in
that folder was a letter Callista had written after Edith's last visit
to the detention cell, Saturday, three days ago. Edith knew the
drawings. She would find nothing new in them now, when she was out of
temper and moved by a wish to start some work of her own. Glance at that
abandoned wagon in long grass? Or the supermarket clerk, homely day's
end weariness caught in a dozen lines with that compassion of Callista's
(at nineteen!) which she could almost never convey in spoken words? Not
now. Edith glanced at a watercolor on the wall, one she had taken from
Cal's apartment for safety with Herb Chalmers' distracted consent and
after the police had given leave. A mountain slope, a wind-ravished
pine, shouting deep color against a storm sky intense with the power of
two worlds, the world of life and growth and dying before Callista's
eyes, and the world of Callista's most observing self.
Off in her living-room the telephone rang. Edith ran for it. The voice
was slurred, uncertain. "Miss Nolan--Edith--all evening trying to get
you. Jim Doherty--now please don't hang up."
"Of course I won't." She tried not to snap. "What is it?"
"Had to ask you something." He was rather drunk. "May seem unreason'ble,
guess you hate me anyhow, but--"
"I won't hang up. I don't hate you. What is it, Jim?"
"Maybe wouldn't blame you. You feel I let her down. Feel I'm an enemy or
something--sorry--not what I'm trying to say--" She waited, watching her
thin white fingers play with a pencil from the telephone table, a
pinpoint of perception somehow important, as if it kept her distressed
and startled mind from swirling away down the telephone mouthpiece like
water down the hole of a handbasin. She heard a beat of mechanical
music; Jim would be in a bar, the booth shut against a squalling of
radio or television. The large-boned, dark-Irish face would be pale with
alcohol, filmed with sweat, black hair disordered, wide mouth talking
against its own unwillingness. Dark eyes rigid, unfocused, behind them
Jim's own image of a crackpot redhead who was Callista's friend. He was
a tall man; the stingy crannies of the booth would bother his legs. An
impressive young stallion: any woman felt that much, and one could
(sometimes) see why Callista--"Edith, what happened there, before
adjournment? I've got to know. I sort of lost track, then they were
taking her away. What--"
"You didn't hear what she said?"
"No, that's it, I didn't. I was praying--well, for her, though I suppose
that doesn't mean anything to you, no offense, anyway I--"
"Didn't your friend hear what she said?"
"My--oh, you mean Father Bland. No, he didn't."
"Is he deaf?"
"Yes, a little." She heard the righteous reproach; it must have done
Jim good to put her in the wrong. "What did she say?"
"She said: 'Go away, my love!'"
He would be still there. She heard breathing, and the background noise,
a hot trumpet squeaking up the summits of banality. She said: "Jim, do
you still love her at all?"
But how could she know the color of the word in his language? How was he
to glimpse the meanings of it in her own? If even Sam Grainger couldn't
quite admit that divergence of language long ago (_my own language far
simpler then!_) if not even Sam (_where are you?_) then how could poor
Jim Doherty who had no wish to think for himself?
"What else did she say?" Hadn't Jim heard the idiot question?
It seemed to her the question had been divided, an echo-voice asking of
another with another name: _Sam (where are you?) do you still love her
(the name was Red-Top, remember?) or think of her at all?_
Meanwhile--"She said nothing else, Jim, nothing I heard."
"Oh. I--look, I never told her--I mean--oh, _I_ don't know. I--" Edith
held the receiver further away with its wiry babble of misery: "I tried
to make her understand--that part, all in her head--she--"
"She fell in love with what she wanted you to be."
"What? No, you're wrong, she _wasn't_ in love with me."
"That's what I meant, Jim. She loved an image, not a man. Only, there
was a--" (_Edith, stop! Don't say it!_)--"a tangible male involved in it
too, who happened to get her pregnant."
"I--can't go for that psychological stuff. She's over eighteen. Well, I
know, you can beat me over the head with the pregnancy if you want to,
but since it wasn't God's will that it should live, what can I do?"
"What she said, perhaps." She heard her own voice electric, hurting in
her ears. "If she were still carrying it, what _would_ you do? That
would be wages of sin, I guess? The way it was God's will you should try
out a virgin for variety, or kicks? Or did you just feel that if an
unconventional, unreligious girl wasn't a whore she ought to be?"
"I shouldn't have called. God forgive you."
Edith set the instrument down. The trembling would presently stop.
Overcharge of adrenalin, stupid physical need to slash again, with
claws. She fumbled a cigarette from the box by the telephone. Anyway Jim
would not call back. He'd rest on the dignity of his last word, which
Father Bland would have approved.
Sam Grainger was in the world, somewhere. Married probably, with one of
the symphonies, teaching. His myriad hours of violin and oboe practice,
piano, harmony, counterpoint, all had been aiming at that. The violin
for preference, oboe because good violinists are numerous. With
affection that had never perished, Edith thought: _What Sam wants, Sam
earns and gets._ She noticed she was thinking in the present tense. Fair
enough: it would still be true. Sam Grainger would still be a man
dedicated and absorbed, immune to discouragement, too big for
distractions. He had not been too seriously distracted by an affair with
a redheaded art student. So what has become of the old brownstone front,
shabby-sacred rooms, thready hole in the rug, genially silly print of
"The Storm"--Mrs. Cardle considered that one real nice for anyone that
was artistic-like--and the bed that mysteriously didn't squeak if you
lay across it instead of lengthwise? What stills the music, and where
are the green shadows of Arcadia?
The rooms would have accepted the whispering and secret laughter of a
crowd of lovers in seven years, all giggling at sad, vague, moral Mrs.
Cardle and that grayish lump of dough, her husband, whose thick delirium
of hate for the antique coal furnace in the basement was very nearly a
form of love. You saw the Cardles dealing with an ebb and flow of
Boston lodgers world without end. But they could have been human and
mortal; the brownstone could have yielded to a flat-faced office
building. If it had not, though, the center flagstone of the rear yard
would look the same in a sluice of rain, the crack in it like the
junction of Ohio and Mississippi, seen by young eyes from the window of
the third floor back.
One gray afternoon--Edith's room dim, the curtains adequate--they had
stood naked near that window to watch Mrs. Cardle trying to teach her
old round-bellied bulldog to roll over and play dead. Behind closed eyes
and seven years, Edith felt again Sam's chin at her shoulder, shiver of
held-in laughter at the dog's patient refusal to understand and its
resemblance to Mr. Cardle; Sam's arm under her breasts moving, she
turning then, clutching his black curls in mimic savagery, twisting free
of him, racing him to the bed, caught with welcome violence and sudden
entering thrust, violently held through a long course of love, an animal
riot of pleasure carrying them together to the height, to the moment
when the heart must break and die a little, the explosion of not-pain,
the blindness and the quiet. And the quiet: summit of a hillside, also
homely truth of two bodies in the aftermath of orgasm, each
comic-serious detail of throbbing and subsiding organs felt, known,
recorded in the mind's continuing life history with acceptance,
tenderness, satisfaction, relief, amusement, wonder. Kissing him slowly
in the quiet, kissing the hard-tipped fingers of his left hand, fine
bony rib cage and knotty shoulders, the lifetime red mark printed under
his jawbone by the violin, his other love. And--"_Time I should get back
to work, Red-Top._"
Edith had been jealous, in a way, yet she had never knowingly desired to
cut him down to size or usurp the government of his private world. And
surely there had been cause to resent his indifference toward her own
work, ambition, oriented dreaming. Not indifference: call it lack of
awareness. As on that heartbreak evening when she had taken down Mrs.
Cardle's "Storm" and replaced it with a darktoned watercolor, a Nolan
original and, in her judgment, good.
He never saw it.
When he slipped into her room he had not seemed much preoccupied with
his own studies; he just looked at the watercolor and didn't see it.
Cheerful, until her darkening hopelessly unreasonable mood infected him.
When the quarrel began, over something else, some damned side issue now
blanked out of memory, he still didn't see the picture.
That quarrel was patched up the next night, in bed. There were others.
The essential trust of two-against-the-world was gone: in the darkness
behind daily perception two strangers still winced and glared,
astonished at the wounds. Drift then, from radiance to near-commonplace,
above the organ-point of things unsaid.
In the summer after the school year, Sam had written, once; Edith had
answered, twice. End of affair. Yielding to a long assault of cancer,
Edith's mother died that summer. An emptiness then, plus discouragement
with art school that kept her from going back. Instead she had taken a
commercial course in photography, her dazed but practical father
approving and footing the bill. The following summer, a purposeful
wandering in Amy the Model A (a cantankerously good little heap even now
in 1959), remembering more clearly than any other conversation what her
father had said before she left: "Look, Skinnay, you marry or work at
something you like, or just loaf a while and raise hell, but don't turn
into a dutiful daughter taking care of the old man." Shoving aside a
heap of paper work brought home--the old man was a C.P.A. and a good
one--and turning up to her the bald head, moon face, tenderly sarcastic
eyes. "Don't do that, or I will turn you over my knee, and your fanny,
dearest, is not fat enough to sustain the impact. The old man takes care
of himself." A purposeful wandering, for that summer she had surely
been looking for something more than a place that would do for a
photographic studio; looking for maturity perhaps. Then Winchester, the
investment paying off in adequate survival, plus a bit of freedom. No
more letters to Sam: end of affair, diminuendo to an imperfect cadence
dissonant with the organ-point, the only resolution silence.
_What did we think we were doing? I was fighting to be a person? Or just
to make Sam admit I must sometimes be person first, sweetheart second? A
lot of the time I was just damn well fighting ..._ Deep inside, very
likely, the daughter of earth had been weighing consequences, a simpler
Eve murmuring of home, nest, security, advantages of snaring a good man
when there was one to be had.
_My first, my only, which for a warmblooded redhead is absurd,
gentlemen, no argument._ What happens? Why this other drift that for
some of us, many of us, extends from months into years of accepting
dullness and the erosion of daily demands, waiting for the rainbow blaze
that may never appear, the heart knowing all the time that there's only
one life and not much time to live it? Edith fidgeted, angry at the
introspection itself, at the fatigue or laziness that held her in this
armchair when some other part of her honestly wanted to get up and go to
work. _O wind-sweet valley of Arcadia--remember me?_
She noticed the chill, and got up then with a flounce of irritation.
Caught by Jim's telephone call, she had not yet turned up the heat for
the Burrow. Maybe she wouldn't bother. Turn it up in the studio, leave
the Burrow cool for bedtime. _Get to work! Or try to._
Dust filmed the fireplace mantel. In a half-light beyond the bedroom
doorway, yesterday's panties gaped lewdly from the seat of a chair. She
must have been seduced by some clever idea when she was on the point of
tossing them in the laundry bag. At least she had made the bed. _Too
much alone, small Edith._ She remembered with a wrench of pain that
early last August Cal had just about agreed to give up her apartment and
come share this one. _August_--Edith carried her coat into the bedroom,
hung it properly, stuffed the offending panties away.
If Callista and Jim could have spoken each other's languages?
_Proposition absurd._ Callista groping out of the jungle of an ugly
childhood, Jim living (till Ann died anyway) according to surface
impulses and ready-made directives of social and religious
authority--no, there could have been no conversation. _What ailed her,
going overboard for that bundle of bad luck?_ Call it chance. Swept away
by need, nearness, charm of a prepossessing male; maybe unknowingly
goaded in spite of herself by the dithering emphasis of American culture
on sexual activity as the end, cure, meaning for everything:
luv-luv-luv. And Jim no more "to blame" than she. As much an accident as
falling downstairs.
A gust rattled the bedroom window and hummed across chimney-tops and
died. _Go away, my love!_
Edith changed out of the green suit into a cherished dingy blue
bathrobe. In the bureau mirror she glimpsed her own color and motion.
Clear sky-blue eyes would hold that color a lifetime, though the irises
would some day blur at the rims, the vision would not remain 20-20, lids
would crinkle, brows turn sandy-gray, then white. Grooves in the
forehead would deepen, and the brackets at nose and mouth. Red hair must
whiten--quickly, one could hope, without streaks. That smoothness from
small chin down a slim neck to the collar of Venus with no sag or
wrinkle at thirty-one--well. Already crowding her luck a bit there;
pretty Ann Doherty, for all her needless dieting, had been starting a
tiny double chin at twenty-six. The bathrobe unbelted allowed a gleam of
small breasts neat and high, jaunty and delicate, red-tipped like white
peonies. _Fun for somebody, going to waste--are you listening, bitch in
the manger?_ Her finger tapped the unsmiling woman in the glass, and
she was stricken by thought of another face, also far from the
conventional norms of beauty.
They used a hood, didn't they, electrodes concealed by an intolerable
obscenity of black rubber?
_No thought is finished until the thinker dies, then only blotted out,
the death rattle a throat-clearing for what's not to be said. Mother,
the morphine not helping yet, certain she'd left something on the stove
to boil over, couldn't convince her. For thought is action. What's this,
Edith? Philosophy A, Radcliffe, Class of '48 and all that?_
All the same, she reflected, it _is_ action, and the hell with Plato the
Father of Half-Truths. So why wonder that an earlier self becomes a
creature of mystery? Where was the cross thin woman who talked sharply
to Jim Doherty a few minutes ago? You say: It was one I who thought and
acted thus and so; now I am not what I was, but I inherit any continuing
good and bad and all responsibility: if I don't clean up after the
person I left behind, nobody else will. That was the thorny passage, the
truth too easily blurred.
Yet only a few, she thought, could endure the concept of mind-as-motion.
By contrast, how apparently solid and comfortable are the absolutes,
static symbols, devices of everyday talk to create the illusion of a
stillness in time, so that we can draw breath and feel for a moment that
we know who we are! In a ship you can stay below, avoid the portholes,
ignore the long rise and fall as the vessel encounters a rolling of the
sea, and pretend your cabin is a landside thing: fine woodwork, carpet,
all that, and if now and then you do feel a throb of engines or tilting
of the world, why, Captain God's on the bridge and will see to
everything. And yet it doesn't take too much courage to go stand at the
bow and discover the wind in your face: a child can do it; a grown-up
can recognize the captain as skilled but humanly mortal.
Edith crossed the hall to the studio, where cool light on the drawing
table waited like a reminder of courage. She took out Callista's
letter, carefully as though the pages were drawings, and the large light
handwriting did have some of that quality, Callista's hand refusing to
waver at any disturbance of her thought:
Dear Edith:
It was good to be with you, though I was unpleasant, ridding myself
of accumulated venom. I can't safely talk in my worst way to anyone
else--Cecil is too vulnerable. And I miscalculated, thought we had
more time, was about to shut up and hear you (what I wanted above
all) but then time up, opportunity gone.
Don't try to cut the red tape for another visit after the trial
opens. When I see you now I think too much, in spite of you, of
what I may lose. The work, freedom, gaiety, good talk I never heard
till I met you. I'd better keep my shell until this is over, I seem
to need it. Stay away just because I do cherish you. Dear Edith,
I'm sickened to remember how I talked this afternoon--but maybe it
won't end the way my present mood says it will. A mood is only part
of a journey--you said that to me once, now I keep the words with
me.
Cecil came to see me after you left--he looks ill, Edith. Does poor
old Mrs. Wilks really do enough about looking after him? Look--I
tried to tell him more about Mother and Herb, and the Saturday
night uproar with Mother that I described to you. Give him more of
that, will you? I made a botch of telling him, I suppose because I
love him, my mind wouldn't focus on my own mess. How does it happen
(C. let it slip) that Herb is meeting so many of the incidental
expenses when I said so damn plain it was to come out of my money
from Father's estate? Please try to find out, will you?
I can't think straight any more tonight. I slop off into self-pity,
lose track altogether. I don't believe human beings are _adequate_
for this kind of thing, Edith, I know I'm not anyway. You heard me
whimper once, only once. Alone, I do a good deal of that, friend, I
can't help it--hermit crab's a soft blob of nothing-much inside the
borrowed shell. I'm no Latimer sticking his hand in the fire. Not
even jailed for a Cause, just want to live. I don't know what love
is either, but now and then I wonder if anyone ever knew more about
it than I do.
My love to you,
Callista
II
Terence Mann stopped playing, tense with a dissonance of perplexity. A
wrong time and mood for Chopin: his hands had been dull in the C-sharp
Minor Impromptu. No music now, but an impulsive sorrow of December wind
leaning against the building in the dark. "_Callista never cried._"
To Maud Welsh, that had been "real unnatural." Judge Mann did not find
it so. Self-pity was not evident as a quality of Callista Blake.
He understood with almost amused distress that he _liked_ the girl.
That, plus old dislike for the representative of her accuser the State:
how far can you go with such a bias before the judicial lid blows off?
He remembered doubtfully a talk with Joe Bass the evening
before--anything more than a flurry of wishful thinking? Increase of
humanitarianism in the last century and a half? Well, social history
agreed, if you read it with some detachment from the immediate terrors
of the decade. And the increase could hardly be ignored or dismissed
except by someone bitterly in love with his own pessimism. Modern
postwar pessimism, although a cult like any other, was persuasive,
deceptively articulate. Something contagious in a comprehensive
the-hell-with-it.
Social history made it clear that capital punishment had dwindled in
frequency from a common public entertainment to something almost rare.
The states still practicing it gave evidence of official shame, or at
least of a schizophrenic need to serve two contraries, to appease the
recurrent vengefulness of their multitudes but also to hide the dirty
thing, tacitly apologize, soften its most visible nastiness in the hope
that conscience would shut up and sleep again. Such a condition would be
preliminary to change. Like tuberculosis and venereal disease, capital
punishment was on the way out but going out in the manner of things
legal, with dreary and creeping slowness. Wasn't that how he had
reasoned two years ago, when his name was up in the election more or
less unopposed? Or had he honestly faced it at all?
Hadn't he simply regarded a judgeship as mostly useful work and $18,000
a year? And hadn't he accepted, without enough examination, the doctrine
that a judge is only an instrument of something greater than himself? An
instrument of _what_ something, greater than himself _in what way_? The
questions projected themselves beyond the cloud-curtain of mysticism.
But it seemed to Judge Mann that unless they could receive a daylight
answer, the doctrine itself was solemn nonsense.
Imagining Society with a capital S to be greater than the individual--no
answer there, only a more opaque mysticism. The mental construction
"Society" is an achievement of the individual brain, an organ that had
better not be too dazzled by products of its own authorship.
The issue of capital punishment had been bound to arise. _I knew the
laws. I knew that New Essex was no more free than any other state from
crime and the balancing crime of punishment._
From an unseeing stare at the carpet, his head jerked up as if at the
entrance of another. _Balancing crime of punishment_: he had been
thinking in specific words, talking to a half-personalized projection of
the self, and the words had power to startle him.
It was a commonplace to Terence Mann that punishment itself is an
archaic evil in the law. As special prosecutor, as defense lawyer on a
few occasions, in the relatively clean region of civil law, he had tried
to favor any reorientation of thought and action that might discredit
punishment as a respected motivation and replace it by efforts at
healing and reclamation. As a judge, familiar with the endless parade of
minor offenders (most of them with no chance of redemption, for where in
the modern state was there a sufficient will to redeem even the young,
or the time, patience, money, wisdom, to implement it?), Judge Mann had
been aware of no impulse in himself to punish, only of a desire to
lessen disorder, and try for the long view. And then, Callista Blake.
But--_balancing crime of punishment_: well, there it was simply his own
unexpected rephrasing of the issue that had startled him. Apart from
that, if that was significant, this self-castigation probably served no
purpose.
Fashionable but without merit, to wail that we are all guilty. So we
are, in a sense, and (unless one intends to do something about it) so
what? Breast-beating is as solitary as any other form of
masturbation. The modern spirit, he thought, for a long time before
Hiroshima, had grown too fond of the wail, the masochistic acceptance of
futility that ended in a downright enjoyment of it, a perversion as
sterile as the antics of the louse-eaten monks of the Thebaid. Admit
that two years ago he might not have been completely honest with
himself. All right: what mattered now was that a slow broadening of
reform might look very fine in the armchair perspective of a history
book, but was no use at all to Callista Blake, nineteen years old.
Capital punishment was on the way out, taking her along with it.
Therefore in the very present specific instance: _What to do?_
Wandering to the other side of the room, fingering the stacks of sheet
music and the bound volumes, Judge Mann reflected that a judgeship is a
very damned comfortable thing, to the nerves of pocketbook and of
vanity, until a moment of self-appraisal brings you the image of a
bewildered monkey in a black gown. An image caught as though in multiple
mirrors. No good turning your head aside: a mirror in every wall, and
the monkey, poor puzzled well-meaning bastard, in every mirror.
He did not want now the fury or grief or laughter of Beethoven; not now
the lofty tenderness or robust passion of Johannes Brahms. He took down
his one-volume edition of the _Well-Tempered Clavichord_ and glanced at
a memory-stirring litter of pencil marks made long ago in the curly
script of his teacher Michael Brooks. Mr. Brooks had died before the
war, very old and partly blind. He might live another hundred years in
these marks, far longer in the spreading influence of his fifty years of
teaching, the impetus he gave to other lives continuing beyond any
knowledge or measuring. _Very good, Terence!... More slow trill practice
absolutely essential!! Andante does not mean Adagio. In this Prelude
schmaltz is possible but I do not like it. Excellent but you could do
better. Bring out the inner voices._
Mr. Brooks grew vivid in memory, speaking with difficulty and panting
breath because of age and the burden of fat that seemed (till you
learned better) as though it might block his pudgy improbable hands away
from the keyboard entirely. He had been seventy when Terence at age
eight began lessons; he went on teaching twelve years thereafter.
Terence remembered the gray eyes, tiny-appearing, sometimes inflamed, in
folds of drooping lids and fat, the completely hairless skull rising to
a peak, the wondrously ugly features that after the first impact of
astonishment left the word "ugly" without meaning. "You think the Fugues
are dry, Terence? Bring out the inner voices.... See, Terence, all the
composers have something for you. But when you are unhappy--" blinking,
sighing, coughing; and Terence recalled a child's botheration, dread of
giggles, at an old man's prolonged throat-clearing, guttural noises,
conversational spray, habit of patting forlornly at the air when a
needed word was gone from him--"or when you have discovered that
happiness is only a sometime thing at best, not too important, then try
Bach, Terence, try Bach. Because he will let you enter a place where you
become bigger than sadness or happiness. And bring out the inner
voices."
He set the old book on the piano. Hands and brain were tired, the hour
late, though the neighboring apartment-dwellers were tolerant and often
kept their mechanical music perking until after midnight. For a while he
was in that place: _Well, Mr. Brooks, "container and thing contained":
aren't we always bigger than what stirs within us? All the same it was a
good way to talk to a child._ But the very facility of his hands
betrayed him, leaving his mind too free. Good at first, to continue
private thought while Bach was speaking, but then only another
troublesome dividing of the self.
Terence's father, not a patient man, would have said at this point or
sooner: "God-sake, Terry, make up your mind!"
He would have said that, before 1928. In that year Father changed. And
maybe the gray and harassed man could have entertained doubts earlier in
his life on such an issue as capital punishment. He didn't have a closed
or ungenerous mind; he couldn't afford to, a small-town doctor with two
skittish growing boys and a wife who came to believe herself in deep
other-worldly communication with Mary Queen of Scots. But many of
Father's opinions were formed when he was a young man in the era of
Teddy Roosevelt, and he didn't always remember to speak softly. Unlike
his older brother Uncle Norden, who must have early learned the
advantages of speaking softly at great length--anyhow Uncle Nord built
up that accomplishment into a thundering good law practice.
Father (before 1928) would likely have said if you asked him that
criminals so hardened as to commit murder--oh, put 'em out. For the good
of society. Human failures: the unfit--odd word much loved by the
nineteenth century, used apparently in a sort of gentleman's agreement
that no one was going to ask: unfit for what? Father would not have
spoken so out of vindictiveness or lack of human feeling: just the
impatient judgment of a busy man with troubles of his own, who accepted
a number of antique notions because he grew up with them. That few
hardened criminals ever commit murder, that most murderers have acted on
a blinding impulse unlikely to recur--such facts would have been outside
his mental territory, and unacceptable. Knowledge of what Father would
have said was for Terence a bloodstream thing, no longer traceable to
any remembered words. Like most people including doctors, Dr. Carl Mann
had never witnessed an execution, nor known anyone well who wound up in
jail. Gentlemen don't.
After Elinor Mann's final breakdown and commitment, Father no longer
announced his views with much positiveness. In that year 1928 the bottom
fell out; Dr. Mann couldn't even get positive about Al Smith, in spite
of a long-standing rage at the imbecilities of Prohibition. When not
meeting the heavy demands of a country medical practice, he was beating
out heart and brain in a private crucifixion, asking himself the wrong
questions: _What could I have done differently? Where did I fail her?_
As though a clarification of his own past might even then help to
restore Elinor's mind, that had never really tolerated the difficulties
of living before it made permanent retreat into the smoke of paranoid
fantasy.
Terence's hands fell away from the piano, leaving the third Fugue
unfinished. How had he arrived at contemplation of that time-eroded
grief? The subject was Callista Blake, not Elinor Mann.
Who still lived, if you could call it that, in the curiously ordered
world of yellow brick and manicured lawns that was Claiborne Hospital.
She was seventy-eight this year, clouded by senility along with the
psychosis. She recognized Terence on his visits, listening or seeming
to, usually with patiently closed eyes, as he toiled to create a
conversation.
Jack, successful in his own psychiatric practice, had more difficulty
when he drove or flew from Boston to see her. Thirty-one years ago the
cobwebs of her delusions had wrapped themselves inextricably around the
life of the elder son, four years older than Terence and at that time
in his Junior year at Harvard. Her voices (many others along with that
of Mary Queen of Scots) had informed her that Jack was increasingly
involved with gangsters and women of ill fame. The college authorities
and, for some never-explained reason, Mayor Jimmy Walker, were all in it
together. When she was on the point of going up to Cambridge to deal
with all that, Dr. Carl Mann, goaded at last into understanding, said
no. She flung an inkwell in his face and gouged it with a pair of
scissors; though he was fairly muscular and she was not, it required the
help of his office nurse to restrain her. Most of that was over, the
dust settling, when Terence, sixteen years old, got home from school.
Now in her antiquity the sorrows, fantasies, and angers of the past were
still preserved for her by the specialized, selective memory of the
schizophrenic, flies in amber. A year ago, Terence and Jack visiting her
together, she told Terence that she could easily have forgiven poor Jack
if he had lived. Then it came out, in a natural, pleasantly quiet
conversation, that the slim gray-haired man sitting over there was
nothing but a body, stolen for no good purpose by the unclean spirit of
Henry VIII. Later, at the airport, Jack remarked: "Psychiatrically
speaking it may be a poor symptom, but don't mind it, Terry. I'll make
out all right as hell-fire Harry Tudor. Less of a strain than some of my
other roles."
"Beyond psychiatry, isn't it?"
"If you mean beyond effective therapy, yes, boy." "Boy" from Jack was
acceptable--always had been. "It was beyond existing therapy thirty
years ago." Jack also counted years. "We just don't know the score on
paranoid schizophrenia. We know approximately what to expect, which is
something maybe. Mental disease could be the last holdout among medical
enigmas, Terry. We may be sweating out cases like Mother's when there's
a pill or a shot for cancer. It's the--oh, the inaccessibility of mental
action." Jack had been tired, but not remote; fatigue never dulled a
shining quality of his alertness. "Wait till you get some big case in
court with a borderline paranoid as a star performer."
That conversation of a year ago had been hampered, Jack waiting on the
start of his plane flight back to Boston; no leisure, bustling
strangers, time pressure, uproar of loudspeakers and warming engines.
Was it relevant now? Callista Blake a borderline paranoid? Rather
urgently and emphatically, Judge Mann thought: _No, she's not._
Psychiatry more or less stood in the wings, in _People vs. Blake_. The
State's man called her legally sane. If he hadn't, the State would have
had no trouble shopping around for someone who did. Warner had had the
girl examined by a Dr. Coburn, who might or might not testify; so far
Warner had dropped no hint suggesting an insanity defense.
Inaccessibility of mental action: that was relevant. Dominantly. For
wasn't that the very essence of the principle of "reasonable doubt"? And
was there any rational formula anywhere in the law, except the principle
of reasonable doubt, at all likely to save Callista Blake?
_Must see Jack again, soon._ He looked out on the city's darkness past a
false curtain of window-glass reflection; a city of magic under a lens
of illusion, as long ago in the creaky white-pillared house in
Emmetville where he grew up he used to look out from the bedroom he
shared with Jack, at images that would not live by day. Especially on
rainy nights the vacant lot on the other side of Maple Street became for
the boy transfigured, a garden of living shadows; sometimes, under the
lash of wet wind, even the sea as Conrad and Melville had given the sea
to him. In winter, leaves fallen, one could look past the few naked
trees at the back of the lot, to a gleam of water a mile away, Walton
Pond reflecting the motion and glitter of the railroad yard on its far
side. Every night at 9:25, the ghostly passage of a fourteen-car express
(to Terence and Jack, The Express)--one of the great trains that
couldn't be imagined as stopping at Emmetville. You did not hear its
thunder, only saw the silent gliding of windows; then thirty seconds
after the vanishing came the desolate splendor of the whistle crying for
a grade crossing, the night imperfect until that music had fulfilled its
mission and died. _See him again; and bring out the inner voices._
The once vacant lot was now occupied in front by a filling station, in
the rear by a drive-in theater; as a passion-pit, that probably served
on a mass-production basis the same purpose once served by the vacant
lot, where he and Jack occasionally discovered and snickered at the
discarded rubber, stained handkerchiefs, and other detritus of hasty
lechery. As for the gracious white house, where Terence had once known
every spot, every squeaky board and dim hideaway in closets and under
the eaves, it now belonged to someone who had made it a Tourist Home
with noxious plastic animals on the front lawn, and called it Tumble
Inn. So perish treasures of the spirit, to be born elsewhere in other
guise, perhaps.
And he remembered the evening after his mother's commitment was made
definite. Jack had been home for several days, his presence helpful in
the confusion, the curious desolation like and not like a death; Jack
would be returning to college in the morning. Terence had gone to bed;
Jack was about to, lazily delaying. "How honest shall we get, Terry? Are
you, inside of you, relieved? I am." Half undressed, Jack stood over
Terence's bed, smoking, in ever-observant kindness.
"I guess I am."
"Bad, the last few months?"
"Each day a bit stickier. The moods. No--no way of _talking_ to her.
Every remark turned upside down. Like trying to see a room in a twisty
mirror.... Jack--"
"What, kid?"
"Does it mean we shouldn't marry?"
"No." His brother's quiet hand waved away smoke from between them, and
the question too. "It's probably not hereditary. Anyway your children
get half the endowment from _their_ mother. Marry a mattress type,
Terry, brains optional. No, come to think, you couldn't get along with a
clothhead. Make it a mattress type _with_ gray cells; they do exist.
Might have to hunt around a little. Testing mattresses." Jack sat down
and spread his left hand light and warm on Terence's chest, frowning off
at the window, saying to it: "Got a kid brother with social conscience
yet."
It was, at sixteen, the first time Terence had encountered the full
revelation of love for another, seeing that other as a complete human
being all the more beloved for his separateness. He said only: "Not
hereditary--how can you be sure, Jack?"
"Nobody's sure--just the best educated guess. I saw this coming more
than a year ago. Had to study into the thing for my own sake, Terry:
books, talk with one of the Psycho faculty up there who seems to be able
to tell his ass from a barrel of flour, useful accomplishment. I had to
answer that question you asked, and others. Like for instance asking a
character I saw in the mirror: How about you, Jack, you going that way
too one of these days? Studying it seemed to be the only method of
meeting it head on."
"That why you switched to premed courses this year?"
"Partly. Would've anyhow, I think. Mother's brains began to get hurt and
kicked around when she was small, I think--but not by the genes. Wish
we'd known Grandpa and Grandma Kane. They seem to have been a lovely
pair of pious frauds, probably started raping her wits as soon as she
could talk. Uh-huh, Terry, I've got every intention of marrying and
plowing a few seeds into that interesting furrow. You will too, my
guess."
Terence had felt then a hunger to talk bawdy and blow the lid off in
words; wondered also if he would cry, because of the secret inner fire
that held no name in the language: happiness was not the name, and the
new-discovered love for his brother was only a part of it, an opening
of a door. "Got something all lined up?"
"Nope--playing the field. A premarriage elective. Technical studies, how
to tease down the most drawers with the least squawk." He said that with
no leer but a mild pagan amusement already far removed from the idiom of
Emmetville. (As it turned out, Jack went on playing the field quite a
while, not marrying till he was thirty-nine; in his terms that probably
made sense too.) "You haven't tried it yet, Terry?"
The sixteen-year-old Terence flushed unhappily and shook his head on the
pillow, wishing there had been a hundred experiences, suppressing an
impulse to invent a few. But Jack wasn't dismissing him back to
childhood. Jack said: "I hear tell, and ancient memories within this
senile bosom do confirm, that in every well-conducted high school there
is at least one--how shall I put it with utmost delicacy?--at least one
kitty with an available pussy. Or two, or three." He grinned and took
his hand away. "Relax, boy. There's no rush." As he finished undressing
with his unfussy neatness, he asked: "Remember Cassie Ferguson, in my
class?"
"Cassie--black hair, skinny, lot of eyebrow. Well well."
"Did the quiet, you-be-damn manner fool you? The ones who put out for
the joy of it don't make much noise about it. Cassie was very very good
for me. More tricks than a monkey on a greased flagpole." Jack turned
out the light and sat on his own bed for a final cigarette; he said
softly, recalling childhood: "We missed The Express. Did she blow?"
"She blew, she blew ..."
"Good night, Terence Mann."
He turned from the window, from the lights of Winchester. He ran the
blunted tip of a thin finger along the edge of the piano's raised leaf,
a motion of affection: another friend. A friend not exactly left behind
when he went to law school, but--
It seemed to Judge Mann that his present way of existence, compared to
that of, say, Michael Brooks, was not very successful, important, or
useful to others. A majority of his countrymen would assess it
differently of course: Mr. Brooks, never a concert performer even when
young--poor health, no presence, no glamor--why, the old boy probably
did well to make three thousand a year, if that. Obviously the bitch
goddess wouldn't have looked twice.
He wondered (not long) why the thought of another face, familiar and
vigorously detested, should have crowded away the cherished ugly
features of Mr. Brooks. This face was a handsomely carved block of
chilly pink meat under white hair. High falcon nose, flexible lips that
squeezed a manifest delight out of elaborately precise diction. Words
did not simply pass through the lips of Judge Cleever: they were
escorted out, by a pair of busy pale red snakes, the only organs of the
man's face that ever knew emotion. The lips writhed, twisted, enjoyed,
were sickly passionate: "that you be taken hence to the place from which
you came, and thence, at the appointed time, to the place of execution,
where--" but give the dreary old cannibal credit, the apparatus under
that raptorial beak would squirm with the same enthusiasm when it was
ordering a poached egg. The pallid blue eyes of this pillar of society
were astonishingly dull. Cleever was an earnest prohibitionist: no
drink, no smoking, no cussing, likely hadn't been laid in thirty years,
yet you could observe similar eyes whenever the drunk tank yielded its
human load to the courts and hospitals. To learn of an original thought
behind those soggy irises would be nearly as incredible as to learn of a
generous one. Cleever had been a judge since the days of the political
machine preceding Timmy Flack's, into his present miasmic twilight of
senility. Automatically, in a new trial, if Terence Mann were for any
reason disqualified, he would sit in judgment on the life of Callista
Blake.
_Thanks, Judge, thanks to your obscene simulacrum for reminding me of
several things I must not do._ Terence Mann flexed his hands to relieve
a tension; then he played the third Fugue, to completion this time, and
well enough. Mr. Brooks would have rubbed his fleshy nose and said:
"Mmm."
Then he was compulsively searching through a pile of long unused
material, until he unearthed the beginner's book, the first-grade
instruction prescribed by Michael Brooks. He remembered insisting, eight
years old, that he must pick out the book personally, so off to Simms'
Music Store in Winchester with the tickled, slightly bumbling Doctor,
who knew everybody and took occasion to introduce him to the lantern jaw
and slow-motion smile of Hubert Q. Simms; and embarrassed the
toe-twisting bejesus out of the boy with some well-meant cockadoodle
about "latest threat to Josef Hofmann." Then four blocks down Court
Street to (Terence hadn't quite believed it) Judson's Piano Store. This
same piano now standing here thirty-nine years later, rather old as such
things go but good as new. The Doctor's way, taking such a plunge out of
nothing but faith in a small boy's dream. Probably that year he'd been
just barely able to afford it. _He should have lived another forty._
But Dr. Carl Mann, in the early winter of 1930, not drunk for he never
was, a blue ugliness of ink still visible in the long seam of scar
tissue across his face, his financial affairs well in order--in fact
very little hurt by the smash of 1929, for country people still got sick
and still paid for it as well as they could--and the night cloudy, yes,
but no rain or ice on the roads, happened somehow to drive his car into
the concrete abutment of the railroad overpass at Pritchett. His only
unkindness the matter of uncertainty. It could easily have been a
syncope as the coroner decided, or a mechanical failure of the car
concealed by the total smash. Or the Doctor might have been uncertain
himself, up to the last blind instant of no return.
Here anyway was the instruction book, pages gone brown at the rims, and
with the script of Michael Brooks. _Eyes on the notes! Get rid of that
shoulder-arm tension!!_
Judge Mann carried it to the armchair, with a go-to-bed glass of brandy.
Not all those careful fingerings had been written in by Mr. Brooks. The
last half of the manual (he had forgotten) had quite a few figures in an
eight-or nine-year-old hand (correct too!) placed there after he had got
by the first few hurdles with his enthusiasm still afire. The book would
be more or less out of date, Judge Mann reflected: modern pedagogy had
new notions, some good, some not.
He wondered if he was examining this relic from a middle-aged need to
get nearer somehow in time to the mind of Callista Blake. Partly, maybe.
Certainly the dignified black notes before his eyes, the passages of the
third Fugue remembered, The Express, the first discovery of _Huck Finn_,
_Moby Dick_, Beethoven Opus 57, the embrace of a Filipino girl whose
body was a little golden candle flame--certainly none of all that had
the effect of shutting away Callista Blake. She was very present.
("_Which is the Clerk?_") But more than anything else, here at the
frayed, tired, lonely end of the evening, he was wondering--practically
too, and with the special fascination of such practical problems--how he
would go about helping a child beginner to free the fourth finger,
strengthen the fifth, accomplish the small-immense passage from the
five-finger cage to the wide-open country of the octave. And he found
that he meant just that: how _he_ would do it, he, Terence Mann, age
forty-seven, not merely Judge of the Court of General Sessions in and
for the County of Winchester, but also a pianist of more than decent
competence.
If in the habit of speaking aloud in loneliness, he supposed he could
have said reasonably to the imagined presence of Callista beyond the
bright amber of the brandy: _Not now, not while your life is proposed
for burning, Callista. But afterward, maybe. Afterward. Possibly a
letter to the New Essex Bar Association, explaining how for me the law
has been an interlude of a quarter-century, and interesting, but now I
would rather attempt something that I find more important. Which would
annoy the holy hell out of them, Callista, but all the same I may write
it._
A curious thought which he took to bed; sleeping quite soon, to
encounter the inner voices of sleep, with moments of tranquillity.
III
She saw it behind her eyelids, a small cloud but deep, suddenly come,
suddenly gone. The light strengthened; there was the rock, and a
whiteness in the water. _How could you know, Callista, that she was
dead?_
She had, as usual, dared to move her cot nearer the wall with the barred
door and the graffiti, so that if she crouched at that end of the cot a
triangle of shadow protected her from the glare of the naked bulb in the
corridor. Matron Kowalski on night duty had a habit of turning that
light off and on at chancy intervals after midnight. Regulations
probably said it should burn steadily, but Kowalski was a zealous screw
when not deep in a comic book, and doubtless hoped to catch her charges
in bottomless wickedness by playing cute with the switch. Short-sighted
as well as thick-witted, Kowalski had apparently never caught on to
Callista's crime of moving the cot. Callista generally tried to retrieve
the sin before Matron Flannery came on in the morning, though whenever
she forgot, Flannery just looked sad and grumbled: "Now dearie, we gotta
put that back where it belongs or it's my arse." And sometimes even
shoved it back herself with a heave of a massive thigh.
Interesting but maybe unprofitable, to contrast that kindness with the
satisfaction Flannery had shown a week ago in disciplining a shouting
and clawing wench who didn't want to go downstairs. Flannery had caught
the girl from behind with an arm like a side of beef, in the pattern of
rape, a stiff block of finger jabbing at nerve clusters here and there,
leaving no mark. And if Callista Blake the Weird Woman, Cold Callie the
Monkshood Girl, were to create a disturbance, Flannery would be ready,
would spread her flat feet and grunt in the same way, like a boar in
rut, in the interest of law and order.
"I want more heat, I want more foodibles. I want more heat, I want more
foodibles." The old woman down the corridor had been silent a while, the
interval like the recession of a toothache. Hearing her resume, Callista
dropped her face on her knees, listening more or less. Listening is an
act of living. Listening, the human unit can at least say: I am not
dead, I am here, I can prove it, the current of life is dancing in the
delicate nerves, the brain recording, comparing, remembering--understand,
I am not dead!
"I want more heat, I want more foodibles." She sounded plaintive at the
moment, harping on a single string, a note in it much resembling
enjoyment. The name was Watson; the nearly baritone voice brought the
image of a body shriveled and small, crowding seventy perhaps. "I want
more heat, I want more foodibles." Watson must have been picked up
Sunday as a D&D, Callista supposed, raising hell somewhere in the chilly
streets until somebody called the wagon. She couldn't be drunk now, two
nights later, but the noise continued unchanged. She didn't belong here
of course. "Ya-_hoo_! Kiss my cold aching ass, you dirty-dirty-dirty--all
rise! All rise! I want more heat, I want more foodibles." Sooner or
later the fumbling dustmop of the law would pick her up, shake her out
into a different sort of institution. Or back to the streets and
whatever dim hole of a room she lived in--with small possessions? Old
photographs? Sewing-basket? Rocking-chair? "All rise!"
"You Watson, you shaddap." The voice of Kowalski.
"Fuck you, Polack, I want more heat, I want more foodibles."
"Listen here, you don't shaddap, I'm coming in there again."
"Yah!" Weary, diminuendo, but not actually a sound of yielding. Silence
followed, as dust settles after an eddy of wind.
Callista tried to review the course of the day, long in retrospect. Maud
Welsh all morning. Sergeant Shields, sober, exact, not unkind: four
bobby pins and a paper clip. Sergeant Peterson a bleached mechanism for
the production of not very good photographs, including one of the rock
and the pond by daylight, not the light of a troubled and hazy moon.
Trooper Curtis, plaster casts and fingerprints and so what? Sutherland
R. Clipp who did everything. Trooper Carlo San Giorgio the nice boy. And
Dr. Devens. None of them except Maud Welsh had remained very long on the
stand; Cecil who understood the nature of the conflict had let most of
them pass by with little or no questioning. Callista found she was
remembering too mechanically; names and faces would not coalesce to any
rationally useful larger pattern. Yet at some point--she thought it was
during the testimony of Cousin Maud--something had been done or said
that had lessened the opacity of the Blank, like a hint of dawn or false
dawn beyond a dirty window.
Or was it anything done or said? Cousin Maud of the Plum Jam understood
nothing of the interview with Ann at Covent Street, a happening far
outside the cage where the life of Cousin Maud fluttered and squeaked.
Perhaps this was the way of it: during the examination of Cousin Maud
the Blank had thinned temporarily, of itself; a coincidence in time,
maybe nothing to do with any word spoken. Probably during the
cross-examination, when Cecil was questioning Maud about the Saturday
night, the bedroom scene--_A sorry Hamlet I made!_
"Fuck your stinking jail too! We got rights, Polack. You ain't saving
the taxpayers nothing, we all die of pee-neumo-nia, they gotta pay for a
box. Listen, I been flang out of better jails before you was old enough
to shove a finger up it. I want more heat, I want--"
Callista winced at the smack of Kowalski's feet passing her cell. She
heard the clash of keys, clang of the iron door, high anticipatory
whimpering (still that note of enjoyment?) broken off by the crack of a
flat hand against flesh, repeated and repeated, Callista's body
clenching in misery at each repetition of the sound, her scream of
protest choked into silence by a bitten lip. _They can't! Stop it!_ But
it had happened the same way last night, would happen again and again,
maybe always, here and there in the world, throughout the extent of
foreseeable time: how long is that? Callista's fingernails were hurting
her legs. Her mind held firm somewhere, listening.
Watson wasn't yelling much. She hadn't last night either, only a small
rhythmic outcry. Mouse in a trap. "You gonna quiet down now?"
"Uh-huh. I'm sorry, Kowalski."
"Mrs. Kowalski."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Kowalski. Gi' me a butt."
"This ain't no charity ward." Anger spent, Kowalski probably just wanted
to get back to her comic book. "Nor you ain't no psycho, you're putting
on to get attention, beat the rap for what you done wit' your busted
bottle. All the jerks on Mullen Street, you had to stick it into
plain-clo'es cop. That was crazy, but now you're crazy like a fox. You
know that t'ing punt'red his intestyne? Still in hospital, and that
ain't good news for you, Crazy-like-a-fox."
Watson giggled. "Couldn't he'p it, he wasn't nothing head to foot on'y
one big turd. Gi' me a butt. Just one, huh, please?"
"God give me patience!" That noise of Kowalski's was mechanical, a kind
of breathing, blurred by the iron clang. Callista was standing by her
own cell door. "Matron--"
Kowalski's square bulk swung about, her flat face slipping into shadow
as her head turned from the light. "You, huh?"
"Will you take her a pack of mine? I don't use 'em much."
"Got plenty, huh?"
"Yes." Callista held the pack through the bars. Kowalski made no move to
take it. "I'd like her to have it."
"You'd like.... You feel pretty big, don't you, _Miss_ Blake? You feel
real big wit' them cigarettes. I t'ought we was just dirt, now
everyt'ing's okay, you can bend low 'n' give an old woman a pack of your
butts." She held her voice down; Watson was mumbling and crooning to
herself, perhaps not listening. "Maybe it wouldn't occur to you, _Miss_
Blake, but that old trot's got pride. She ain't lickin' up no at'eist
prisoner's dirty leavings. Me neither. Miss Blake, I wouldn't touch you
not by a ten-foot pole." Callista saw thumb and forefinger of the
woman's hand pinched in a circle at the shelf of her breasts. Her soft
tones had lost distinctness, slipping back into the vaguer argot of a
South Winchester childhood. "Ain't comin' in 'ere, not 'less Sheriff or
somebody gives me direc' order, you can drop dead. You ain't human,
you're a stinkin' t'ing, you can hang yourself I won't go in, leave you
for Flannery to find by the morning."
Callista put the cigarettes away and sat on her cot gazing at interlaced
fingers, trying (as if the time allowed were not short but the need
urgent) to grasp the nature of hatred, especially in this new guise.
Kowalski had not displayed it before, had seemed only an indifferent
mechanism busy with her job. It occurred to Callista that she herself
must have been shamefully unobservant. Did others unsuspectedly ache
with this kind of loathing for her? T. J. Hunter? Cousin Maud? Jim?
_Why?_
"I guess you don't talk, you can't be bod'ered."
"No, Mrs. Kowalski, I'd rather not talk."
"Oh, you'd rather not. Much too good to talk to a dumb Polack. Let me
tell you somet'ing, Miss Blake, what they do after they pull the switch
in that little room--what they do, they take out the heart, doing the
oddopsy, understand? No matter you got lots of money, 'r' gonna be
buried fancy somewheres, they take out the heart. They got a reason. All
right, you don't talk."
Kowalski stood there a while longer, exercising great courage perhaps,
or having faith in the cold iron of the bars. Then Callista sensed that
the woman had gone away. _I will think about the night of Saturday, the
15th of August._
Cousin Maud must have been telling the truth about that episode on the
front porch. Callista could not remember seeing or hearing Ann then, but
Cousin Maud would not have lied.
How unmistakably the bedroom was Mother's! Nothing there of Herb, who
slept at the far end of the upstairs hall in a room Mother indulgently
called "his den," as one might refer to a cat's favorite basket. Well,
the entire house merely tolerated Herb Chalmers, who after all did
nothing except own it, pay taxes and upkeep, and exist there. _Poor
Herb! If only he wasn't so inclined to agree with that estimate
himself!_ By contrast, the spook of The Professor, the great Malachi
Chalmers so respectably dead, was quite at home. Cousin Maud liked to
behave as though all major directives were announced jointly by The
Professor and Victoria.
The room smelled of Victoria, a scent resembling dilute vinegar now and
then penetrating the ordinary flavor of sachet and face powder. That
night, without asking, Callista knew her mother had been sitting for
some time at the antique secretary desk, dealing with correspondence of
the Thursday Society of Shanesville. And Victoria, after her
absent-minded greeting, would go on sitting there preoccupied, long
enough to make the point. "I'm sorry I didn't know you planned to come
out tonight, dear."
"No plan--impulse. I wanted to talk to you, Mother."
"Oh, something terribly important? Well, dear, just make yourself
comfortable till I'm through here and we'll have a nice little visit."
Callista stood near the desk, where Victoria must at least be aware of
her. "I wish you would sit down, Callista. It is a little trying to be
stared at when one is attempting to concentrate."
"Sorry. But I wasn't staring at you, Mother." That was true. Her mind,
too swiftly to be caught in the act, had generated an image perhaps well
worth staring at: a thing approximately sixty days old (for it must have
been conceived in the deep middle days of June) possessing a bent head
larger than the blob of body, stubs with a blind intent to become legs
and arms; a thing charged with the strain and pressure of life, and yet
finger and thumb (if they could reach it) might pinch it out of
existence like a soft bug: _Mrs. Chalmers' grandchild_. Callista's hand,
driven by involuntary thought, dropped to rest at the level of her womb
where the thing sheltered inaccessible--whether a motion of hostility or
protectiveness or both, impossible to say; and Mother would never
notice. "I was staring at something that happened a long time ago. You
may not remember it. I wanted to find out if you did."
Resignedly, Victoria capped her pen and laid it on the unfinished
letter; took off her amber-rimmed reading glasses and retired them
deliberately to their case. "Callista, I must say that for anyone so
young this habit of mulling over past events is not healthy, not the way
to become adjusted to reality."
"I know, Mother. I'm not in tune with the times, am I?"
"If you realize it, I dare say that's a step in advance."
"What," said Callista, "is the virtue of being in tune with the times
when the times are corrupt?"
"Callista, I am rather tired. Must we have one of your--your rather
naïve philosophical discussions? All part of the process of adjustment I
dare say, but frankly I am not up to it."
The big questions, Callista thought, always break the line and swim
away. Too big, and a weak line; who wants the great dangerous things
anyhow? Not Mrs. Chalmers nor the Thursday Society. "Mother, do you
happen to remember the time I spilled that nitric acid?"
"Happen to remember! Callista, that passes belief." Large gray upturned
eyes filled with tears. "I am not a monster. Am I?"
"I'm sorry, I spoke clumsily. I meant, do you remember the details? I
was going-on-five--it's difficult--"
"What details? Naturally I remember them all perfectly. What do you want
to know?" The sharpness was excusable; yet Callista wondered whether she
truly regretted the cruelty of that blurted question. Hamlet, Act III,
Scene 4--she had reread the play in the afternoon. A catalytic action,
although it had been a seemingly random choice, a turning to Shakespeare
for relief, illumination, distraction, and something more, in a time of
trouble, as another might have turned to music, or physical exertion, or
the warmth of a friend. Her thought still rang with it, reverberated,
and she understood now that the choice had not been random at all: "_Let
me be cruel, not unnatural: I will speak daggers to her, but use none._"
"Your father was drunk, Callista, otherwise I don't suppose even he
could have been so heedless as to leave that bottle where a child could
knock it over. Is that what you wanted to know?"
"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
It is indeed some Excuse to be mad with the greater Part of
Mankind.
ERASMUS, _Colloquies_
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--"
"Well," said the Judge crisply, "did Miss Blake become abusive, or
scream, cry, talk irrationally or too loud or too fast, anything like
that?"
"No, your Honor, none of those things, not at all."
"Did she seem confused, inattentive to what you said or unable to
understand it?"
"No, your Honor. Very cool and self-possessed, really. I had--if I might
put it this way--I had an impression that she was deliberately talking
over my head--that I didn't understand some of the things she said
because I wasn't meant to."
"Do you mean her answers were unresponsive, unconnected with the
questions you asked?"
"No, not quite that, your Honor. Well, I recall one thing, after she
broke the aquarium heater and we exchanged those remarks about--about
killing beautiful things. I said to her: 'Look, Miss Blake, if they
decide to arrest you, surely you've got some friend who would have
looked after that aquarium for you while you're away.' Now it's my
recollection that I said that in a perfectly friendly, kindly way--I
certainly had no wish to make things hard for her--but Miss Blake said:
'A spring morning can't be warmed up in the oven.' Well, I wouldn't know
whether a head--whether a psychiatrist would call that an irrational
reply or not. I just didn't think it made much sense."
"I see. Go on, Mr. Hunter."
"Did anything else significant happen before Chief Gage arrived?"
"I think not, sir. Nothing I remember. I didn't think I was getting
anywhere trying to talk with her, so for the last five or ten minutes we
just sat there waiting for the others to come."
"Yeah," Callista said under her breath, "we just sat there." She leaned
a little against Cecil's shoulder, weary, suddenly desiring sleep above
all things, yet touched and curiously disturbed by the Old Man's
harmless, rather pleasant smell of shaving lotion, soap, tobacco.
Drowsily she thought: _He's really nothing like my father._
"What happened, in your presence, after Chief Gage and the others
arrived at Miss Blake's apartment?"
"Well, Miss Blake was briefly questioned by Chief Gage and yourself. It
covered the same things I'd talked about with her. She was asked by
Chief Gage about a photograph and a couple of letters that I found in a
desk in her bedroom."
"She was not at that time under arrest, was she?"
"No, sir, she was not. I recall that Chief Gage quite formally asked her
permission to look around the apartment, and she gave it."
"Please describe those items, the photograph and the letters."
"The photograph was a snapshot of a man in swimming trunks, taken at
some beach or other, and the name 'Jimmy' was written on the back--just
the name, nothing else. One of the letters, dated July 5, 1959, was
signed 'J', and Miss Blake, when shown it, identified it as one written
to her by Mr. James Doherty of Shanesville. The other one, bearing no
date and not signed--in fact not finished--was identified by Miss Blake
as one that she had started to write to Mr. Doherty, but had never
mailed."
"Was Miss Blake questioned about those letters, there at her apartment?"
"Not much then, sir. She identified Mr. Doherty as the husband of the
Mrs. Doherty who had been found dead in Shanesville. Chief Gage asked
her to explain the relation between herself and Mr. Doherty, and she
said without any show of emotion--with a shrug, as a matter of fact--she
said: 'Oh, he was my sweetheart for a little while, a summertime
amusement.'"
She saw T. J. Hunter, relaxed and thoughtful, walk to the prosecution's
table and spend a weary time standing there, brooding at the small
papers he had taken up. Callista closed her eyes. "If it please the
Court, I will offer these two letters and photograph for admission in
evidence, but, if they are accepted, I will have the letters read to the
jury somewhat later, to make a more orderly presentation. For the
present I merely wish to establish their identification by Sergeant
Rankin."
The deep voice by her shoulder remarked: "I will ask to see them." _Do
you have to go over there, Cecil?_ Then Callista was aware of a small
but unaccountable lapse of time, for Cecil was already by the
prosecution's table glaring morosely at little scraps of paper, his
bushed eyebrows in a clench, while T. J. Hunter stood by politely, hands
in his pockets. Had she fallen asleep sitting up? Was it possible for an
accused witch to do that in a court of law? _Oh, likely had something to
attend to, and took off on my broomstick--well, sure, a mission, three
times around the Shanesville house casting a spell to curdle Cousin
Maud's plum jam, and high time too--it merely slipped my mind--how'd I
manage without a cat?_ She saw the Old Man's shoulder sag and stiffen.
It was cut and dried, he had told her: the letters would go in, mostly
because he hoped to gain more than lose by them, when there was a chance
for the defense to interpret them. This present show of examining them
was what he called legal window-dressing. She saw him make some quick
_sotto voce_ comment, his face savagely disgusted, an aside that no one
but T. J. Hunter could hear. Hunter flushed all the way up his bald
forehead; the flush passed, leaving no sign of anger. Then Cecil spoke
in his courtroom voice, smoothly, a tone of indifference close to
contempt: "The defense will not protest the admission of these
documents."
_How could I have slept?_ Cecil was returning. _Apparently no one
noticed--a minor accomplishment of necromancy--I just toss these things
off, you know._ Some mumbling and talking over yonder, as she felt the
return of Cecil's warmth, and took hold of his hand, though he was
really nothing like her father. Yes, Rankin, identifying the silly
things. _Poor Jim, spelled "relinquish" r-e-l-i-n-q-u-e-s-h. E for
effort._ "Cecil, what did you say to the rising young lawyer that turned
him pink?"
He looked at her doubtfully, not smiling. "I said the prosecution must
be running out of keyholes."
"Maybe you touched a childhood trauma."
"His childhood be damned," the Old Man grumbled. "He's still a snotnose
pulling the wings off flies, as a profession."
"I decline to be compared to a house-fly."
"Shut up, dear. I've got to listen again."
"Sergeant, after Miss Blake's admission that James Doherty had been her
lover, was she questioned any further, there at her apartment?"
"No, sir. Chief Gage informed her that she would be detained for
questioning. She made no protest. Accompanied by yourself, Mr. Hunter, I
took her in a police car direct to Mr. Lamson's office, in this
building."
"Was she questioned there, in your presence?"
"Yes, sir, mainly by Mr. Lamson. My recollection is that the others
present were yourself, Chief Gage, Miss Wallingford--that's Mr. Lamson's
secretary--who made a stenographic record of the interrogation, and
Sergeant Shields of the State Police, who was present only a part of the
time, a few minutes."
"Did Miss Blake sign anything during that interview at Mr. Lamson's
office, while you were present?"
"She did, sir. The stenographic record of the interrogation was typed by
Miss Wallingford. Miss Blake then read it, and signed it--signed the
written statement that the answers given by her and recorded in the
transcript were true to the best of her knowledge and belief. Her
signature was witnessed by Mr. Lamson and yourself, and Mr. Lamson
requested me to read and initial the pages of the typescript, which I
did."
"If it please the Court--" and Cecil was gone again, looming over
yonder, examining the pages, large ones this time, impressive legal
size. More window-dressing. But discussion was longer; she grew
inattentive in her drowsiness. She heard Hunter remark that the
transcript would be read after cross-examination of Sergeant Rankin--if,
said the bald polite man with the shovel chin, Mr. Warner elected to
cross-examine. Cecil grunted. A side-bar huddle followed that. Some of
the time she knew her eyelids had drooped, hiding her in a murmurous
partial darkness; some of the time she was watching, with an abstract
friendliness and faraway approval, the thoughtful and still puzzled
features of Judge Terence Mann. _I can't explain it either, Judge.
According to my own biased notions, I'm not mad, at least no more than
my old buddy Hamlet, who also had a mother. Gets complicated there,
because Hamlet was decidedly male, I think, any side up, while I'm every
inch a wench. Ask Rankin. You see_--
It disturbed her, to reflect how little any of those present would ever
know about her. They looked at her; anyway their eyes did. In a few days
they would hear her talk from that dizzy isolation of the witness stand;
anyway their ears would register certain sounds. Already through the
testimony their mental vision (imperfect, cloudy, variously preoccupied)
had watched her squeaking grass-blades with the Wayne kids, snapping at
poor Cousin Maud on the front porch. They had seen her (through the fogs
and excitements of their own scrambled sexual histories) caught in that
slow frenzy--(_wearing a blouse_)--on the divan in Jim's office, under
the glazed smirk of an "art"-calendar nude. _Who were you then,
Callista?--what were you then?_ They had seen her, guilty or innocent,
standing by black water, under hemlocks, under a hazy moon.
But they did not know her.
They could not communicate with the inner spectator-participator. It had
needed nineteen years to create the Monkshood Girl, a short time, yet
to the jurors, the Judge, Cecil, even to Edith, the nineteen years
amounted to an infinite complexity never to be explored. They could not
watch the golden kitten Bonnie, nor Aunt Cora. They could not learn of
the young discoveries: language, music; endless expansion of the visible
world as her hand acquired certain powers of dealing with line and color
and mass or began to acquire it. They had no vision for the dreams of
her sleep, or the waking dreams.
Ann Doherty, inarticulate Jim, mysteries quite as obscure. _What do you
think you know about Ann, gentlemen? Cute, blonde, and married: isn't
that about as far as you go?_
_We are not what you see, we people who look at you out of clever
photographs in the paper at your breakfast tables. When you burn the
image you have created you burn the true self also, but you cannot know
that self. I am here with you, and captured, and maybe you ought to fear
me as you do, but I am not what you suppose._
III
He met the flat patient stare of Sergeant Lloyd Rankin, which indicated
a readiness like that of a dog who will not attack unless provoked. Say
a Boxer: Rankin was built like that, and would fight in a Boxer's style,
with single-minded courage closely akin to stupidity.
He saw T. J. Hunter seated at the prosecution's table and turned partly
away from the witness chair, making a show of rereading that transcript
of Callista's ordeal. T.J. would be listening to the cross-examination,
and sharply; but Cecil Warner had to admit that the show of bored
indifference was quite as expert as anything he could have managed
himself. This silence had lasted long enough, or too long; he heard
fidgeting in the back rows; he could not spend any more time gloomily
viewing Rankin's Boxer jaws.
"Sergeant Rankin, when Miss Blake realized she would be under
suspicion, you asked her--I think these were your words--you asked her
who she thought would believe a story like hers. Correct?--that's your
recollection of what you said?"
"Yes, sir, I think I put it that way."
"Meaning, I suppose, that you didn't believe her story yourself?"
"No, sir--I mean no, I didn't believe it."
"Did you suggest that she ought to change her story?"
"Oh, I told her--more than once, I guess--that she ought to tell the
truth about it, that she'd get a better break if she did."
"A better break. Those were your words, 'a better break'?"
He noticed a dim flush on Rankin's heavy cheeks, some flicker of doubt
or uneasiness in chilly gray eyes. Rankin could have no way of knowing
how much Callista might have told. "Yes, I think that was how I put it,
Mr. Warner. She seemed to be expecting me to believe it, and--"
"But she replied: 'Who knows what anyone believes?'"
"Yes."
"And asked then if you were going to arrest her?"
"She did, and I told her that would be up to my superiors, not me."
"This conversation took place in the kitchenette, after she had taken
you out there and shown you the brandy bottle, and volunteered her
account which you preferred not to believe?"
"It wasn't a case of preference, Mr. Warner. I--"
"All right, never mind that. The conversation took place in the
kitchenette?"
"Yes."
"And you told her to go back to the living-room, and she did so?"
"Yes."
"She went ahead of you?"
"Ahead of me?"
"My words are plain, aren't they?" _Give him no time--Boxer hates to be
pushed._ "She stepped out of the kitchenette and walked ahead of you
down that little hallway toward the living-room, did she not?"
"Really I don't remember. I suppose--"
"Don't _remember_! In direct examination you showed an excellent memory
for details. Let me just check your memory a little. What way does the
front of that apartment house face, 21 Covent Street? East?"
"Why--yes, east, or south-east anyway."
"Was it a bright day, August 17th?"
"Yes, bright sunny day."
"Hot?"
"Very hot."
"Sunlight in the living-room windows, was there? Remember?"
"Yes."
"In the hallway?"
"I guess so."
"Good memory. Let me check it just a little more. What was Miss Blake
wearing that day?"
"A--oh, just a dress, I don't know what a dressmaker would call it."
"Well--color?"
"White."
"Good. A simple white dress. Now look, Sergeant, I think you can
remember whether she went ahead of you into the living-room. I'll help
you out--you wouldn't have left her alone with that brandy bottle when
you'd as good as told her she was under suspicion, would you?"
"Oh--well, that. Yes, if it matters, I remember she went first."
"Did you again tell her she ought to change her story?"
"I may have."
"Sergeant, I point out to you again, your memory under direct
examination was excellent. You referred to your notebook, you repeated
several remarks verbatim--to some of which the defense might have
justifiably objected, if I had seen fit. Now--did you tell her a second
time that she would get a better break if she changed this story which
you say you didn't believe? Did you, Sergeant?"
"Yes, it's my recollection that I did."
"Did you suggest any other thing she might do that would, in your words,
give her a better break?"
"Any other--I don't know what you mean."
"Then let me help your memory again. This conversation, when you
repeated that she ought to change her story--did this conversation take
place while you were going back to the living-room?"
"I--oh, I guess so."
"I'm asking for testimony, not guesswork. Did it, or not?"
"Yes."
"What did Miss Blake say?"
"It's my recollection that she--I don't think she said anything."
"She didn't? You remember how she _looked_, don't you?"
"Of course."
"Of course. Simple white dress, you said--correct?"
"Yes."
"Walking down the hall, between you and the sunlight in the living-room.
Didn't she say, or rather cry out: 'Take your ugly hands off me, you
fool!'--have you forgotten that?"
He heard Hunter jump up, and waited motionless for the angry blast:
"Objection! This is outrageous. There has been nothing--"
Judge Terence Mann said: "There has been a good deal." Warner looked up
quickly then; if his astonishment showed for a second, probably no one
but Terence saw it. There was time to wonder how much of a surprise it
was to T.J.--complete, very likely. And Terence Mann himself looked
astonished at the swiftness and sharpness of his own words. "If there is
any suspicion that a police officer has acted in that manner toward the
defendant, the defense is well within its rights to pursue this line of
questioning. The objection is overruled." _But Terry must know we can't
prove it._ "Answer the question, Sergeant."
Staring at the Judge, T. J. Hunter said slowly: "Exception."
"Answer the question, Sergeant Rankin."
Rankin too had gone quiet, no visible motion in him except a rhythmic
twitch at the corners of his Boxer jaws. "Will you repeat the question,
Counselor?"
"I will. I ask whether Callista Blake said to you: 'Take your ugly hands
off me, you fool!'"
"She did not."
"I quote to you these words: 'Look, I can give you a lot of breaks if
you'll put out.' Did you say that to Callista Blake?"
"Objection."
"Overruled."
"I did not."
"You have no recollection of that?"
"It didn't happen, that's all. I never touched her."
"No? You didn't, a few minutes later, strike her across the face with
the flat of your hand?"
"Objection!"
"Overruled."
"I certainly did not. The whole thing is imaginary."
"Did Callista Blake, while you had hold of her, tell you that she was
ill, that she had had a miscarriage the night before?"
"Objection!"
"Overruled." _So Terry sticks his own neck way out, his own feelings
involved, his judgment slipping, and where does that take us?_
"Exception."
"She did not tell me that, Counselor. She had no occasion to tell me
that. I say again, the whole thing is imaginary. I know my duties, and
my position as a police officer. Nothing like that happened, and if the
defendant says it did, she is lying." Except for that twitch, and the
high tension of his blocky hands gripping the witness chair, nothing in
Rankin's solid front suggested he might himself be lying.
"You say the whole thing is imaginary. Really! Is it imaginary, just a
bad dream cooked up by the defense--what do you take us for,
Sergeant?--is it imaginary that you shoved Callista Blake down on the
couch in the living-room, that she then told you she was ill, that in
spite of that you went on trying to force her, that you exposed
yourself, that she then said a certain thing which frightened you, so
that you let her go, after first striking her across the face with the
flat of your hand?"
"Objection of course. Whole question improper and fantastic."
"Overruled."
_Terry, I don't know_--
"Exception."
"Nothing like that happened. I deny it absolutely."
"In that view of it, I won't question you further about this, or
anything else, I think, since the only thing of service to my client is
the truth. I dare say, in redirect examination, you'll have opportunity
to repeat your virtuous denials--"
"That's outrageous."
Warner swung around. "Something else is outrageous--"
"Mr. Warner!" But that was Terry, and he must listen. "We cannot have
this. Please control yourself."
"I am sorry, your Honor. My apologies to the Court, and to Mr.
Hunter--who, I am sure, knew nothing about any improper conduct on the
part of his witness. That's all."
Warner sat down, with a sudden breaking out of sweat on his face, a
dizziness and blurring of vision. Callista's hand slipped over his,
easing his fingers out of their involuntary clench. She was repeating
his name softly: "Cecil--Cecil--are you all right?"
"Yes." He covered his mouth to speak to her. "I couldn't break him. I
thought I could break the bastard."
"Never mind. Relax. You bent him, but good."
"Not enough. You'll have to take the stand, maybe."
"But I must anyway. Relax."
_Concerned for me._ He noticed the courtroom was quiet, Hunter delaying.
Judge Mann's gaze was on him too, worried and speculative. _Do they
think I'm going to fold like Judd? Judd--I said to that man Judd: 'If
you do not understand that question--'_ He wiped his forehead. Maybe
Callista had helped him get that handkerchief out of his pocket. He
would not fold. Let them take their eyes off him. _Let them get on with
it._
Hunter was getting on with it--neutrally it seemed. "Sergeant Rankin,
I'll merely ask you: is there any foundation in fact, anything at all,
to support this suggestion of misconduct on your part with the defendant
Callista Blake?"
"None whatever, sir. None whatever."
Hunter was pausing another long time. Warner now helplessly understood
that he was giving Rankin time to think, time for the man's rather slow
wits to come up with the obvious countercharge. Hunter said at last: "In
summary, then, you simply questioned Miss Blake about the story she had
told you, you took charge of the brandy bottle and so on, you called
Chief Gage, and then there was this episode of the fish-tank--when Miss
Blake, you say, was composed, sort of philosophical and all that, hardly
the way a girl would act, I guess, if she'd just been threatened and
pushed around. That's a correct summary?"
"Yes, sir, I think that about sums it up. Well--" It was comic enough,
to observe the slow grimace as Rankin caught on to what Hunter would
like him to say.
Hunter asked mildly: "Something you wish to add?"
"Well--I guess not. Of course I'm very much surprised that the defense
should see fit to make a charge like that against me, but there seems to
be no way of proving anything--Miss Blake's word against mine--and if I
say anything about--about her own conduct in that respect, it's the same
situation, so I would rather ignore it, let it go."
Warner sickened inwardly with self-blame. _I underestimated the brains
in the son of a bitch_--no, hardly even that, for a cub lawyer should
have seen it coming, the obvious countercharge by innuendo. Rankin had
done it cleverly, though; he could hardly have said anything better
calculated to make Callista seem a whore. _I should sell apples on a
streetcorner._
A sober workman driving in finishing nails, T. J. Hunter said: "I
understand your reluctance, Sergeant, and I think we might as well leave
it at that. Recross, Mr. Warner?"
Cecil Warner remembered how, long ago, on childhood occasions when he
had been goaded into fighting, he had often been struck by a crying
spell in the midst of battle. It had become a sort of distinction:
"_Cecil's all right till he goes to bawling--then watch out!_" It would
not happen now. But he knew his voice was shouting, too loudly, and
cracking absurdly in the shout: "Are you being humorous, Mr. District
Attorney? I am concerned with establishing the truth, and questioning
that man will not serve any such purpose."
Judge Mann started to speak but checked himself, watching Sergeant
Rankin step down and stride away. _Terry will not look at me. Take my
hand, Callista._ Hardly wondering at the coincidence, he felt the cool
pressure of her fingers renewed. _I shall not survive the conclusion,
win or lose, but that hardly matters, Old Man_--
"If it please the Court, the prosecution is ready to read the transcript
of the interrogation of Callista Blake on August 17th, which has been
admitted in evidence and which I have here."
Judge Mann said drily: "It will be read by the clerk of court."
Something accomplished anyway, in that side-bar huddle before Rankin's
cross-examination: the transcript would not be read with baritone sound
effects. Hunter passed the pages to Mr. Delehanty with good enough
grace, having no choice. To the hearers, Warner knew, much of it would
be dull, a repetition of what had already been said. A welcome dullness,
allowing time to rest. Mr. Delehanty would begin smartly, then fall to
droning as the question-and-answer rhythm caught hold of him. The duller
the better. _Keep my hand, Callista._
Cecil Warner drifted into bewilderment, a sense that at some point there
had been an illogical reversal of roles. Must he draw on the strength of
this girl who in a few months might be butchered by the State, as if
there remained in him no power at all, not even the power of wisdom? As
if it were natural, and right, that in her danger and misery, in her
green youth too, it should be Callista who possessed a power to heal and
save? _The defense never rests, but_--
_Can anyone save another? Maybe, with good fortune._
_Or help another? The heart says yes. Keep my hand, Callista._
He came alert with a frightened start. Mr. Delehanty's voice had already
sagged into a singsong monotony, and might have been burbling on a long
time.
QUESTION (by Mr. Lamson): Can anyone support your statement that you
were experiencing what you call a suicidal depression for a month or
more, from early July to the middle of August?
ANSWER: No, I never spoke of it to anyone.
_Why not to me? I might have_--
Near his eyes, Callista's face took on a momentary immensity, like a
great image on a softly brilliant screen. She must have had her teeth
clamped a while on her underlip. It looked swollen as though from a bout
of love.
QUESTION: Was anyone aware of your taking those monkshood roots?
ANSWER: No one.
QUESTION: Not even James Doherty?
ANSWER: I have had no communication with James Doherty since receiving
that letter of his you took from my desk. In that time I've seen him
only once--at the picnic when I got the monkshood. I didn't talk with
him then, he did not talk with me, he knew nothing of what I was doing.
"You'll come to see me tonight, Cecil?"
"Yes."
"Something I must tell you."
"What, dear?"
"Not now. Tonight."
QUESTION: You had these roots, this poison, a week ago Friday. What
about the suicidal depression?--change your mind?
ANSWER: I don't know how the mind works.
QUESTION: Now, Miss Blake! Anybody knows if he's changed his mind.
ANSWER: Does he?
QUESTION: All right. I can assume you gave up the notion of suicide?
ANSWER: Not a notion. An uncompleted decision, perhaps. Which did lose
its importance after a while.
QUESTION: Did you, or you and James Doherty acting together, intend that
poison for Mrs. Doherty?
ANSWER: Must I answer that again? James Doherty knew nothing about any
poison, or my possession of it. I intended it only for myself.
QUESTION: But kept it there more than a week, where I suppose anyone
might have stumbled on it?
ANSWER: Not exactly. Back of a shelf. Nobody visiting me was likely to
go get a drink from a back shelf without invitation.
QUESTION: But you say that's just what Mrs. Doherty did.
ANSWER: Why, I think her idea was to get the drink for me. Then I guess
she understood I'd locked myself into the bedroom. With the drink in her
hand, and upset by what I'd been saying, I suppose she just tossed it
off, maybe not even knowing she did. It would be natural.
QUESTION: Didn't she knock? Call to you? Try the door?
ANSWER: I don't know, Mr. Lamson.
QUESTION: Don't know. I can't accept that.
ANSWER: It's the truth, and all I can say. Partial amnesia.
QUESTION: Do you have any idea how many professional criminals try that
amnesia thing? Everything went black--yeah. You're not a professional
criminal, you're a very intelligent girl. How do you think that amnesia
stuff is going to sound in court?
ANSWER: Bad.
QUESTION: Well? Don't you care?
ANSWER: I can't invent for you. I don't know. I can't remember.
QUESTION: All right. Mrs. Doherty was upset by what you'd been saying.
What had you been saying?
ANSWER: I told her about my affair with her husband.
QUESTION: Just like that?
ANSWER: Yes. I think I was very stupid. I hoped to persuade her to allow
a separation. I knew her church doesn't allow divorce, but I thought she
might permit us that much. I wanted my baby to have a father, married or
not. It's bad, trying to grow up without a father. Mine died when I was
seven. I wanted mine to have a father.
QUESTION: Yes, that was in the letter you wrote him.
ANSWER: Wrote but never mailed. I should have destroyed it.
QUESTION: Why didn't you mail it?
ANSWER: I'm not sure I can explain that. An obsession is a strange
thing, and so is suicidal depression--and so's pregnancy. You don't just
sit quiet and work out the mathematics. Your mind shifts and struggles
like a thing in a web, tries to decide what matters most. The answers
don't always stay the same. The day after I started that letter, I
didn't go on with it because then I didn't even want Jimmy to know I was
pregnant. I saw it wouldn't work out even if he were entirely free. Too
different. We couldn't possibly have lived together. Then later I was
trying again to think it might work--and so on.
QUESTION: Go on, please.
ANSWER: How? Mr. Lamson, I know ten million more things about myself
than you ever could, but you're asking me to explain things that even I
don't know. How can I? Well, the night before Ann came to see me,
Saturday, I had a time when everything looked possible. I wanted to have
the baby, I was almost happy, I wasn't thinking of suicide--I even
forgot about that poison. Next day, Sunday, I was imagining again that
Ann might permit a separation so that he could be with me. Crazy, but
that's how I had it lined up that day, that's why I telephoned her,
that's how it looked right up until I began to talk with her.
Then--card-house fell down.
QUESTION: You told her you were pregnant?
ANSWER: No, I didn't even get that far. I saw it was no use, waste of
time. We had not enough words in common.
QUESTION: Not enough words?
ANSWER: Oh--oh--whatever I said meant something else in her mind, the
way everything I say now means something else to you, heaven knows what.
No such thing as a common language. We all talk in the dark. If a bit of
light breaks we're frightened and try to blot it out.
QUESTION: I don't follow you.
ANSWER: Don't try. I'm not going your way.
QUESTION: This isn't an occasion for humor, is it?
ANSWER: People will tell you I laugh at the damnedest things.
QUESTION: If you didn't say you were pregnant, how much did you say?
ANSWER: All she understood was that we'd had an affair.
QUESTION: Did you quarrel?
ANSWER: No.
QUESTION: She wasn't angry?
ANSWER: No, very forgiving. That's when I was sick to my stomach.
QUESTION: Really, Miss Blake! Are you saying--
ANSWER: I don't know what I'm saying any more.
QUESTION: Yes, I realize you're having a bad time. I'm not intentionally
cruel, it's merely my job to enforce the laws of this community.
Naturally your pregnancy entitles you to every consideration, but--
ANSWER: Mr. Lamson, didn't I say I _was_ pregnant? I had a miscarriage
last night.
QUESTION: Oh. I'm sorry, I don't think you did tell us that. When did it
happen?
ANSWER: Out there, after I'd found her in the pond.
QUESTION: A result of shock, or--exertion?
ANSWER: Shock maybe. Is this the fourth time I've told you I didn't push
her in the water? I found her, I knew she was dead, I came away.
QUESTION: The miscarriage--I'm sorry, but I must ask--
ANSWER: Why, frankly, Mr. Lamson, it hurts.
QUESTION: You know very well that's not what I meant. Where exactly were
you when it happened?
ANSWER: First pain, there by the pond. I went back to my car because I
thought I might be able to drive home somehow--
QUESTION: You mean to your mother's house?
ANSWER: I do not, I mean my apartment. But it was getting worse, and at
the junction I did turn that way on Walton, because I remembered the
woods across the road. I left the car by the pines, and got over there,
into the woods. It was over pretty soon.
QUESTION: You must have a good deal of courage, Miss Blake.
ANSWER: Enough, I hope.
QUESTION: I hope so too. By the way, Miss Blake, you might glance at
this folder, if you will.
"That's where he flashed the morgue pictures at you, Cal?"
"Uh-huh. I was a--what's the term?--a cool customer. Oh yes--he's
reading my intelligent comments now. Not bad for a beginner, don't you
think? Like Lizzie Borden."
"Hush, dear."
"Well, Lizzie was a beginner too. What's more she had to operate on a
breakfast of mutton broth."
Cecil Warner could wonder then whether it had been Callista's wry and
thorny humor that saved her during the moments last August--there must
have been such moments--when she had drawn that dark bottle forward on
the shelf and perhaps set out a single glass.
IV
As Joe Bass emptied the ash tray and made gentle needless motions with a
dustrag at the bookshelves, Judge Terence Mann glanced at the handful of
doodle scraps he had taken out of their temporary shelter in the minute
book at the close of the day. None of them pleased him now, except
possibly his sketch of the fingerprint technician Sergeant Zane
scratching the lens he wore in place of a head. Drawing the toxicologist
Dr. Ginsberg with his smooth face modified into a chemical retort had
not turned out well. There was no comedy in solemn Dr. Ginsberg, unless
it might be in his very self-conscious aloofness, his volunteered
declaration on the stand that he never listened to anything about a
criminal case except the facts immediately pertinent to his specialty.
He had said in effect: "_That_ for your emotional involvements!"--but it
was a valid attitude if you happened to be Dr. Ginsberg, and not very
funny.
"Did you stick it out, Joe?"
"No, I wanted to tidy up in here, so I slipped out after Mr. Delehanty
finished reading that statement. Did I miss anything important?"
"Not much. Fingerprints. Mrs. Doherty's and Callista Blake's on the
brandy bottle. It should even help the defense slightly, showing that
Mrs. Doherty handled the bottle and that no attempt was made to wipe it
or dispose of it. Callista Blake had all night and next morning to get
rid of anything incriminating, if she'd been so minded. Then we had Dr.
Ginsberg. Nothing new, he just made it official. Four milligrams of
aconitine in the organs he studied, and they say one milligram is enough
to kill. Wound up the day with Mr. Lamson; he testified to receiving
those three other letters of Miss Blake's, direct from James Doherty. It
seems Doherty simply walked in and dumped them on Lamson's desk,
following the advice of his priest. I hadn't known it was quite like
that. Lamson seemed to imply it was an example of civic virtue. No
comment, Joe. I'm unhappy. Well, Lamson identified the letters, and they
went in without protest, but won't be read till tomorrow, which will
wind up for the State, I guess. Defense ought to open tomorrow
afternoon, or sooner. Oh--you would have liked this. When Mr. Hunter
asked if Mr. Warner wanted to cross-examine Lamson, the Old Man said: 'I
believe I will decline the privilege.' But nobody laughed."
"Do you think Mr. Hunter will put James Doherty on the stand?"
"No. Not needed, and too likely to blow up in his face. Doherty couldn't
testify to anything but the affair, so far as I know, and that's been
proved and admitted."
"I was watching Mr. Doherty a little this afternoon, Judge. One of his
knuckles is bloody, from biting it."
"Another casualty of the case. Nobody will be the same after it, not
even you and I."
"I, Judge? I'm too old to change much. I already knew the world's full
of sadness according to where you stand."
"I suppose I knew it too," said Judge Mann, and watched Joe's small
crinkled hands spread out on the other side of the desk resting on the
fingertips, and felt not only uncertain but immature. _Bring out the
inner voices._
_I should have taken another road, Mr. Brooks--other roads. I should
have married, maybe._
_Where does anyone find the vanity to become a judge? No, that's not it.
I have vanity enough, or too much. But in me, I suppose other forces
balance the native vanity, cancel it out. There was never anything in
Judge Cleever to make him doubt he's God's own right hand man._
Exercising a privilege of age and kindness, Joe said softly: "Relax,
boy."
"Yes, when it's over, I must do that. Do we ever know where we're
going?"
"Not to say know, maybe. Just the present road, and good or bad
guesswork."
"And crossroads?"
"Same thing, Judge. You try to make the right guess, with whatever good
judgment you've got at the time. I've always been alone at my
crossroads--I guess everyone is. Or if there was a crowd, I didn't see
how they could know where I was going. I was better off trying to puzzle
out the signposts myself."
6
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
CATULLUS
I
"In the prison house are many mansions. This one looks very nice--thank
the good Sheriff for me, for us, Cecil. Is it wired for sound?"
"No, dear, it's just an office. Sheriff's working late down the
hall--records room--and said we could have this. Nobody'll bother us."
"May I sit at the desk and judge humanity?"
"Why not?"
"Or I'll be a lady of the Abbey of Theleme, where the law was 'Do what
thou wilt.' No--can't have anything like that going on in the Sheriff's
own office. And still--flowers on the desk?"
"The explanation is anticlimax. Sheriff's good-looking, has a devoted
secretary, her brother-in-law runs a florist's shop."
"Like that. Never mind, I hereby make-believe the flowers are for me,
the blood-red roses and the little white ones, sweet hot-house children.
Not quite real, are they?--no black-spot, no bitten leaves, sheltered
children, I guess they don't understand. But I'll make-believe. Am I
occasionally beautiful, Cecil?"
"To me, always."
"I've always loved words, you know. It amounts to a fault. I can't make
them do as I wish. I could never write. I don't know enough about
people, maybe never shall. But I know the power of words. You say I'm
beautiful to you, and that makes me so, I believe it, the words shut
away everything foreign to the Abbey of Theleme--no, that's not where we
are. But isn't it strange what words can do? Comfort and terrify, heal
and kill. Make out of nothing, something, and another word can send the
something back to a nothing. It was my father's gift, that love of
words. I was reading precociously at least a year before he died. Mother
(who is definitely literate and past president of the local PTA, no
kidding) felt it wasn't quite right at such an age."
"What's that paper? Are you tearing it?"
"Just a blank sheet the good Sheriff left on his desk. I hope he won't
miss it. Not tearing, love, building. It's my crown, Cecil. I need a
pin. Is that a pin in your lapel?"
"Yes--here."
"Thanks. That'll do it. Ouch! Well, nothing created without pain. How
does it look?"
"Royal."
"Does it suit my complexion?"
"White and ivory--yes, not bad."
"Is it all right for a queen to suck a pin-pricked finger?"
"Rank has its privileges."
"Good. So, not a lady of Theleme but a mere queen, I'll do my best while
I have authority. This object shaped like a ruler is my scepter, and
this apparent ink-bottle--no, if rank has its privileges, we'll omit the
orb and you give me a cigarette. You may light it for me, and remember
you have the right at any time to be seated in my presence. My lord, do
you have any defense to set forth in favor of this mewling monster,
this three-billion-headed lurching mooncalf humanity?"
"Your Majesty, I must first know what specific charges have been made."
"Item, he stinks of shrewd stupidity like his father Caliban."
"A fault that might be remedied by going to school a few thousand years
more; at least there's manifest intelligence."
"Latent, you mean, don't you?"
"Mostly latent, but a good deal of it overt, liberated."
"Item, his fears are inconsistent: he's afraid of the dark but quite
ready to play with matches."
"Another trait of childhood."
"Also of masturbating monkeys. Item, he talks a great deal about truth,
but in the end, what he believes is what he wishes to believe."
"At that point I must draw your Majesty's attention to an essential
point in the original indictment, namely the admission that this monster
possesses roughly three billion heads. And three billion bodies. In that
view of it, it's good law as well as necessary charity to insist that
each head-and-body unit of the monster be tried separately."
"There isn't time, sir, there isn't time. Are you implying that not
everyone is snotty?"
"Something like that."
"But then we can have no trial. No trial, no justice, no fun. Ah, damn
it, I was looking forward to a hanging, with a bang-up speech from the
platform and not a dry eye in the entire public square except for a few
pickpockets and sellers of soft drinks."
"Callista--"
"Sir! No--fair enough. I'll put my scepter down. Maybe I'm tired of
being queen. But may I keep my crown a while?"
"You've always worn it."
"No. No. Bring your chair--no, take this one, Cecil. I'd like to sit on
the floor with my head on your knee--not that you're like my father at
all. My crown--oh, put it away somewhere, keep it, I don't care. I don't
hear that wind any more. Is it turning cold?"
"Yes, it's quite cold tonight. Callista, the prosecution will finish
tomorrow, with the reading of those letters. We'll probably open after
the noon recess.... Is there anything, anything at all, you haven't told
me?"
"Yes."
"You said, in court today, you said there was something."
"Yes. Why did you stop moving your hand over my hair? I loved it. That's
better. Cecil, I am guilty."
"The--blank?"
"Yes. Haven't you almost known it all along?"
"No. But I've been afraid you might remember something, or convince
yourself that you've remembered it, and so come to believe yourself
guilty."
"Oh, Cecil, this isn't belief, this is knowledge. You're trying to give
me a way out before you even hear. It's like this: it came back as a
clear auditory memory, the dull noise of that bottle being pulled
forward on the shelf, and the cork, and a clink of glass, then the tap
of her little high heels outside the bedroom door. I remembered what she
said, each word very clear in that high sweet voice of hers: 'Callie,
come on now!--I poured a little drink for you.' That's how it was,
Cecil. And I lay still. I didn't speak. Knowing what might happen. I
won't say, wishing for it to happen, but knowing, Cecil. Oh, sure
enough, my mind squirmed around a bit trying to imagine the drink was
from an innocent bourbon bottle, but knew all the time that the bourbon
had been emptied the week before and the bottle thrown away. I'm no
split personality, Cecil. Call it a paralysis from conflicting drives,
if you want to. The self that had no wish to murder was the same self
that--that hated her guts and wished she was dead. So I lay still. And
my brain began generating the smoke-screen, first the useless fraud
about a bourbon bottle that wasn't there, then the amnesia."
"I don't believe you hated her guts, Callista. She was a frustration,
someone in the way, as T.J. would insist on saying, has said in fact.
But I don't think you hated her as a person."
"Not for long, but long enough. I killed her."
"That was a thing that happened. You did not will it to happen. You were
sick, bewildered, temporarily unable to prevent it from happening. If
you'd been out in the living-room with her--do you remember that bronze
paper-knife you kept on the table, a handsome thing with a sharp point?
She was small, slight, your arms are strong. You know you could never in
the world have taken it up against her."
"Why, dear apologist, you're only saying that I'm a coward about
physical violence. I killed her by lying still. She's as dead as if I'd
taken that knife to her. I say the guilt is greater. Seeing red might
have excused me, or so most people would say. My very cowardice,
weakness, retreat--that's what killed her. Cecil, I killed her by a
failure in simple decency and common sense. If I'd been decent,
sensible, I'd have run out there the moment I heard that bottle move on
the shelf."
"Callista, if the good, the righteous, the respectable were half as
stern in self-judgment as you are--"
"Oh, there'd be no living with them at all. Mother's a Colonial
something-or-other because some worm-eaten ancestor was a Saint in the
Bay Colony. I think Father must have laughed at it, but I was too young
to get the point. The Puritan in me gives many a squirm. But the point
is, my self-judgment serves no one now--she's dead. Well, it seems to be
a jury of the righteous and respectable, more or less, who are stern
enough in judging others, I've noticed. Cecil, will you give me a sharp
honest answer to a question you don't want me to ask?"
"I'll try."
"Do you think we have a chance?"
"Of course we have a chance. Today was bad. They'll go on feeling Judd's
collapse, in spite of common sense, in spite of everything. The poor guy
couldn't have done us more harm if he'd been trying. T.J. will manage to
drop in some apparently inadvertent reminder of it, no doubt in his
closing speech when I'm done talking--hell, mere mention of Judd's name
in a baritone tremolo would be enough, and there's no legal barrier
against that. Terence will charge the jury again to forget it, and most
of them will honestly try to, which would mean something only if people
knew how to watch their own minds. And today was bad because this was
the day when they laid out the heavy circumstantial stuff, proving your
episode with Jim, making it official on the aconite, all that. But now,
dear, so far as evidence is concerned, T.J. has finished, done his
worst. Those letters to be read tomorrow aren't evidence. T.J. just
thinks they are. He'll try to interpret them as indicating premeditation
as well as motive; I know better, and I think I can make that fly up and
hit him in the face, in my own closing speech or sooner. I'm not
painting it bright for you, Callista. It's not bright. But we have a
chance. There is this: with your story clearly told--as it has been
already, really, in that Lamson interrogation--it passes my
understanding how anyone in his right mind could find first degree."
"Mr. Lamson had the answer. Remember?--'the fact is, my dear girl, we
just don't believe your story.'"
"Hell with Butch Lamson--he's not the jury."
"You think they might find second degree?"
"That could happen. The only just verdict would be involuntary
man-slaughter."
"My love, can't you hear me? I've told you, I am guilty. Twenty to life.
What do people feel when they cry out 'O God! O God!'--does the sound do
something for them?"
"I don't know, Callista. I was never religious. Were you, ever?"
"Not for real, I guess. Away back, soon after Father died, I think the
fluff and tinsel mythology of Sunday school had some hold on me for a
short while. But I kept remembering a few of Father's comments, spoken
when I was too young to get the point. They fell into place finally,
made sense. When I was thirteen I told Mother I wasn't going to make the
motions any more. Stuck it out, too, with a bit of surprising help from
Herb. One of the rare times I've seen him lose his temper--popped
half-way out of the armchair while Mother was lecturing, and said: 'God
damn it, Vic, let the kid do her own thinking! She will anyway.' I
could've loved him for that, if he hadn't lapsed back into being Herb
Chalmers--if he wasn't a stepfather--if I wasn't a crossgrained bitch
who never knows how to make advances at the right time. Well, that time
Mother was so startled the artillery just didn't function. She went
meek, maybe to see what Herb would do next--which was nothing. But also
she never bothered me about it again, much. I suppose because her own
religion is pure social conformity. If she'd had any serious convictions
I might have had a battle on my hands. Twenty to life. What happens
tomorrow?"
"The letters first. We sit quiet and hear them. I can't ask you to
display anything you don't feel, Callista--as an actress, my dear,
you're nowhere. But if you feel--well, indifferent about those letters;
if it seems all far away and irrelevant, don't let your face shout to
the jury that you feel that way."
"I'll be thinking of the briers. They'll read no indifference in me
then, I think."
"The briers--"
"Where I lost my baby, Cecil. Some little tree whipped me across the
face when I was leaving there--a birch, I think. I remember I was
superstitiously grateful, glad of the sting. A primitive game, Cecil,
the mind snatching at notions of punishment and atonement. We're still
savages, and I suppose some of the time there's no harm in it. As if the
birch tree--the whole dark place, and the thorns--had accomplished
enough of the punishment so that I could meet the rest well enough. And
maybe the savage, the poor greasy primordial Eve down inside, would say
that I have, so far. After the letters, the State rests?"
"I expect it. Hunter doesn't bother much with surprises--not his method.
The State rests, and I move they dismiss the case, and Terence will deny
the motion because he must."
"Part of the ritual?"
"In a way. We open then, probably after an early noon recess. The
defense is going to be brief, Callista. It's better that way. We have
only a few things to say. Reiterating them too much might turn the jury
against us. They've heard the essence of the defense already, in my
remarks, the cross-examinations, the Lamson interrogation. We mustn't
repeat ourselves too much, because--well, heaven help any defendant if
the jury is bored. What's happened is that, in effect, we're required to
prove a negative. In the sense of tangible proof, on the same level
as--oh, say Peterson's photographs--the thing is impossible. Proving a
negative usually is, and that's fairly common knowledge among people who
think at all. I'll bear down on it when I talk to them in closing, and
before then. We must also insist on the element of reasonable doubt. I
can see that Terence is very much aware of that aspect, and you must
have noticed how he's given us every break he possibly could. Including
some that surprised me. I shall open the defense by calling Edith. She's
prepared to say anything at all that might help you, and if T.J. tries
to get tough with her in cross-examination I'm sorry for him, that's
all. She'll make a monkey out of him, and I believe she'll remember the
jury every minute while she does it. In her direct testimony, the thing
that will help most will be her emphasis on that suicidal depression."
"Haven't I already told Mr. Lamson that no one else knew of it?"
"Yes, but Edith did know, don't you think?"
"She knew I was unhappy."
"She's told me that you gave her the story about Jim, after that damn
letter of his."
"Yes, I went to pieces too, that once. But at that time I wasn't even
quite certain yet about the pregnancy. As for the suicide thing, why, I
wasn't consciously thinking in those terms until the day of the picnic.
It was all over, you know, but I'm female enough so I didn't enjoy
watching Jim the tender husband and Ann acting like a new bride, Jim all
braced to speak to me politely but hoping to God he wouldn't have
to--and also wanting to--yes, I could feel that. So I wandered off into
that part of the garden. It wasn't till I noticed the monkshood plants
that I started telling myself how that way wouldn't hurt. Then I was
digging up two or three, just to look at them. I nibbled at one, and
spat it out."
"You saw Edith every day that week, didn't you? Went to the studio as
usual?"
"Yes."
"Oh, she knew you were in the depths. She loves you. Your moods aren't
the mystery to her that they are to most people, Callista. As for her
factual knowledge--well, you might as well be prepared to hear her
exaggerate that a little, even lie some about how much she knew if she
thinks it will help you."
"I'm strangely rich and fortunate. I have two friends."
"I wish we were stronger. Well, after Edith testifies, then you, if you
will promise me one thing--two things."
"One, that I shall not say I am guilty."
"Yes. The other is that when Hunter is attacking you, as he will,
without mercy and with every trick he knows, you'll remember that you,
and your friends, desire you to live."
"That I can promise. The other--"
"Callista, look up at me."
"Not yet. In a moment."
"Tell me this: is there any virtue, any rational good, in declaring a
literal truth when misinterpretation is inevitable, when you know to a
certainty that your hearers cannot grasp the whole truth nor keep the
partial truth in proportion, nor even guess at the background, the
related truths?"
"Virtue--rational good--I'm too confused, Cecil. Other thoughts. I don't
know. I suppose not."
"You call yourself guilty--of a momentary lapse that happened to end in
disaster. But if you say that much, the jury will inevitably charge you
with a different sort of guilt. They will say: she brooded and planned
to murder her lover's wife, the old story--let her burn! But is it
right, reasonable, is it anything but insane, that for such a lapse,
when you were sick in mind and body, you should be strapped in a chair
and the life burned out of you?"
"You can frighten me, Cecil. It's strange. I don't think the brute fact
has really frightened me before, not completely. It wasn't real."
"It's real. I was trying to frighten you. You must not say on the stand
what you've said to me tonight. I know it to be truth, because you've
said it to me. Telling it to the jury will not serve truth, because
their minds will make a lie of it. Look up at me now."
"I'll promise it, I think--for a bargain. I'll lie by silence, in return
for a promise from you."
"A promise--what is it, Callista?"
"Promise me that if I am acquitted, I may come to you, live with you--in
marriage or not, it doesn't matter--love you and care for you so long as
I can have you. Give me that, and then I will lie, I'll swear anything
to save my life, I'll be such an actress--"
"Callista, I'm sixty-eight, old and fat and ugly and tired."
"Hush. Understand. It's you, you, you--the self in you, not old nor
young nor anything but _you_. Promise me. My promise for yours. No other
terms."
"I promise it."
"Now I can look up at you. Now I know that what Edith said is true:
living is journeying, and love's a region we can enter for a while."
"Yes, a region that changes if only because we do ourselves. Some try to
prevent that, I suppose. They want it to be a closed room thick with
perfume and curtains drawn against all weather, against night and day."
"But when I come to you--you've promised it--I'll make it a region of
summer, of morning and summer evening and every star at night."
II
COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS OF WINCHESTER COUNTY, NEW ESSEX
December 10, 1959
Action: _People vs. Callista Blake_; Justice Terence Mann presiding.
Court in session at 0956.
JUDGE MANN: Do I understand, Mr. Hunter, that you wish to have read to
the jury the letters that were admitted in evidence before adjournment
yesterday?
MR. HUNTER: Yes, your Honor. I am prepared to read--to go ahead with
that right away.
JUDGE MANN: Let them be read by the clerk of the court.
MR. DELEHANTY: Your Honor, I have a--not laryngitis exactly, but a sort
of cold. I'm perfectly ready to do as the Court directs, only I'm afraid
that with this cold or whatever it is, maybe my voice won't be too clear
to the jury.
JUDGE MANN: Well ... Yes, Mr. Warner?
MR. WARNER: Your Honor, the defense will not object to a reading of
these letters by Mr. Hunter himself. I am certain my learned colleague
would never take any improper advantage of his dramatic ability,
admittedly great. Very often, however, written words are capable of
conveying different meanings according to where the emphasis is placed,
not because of any willful misconstruction, but simply because our
language is not always a precise instrument. Therefore I would only
stipulate, request rather, that if there should be any doubt in my mind,
or in my client's mind, that the meaning of the letters is being
correctly conveyed, we may have the privilege of interrupting the
reading at that point, to indicate what we believe is the right
interpretation.
JUDGE MANN: Is that agreeable to you, Mr. Hunter?
MR. HUNTER: Yes, your Honor, so long as the interruptions have to do
with important points, not trivialities.
MR. WARNER: Sir, there are no trivialities in this case.
MR. HUNTER: Subject to the limitation I mentioned, the request of the
defense appears reasonable, and I will not argue it.
JUDGE MANN: You may proceed, Mr. Hunter.
MR. HUNTER: The first of these letters, acknowledged by the defense to
have been written by Callista Blake to James Doherty, is dated the 10th
of May, 1959. Members of the jury, my dramatic ability is not, as Mr.
Warner has described it, great. Any drama here is provided by the force
of events, not by me. I must simply ask you to remember, while you hear
these letters, that they (that is, the first three and the fifth) were
written by a girl nineteen years of age, in the summer of this year,
under the influence of a love affair which the testimony of witnesses
has established and the defense has not denied. The first letter reads
as follows:
"Jimmy--
"Tonight I cannot see you--that was really all I understood over
the telephone, though I know you gave me the decent sensible
reasons why you cannot come--something about work at the office,
wasn't it?--for as soon as I heard you say that, I thought, Oh,
bang goes the whole batch of cookies. You see, I was going to be
domestic for you tonight, and I had just taken some cookies from
the oven when you phoned--the airy egg-white kind, a sort of
culinary idiocy because no damn good the next day, like letting air
out of a tire. Therefore if I were a weeping wench they would now
be soaked in brine and serve you right. But I never weep, Jimmy.
Never. Remember that. So, since you cannot come, I will only count
over the times I've had you with me, a miser adoring the sparkle
and fall of jewels through her fingers. While you are submerged in
the honest dreadfulness of whatever you do at the office--what the
devil is it anyhow?--do you convey subtle conveyances and do dark
deeds (these are puns) or just sit with your feet up and brood over
Deals?--think of me playing with my pretties and having a better
time than yourself, because this is all I can wish to do when
you're away from me. Because I love you.
"It occurs to me, I never wrote to you before. You may not like me
on paper. I sprawl and ramble, Dearest. Don't mind my doodling
either--see the border I drew around your true name while I
daydreamed and my pen was thinking for me? I'm only surprised it
wasn't a tangle of Cupids, an out-of-season Valentine, and maybe it
will be yet. In my here-and-now mood I would draw them saucy, I
think (most of them), strutting and romping and showing off their
little male apostrophes--all, I suppose, with a sneaking
resemblance to you. Because I love you.
"No, don't say it's reckless and foolish of me to write at all--I
know it. I can't care, not now. I tell you, Jimmy, what we have (is
it possible it's only ten days?) is something that could not happen
with Ann. Or anywhere in her world. I tell myself, I am not she,
she is not me, my love (you know it) is nothing like what could
happen for you with anyone but me. And there's my cure for
jealousy--if I could apply it, if I could make my head rule me a
little more, my crazy heart a little less. I want you, I'm empty
and dull in your absence, tonight this is the only way I can talk
to you. So let me talk, and think me foolish and reckless, and
destroy this scrawled thing if you think best. It's me, though.
Remember when you throw it away, it's me. And perhaps (because I
love you) I wouldn't like you to burn me.
"More than you have already.
"Yes, I will type the envelope and mark it PERSONAL, lest the
chaste eyes of Miss Anderson be stricken unto confusion and dismay.
Damn 'em, why hasn't the Postoffice a Bureau of Hollow Oaks?
Ooh--now I think of it, there is--not an oak, but a big maple with
a hole in the trunk about seven feet above ground, on the path
between your house and Mother's, near the pond. I saw a squirrel in
residence there last year, stuck his head out and told me with the
usual fuss that it was his'n. No good, I guess, because he's
probably still there, and would think poorly of anyone dropping a
letter into his living-room. He'd eat it or use it for nest-lining.
That's how Nature is, you know, not a bit cooperative with the
frills of romance, only with the essentials--but there, how
cooperative indeed! As if, so far as Nature cares, every atom,
every motion of life were aimed at nothing but the mounting of
female by male and the begetting of young. Well, it comes to me
that you with your long legs could reach that hole in the maple,
though I'd have to stand on something. It comes to me that a letter
could be squirrel-proofed in a metal box. Let us reflect on this."
Members of the jury, I might say in passing that because of this mention
in the letter, the maple tree in question was examined. It does have a
hole in it, nearer eight feet above ground than seven. Nothing was found
there except an abandoned squirrel's nest; no sign of any previous
disturbance by a human agency. [_Laughter by the defendant._] I see Miss
Blake is amused, which is her privilege I suppose. [_Disturbance at rear
of room, a man (James Doherty) leaving his seat for the exit; Mr. Hunter
waiting for quiet._] The letter resumes:
"I love you as a sleeping seed in the earth must love the rains of
spring, blindly, thoughtlessly, responding because it must--the
shell breaks underground from the inward pressure, the outer warmth
and fertile moisture. Shall I one day become a flower for you and
know the sun? I am still in the dark, and rather blind, and yet
happy to be living. You my awakener, it seems to me you're finding
no such happiness. Am I too much for you, Jimmy? Too weird and
different? Poor Jimmy, did you want only that May-day moment, and
then discover the dryad had caught you fast and would not let go?
There are thorns in my branches, I suppose. I never wanted them to
wound. Oh, I must write no more like this, or I'll be needing you
too much to sleep.
"Don't look distressed, as you did last night, and ask me, what are
we to do? I don't know yet, Jimmy. There's an answer and we'll find
it somehow. Likely it will be you that finds it, and not myself. I
don't know. Maybe I'd never try to tell you what to do, even if I
were inwardly certain what was best. May-day, it seemed ridiculous
to me that anything about this could be a solemn Problem--no more a
problem than the romping of animals. It is, of course--I merely had
to shove that aside (without regrets) for the sake of May-day. It
is, and I--(here comes a truth, my darling, that may be unwelcome
or distressing; if it is, just set it down to my weirdness and
forgive me for it)--I am, in many important ways, a much more
civilized human creature than you. So civilized--so wide a gap
between the cool life of the mind and the violence of that
primitive part which never grows civilized in anyone--that I can
never hope to explain myself, or be anything but a stranger to the
easy routines of existence. My mind looks down on both of us,
Jimmy, sees well enough that we are foolish lovers running into the
jungle blind--(running, I will not say driven)--and inviting
disaster in everything we do. But if now I only glimpsed you or
heard your voice--why, away with all thought, the self you roused
up on our May-day would be mad for you, throw away all sober
knowledge, bite your throat, dance like a maynad and burn your
flesh in a blaze of love."
DEFENDANT: The word is "maenad," if it matters.
MR. HUNTER: I stand corrected, I suppose. May it please the Court, my
understanding was that any interruption of this reading would be made by
counsel, in an orderly manner, not by the accused who is not at present
under oath.
JUDGE MANN: It must be so ordered. I hope you understand the legal
necessity, Miss Blake. If any other point comes up, please draw your
counsel's attention and let him deal with it. That is the method
required of us here. Incidentally, if anything during this reading makes
it desirable for you to confer at any length with Mr. Warner, a short
recess can always be requested, and the Court stands ready to allow it.
Go ahead, Mr. Hunter.
MR. HUNTER: Well, the first letter is nearly finished. It concludes with
these words:
"Understand, Jimmy, that I fit no pattern. No one can own me, no
one can make me over. I was born a heretic and so live. No one can
catch me except if I will.
"I love you.
"Callista."
The second letter, also from Callista Blake to James Doherty, bears no
date except Thursday, but it is in an envelope marked PERSONAL,
addressed in typing to Mr. Doherty at his office at Judd and Doherty, 12
Somerset Street, Winchester. The postmark on this envelope is June 18th.
It reads as follows:
"Dear--
"More than a month ago I wrote you a letter, and I remember that
although you didn't say so, you weren't exactly pleased at my doing
it. So I am reckless, but look, love, the heavens didn't fall, the
grass is still green and soft (as we should know) and so here I go
again, because I want to take advantage of an evening when I seem
to be fairly clear-headed, or as near it as I ever am. Anyway,
darling, you told me Miss Anderson is out with a cold, so this is
sure to pass through no hands but yours, isn't it?
"Jimmy, I can almost wish that Ann did know. Don't blow your
top--caution will prevail. I'm just wishing. The fact of secrecy I
don't particularly mind--what business of anyone else is it that I
love you? I don't care about parading you before the world in a
proper woman's look-what-I-caught manner--that's nothing, to me
there's even a kind of indecency in public possessiveness. But I do
mind the limitations and humiliations of secrecy, the haunting by
social fears, enforced furtiveness--can't go alone into a
restaurant with you, where some friend of yours and Ann's might
notice you together with that screwball broad with the limp. That
I hate. It's a spoiling thing. I wonder more and more whether we
are big enough to stand much more of it. And yet if you tire of me,
or if the dreary social pressure forces you away from me--I swear
the world's turning into one big God-damned suburb--I don't know
what will happen to me. I don't know if I'm big enough to take it.
I suppose I am. I just don't know.
"Please tell me: is your own religious feeling so strong that you
do actually feel sinful when you're with me? I hardly dared write
that. Do you realize how badly you hedged when I asked you almost
the same thing two nights ago? I wasn't asking about Ann's views,
blast you--I know she'd condemn the whole thing without a moment's
pause for thought--I wanted to find out how it was with you, but
all you could talk about was how Ann would feel. Well, I picked the
wrong time of course. A real feminine trick, to cross-examine you
with your head on my breast and only a few minutes after the little
death. Bitchy of me, I suppose I was going by instinct, and when I
do that, bitchy is my middle name. But see, dear, everything's calm
now, I'm not whispering in your ear, I'm only fumbling for words on
paper. I suppose you do know, don't you, that if you had to be free
of me I would let you go? The dryad's thorns would scratch
some--that I couldn't help, couldn't help your bleeding a bit--but
they couldn't hold you, and would not. I don't want you as a
prisoner. You are already a prisoner, and I wish I might set you
free.
MR. WARNER: I will call the jury's attention to the fact that there is
no actual break in the letter at the point where Mr. Hunter stopped
reading. The thought there is incomplete, and Miss Blake went on to
complete it in the same paragraph.
MR. HUNTER: I will call the jury's attention to the fact that I have
been reading a rather difficult handwriting for several minutes, and am
slightly hoarse. I would also point out that it is the end of a page,
and the indentation at the beginning of the next page looks to me very
much like the beginning of a paragraph.
MR. WARNER: Mr. District Attorney, you must have noticed that Miss
Blake's writing does not make a very precise left-hand margin, but the
paragraph indentations are characteristically quite deep.
MR. HUNTER: Very well--I don't want to argue a point like this--it's all
one paragraph if you like. May I continue?
MR. WARNER: By all means, finish the paragraph.
MR. HUNTER (reading):
"... No, I don't hate Ann, I was not thinking
only of Ann when I wrote that.
"Another thing, by the way, that I hardly dared to write.
"Jimmy, I need to know: if Ann would allow a separation, and if we
went somewhere--no matter where, so it's a long way off--would you
be mentally, emotionally _able_ to live with me? Look into
yourself. Tell me, if you can, what would happen inside you,
supposing the situation was like that. Make it far away--Arizona,
Tahiti, island of Capri, who cares?--and I am with you, in your bed
at night and with you in all the long bright days. Would you see me
still as a human woman who loves you and who would be happy to bear
you children?--that could be, you know; a doctor assured me of it a
couple of years ago, the little deformity is no obstacle. Or would
I become the whore who 'led you astray' and 'wrecked your life'?
"You know, Jimmy, it hasn't seemed to me (but I could be so damned
wrong!) that religion goes very deep with you. Isn't it mostly a
matter of being brought up in a certain way that automatically
shuts out other views without seriously examining them? I'm trying
to suggest that unlike Ann, you're really not embedded in religion
like a fly in amber. I've made no secret of my own agnosticism with
you--wouldn't have occurred to me to do so--and that hasn't
appeared to trouble you particularly. You do shy away, you don't
like the topic, I suppose you feel the way so many people do
nowadays, that religion is all right but talking about it is not
quite nice. But I can't imagine that you condemn me in your heart
(do you?) for relying on my own reason, being unafraid of doubt,
interested in proof, critical of all self-appointed authority?
"So I'll even dare ask you: just where is the mercy, the rationale,
the loving-kindness, in an ethical-religious system that makes me a
whore bound for hell because I love you and welcome intercourse
with you and want to live with you?
"I want to see you tomorrow, Jimmy. You spoke of having to work
late because of Miss Anderson's being out sick--may I come there in
the evening, just to see you for a few minutes? I'll be
well-behaved (I hope). There are one or two other things--things
even I don't care to scrawl on paper. If you call and say I mustn't
come, of course I won't, but--please?
"For the first time in our experience I shall be listening for the
phone and hoping you don't call. 'How do I love thee? Let me count
the ways'--I can't, I can't.
"Callista."
The third letter, members of the jury, is again from Callista Blake to
James Doherty. It is dated June 25th, just a week later than the one I
last read, and was addressed, like the other two, to Mr. Doherty at his
office. It reads as follows:
"Jimmy--
"Didn't you say you would call me Monday evening? What happened? I
remember you said you would be tied up over the week end--if only
my silly hungry arms had been the rope to tie you!--well, so I
counted the hours to Monday evening, and glued myself to the phone,
but no Jimmy. I know I mustn't call your house--you needn't have
reminded me of that, last Friday! Tuesday, though, I did try to
call you at the office--I'm sorry, Jimmy, I know you didn't want me
to, but I was miserable, I had to try to reach you somehow--but you
were out, anyway Mr. Judd answered the phone and said you were, and
he sounded so chilly--am I a black cat across his path or
something?--I didn't know he disliked me. What's happening, Jimmy?
Could be purely my nerved-up imagination. But all week, no Jimmy.
Couldn't you at least have got as far as a phone booth? Oh hell,
I'm writing like a sniveling brat.
"Lately I've been having too many morbid thoughts. I know I
behaved badly Friday evening--you didn't want anything to get
started, and I had to act like a whining bitch in heat. You should
know there's more to me than that--I guess you do, I guess you do.
Well, since that evening I've now and then thought of us--I even
dreamed something of the kind--as if we were no wiser than a pair
of kids slipping out behind the barn to study the difference
between a boy and a girl--with peevish grown-ups likely to come
around the corner of the building any minute. I've lost some of the
dream--I think we did get caught and stood there frozen waiting for
the wrath. Only the boy in the dream wasn't quite you. Be jealous,
damn you.
"Are we so terribly far apart? I'm beginning to understand there's
plenty about me you don't even like. It's not strange. Didn't I
tell you at the start, or try to, that I'm not easy to get along
with? I often have a bad enough time trying to get along with
myself. But Jimmy, Dearest, _all_ people are far apart in a lot of
important ways. No exceptions. And all people have elements in
common too, things they can share, use to bridge the gulf between
self and self, if they only knew it. Don't you think we have enough
in common so that if we both tried hard and honestly and lovingly,
we could live happily together?
"I know, I know--I wrote that as if I were assuming that Ann would
set you free. Oh, I like you and don't like you, for not wanting to
talk about her with me. Like you for it because I know it's
loyalty, you're trying to be fair to her, spare her pain, you still
love her in many ways--and somehow I know about all of them, and
respect every one of them whether you believe that or not. And
dislike it, it hurts, because--well, because I happen to be the one
under the gun, Jimmy, and I keep thinking if I knew more about her
I might see my own way better. I love you in ways she never
imagined, couldn't imagine. She's not a passionate woman, Jimmy--as
I don't suppose you need to be told. She's sweet, possessive,
domestic, good to you so far as she knows how to be, loves you in
her fashion so long as you conform to what she wants you to be.
Undoubtedly it troubles her that you haven't happened to have
children yet. Loves you in her fashion--oh, Jimmy, to my thinking,
and I'm not a fool, loving an image of what you'd like another
person to be, that's not love at all, just self-love and arrogance.
"Am I doing it too? Am I in love with what I wish you were? I
mustn't _always_ shy away from that thought--I'll have to look at
it straight some time, can't now somehow, not now, not now. I don't
think it's true. Anyway I will assure you, pretty Ann never woke up
at night whimpering your name and tasting blood on her lip.
"There's no solution that won't hurt somebody. I'm selfish
too--like you, like Ann if she knew and understood, I don't want to
be hurt any more than I have been. I don't hate Ann, I don't want
to hate her. I don't want anything except to get away somewhere
with you--are we savages to be held in line by magic words mumbled
in the mouth of a priest?--because I love you best and need you.
"Silence is the cruelest of a coward's weapons. It's not like you
to use it against me. Please write, or call me. Please come to me.
"Callista."
The fourth letter is typed, dated July 5th, 1959, and signed only with a
typed capital J. You remember yesterday Mr. Lamson testified that James
Doherty himself, as well as Miss Blake, acknowledged his authorship of
this letter. It reads:
"Dear Callista:
"I meant to write to you sooner, but have been very busy, so am
afraid the time has slipped by, besides I do not know just how to
say what I ought to, except that we must relinquish the prospect we
have discussed and that you mention in your letter, as it would not
work out for the best but am afraid would have bad consequences to
all concerned. I consider myself very much to blame having given
you a wrong idea of the situation, although that certainly was not
my intention. I think all we can do is try to forget about it,
because that is what we must do, unless the situation changes some
time. I am sorry to have to say it as you may feel disappointed and
that I have let you down, as a matter of fact I feel that myself,
am afraid I may have treated you rather badly letting you take
things for granted when I ought not to have done so, although that
was not my intention, and am very sorry if it is so. I feel you are
not to blame in any way but I am, I know, and the only thing we can
do is sort of forget the whole thing and hope you can forgive me
for letting you down.
"Sincerely,
"J."
"P.S. I feel we ought not to get in touch again about this for a
while as there is nothing we can do. Please read between the lines
and don't be angry."
Since the defendant appears to find this letter amusing, I can only say
that her sense of humor has not much in common with mine.
MR. WARNER: Is the defendant on trial for changes in facial expression?
I did not know that an unhappy smile was an indictable offense.
JUDGE MANN: The comments of both counsel are out of order. Continue,
please.
MR. HUNTER: As you have already heard, members of the jury, the last
letter we have here was not mailed, but found in Miss Blake's
possession. During her interrogation by Mr. Lamson, she stated certain
reasons for not mailing it--part of the testimony which you have heard,
to which you will give whatever weight you believe it deserves. This
last letter is dated August 8th, 1959, more than a month after Miss
Blake received that letter from James Doherty. I would remind you too
that August 8th was the day after the picnic which has been mentioned
several times in the testimony. The letter reads:
"Dear Jimmy:
"Understand, before you start reading this, that you need not
answer it unless you wish. I will wait a while, and then take
silence for your answer if that is how it must be. I had almost
accepted silence already, or thought I had, most of the time this
last month. But I saw you yesterday--might have stayed away, meant
to, could not--with all the fog of company manners between us, and
discovered what I should have known: I am not cured of you. I wish
I were, and I shall be after a while. I've wished I could hate or
despise you--can't do that, but I'll be able to forget you
sometime, and if there's no happiness at least there will be peace,
of one sort or another.
"I have gone by two periods, Jimmy. In those good days of
June--yes, they were good--we evidently managed to start a certain
arrogant little Blake-Doherty thing which now lives in me as if he
belonged there. And he does. What does this knowledge do to you?
Sorry? Scared? Maybe a little bit happy, or proud? Or just angry
with me? I'm shocked to realize I don't know you well enough to
guess the answer.
"One thing I will not do--and your religion would approve my
decision, I believe (at the same time that it provides some cruel
obstacles in the way of carrying it out). I will not, Jimmy--I will
_not_ creep off on the wrong side of our idiot laws and have an
abortion. I want this child. Crazy of me it may be, but I already
love it, while it's just a blob of almost-nothing that'll soon be
making me sick and physically scared. I want it.
"And I want the child to have a father. From the start. I've seen
too much of petticoat government--it reeks. I don't trust my own
self to bring up a child alone. In spite of all the best knowledge
I have, sooner or later I'd have some damned uprush of maternity to
the brain and start making a lot of the mistakes all mothers
make--including some my own mother made with me, no doubt--and
nobody to check me, nobody to fill the father's place that must not
be empty if a child is to grow up straight and good. I won't have
my baby crippled that way.
"He's yours too, Jimmy. It's your seed in me, the life-package from
all your grandfathers and grandmothers. He's from Ireland, dear,
he's from Italy where my father's mother was born, he's from one of
the embraces when your sweet strong body could not free itself
until I was willing to let you go. I frightened you sometimes,
didn't I? I will again, or at least I dream of it.
"All right, let's be sober. For religious reasons, Ann will never
even consider a divorce. There is such a thing as separation, that
would allow you to provide for her but live with me. The legal
formula is not too important to me--I wish we might have it, but it
would not hurt me to live without it, and we could educate the
child so that his understanding would be too big to care for such
cretinous words as 'illegitimate.' With your training you could
find work anywhere in the States--or abroad for that matter,
Canada, England, Australia. So could I. I understand the kind of
art work that makes money, as well as photography. I also know
shorthand and typing. We'd make out wherever we went, and be the
same as married. It only needs your will for it, Jimmy, and an
amount of courage that isn't abnormal. Others faced with the same
difficulty have done it.
"Granted, Ann would be hurt badly, for a while. She'd consider us
both lost in sin. (Do you?) Her pride would be hurt, and her love
for you, which may be strong--I don't know that, yes or no. Jimmy,
you and Ann don't have children. You and I do have a child. Granted
also that Ann is good and sweet and conventionally right. Does that
give her the right--
Members of the jury, three words are crossed out here, but not
illegible. It is my understanding that these letters will be available
for the inspection of the jury; the purpose of reading them is to save
time and to make sure of the correct interpretation, as Mr. Warner
pointed out. Now I think I should read these crossed-out words, but will
not do so if the defense has any objection. Do you wish to look at the
page again, Mr. Warner?
MR. WARNER: Not necessary, but wait a moment, please. [_Conferring with
defendant._] The crossed-out words may be read, so long as the jury is
given the whole picture. The words are still legible, it's true, but not
clearly, and it was evidently not Miss Blake's intention that they
should be legible, if she had ever mailed the letter.
MR. HUNTER: Thank you, Counselor. The words crossed out are "to destroy
us"--"Does that give her the right to destroy us"--but with those words
crossed out, the letter reads thus:
"Does that give her the right to keep you and me
apart and prevent my child from having a father?
"Living seems to be full of situations where you can't do a good
thing without an accompanying evil. I suppose it's questions of
this kind that make people give up trying to solve their own
ethical problems and ask some supernatural authority to do it for
them. And yet I would think that the only answer in any such
dilemma is to decide which is greater, the evil or the good. If
they seem to balance, doubtless inaction is better than trying to
perform your good act. But if one is clearly greater than the
other, isn't the answer plain? I know this goes contrary to your
religious views, but Jimmy, this once, think whether I may not be
right and yourself mistaken.
"I am trying to think straight, about the years ahead, the child,
about living with you, the difficulties we'd face. I'm trying not
to remember that you did look at me yesterday once or twice as a
lover might, and with the sunlight falling across your cheekbones,
before I quit playing with the Wayne kids and wandered off. Maybe
some time I'll tell you where I went and what I did.
"I can't think of Ann as anything but an innocent bystander. She
needs you in the common ways, but I--"
Members of the jury, the letter ends there. The State rests.
JUDGE MANN: The Court will hear any motions.
MR. WARNER: Your Honor, I move that the case of the People against
Callista Blake be dismissed on the following grounds: one, that the
prosecution has not demonstrated that the death of Ann Doherty resulted
from a criminal action; two, that the prosecution has not, by witnesses,
connected the defendant Callista Blake with the death of Ann Doherty
beyond a reasonable doubt.
JUDGE MANN: The motion is denied, Mr. Warner. Are there other motions?
MR. WARNER: No, your Honor, not at this time.
JUDGE MANN: The Court stands adjourned until 1 P.M.
7
Upon this, by us has she been required to voluntarily declare
herself to be, and to have always been, a demon of the nature of a
Succubus, which is a female devil whose business it is to corrupt
Christians by the blandishments and flagitious delights of love. To
this the speaker has replied that the affirmation would be an
abominable falsehood, seeing that she had always felt herself to be
a most natural woman.
Then her irons being struck off by the torturer, the aforesaid has
removed her dress, and has maliciously and with evil design
bewildered and attacked our understanding with the sight of her
body, the which, for a fact, exercises upon a man supernatural
coercion.
BALZAC, _The Succubus_
I
In the robing room after the noon recess, Judge Mann was assailed by a
feeling of being out of place, ludicrously so, dismayingly. The village
atheist blundering into a crowd of churchgoers to retrieve his hat; or
an explorer required to take part in a tribal ritual without a briefing
on the rules. Innocent oversight, by the way, on the part of local
chieftains and witchdoctors, for why wouldn't they assume that everybody
knew the rules from infancy as they did? _What am I doing here?_
He could ask the question of Joe Bass and receive an intelligent answer.
No good. No use making Joe uneasy about the Judge's state of mind.
Even the door to the courtroom looked unfamiliar. Why had he never
before noticed that the swirling grain of the oak resembled the smoke
lines of a bonfire? He stood with his hand on the knob, reflecting also
that technique is not enough: he should spend several months, say a
year, in a special kind of discipline, before it would be right to start
taking piano pupils--supposing he had any such intention. He turned the
knob, hearing the muted uproar of a hundred conversations in the dull
room beyond; opened the door a crack, and the noise became a sonorous
flow; opened it then all the way, and the roar was shut off by the
action, since every talker had been watching that door, impatient for
the continuation of ritual. _For example, I would have to learn much
more about children_--
"All rise!"
He walked to the Judge's bench a stranger. Why the devil must they stand
up? Settling their damn lunches?
Seated, noticing how quickly today the rustle and throat-clearing
subsided, his eyes were annoyed by shabbiness. Old stains, scratches on
the woodwork, in every corner a pinch of dust; on every face--Callista
Blake's, Hunter's, even Mr. Delehanty's--the marks of that peculiarly
human strain that people experience in the presence of the heavy
institutions they themselves have made. Maybe his eyes were exaggerating
the dust, to support the bias of his mind, which insisted on pointing up
the dirt, cracks, awkwardly mended spots and general bad housekeeping of
the law itself. _Well, there are certain things to do before I go._ "Are
you ready for your opening, Mr. Warner?"
"Yes, your Honor." The Old Man could hardly say that no one is ever
ready to send his love into the bonfire. "Members of the jury, I don't
think you want to hear any elaborate opening speech from me. A great
part of the defense of Callista Blake has already been brought out by
testimony for the prosecution. I am not referring only to the transcript
of the interrogation of Miss Blake by District Attorney Lamson, in the
course of which she told practically everything that she can tell if I
put her on the witness stand. I am thinking, for example, of the
testimony of a very honest and impartial State policeman, concerning
footprints and other evidence by that pond in Shanesville. I'll revert
to his testimony in my closing words. I'm thinking of the testimony of
Mrs. Jason." Anyway, Mann thought, Cecil Warner's voice was in good
shape; he was slow, and calm, and steady on his feet. "And I am
thinking, of course, of those letters written by Callista Blake which
the District Attorney by some process of reasoning utterly beyond me--I
suppose it's reasoning--appears to regard as evidence of guilt.
"We're confronted here, ladies and gentlemen, by a case in which the
most vital elements are intangible, subjective. Now, the law doesn't
like intangibles. That's natural. If we're dealing with clear, everyday
facts of observation we know where we are, we're used to thinking in
those terms, we can manage as well as if we were manipulating a solid
object in the hand. Take a common sort of case for an example: a man
falls in getting off a bus, is injured, and sues the traction company.
All right: you've got eyewitnesses, medical testimony, and a few fairly
simple questions to decide: did he fall? was he injured, and if so how
badly? was the bus company at fault, and if so what's a just
compensation for the injuries? A jury will have minor difficulties in a
case like that: there's the possibility that the man's a clever fraud,
and since most people are not good observers, the eyewitnesses may
contradict each other a little, but on the whole juries don't have too
hard a time in reaching a fair verdict in such cases.
"Here it's not so. In this case the tangible facts are hardly in
dispute, the vital problem is the interpretation of those facts. There
was aconitine in Callista Blake's apartment; the defense has not denied
it. I know, and Callista Blake knows, why it was there; the State will
try to tell you it was there because of a deep-laid premeditated plot to
kill Ann Doherty. Ann Doherty did drink the poison there, undoubtedly;
we know it happened accidentally, the State will say she was intended to
drink it. The State has demonstrated an affair between Callista Blake
and James Doherty; we have not denied it nor thought of denying it. And
the State, by inference, supplies Callista Blake with the motive of
common jealousy and argues that this led to premeditated murder. Now
Callista herself knows that isn't so; I know it, and so do a few others
really well acquainted with her: they're aware that no degree of sexual
jealousy would ever drive her to perform such an act. But how in the
world is she to prove it to twelve honest jurors who never saw her
before the trial? It's just not in the field of tangible proof. I could
put her on the stand, and if she talked to you all day long, what could
she say on that subject that isn't already said in the traditional words
she's already spoken when she was indicted?--'I am not guilty.' Finally,
the defense does not deny that Callista Blake drove out to Shanesville
soon after Ann Doherty left. The State will have it that she went out
there in a sort of pursuit of Ann Doherty, to make sure Ann died. We
know she did it because she had just discovered that Ann might have got
some of that stuff; we know she went out there in an attempt to reach
Ann before it was too late and save her life; and it was too late, and
Ann Doherty was dead. So there you have state and prosecution asserting
precise contraries. We cannot, by tangible evidence, prove the
intentions, motives, ideas of Callista Blake; neither can the State. In
this connection I'll merely remind you for the present that the State's
own witness Sergeant Shields very clearly and carefully said there was
no way of telling how Ann's body got into the pond; he made it clear
there isn't a scrap of that precious tangible evidence to show that
Callista Blake did anything except stand there and look down, as she
told Mr. Lamson she did.
"Because of the nature of the case, the primary questions of reasonable
doubt and criminal intent or absence of it, I am intending to call only
two witnesses for the defense. As a prosecutor, and taking it for
granted that he has somehow honestly convinced himself of Callista
Blake's guilt, it was unavoidable that my able adversary should have
piled up all that mass of circumstantial evidence, even though hardly
any of it was in dispute. As a prosecutor, he had to do it; trying to
your patience as well as mine, but that's how the law works. Yet when
the dust of argument has settled and you've gone into that jury room, I
think you'll see--or more likely you do already--how the whole thing
comes down to the question whether or not you believe Callista's word.
The two witnesses I mean to call are the two who can come nearer than
any others to telling you, showing you, convincing you, what kind of
girl, what kind of human being Callista Blake really is. And I have no
more to say by way of argument until after they have been heard. Miss
Edith Nolan, please!"
She came forward not briskly but with poise, her thin face showing the
gravity of concentration. She wore the same green tweed suit, in some
need of pressing, that she had worn all through the trial. The dark
shade, nearly the green of hemlock, set off her red hair pleasantly, the
Judge thought, but did not belong too well with light blue eyes; and to
wear the same costume four days running was maybe a little odd. He
noticed also, and hoped the jury would not, her moment's hesitation as
Mr. Delehanty recited the oath and held out the Bible for her. Probably
she would prefer to affirm but had decided against such action to avoid
offending the jury, accepting what to her might be a distasteful
absurdity for the sake of her friend. Edith Nolan would not be, like
Mrs. Jason, a truth-teller at any cost, though the Judge supposed that
whatever she said would be in the service of truth as she saw it.
And what would Callista Blake do if and when it was time for her to take
the oath? If Callista had learned anything yet about the grown-up
necessities of compromise, it did not appear in the evidence nor in her
own actions thus far. The girl who made the responses in the Lamson
interrogation seemed too young, too sharply earnest to understand
flexibility or the art of yielding minor issues for the sake of great
ones. He thought: _Let her learn it quickly!_ And instructed himself
irritably to quit borrowing trouble ahead of time.
Miss Nolan also took care to make no open demonstration of the
friendship which the Judge knew existed between herself and Cecil
Warner. One swift eloquent glance he saw, a silent declaration: "_I'm
with you and will do whatever I can._" Then she was in the witness
chair, private tensions skillfully hidden, giving routine information:
age thirty-one, unmarried, portrait and free-lance photographer, A.B.
Radcliffe plus a year of art school, studio and residence at 96 Hallam
Street, Winchester.
"Is that address near to 21 Covent Street, Miss Nolan?"
"Yes, four of those long uptown blocks."
"How long have you known the defendant Callista Blake?"
"It's almost a year and a half now. She's been my assistant at the
studio since July of last year. She answered an advertisement of mine, I
employed her, and we very soon became close friends."
"Did she take her apartment at Covent Street soon after she began to
work for you?"
"I think it was the same week. I helped her look for it."
"The close friendship you speak of--tell us more of that, will you? For
instance, you're familiar with the details of Callista's life--past
history, opinions, tastes, temperament, things of that sort?"
"Yes, Mr. Warner. A year and a half isn't a long time, but I think I
know Callista as well as I could know my own younger sister if I had
one, or better. Interests in common, a natural sympathy I suppose it
might be called. We agree on many things, and when we differ we know how
to talk, get our ideas across to each other."
"Your shared interest in artistic work has been a large part of that
bond of friendship, hasn't it?"
"Yes, it has."
"Do you at present do any artistic work yourself, besides photography?"
"Not just at present. I have in the past. Illustrations for a children's
book a couple of years ago. Nothing grand, but I hear the kids liked
them. A few things like that."
"In any case you do have professional training and professional
standing. I'm going to ask you for what the law calls an expert opinion.
Miss Nolan, if you were not personally acquainted with Callista Blake,
and if you were called on to judge her work, say in an exhibition of
good serious modern painters, how would you rate it?"
Judge Mann saw T. J. Hunter consider an objection and settle for a
somewhat elaborate bored look. The red-haired woman smiled, for the
first time. Mann's pencil on the doodle-pad rather angrily crossed out
its attempt to draw her face, not in cartoon but in a portrait sketch.
It had escaped him altogether. _I haven't got it._ He laid the pencil
down.
"It's hard to imagine myself not acquainted with Callista. But I think I
can do it, Mr. Warner, for that one question. If I knew nothing about
her, if I were seeing her painting or drawing for the first time under
those conditions, I think it would be likely to outshine anything else
in the show."
"If it were like this, for instance?" Intent on Edith Nolan's face, Mann
had not been aware of Warner's drawing from his pocket a folded cover
paper. Now it was in the red-haired woman's hands, and she was taking
from it a page, evidently from a small scratch-pad, gazing at it and
steadying it with her other hand because her fingers had started to
shake. He thought in distress: _Damn it, we do have to have some
rules_--
"Oh! When did she do this, Mr. Warner?"
"This morning, in court. Scratch paper. Before the reading of the
letters, when Mr. Hunter and I were in side-bar conference and nothing
else was happening."
"She was remembering little Doris Wayne."
"May it please the Court, is Mr. Warner introducing some of the
defendant's art work as an exhibit for the defense, or is this just a
love feast?"
"Mr. Hunter, I think your sarcasm may be distasteful to the jury as well
as to the Court." _But it isn't, and Terence, for Christ's sake hold
your water! That was too strong._ "May I see the sketch, Miss Nolan?"
Warner handed it up. Turned away from the jury, his round sagging face
showed nothing of triumph, looked only tired and frightened. Another
face confronted the Judge, with the arrogance and pathos and curious
vulnerable mirth of childhood. Doris would be about ten, said Callista's
affectionate unsentimental lines, and she was amused about something:
perky, uncertain, lovable, maybe a bit dangerous. He thought: _Now I
know. And though I know it, she still could die. Judge Cleever_--"I
don't suppose it would qualify as an exhibit, Mr. Warner, since it isn't
directly relevant to any of the legal issues. However, if you wish the
jury to see it, the Court has no objection."
Hunter said quietly: "But I object. I haven't seen it, but I consider
the introduction of it an unwarranted attempt to influence the jury's
sympathies with irrelevant matters, and by an improper method."
"I will overrule your objection, Mr. Hunter. The defense is privileged
to question Miss Nolan as a character witness. Miss Blake's artistic
ability is an aspect of her character that it would be absurd to ignore.
No objection was made by you when Mr. Warner asked Miss Nolan for an
expert opinion in the field of art, in which she's evidently qualified
to speak. The introduction of this sketch is merely a natural means of
supplementing and demonstrating what Miss Nolan has to say."
Reluctantly, for it was loss of contact with something valued and not
yet understood, he watched the drawing pass into the lumpy hands of
Peter Anson, foreman, hands that held it briefly under bothered eyes and
passed it on. Casually, and perhaps to cover the intentness with which
he was watching the jury, Cecil Warner said: "Being older, more
experienced, art school and all that, you've taught Callista to some
extent, haven't you?"
The drawing escaped from the blank glance of Emma Beales into the hands
of LaSalle, which held it for some time, and gently. Edith Nolan said
slowly: "About technique, handling materials, things like that, yes, Mr.
Warner, but ..." The drawing rested in Mrs. Kleinman's lap while she
changed to reading glasses; probably the good lady couldn't get used to
bifocals. "Her ability is very much greater than anything I have, so it
would be truer to say, Mr. Warner, that she has taught me." Mr. Fielding
looked at the face of Doris Wayne with lifted brows that might mean
indifference or annoyance, and passed the drawing to Helen Butler. "You
see, aside from her own talent, Callista has that faculty of searching
out whatever's best in anyone, and--" _Why must Helen Butler look at me?
I am not Callista's accuser!_--"and making it better if she can."
_Don't get too rich for their blood, Miss Nolan! Hide a little the fact
that you love her, or they'll begin to discount what you say._ And yet,
the Judge reflected, she could hardly be expected to dissemble; there
would be a false note if she did. And how softly the woman was
speaking!--as if they were here not to consider Callista Blake's life or
death but only to talk about her as friends might talk affectionately of
another in absence. He looked again at the jury. Miss Butler had
relinquished the drawing to a hand from the back row and was frowning
into the distance, her mild intelligent face more disturbed than he had
seen it at any time during the trial. A Sunday painter, wasn't she?--he
tried to remember her answers during voir dire examination, but they had
gone vague: a rather mousy personality, good and pleasant but not
strong.
The foreman Peter Anson fidgeted irritably, and settled into a glumness.
Something wrong there. Judge Mann felt a kind of pain, in its beginning
hardly distinguishable from a twisted muscle or the first warning of
nausea. Anson's blunt face had become readable; at any rate Judge Mann's
interpretation of its look came to him with such force that it was
difficult for him to doubt his own insight: the blobby features were
saying that to Mr. Peter Anson long-hairs and especially long-hair
intellectual women were one big pain in the ass. You could understand
it. Anson was a man who liked things simple and comfortable; he wanted
larger issues settled by authority and formula, and you could say the
wish derived from an honest humility, inarticulate awareness of his own
mental limitations; unfortunately it meant that anything not covered by
authority and formula must be brushed aside, or ignored--or hated.
Confronted by a manifestly human Callista Blake or Edith Nolan--well,
Anson was a good little joe and would try to be fair about it; BUT ...
Only later did the Judge admit that his sense of unease, so much
resembling obscure physical pain, could be the beginning of despair.
The drawing came back to Warner from the hands of Peter Anson but
without another glance from him; for a moment his stubby hands were
eloquent, saying: "_This paper has nothing to do with me._"
"It's true, isn't it, Miss Nolan, that although you're naturally fond of
Callista and loyal to her, the fondness and loyalty are based on
understanding? I mean, you know your friend's faults and weaknesses too.
You have, maybe, something of an older sister's detachment?"
"Yes, I think it's fair to say that. Mr. Warner, if that drawing isn't
to be used further, as an exhibit or anything--may I have it?"
"Well ..." The moment was a long one, Cecil Warner turning to look at
Callista Blake with something more than inquiry, Edith and Callista
gazing at each other directly, unsmiling, yet the Judge wished the
moment might be prolonged for the sake of his own understanding. A kind
of brilliance and a hush; the courtroom no more present than the ocean
is present at some moment of wind and shining sand and sunlight: only
the three of them; the three of them, and himself somehow more than a
simple observer. Callista smiled: climax of a moment that could have
lasted no longer. Warner was saying quickly: "Of course, my dear--" and
giving the drawing to Edith, who put it away in her handbag and shut the
clasp with care. "Now would you, as an observant friend, say that
Callista is moodier than most people? Subject to depressions?"
Hunter bayed: "I suggest Miss Nolan's qualifications as a psychiatrist
have not exactly been established."
"My question refers to a simple observation anyone might make."
"Is that a formal objection, Mr. Hunter?"
"No, your Honor. But I hope the testimony isn't going to stray into
fields where only a psychiatrist would be competent to speak."
"Let your mind be at rest on that point, Mr. District Attorney. Is
Callista Blake subject to periods of depression, Miss Nolan?"
"Yes, decidedly." Judge Mann considered the possibility of exaggeration,
not falsehood exactly but close to it. Surely Callista Blake was not
what his brother Jack would call a depressive type, if that word was
still favored in the jargon. "However, Mr. Warner, I think Callista's
depressions are generally related to some external cause. Related to
things that happen to her." _Yes, Redhead, that helps--some._
"Were you at all acquainted with Mrs. James Doherty?"
"By sight, hardly more. I believe I met her three times in all, when I
was visiting Callista's family in Shanesville."
"Have you met Mr. James Doherty any more often than that?"
"I don't think so. Same occasions, and then one or two times since Mrs.
Doherty's death, in connection with this case."
"Callista never told you much about the Dohertys, either of them?"
"No, not much, until last July. Then she took me into her confidence
about the episode with Doherty, which had ended then, or so she hoped."
"She said that? That she hoped the affair was ended?"
"Just that, as I recall. She showed me that letter from Doherty, the
thing that was read in court, and then later--well, next morning in
fact, she said: 'I hope it's over. I hope I'm done with the fever and
the blindness.'"
It could be despair, that dullness in him like a bodily ache. The Judge
found he was again studying faces on the jury. Emmet Hoag bored, half
asleep by the look of him. Ancient Emerson Lake neither bored nor
hostile, his gaze rigid, vaguely vulturine, apparently hypnotized by the
swell of Edith Nolan's breast, under the tweed suit hardly more than
hints of fullness and softness, but evidently enough to set an old man
dreaming in his rank and lonely antiquity; would he be hearing what she
said at all? Young LaSalle seemed indecisively friendly, Mr. Fielding
remote behind an unreadable pallid front. The Beales woman studied Edith
Nolan's green handbag, possibly wondering if it was a style that would
suit herself. Mrs. Grant appeared grumpy; likely her bony frame was
uncomfortable in the graceless seat of the jury box. The only faces of
the entire jury that showed any positive liking for Edith Nolan were
those of Helen Butler and Rachel Kleinman. He saw Dora Lagovski
apparently submerged in moist daydream; recalled that when Callista's
drawing had reached her he had seen the damp lips form (in merciful
silence) the word "cute." Emerson Lake's jaw was now moving slightly,
approximately in time with the mild rise and fall of Edith Nolan's
breathing--damn the old buzzard. But what about himself, aged
forty-seven and for the last few minutes intensely aware of Edith Nolan
as a desirable woman? Weren't his own wits wandering?
So far as the Judge could see, Edith Nolan was doing nothing to flaunt
her personal attractiveness. Probably to many eyes she would have none.
Her make-up was not prominent, the tweed suit practically dowdy, her
manner consistently simple and direct. If his wandering middle-aged eye
wanted a tickling, why not choose an obvious pin-up type like the juror
Dolores Acevedo? He forced himself to glance in that direction once
again. The black-haired beauty was showing no more emotion at present
than Mr. Fielding. Very lovely indeed; made more so by her position next
to the sallow weediness of the schoolteacher Stella Wainwright. Lovely
like a conventional painting, Acevedo--and no more disturbing. Her face
blurred; the instant's involuntary motion of his eyes transformed it to
another, also under black hair: but these were close-set curls, the face
altogether different, not beautiful at all by common standards but
rather homely, big-nosed, small-chinned, the eyes sea-blue and, not for
the first time, frightening. "_It wasn't natural how men went crazy for
her--not even pretty--any man, garage man, anything in pants...._"
That peevish outbreak from Maud Welsh had puzzled the Judge at the time.
Now he could sense the quality in Callista that Maud Welsh had meant.
Earlier perhaps he had been too intensely preoccupied with other aspects
of the case and with his own situation as Judge, the lawyer and judge
dominant, the male animal quiescent or at least temporarily locked up in
the cellar. Yes, she had it, the quality sensed but not understood
because understanding is a verbalizing process and there aren't any
words for the electric something-or-other that will make men turn in
desire toward one particular woman in a crowd, ignoring others who may
be in a dozen ways prettier, more agreeable, more available. Callista
had it. Edith Nolan, in her own totally different way, had it, at least
for himself, perhaps not for most others. No: Maud Welsh wouldn't have
been likely to make that remark about Miss Nolan. _Yes, they are
wandering._
"Do you recall, Miss Nolan, what day it was that this conversation took
place, about Doherty's letter?"
"Yes, it was the evening of Monday, July 6th, the same day Callista had
received that letter."
"I'll ask you to tell the circumstances more fully in your own way."
"She telephoned me, that evening, soon after going home from my studio.
Asked me to come over to Covent Street. Her voice sounded as it might if
she'd been in physical pain. I went at once, and found her--well, dazed,
sick, in shock you could call it. She'd been in one of her blue moods
all week, I didn't know why. She held out that letter to me. I read the
thing. I remember I told her she'd feel better if she could cry, or
smash dishes, anything to break the tension that was making her sick.
She did cry, the only time I've known her to do so. And told me about
it. Everything, I think. Except at that time she didn't know she was
pregnant--a few days past the period, not enough to signify. When she
was able to talk she was much better, got things in proportion, summed
it up quite realistically herself without my saying much. She'd loved
him a while, the kind of infatuation any lonely and imaginative girl
might experience; then when she most needed him he'd broken it off, and
that was that."
"Objection! Irrelevant opinions."
"Objection overruled." Judge Mann reflected dourly on the legal unwisdom
of what he was about to add, and added it: "It appears to the Court that
the witness is concerned with matters of fact as she saw them, speaking
to the best of her knowledge and belief." _Old buzzard, pint-size
Emerson Lake in a black silk nightie, you wanted that startled blue-eyed
glance, the warmth of it and the friendliness, and you knew you'd get
it: consider whether that was why you spoke._
"Exception."
"Did Callista say anything to suggest she was thinking of suicide?"
"Two things, Mr. Warner, which I didn't understand at the time as I
should have. When she was crying and hysterical, she said: 'I want my
father, my father, I can't find out how to live without him.' Well, I
knew he'd died away back when she was seven years old. Then later she
said, twice I think: 'I wish I was dead.' That--oh, I took it to be
simply an unthinking expression of grief and exhaustion. It seems to be
a thing people say without considering quite what it means. I took it
that way: alarming but not to be understood literally. But I think now,
she meant it literally."
"You stayed with her a while, I suppose?"
"Yes, took her back to my place and made her go to bed there, gave her a
sleeping pill. I played some hi-fi records, things she liked, until she
fell asleep. In the morning she seemed to be in good command of herself,
sense of humor restored anyway. That's when she said she hoped she was
cured, and for a while I stopped worrying about other things she'd
said."
"But only for a while?"
"Only for a while. During the following month, the rest of July, it was
clear that things weren't right for her. Not herself. Deep abstractions
for instance, when she wouldn't answer because she really didn't hear.
Normally with me she's completely courteous, wouldn't dream of ignoring
a question if she heard it. In July she was slipping down into the
bluest of blue moods, and I couldn't reach her. I wondered about
pregnancy because of what she'd told me, and asked her about it, I guess
a week after she'd first told me the situation. She said: 'Oh, I'm all
right.' Mistakenly, I took that to mean she'd had the delayed period.
Either she answered evasively, which isn't like her, or she didn't
understand my question. The last, I think. I think she was in such a
faraway mood it was hard for her to get hold of what people said."
"Did she say any more, that month, about suicide?"
"Indirectly, yes. One evening we got into a sort of general talk, just
kicking ideas around. She said some individuals are deficient in the
will to live; living is desiring, she said, and such people don't desire
strongly enough for a complete effort to stay alive. Well--something in
it if you're speaking of certain pathological cases--catatonics I think
the doctors call them--patients who just lie around, won't eat or even
move, a kind of death in life. But that's so far from anything in
Callista's make-up, I couldn't believe she was talking indirectly about
herself. She said not all zombis are in the psychopathic hospitals.
Later--this did alarm me--she remarked that she'd have no problems worth
mentioning if she could discover any purpose in existence. A depressive
remark, certainly. She wouldn't have said it if she hadn't felt she was
losing her hold on things, losing her interest in living--and if I
understand it correctly, Mr. Warner, that loss of interest is the danger
sign. People can talk a lot about killing themselves, and nothing
happens. But if the interest in living goes--"
"Objection! This is exactly the sort of thing I was afraid of, your
Honor. I don't care what she calls it, Miss Nolan is now lecturing us
like a professional psychiatrist, and I object."
"Overruled." _I believe I snapped; the rumble on the left is the noise
of calf-bound law books revolving in the grave._ "The Court has not
received the impression that the witness is claiming any professional
standing in psychiatry. The remark you object to, Mr. Hunter, was a
general one, to be sure; but she was speaking of matters that are either
common knowledge or ought to be. I must rule that the defense is within
its rights to let her follow this line, to help clarify her testimony on
matters of fact." _And where in the pluperfect hell do I dig up a
precedent on that one?_
"Exception."
"Yes. You may complete what you were saying, Miss Nolan."
"If the interest in living is gone--I mean the simple wish to stay alive
and see what will happen next--then I think there's real danger of a
suicide. And as the Judge said, Mr. Warner, I guess that's pretty much
common knowledge. Callista herself was certainly aware of it, from her
reading, her general education. Well, that remark about discovering any
purpose in existence--I caught Callista up on that, I remember. I
reminded her that we make and choose our own purposes--" (_Watch it,
Red!_)--"so far as we know them." She understood the danger, probably,
the risk of touching on any questions that, for most of the jury, were
settled on Sunday morning and decently ignored the rest of the week.
"She--thought about that, I'm sure, and for a while I think she came
part way out of her depression. Not all the way."
"Summing up then, Miss Nolan: knowing her as you do, and seeing her, I
suppose, every week-day during last July--you're convinced that most of
that time she was behaving like one in the grip of a serious depression
with the possibility of suicide?"
"I don't have any doubt of it, Mr. Warner--now. I ought not to have been
in doubt at the time. If anyone is guilty in this case it's myself,
because I ought to have stayed with her just about every minute until
she won her way out of that mood. Then there would have been no chance
for the horrible accident that makes it possible to charge her with--"
"Objection!"
"Objection sustained." She looked up with understanding and no reproach.
The man in private applauded her doubtless intentional violation of
rules, while the Judge must condemn. "The witness's answer will have to
be stricken." _It comes to me, I did not add that the jury is to
disregard it. That all right, Red?_
"Miss Nolan, I understand you weren't present at a certain picnic in
Shanesville last August 7th. Did you know about it at the time?"
"Yes. I closed the studio that afternoon--the weather was impossibly
hot. Cal said her mother was having one of her picnics, and thought she
might go. Cal didn't ordinarily care for that sort of thing, but I--oh,
I guess I just told her to run along and have a good time."
"Did Callista speak later of seeing the Dohertys at that picnic?"
"Yes, Monday. All she said was that they were there, and she hadn't
talked with either of them. I asked if she was--cured, and she said:
'Oh, Edith, I can't talk about it yet, I can't.' I had to let it go at
that. All that week she was very blue. She was working hard--too hard;
volunteered to straighten out some of my records. Afraid to relax,
maybe."
"When did you last see Callista before her arrest?"
"Friday, August 14th, when she left the studio after work."
"What did her mood seem to be at that time?"
"Tired, unhappy, withdrawn--but maybe a little more composed. I knew
that, left to herself and barring unforeseeable accidents, she'd find
good and reasonable answers to her troubles, but--Mr. Warner, it's
strangely difficult to help anyone you love."
"Did you talk to her on the phone that week end any time?"
"Yes, late Sunday afternoon, the 16th. My father was in town that day, a
flying visit, unexpected. Callista had never met him. I wanted her to. I
called her late in the afternoon, past 5:30 I think--to ask if she'd
like to come over in the evening. She said she might, but there was
something she had engaged to do first. She sounded very much better. Not
happy, but--calm anyhow. She didn't say what the engagement was, and
didn't make it sound like anything too important. It could have been a
reference to Mrs. Doherty's coming to see her--I mean, nothing Callista
said was inconsistent with that. She could hardly have talked to me as
calmly, almost cheerfully, as she did, if she'd still been overwrought
or--or had known she was heading toward something disastrous."
"When she didn't come to meet your father, did you call her?"
"Tried to, a little after nine--that would have been when she was out in
Shanesville, according to what she told the District Attorney. I wasn't
worried when she didn't show up, just supposed that something had
delayed her until too late, and that she'd bring me up to date when I
saw her Monday."
"What was her usual time for coming to work in the morning?"
"Any time before ten was all right with me. That Monday, August 17th,
she telephoned me at about ten and said she was sick. Her voice was
completely changed: flat, dead. I asked of course what was wrong. She
said in the same tone, without hesitation: 'I've been pregnant since
June and last night I had a miscarriage.' I told her I'd come over as
soon as I could get rid of a client who was waiting in the studio. She
said then in a very distressed way: 'No no, Edith, please don't!' She
insisted she was all right, and then for a moment or two she was almost
incoherent, saying she--oh, refused to drag me into her troubles, things
like that. I said nonsense, I was her friend and that's what friends are
for. Finally I asked if there was anyone with her, and she said no, but
there would be presently. I thought she meant her mother or maybe her
stepfather or both--she didn't say so, it was just one of those mistaken
impressions you get under stress."
"You didn't go over?"
"No, sir. I thought that if Mrs. Chalmers was there I'd likely just be
crashing in and doing more harm than good. I called again, later. Busy
signals. When I finally got through, about one-thirty, the phone was
answered by some policeman who asked me a few dozen questions and was
finally willing to tell me that Miss Blake had been detained for
questioning on a certain matter, as he called it, and was at the
courthouse, at Mr. Lamson's office."
"Who was that policeman, if you recall?"
"Gage or some such name."
_One for the Chief of Detectives. The Judge will not smile. There is no
reason to smile._
"Did you then go to the District Attorney's office, Miss Nolan?"
"Yes."
"Were you given any information about your friend?"
"No, sir, just a brush-off from some clerk. That's when I started trying
to call you, Mr. Warner."
"Yes. I have only one or two more questions, Miss Nolan. Did Callista
ever express to you any hostility toward Ann Doherty?"
"Never. I recall that she spoke of her several times, but never with
hostility or resentment or anything suggesting jealousy. No exaggerated
friendliness either. I got the impression they were--acquaintances."
"Well, for that matter, did you ever hear Callista speak maliciously
about anyone?"
"Never."
II
"Your witness, Mr. Hunter."
Edith Nolan thought with an edge of panic: _Is that all, Cecil?_ The Old
Man's face was saying a kind of good-bye to her, turning away, not
apparently displeased or disappointed--satisfied rather, so far as one
could hope to read a face that must also be presenting a front to the
gaze of the jury. But there was so much more that ought to have been
said! The intimate truths of personality, relation, individual quality,
that become no longer small once your vision is clear enough to separate
the general from the specific, to see the primary core of self and the
universe its matrix at one and the same time, neither too much
distorted. It seemed to Edith that she had hardly begun to talk to those
twelve, who were certainly not all dull, not all hostile.
Was there, for example, no way at all to explain that Callista had a
comic brown mole near her navel, that when she was absorbed in reading
her left forefinger twisted a black curl above her ear, always the same
curl, the same small motion--and that these facts, alone and of
themselves, were reasons as great, valid, finally convincing, as any of
the other reasons why she must not be slain?
Still it was not, ultimately, a question of explaining anything, of
offering facts to twelve other minds with the assumption that they could
view them as you did. They could not. If it isn't in nature for two
pairs of eyes ever to observe a simple physical object in quite the same
manner, how grotesque to expect twelve minds to agree, or even
approximate agreement, in the consideration of an abstract idea! What
was needed, she thought, was that twelve minds should learn (here and
now and very quickly) a type of humility in the face of the unknown that
even the strongest and best schooled intelligences found it hard to
achieve with study and leisure and every advantage of the past's
accumulated resources. Unknown indeed--these people knew nothing of
Callista Blake. They never could, in the nature of things, know much,
never acquire more than a brief distorted glimpse of her, and that under
conditions so outrageously far from the daily norm that her actual self
appeared to them as no more than the flicker of a shadow. The kindly and
badly troubled little man up there on the bench knew far more about her
than they did, simply because he was trained to observation and the
disciplines of independent thought; and he knew only a trifle. _How
little I know myself, or ever will know!_
She controlled her face to the semblance of tranquillity. The long-jawed
man had arrived with his athletic grace, a foot raised comfortably on
the platform that elevated the witness chair, his charcoal-gray suit
just right for the occasion, neat and grave like a uniform. At close
range, Edith noticed his expression was not particularly cold or severe.
His eyes were thoughtful, his features betrayed no ugly tension. What is
cruelty anyway, and how do you read it in another? It seemed to be
present like an occasional tic (but might not really be) in the vacuous
face of that oaf Hoag in the front row of the jury box. But in T. J.
Hunter? At the moment he looked like a solemn salesman about to give her
a well-spoken pitch, say on insurance or a middle-priced car.
"You would do virtually anything, would you not, for your friend
Callista Blake?"
"The best thing I can do for her is tell the truth about her and about
these events, so far as I know it, and that I've done."
"Your answer is not quite responsive, Miss Nolan."
"I think it is, but I'll be more specific if you wish. I would not
commit crimes for Callista Blake or any other friend, if only because in
the long run you do your friend no service that way--compounding wrong
things instead of lessening them. And I would not lie for her on any
important matter, because it happens the truth is best for her as well
as for me."
"That's quite a pragmatic attitude, isn't it?"
_My, the high intellectual plane!_ "Naturalistic might be a better word,
Mr. District Attorney, but pragmatic if you like. If an ethical
principle isn't at least theoretically practical in human affairs, I'd
rather leave it in the books."
"I see your point." _If only you did!_ "You wouldn't kill in defense of
Callista Blake?"
"Why, I might. If it's a clear case of protecting a friend's life, the
law generally calls it justifiable homicide, doesn't it?"
"But for you it would have to be a clear case, is that right? I mean,
you're referring to something on the level of shooting a burglar to
protect the household, something like that?"
"I suppose so. I've never encountered any situation like that, so I
really can't predict how I'd behave."
"Let me make sure I understand your position, Miss Nolan. You do not
believe in absolute ethical principles?"
"Before I can answer that I must have your personal definition of the
word 'absolute'."
"You must be familiar with the term, are you not?"
"Yes, but there would be at least five or six definitions of it in any
unabridged dictionary, and I can't know which one you have in mind
unless you tell me."
"Well, I had in mind the meaning which I think is generally used in
philosophical discussions: self-contained, self-dependent, ultimate, in
other words free from the limitations of human error, human perception."
"Thank you." _He is a shade tougher than I thought._ "In that case the
answer would have to be that ethical principles are human achievements,
human ways of thinking and acting, and I don't see how a human activity
can ever be free from the limitations of human error and human
perception."
"Very plausible. I see you've done quite a bit of thinking along these
lines. That is what you mean by what you called a--a naturalistic
attitude, I think that was your term?"
"In part, yes."
"Oh, there's more?"
"As a well-read man, Mr. Hunter, you must know that the conception of
naturalistic ethics is at least as old as Confucius, that libraries have
been filled with it, and that we could talk here on the subject until
the end of next year with a great deal left unsaid."
"Well, I'm afraid there might be a fatigue factor."
"There might indeed." _Was I quick enough to steal some of that applause
of witless laughter?_ "It would take quite a while just to find a little
agreement on definitions and first premises."
"Maybe." He looked downright friendly, she thought, until you noticed
the rigid watchfulness. His smile was comfortable; he probably felt that
the rumble of amusement was, on the whole, one for his side. It probably
was. She risked a glance toward the jury. Most of them looked puzzled,
but none really irritated except little Mr. Anson; Flint-face Fielding
seemed coldly interested, but whether in a favorable or hostile way
there was no telling. In Helen Butler Edith saw a tiny flicker, surely
friendliness, as their eyes met for an instant. It might mean
recognition and memory, but if Miss Butler had any thought of
disqualifying herself because of a trivial meeting months ago when they
had not even exchanged names, she would surely have done it already.
_Best not look at her again._ "I think, Miss Nolan, I'd better go back
to my original question. I gave you my definition of 'absolute,' you
remember, and you said--which sounded reasonable to me--that human
activity can't very well be free from human error. Now, may I take that
as a positive no to my earlier question: you do not believe in absolute
ethical principles?"
"Not quite, Mr. Hunter. Some ethical principles take on the apparent
quality of absolutes, or of universal law, simply because virtually all
the members of a society endorse them. In other words we act as if those
principles were absolutes, whether we can justify it logically or not.
So let me put it this way: I believe in following certain ethical
principles as strictly as though they had the nature of universal law,
so long as my own conscience, my own intelligence, can agree to it."
"I see. But that means, doesn't it, that your conscience is actually, to
you, the supreme judge?"
"In a sense it has to be."
"For example," said Judge Mann suddenly, and Edith turned to him feeling
as though he had reached out a hand to aid her in crossing slippery
rocks above a torrent--"for example, if an individual accepts the orders
or doctrines of an external authority, would you agree, Miss Nolan, that
his acceptance is itself an act of his own conscience, or will, or
intelligence?"
"Yes, your Honor, that expresses what I had in mind."
The Judge said: "In fact the individual can have no dealings, no contact
with ideas or doctrines or even with simple observation of the physical
world, unless there is first a positive action of his own intelligence.
Is this still in line with your thought, Miss Nolan?"
"Yes, your Honor."
"And--I'll be done in a moment, Mr. Hunter--and finally, would you
agree, Miss Nolan, that this decidedly elementary fact is often
overlooked in our everyday thinking, perhaps because it's so obvious
that we aren't willing to give it a second glance or work out its
implications?"
"I believe so. We accept the fact the way animals accept the air they
breathe, and with no more thought."
"Yes," said Judge Mann, his gaze leaving her, maybe reluctantly, as he
scribbled something on his note-pad, "life was breathing air a good many
million years before a fairly advanced science noticed that air was a
mixture of different gases, had weight and mass, other properties. Well,
go on, Mr. Hunter."
Edith thought: _Maybe that'll larn him._ And over there beside her
friend, the Old Man's dark eyes were watching, saying as plainly as eyes
could say it that he was pleased with her, and that he was profoundly
frightened.
"I've enjoyed this little excursion into philosophy, Miss Nolan, and I'm
glad his Honor lent us a hand with it--'way over my depth, I'm
afraid--but now I suppose we'd better get back to the facts. Well, one
thing first: am I right in supposing that in your view, this--this act
of acceptance, I think you called it, has to happen first before one is
even allowed to believe in a Supreme Being?"
She could not help glancing toward the Judge, who was watching the
prosecutor, coldly intent and unjudicially angry. The corner of her eye
gave her the solemn approving nod of the juror Emma Beales, the sudden
relaxation--_everything's all right, boys_--in the foreman Peter Anson.
She understood that Judge Mann was waiting for her. "Mr. Hunter, I also
enjoyed that excursion into philosophy, but unless the Court rules it's
relevant, I will not discuss my views on religion with you."
"They are not relevant to the case," said Judge Mann, "and the witness
is not required to answer."
Hunter nodded politely. "I've certainly no wish to press the point. But
may I ask--and by the way, I won't urge you to respond to this question
either if you'd rather not--may I ask, Miss Nolan, whether you're
willing to state the reasons for your refusal to answer?"
"Quite willing. Religion is a topic that too easily stirs up a lot of
emotion if there's any serious discussion or conflict of opinion. I
assume the members of the jury belong to more than one religious faith.
Some of them might share my views, others might be offended by them--I
can't tell. But since religion, so far as I can see, has absolutely
nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of my friend, I think it would
make no sense anyhow for me to get into the subject."
The Old Man over there nodded slightly, maybe a kind of cheering, a way
of saying his gal Red could take care of herself. _But can I?_
"That's reasonable," said T. J. Hunter almost affectionately. "You're
right it's a touchy topic, right also that it has no direct bearing on
the question of guilt or innocence; and I'm as anxious as you are to
avoid stirring up needless emotions or side issues. The only thing I do
wish I could get at along this line--my only reason for speaking of it
at all--well, Miss Nolan, if you have no unqualified belief in absolute
ethical principles, and if a question about belief in God is merely
distasteful to you, don't you think that might have some slight bearing
on your credibility as a witness in a murder trial?"
The Old Man was standing up, his voice slow in coming, slow-moving when
it came as if each word must force its way past an obstacle in his
throat: "Mr. Hunter, that is vicious and contemptible."
And before stage anger took control of the handsome mask with the shovel
chin, Edith glimpsed the fact that T. J. Hunter was at last genuinely
pleased about something. "I must ask you to watch your choice of
language, Counselor."
"No more of this," said Judge Mann. "The attention of both counsel,
please. Your question, Mr. Hunter, was entirely out of order, because it
implied that a person with independent views on religion has a lower
regard for the truth than others--an implication with no slightest basis
in fact or logic. From her answers, her manner, her educational
background, there is every reason to suppose that Miss Nolan has quite
as high a regard for the truth as anyone else who has testified in this
case. You will withdraw your question. Mr. Warner, your remark to the
prosecutor was ill-chosen and unparliamentary. It calls for an apology
to him, I think."
Hunter spoke gently: "I withdraw my question."
"Mr. Hunter," said the Old Man wearily, "I was influenced by personal
feeling as I should not have been, and my words were ill-chosen. My
apology, sir, if you can find it acceptable."
Very gently, Hunter said: "Why, of course, Cecil." And more gently
still: "I will ask no further questions of this witness."
She stood up, dizzy. Some passage of words between Cecil and the Judge.
Redirect examination--there would be none. She heard the Judge say after
an impatient throat-clearing that she was excused, and through a sudden
maddening colorless blur she saw or imagined that Cecil was achieving a
sort of smile for her. She stepped down carefully, concentrated on
preventing her fingers from reaching after a handkerchief or rising
toward her face. If she could keep her head turned away from the jury,
they might not see. Her seat was over there somewhere, beyond the bald
skull of the fattest reporter at the press tables. Cecil was still
smiling, more or less.
_But I lost. I lost._
_Callista, what have I done to you?_
III
Callista thought: _I am stronger than she is, and never knew it before.
Why is she crying, after she was so wonderful?_
It was no trick of vision; no mistaking the intrusive brilliant glitter
on her cheeks as Edith stepped down and walked rather clumsily--but head
high--toward her seat. She would not retire in any sniffling droop:
rather, Callista knew, she would be furious at the weakness, and maybe
not reach for a handkerchief even when she was clear of the arena but
keep her head high and angrily observant, let the sparkle dry on her
face and stay there, the hell with it. _But I am much stronger. I can
hold up too, even better. I won't let hunter-Hunter trick me into saying
anything he can use. I'll play the act to the limit. For Cecil. For
Edith. For myself. And isn't it time now?_
Yes, it was time. Cecil was whispering to her. Watching Edith still,
ready with a smile if Edith would only look her way, Callista lost his
words and had to ask him to repeat. "I'm putting you on now. Feeling all
right, Cal? Steady?"
"I'm fine, Bud. Steady. Let 'em all come." It occurred to her that she
really did feel in excellent condition. This was the end of the long
affliction of waiting, mute listening, anticipation: now at least she
could attempt to do something. Cecil rose and moved away; he was up
there near the witness stand, calling her name, smiling a
little--_Himself, not like my father. It is time. First to
Mr.-Delehanty-which-is-the-Clerk._
At close range Mr. Delehanty's eyes appeared curiously vacant. She found
a moment's fantastic pleasure in proposing to herself that the poor guy
might actually have died long ago, leaving a fruity voice, a magnificent
suit of clothes, and some structure (partly plastic?) designed to hold
the two together world without end. The arm mechanism must be especially
clever, to carry on that Bible routine. She held her hands at her sides,
and before the melodious rumble (a concealed recording?) could start,
she spoke quickly as she had rehearsed herself last night while Matron
Kowalski was playing the usual games with that light bulb in the
corridor: "I affirm that I will tell the truth, the whole truth so far
as I know it, and nothing but the truth."
At the corner of her eye she glimpsed Cecil's stricken look, and
thought: _Oh yes yes, I should have warned him._ Her thought continued
with an irritation which love somehow magnified instead of diminishing:
_What's the matter anyhow? Must we be so timid? They're not going to
condemn me for such a thing as that. Are they?_
Mr. Delehanty made an indeterminate fogbound noise.
Judge Mann said evenly: "The oath is binding in that form--should there
be a question in anyone's mind. The witness is exercising a
constitutional privilege which ought to be familiar to everyone." She
felt he would have liked to speak to her directly, humanly. Instead he
turned to the still faintly resonating Delehanty and remarked in a
casual undertone too low for the jury's hearing but not for hers: "You
might be interested to know, Mr. Delehanty, that I chose to affirm when
I took the oath as a justice." _You were not actually speaking to
that-which-is-the-Clerk--I heard and I'm grateful._ "You may take the
stand now, Miss Blake."
They were trying to help her. Cecil, Edith, now Judge Mann who, as Cecil
said, had tried all along to give her every break--tried too much for
his own good, maybe, and hers too. She understood that he not only
desired to help her: he _saw_ her.
Her mind grew dizzy, shifted, retreated, sought to steady itself, reason
and unreason quarreling within. Were they, the three of them, treating
her as they might treat a difficult child? She fought down the illogical
resentment, despising it, conquering it--almost. She was seated, the
ungainly witness chair still warm from Edith's body. How different the
courtroom looked from up here! A whole new orientation. Just look, for
instance, at that big slob in the back row smuggling a candy bar up to
the pink slot in his shiny face. Had that operation been going on since
Monday morning? _Look, Daddy! Is he s'posed to eat in here, Daddy, is he
s'posed to, huh, Daddy?_
The jury too. (_Where's Jimmy?_) The jury was closer, much closer. She
could smell them. One of the females gave off a powerful tuberose reek,
variable as drafts in the large room stirred it about. (_Where's Jimmy,
if it matters?_) Callista decided the smell was generated by the
Lagovski, probably in heat. Any minute now--well, Emerson Lake was the
biggest, but pretty old; maybe one of the more vigorous younger males--
"Callista--" _Please stand near me always!_--"you're a resident of
Winchester, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir. 21 Covent Street."
"You've kept that apartment?"
"Oh yes. Edith Nolan is taking care of it for me."
"Ought to be back there in a few days." _How do you do it, Cecil, that
casualness? You're hurting inside worse than I am. I feel fine._ "You
were attentive to all of Miss Nolan's testimony, weren't you?"
"Yes, I was, Mr. Warner."
"Before we go on to other things, is there anything in that testimony
that you want to comment on, or add to, maybe?"
_You told me, give them modesty. "Every one of them knows, Cal, that
you're in their power. Think what that does to twelve human egos, and
show them the respect they believe they deserve. In fact don't just show
it: try to make yourself feel it." I will give them modesty, Cecil._ "I
think she overrated me as an artist, Mr. Warner. It's her honest view, I
know, but I'm not that good." _Who knows for sure? Maybe I am._
"Well, as you know, I set a very high value on your work myself." His
quick relaxed smile was including the jury somehow. _Wish I could do
that._ Or some of the jury: his glance had been directed, she thought,
toward the crinkle-faced middle-aged lady. _Name?--Butler, Miss Helen
Butler._ Callista ventured to meet the woman's eyes, did so, and was
frightened to realize that for the instant's duration she was not
certain what her own facial muscles were doing. _What did I actually
do?--make a face?_ Surely there had been a gleam like friendliness in
Helen Butler; just as surely, the woman was now looking down at her
hands, and away across the room, troubled but otherwise communicating
nothing at all. "However, Callista, I was thinking chiefly of other
things Miss Nolan said--for instance her belief that you might have been
experiencing a serious depression, perhaps suicidal, last July and part
of August. Was she right, Callista? Were you at that time, or any part
of that time, actually contemplating doing away with yourself?"
"Yes, I--yes, I was."
"It was a definite intention, my dear?"
"For a while, yes. It wasn't so until I happened to see those plants in
my mother's garden. Maybe not too definite even then. I only thought:
this would be one way. Then I was thinking, why not take a few, have
them on hand if things got worse? Then I was actually taking them,
breaking off the tops and shoving them away in the tall grass, keeping
the roots."
"But I presume you must have been working up to that state of mind for
quite a while?"
"Yes, I had been. It was like a progressive illness--well, I suppose
that's what it really is. Each day a little emptier than the one before,
a little harder to care about anything."
"You made that infusion of the roots in brandy?"
"Yes, the next day."
"Do you recall the circumstances--what part of the day it was, say?"
"It was evening, after I'd stopped trying to write that letter--the one
I didn't finish, didn't mail."
"You gave up entirely on that letter, didn't you?--I mean, you decided
it couldn't do any good?"
"Oh, that's true. I was imagining communication when--when in the nature
of things there just couldn't be any. Jimmy--Jim Doherty and I never
really--never _saw_ each other, never heard--"
"Callista, I'm not sure the jury--it's a difficult thing to express."
"I know, Mr. Warner, and I'm doing it badly. Well--sometimes a person
can get rid of the self-preoccupation long enough to really _know_
someone else, without illusion or pretense. It's like that with Edith
Nolan and me. We--communicate. But with Jimmy--with Jim Doherty and me
it was all illusion. On both sides. And I gave up on that letter because
I realized rather suddenly that I was--talking to someone who wasn't
there." (_And he isn't here in the courtroom--he is--it doesn't
matter._) "You asked something else--oh, about the monkshood. Yes, I
made the infusion that night, and then pushed it away to the back of the
shelf. I don't know how to tell this either, Mr. Warner. There's a
fascination about an ugly and foolish thing like that. I don't
understand it: it takes hold of you in spite of yourself. I remember I
almost poured out a drink from it, that night, simply from a sort of
curiosity, and then I thought--this is going to sound idiotic--"
"Never mind, just tell it as it comes to you."
"Well, I thought: Look, Callista, if you can be interested and curious
about a miserable thing like this, maybe you could be interested in
better things. After a while if not now. So don't drink it. And I didn't
of course--I just pushed it to the back of the shelf and--oh, I read
that evening, I think. Some book or other. It didn't hold me, I wasn't
quite alive, but it was something to do. That Saturday evening after the
picnic was probably the time I came nearest to actually drinking the
stuff."
"I see. A week later, Callista--I mean Sunday, August 16th--did you
telephone to Ann Doherty?"
"Yes, early in the afternoon."
"You wanted to reach her and not Jim, is that right?"
"Yes. If Jimmy had answered the phone, I don't know--I suppose
everything would be different, wouldn't it? I wasn't prepared to talk to
him then. Maybe I'd've hung up without speaking. Anyway Ann did answer,
and I--asked her over."
"Did you say why you wanted to see her?"
"No, I--hadn't quite braced myself up to telling her the situation. I
kept it to small talk, on the phone. She sounded very friendly--well,
she always did. She happened to mention that Jimmy had gone to New York
for overnight, and that's when I asked if she'd come over--said I wanted
to talk to her about something. I don't suppose I made it sound
important--as I say, I hadn't fully made up my mind about telling her
anything."
"Were you in a different mood that day, Callista?"
"Very different. Some other things--nothing to do with Jimmy, or with
Ann--had been sort of cleaned up for me, the night before." As she
spoke, Callista was meeting her mother's gaze across the courtroom for
the first time that day. Her words had no visible effect on the fixed
pose of sad quiet, the dignity of the rejected Mother deeply wronged.
Callista deduced that the Face of The Mother was saying: "_You see how
it is: I her Mother am not even allowed to testify._" "I'm not sure, Mr.
Warner, if it's what you call relevant."
"Well, Callista, your mood, your state of mind at that time, is
certainly relevant in the ordinary sense. Legally, the question of
relevance gets difficult when we're dealing with subjective matters. If
I correctly understand the rulings during previous testimony, the Court
is taking a generous and realistic attitude on this question. The nature
of the case demands it, since, as I said in my opening words, we are
not contesting most of the circumstantial evidence. Subject to
correction by the Court, Callista, I'll leave it to you whether you
think that a mention of what happened the night before would help the
jury understand your situation. If you feel it would, go ahead and tell
it, and we can check you if it seems to be going too far afield."
"I think it might help to explain things. But I'll leave out the
details--they don't matter." _By the way, Mrs. Chalmers, I'm your
daughter--remember? They tell me I'm on trial for murder._ "It had to do
with my relation to my mother, Mr. Warner. There had been some--tensions
between us for quite a while, and that Saturday evening--it was the
15th, wasn't it?--yes--we sort of cleared it up. In a way." _Mrs.
Chalmers, Mrs. Herbert Chalmers, I am about to smile at you, toward you
anyway. Will it make any difference?_ "You remember, sir--Miss Welsh
testified about my going out to Shanesville that Saturday evening, and
how bad-mannered I was--and I don't doubt I was too, I can be pretty
stupid--call it a one-track mind. Though it's a fact I just didn't know
Ann Doherty was there on the porch, until Miss Welsh testified to it.
She must have been back in the shadows, I suppose, and I was thinking so
hard about what I wanted to talk over with my mother that I didn't hear
her speak." Callista felt her lips curve. It was surely a smile; she
meant it for a smile. "I guess I was in a fog." Yes, fog--as inexorably
as deepening fog, the realization came over Callista that Mrs. Victoria
Johnson Blake Chalmers was quite simply not listening. Present in the
courtroom, knowing at least as well as most of the other spectators the
general story of what was going on down here in the arena; but not
listening. Mrs. Chalmers was maintaining a Face; a very necessary thing
to do. She would have been perfectly willing to smile back, Callista
guessed, if she could have divided her attention, listened just enough
to understand that it might be appropriate, right now, for the Face to
smile. "So I went indoors to--see my mother, and we--talked."
Fog--words pushed into fog move sluggishly, as if through pain.
"Miss Welsh also testified to overhearing a few things. Was that
testimony accurate, Callista?"
"Oh, reasonably, so far as Miss Welsh knew, I'm sure. Mother was crying
a little at one time, and I guess I did quote something or other from
Shakespeare. I was sort of making a fool of myself." _Ten minutes from
now, Mother, will it dawn on you what I said? You see, I haven't a
notion what I'll be saying ten minutes from now. By the way, Mama, I
don't see Cousin Maud. Is she home with the Plum Jam?_ "What Miss Welsh
didn't hear, couldn't very well know, Mr. Warner, was that at the end we
did get things sort of cleared up." _All right, stranger--no smile, just
sad maternal forgiveness. One of Callie's little emotional upsets, you
know--children are SO difficult!_ "And--here's why I thought it might
not be out of place to mention it--that evening, that's when the
suicidal depression left me. I wanted to live again. After I'd--said
good-night to Mother." _Mama darling, why don't you lean over the rail,
ask that fat guy at the press table, the bald one who looks
intelligent--I think he'll tell you this is a murder trial. They're
trying the funny-looking broad with the gimp leg._
"It left you suddenly, Callista, the depression? Like the end of a
sickness?"
"Yes." _Cecil, I love you._ "Yes, it was very much like that, Mr.
Warner. Like coming out of a fever, or pain all at once ending. There
was--too much upswing also, I guess you might call it. I was back with
some of my illusions. I mean the illusions about Jimmy. I'd once more
talked myself into imagining there might be--you know, a separation,
what I'd been trying to write Jimmy about in that letter I never mailed.
Most of the day, and even while I was talking with Ann on the phone, I
was able to fool myself with that. Self-deception, it's like walking a
tightrope, I guess: so long as you don't look down at the _fact_ of the
ground a long way below, you can truly believe there's no danger,
you're just walking. I think that all that day, until Ann came, I
was--living inside of that illusion. Wanting something so much I
couldn't see how ridiculous it was to expect it." _Look, Mother: I know
I hurt you plenty of times. I was always nasty and hellishly difficult
until I escaped from Shanesville and from you--but I never hurt you THAT
much._
"I think now, Callista, you might go ahead and tell, in your own way,
everything that happened that Sunday evening and night. I realize you'll
be mostly repeating what you told Mr. Lamson last August, but I believe
the jury wants to hear it direct from you, so--so just go ahead, my
dear--take your time, try to remember everything important."
_Don't be scared, Cecil. Yes, I know: this is it._ "Ann came to my
apartment about quarter to eight, Mr. Warner. I can't bring back the
early part of the conversation too well, except I know it was nothing
important. Just usual comments on the weather, I guess--it was a very
hot evening, sticky hot. Her suit--the powder-blue--it was summer weight
of course, but I remember it looked sort of warm, I think I asked
something silly about how could she stand wearing even the jacket in
such weather, and--Mr. Warner, do I understand it right, that I
shouldn't repeat any of the things she said? It seems reasonable that I
shouldn't--after all, Ann's not here to set me right if I misquoted
her."
"That's how it is, Callista. I'm sure you understand it. Just tell your
own side of it--what you did, what you observed, what happened."
"Yes, I'll try. There was that small talk for ten minutes or so, and
then I was going ahead, very clumsily I guess, telling her about--Jimmy
and me. Oh, wait, one thing--I remember that at the start, when she'd
just arrived, I was going to offer her a drink, and I didn't because I
had a sort of half-memory that she didn't take alcohol. A mistaken
memory--likely had her tastes confused with someone else's--but I know
that was in my mind, that's why I didn't offer her one." _Cecil, I just
invented this: is it any damn good?_
Apparently he was not displeased. "You didn't offer her a drink then or
any time, is that right?"
"That's right. You see, I--Ann Doherty and I were never really very well
acquainted. I knew the Dohertys as neighbors of course, from the time
they moved in there, but my mother and stepfather saw much more of them
than I ever did. I can't say I really knew Jimmy, either, I--" (_Cecil,
please give me a lift with this one_)--"well, I said something like that
before, didn't I?"
"The episode with him was--really no more than that, an episode?"
"Midsummer madness. I must have been ready to go overboard for someone.
It was chance we happened to meet, that May-day." _Handkerchief back in
the sleeve, girl--let the palms stay wet, wouldn't look good to be
wiping them._ "And things got out of control. So far as the affair is
concerned, Mr. Warner, if there's any question of blame or
responsibility, I'll take it. Nothing could have started if I hadn't
allowed it. And Jimmy--well, I can't speak for him, but I know he didn't
realize until much later how terribly important I'd let it become to me,
for a while. He just slipped, but I went all the way over, head over
heels, for a while, and nobody to blame but myself." (_Give me that
look, won't you?--the Cecil Warner special. Tell me I'm doing all
right._) "Then later when he did understand how I was making such a
thing of it--well, poor Jimmy, he's not an unkind person and never would
be, he was in a spot, I think. He couldn't bear to hurt Ann or me
either, and couldn't do anything at all without hurting one of us. I
don't know what he could possibly have done except what he did--break
off the relation and let time take care of it." (_Did the jury see him
go? I didn't. Here at the start of the day, that I know._) "Do I need
to say any more about this, Mr. Warner?"
"I don't think so. You're free to of course, if anything else occurs to
you later. Do you want to get back to the Sunday evening now?"
"Yes." _Mother's gone too, behind the Face--but that happened a long
time ago. And Cousin Maud with the Plum Jam, I hope. What's the matter,
you nice people--isn't the Monkshood Girl putting on a good show?
Herb--shall I project the voice at you, Herb?_ "Where was I?"
"You'd spoken of starting to tell Ann Doherty about it."
"Yes. I tried to do it reasonably, but I think all I did was blurt one
hint after another until she--understood. She did, I know--that is, she
understood what had been happening. As I think I told Mr. Lamson, I
didn't get as far as telling her I was pregnant. I got the other facts
said, somehow or other, and she--said something that showed she
understood, and then I was suddenly sick to my stomach."
"She didn't appear angry?"
"No, Mr. Warner. I believe--I believe what I said could have been taken
to mean that the thing was completely ended. Of course I've no way of
knowing if that's what she thought. She wasn't angry. And then my
sickness, coming like that, confused everything else. I ran for the
bathroom. I know Ann was sorry for me, trying to help. I was--call it
hysterical. I yelled at her, couldn't stand the idea of her touching me
while I was sick, only wanted her to go away. But she wouldn't, so I ran
from her again, into my bedroom, and I locked the door." (_Help me
now!_) "Yes, I know I locked the door."
"That part is a perfectly clear memory, Callista? The physical act of
turning the key or throwing the latch or whatever it was?"
"Yes. Old-fashioned key--why, I probably never had used it before, no
occasion to. But I did then. I threw myself down on the bed. My throat
was still raw and sour from vomiting, I remember that."
"Now you told Mr. Lamson that there's a stretch of a few minutes, in the
bedroom, that won't quite come back. I take it for granted that since
then you've been trying to fill in that gap in memory. Suppose I put it
this way, Callista: is it possible now for you to add anything to what
you told Mr. Lamson that day in his office?"
_Not quite a direct lie required--thanks, friend. Not that it matters,
direct or indirect. The letter killeth--inner Puritan, drop dead, drop
dead!_ "No, Mr. Warner--as you say, I've tried ever since to clear up
that part in my mind, but--I can't add anything now." _I don't dare look
toward a certain flinty intelligent face--the name is Francis
Fielding--and yet I'll do it._
He was very quiet, Mr. Fielding, alert, interested; no change or
wavering in his smart bird-like eyes as she met their probing and tried
briefly, unavailingly, to win a glimpse of the self behind them. _Once I
watched a heron in my famous field glasses, motionless at the edge of a
stream. Motionless, hunting motionless._ That had been only the summer
before last, a trip alone in the Volks to the hill country. More of the
day came back, a good day and the summer hush. Eighteen. The heron had
remained a somber painted image until the frog returned to the bank;
then he got his meal: too large a frog to swallow whole, so he knocked
it to pieces against a rock and resumed his stillness. But Cecil was
speaking.
"I'll make a suggestion, Callista--a sort of hypothetical question,
though I won't try to phrase it in precisely that form. Before you broke
away and went into your bedroom you'd been, as you say, hysterical,
sick, nauseated: too early for ordinary morning sickness I suppose, but
the pregnancy must have had at least some influence on your condition.
And you had undergone, were still undergoing, an intense emotional
strain: the anticipation, the build-up to your interview with Mrs.
Doherty, then sudden realization that it was wasted effort. Now I
suggest that all those things coming together at once might have
produced a plain old-fashioned fainting spell, a blackout from
exhaustion. And I'll ask: is everything you remember about those moments
consistent with that? It makes sense to you, that this could be what
happened?"
_Again the aid and comfort to the idiot Puritan: don't know why it
should help to avoid the phrasing of a direct lie--superstition--somehow
it does though and he knows it--my love is wiser than other men_--"Yes,
it could have been like that, Mr. Warner." A half-seen glimpse of
something kind in black-haired Dolores Acevedo might mean feminine
sympathy, fellow-feeling--or something else, or nothing at all. The
experts say, Callista remembered, that a person with an obsessive notion
never actually performs the fantastic act he imagines performing--like
for instance leaning forward in this chair and saying: "Dolly, I bet you
know how it feels to go nuts for a good lay."
"After going into the bedroom, what is the next thing that you remember
positively?"
"The next thing--the next thing I am really certain about is hearing Ann
walk across the living-room--her high heels--to the front door. I heard
the door close, heard her car start up and drive away. It
somehow--released me--I can't think of a better word. I unlocked the
bedroom, came out, got myself a drink of water. I went into the
kitchenette to get that instead of to the bathroom. Then--not right away
but very soon--I saw the brandy bottle had been pulled forward on the
shelf, and there was a glass with a few drops in the bottom, and I knew
what must have happened. It brought me out of my fog anyway. I knew I
had to get to her at once if I could, and I wasn't able to think beyond
that. What I ought to have done--I know it now--was call the police and
tell them the emergency. They might have got to her in time and done
something for her. But I was shocked silly, I couldn't think of
anything except going after her myself, and that's what I did--tried to
do."
"Well, you didn't lose any time, I'm sure."
"No, just grabbed my handbag off the living-room table and ran down to
the garage. It's back of the apartment--overhead door always sticks, I
remember I had to struggle with it as usual but it didn't hold me up
long." _Nice old Em Lake, you had such a time yearning after my friend's
mammaries--how will these do? Not big, but I bet anything you've seen
worse. Drool, old boy, drool all you like if it makes a difference. Will
I twitch my jacket back a little? Better, huh? Besides, away up there,
sixty-five or whatever it is, doesn't it seem too bad to die at
nineteen?_
"Can you judge about what time elapsed, from hearing Ann's car start to
getting your own out on the road?"
"It could have been as much as ten minutes. Until I saw that brandy
bottle I was just dazed and stupid, not hurrying about anything. I don't
know how long I was, coming out of the bedroom, getting that drink of
water. I didn't look at the clock or anything, no reason to."
"To be sure. Well--you drove on out to Shanesville?"
"Yes, fast as I could. Wasn't delayed on the road. I pulled into the
Dohertys' driveway, alongside the Pontiac--it was just as Sergeant
Shields described it. The house was dark. My headlights picked up her
handbag lying in the path, so I knew at once she must have gone that
way."
"Did you take the flashlight from your car?"
"No, didn't think of it till I'd started down the path. The moon was
hazed over, but still pretty strong light." _The Monkshood Girl will now
look at the Foreman of the Jury._ "I supposed she must have gone to my
mother's house, but when I came to that spur path I--thought--" Peter
Anson would not look at her; she was certain he had been doing so, and
intently, the instant before her own eyes shifted.
"Take your time, Callista--by the way, would you like a sip of water?"
"Yes, please. Thank you." _Thank you for more than that._ The water was
cool and perfect; she held and turned the crystal of the glass until it
gave her the excellent diminished star of the ceiling chandelier. Had it
been burning all day? She couldn't remember. Probably; a gray series of
hours, this Thursday, with a whimpering of December wind. _I'm sorry,
Cecil, I know I'm stumbling, not doing very well--keep thinking about
twenty-to-life--it wouldn't let me come to you._ "When I came to the
spur path it was--oh, just a sort of sick feeling that I ought to look
at the pond and make sure she hadn't--it was only a few steps, the light
fairly good through the trees. I saw something in the water. It was
white, some part of her white blouse."
"You went down that steep path to your left, Callista? Stood on the path
first and then over on the left side of the pond?"
"Yes. I could see--enough to know. Then the pains began. I knew she was
dead, and I knew what was happening to me. I guess I said, didn't I,
that I'd wanted the baby, I wanted to bear it? Did I say that?"
"Yes, my dear, you told Mr. Lamson that--I believe it's not been
mentioned here until now. You really did want it, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"You needn't say any more about that now unless you wish."
"All right. I ... well, I don't quite remember getting back to my car. I
did it though, and when I reached the junction I remembered that thick
second-growth woods across the road from my mother's house. So I parked
by the pines, got over there--" _Don't do it, Mrs. Kleinman: Mr.
Fielding wouldn't like it, anyway crying is just the glands going into
an uproar. I'm not crying--see? Of course, if it means you don't want to
burn me_--
"About that also, Callista, you needn't say any more than you want to.
The fact of the miscarriage is enough, and I haven't heard the
prosecution contesting it. Did you happen to have your wrist watch on,
by the way?"
"No, the sticky hot weather, it was chafing my wrist--I'd taken it off
at my apartment. Well, when it was over I got back to my car, made the
turn in my mother's driveway--" _Sorry, Herb, manner of speaking: she's
a very important lady, you know how 'tis_--"and I guess that was the way
Miss Welsh described it."
"Do you recall seeing Dr. Chalmers on the porch, turning on the light?"
"I think so. I was clumsy with the gears, backing and turning. Then I
held up all right till I got home."
"And then?"
"I found I'd left the apartment door open. I remember closing it and
leaning back against it. Then I was on my knees--I don't mean I fainted,
I don't think I did. I think--does this sound possible?--I think I just
fell asleep. Remember being on my knees, dropping forward on my hands,
thinking how soft the rug would be if I could hitch over to it, and I
must have done so, because when I came out of--it seemed like a sleep--I
was there on the rug with my handbag for a pillow. After I got up I
couldn't stop shaking for a long while. I wanted a shower, but couldn't
make my fingers take hold of my clothes. The shoes were the worst. Did
finally, had the shower too I think, and dozed off again. I didn't see
the sun come up--it was in my eyes when I woke. By ten o'clock I'd
pulled myself together somehow, got dressed. I called Edith. I knew I'd
have to call the police."
"You hadn't done anything with the brandy bottle after you first saw it
had been moved?"
"No, I hadn't, and I did nothing with it that morning--just left
everything as it was. I supposed that was the right thing to do. But I
didn't get up my courage to call the police until after my stepfather
had telephoned me, and told me about finding Ann's body. I think it was
about eleven o'clock that he called."
"And when you did call the police, what you got was Sergeant Rankin."
"Yes." _When we get this one over with we're done, aren't we, Cecil?
Except for--except for_--"He turned up about twelve o'clock."
"You recall his testimony on the stand?"
"Yes. It was accurate except for what it left out, and his denials to
you in cross-examination."
"Before we go into that, do you want to tell your side of that thing
about the aquarium, Callista?"
"I might as well. It was a foolish impulse. I loved the things, and I
had a picture of them going hungry and dying off with the apartment
closed. If I'd stopped to think, I'd have known of course that Edith
would take care of them for me." _I can't look across the room at you
right now, Edith; I don't dare._ "After all she gave them to me herself.
It was an impulse of--despair, I think. You see, until Sergeant Rankin
made it plain to me, I actually hadn't understood how things were going
to look for me. I wasn't thinking clearly at all until then. What he
said--and did--showed me how it would be, that I'd be accused of murder
and there'd be nothing to disprove it except my word--no tangible
evidence in my favor, no one else with any first-hand knowledge of what
happened. Naturally as a police officer, Rankin saw that aspect of it
right away. Well, the aquarium--I wanted the little tropicals to die
quick and easy, that was all."
"I see. You said Rankin's testimony was accurate except for what it left
out, and those denials. Will you fill in that blank? Just tell what
Rankin did, to the best of your recollection."
"When we were going back to the living-room after I had shown him the
brandy bottle, he grabbed hold of me from behind. I was still feeling
sick and confused, and startled by what he'd said a minute
before--something to the effect that no one would believe my story. I
wasn't expecting any physical approach like that. I guess I was aware
that he'd started to get excited, but I supposed that being a policeman,
he'd at least control himself. I said: 'Take your hands off
me!'--something like that--or stronger, I guess--'Take your ugly hands
off me, you fool!' He didn't let go. He said he could 'give me a lot of
breaks,' as he put it, if I would--'put out.' I tried to break free of
him, but couldn't. A sort of stupid wrestling match across the
living-room. I couldn't get my wrist free. He forced me down on the
couch. I tried to tell him then that I was ill, but it's possible he
really didn't hear that. He was in a state of violent excitement--had
opened his trousers and was trying to swing my legs up on the couch
without letting go my wrist. I told him the Police Department would
smash him for it and he'd wind up in jail no matter what happened to me.
He managed to say: 'The hell with that--who's going to take your word
against mine?' I said that anyhow I could testify he was circumcised,
and since he wasn't Jewish that ought to give my word a little weight.
It got through to him, and scared him. He gave me an open-handed slap
across the face--just a nervous explosion, I guess, hardly knew what he
was doing--and let go my wrist, stepped away from me across the room,
got himself under control. When he turned back to me he was well
behaved. He apologized, said there was something about me that made him
lose his head. I think he spoke of having a wife and children, and then
something more about it's being my word against his. I don't believe I
was able to say anything except that I'd make him no promises about
telling or not telling of it. He made his call to headquarters, and the
aquarium thing was after that, I guess--yes, it was. What he testified
about just sitting there till the others came--that was true. I don't
think he looked at me once after that remark I made--something about a
spring morning warmed up in the oven."
"Yes, that seems to have made an impression on him." _And yet after all,
Cecil, wouldn't we have done better to show Rankin as just one more
creature caught in a drift of confusion, half ape, half civilized, like
the rest of us?--or maybe we did succeed in doing that--I wouldn't know.
LaSalle and Miss Wainwright look quite angry on my behalf. The Face of
the Hoag expresses a certain disappointment: 'Wha'd he give up so easy
for, and him a cop?' The Face of Fielding says quite truthfully that it
hasn't a damn thing to do with the death of Ann Doherty._ "Well,
Callista, I suppose Gage and the others arrived quite soon, as he
testified. Do you want to add anything about that?"
"No, I don't think of anything important. It was all about as Rankin
told it, and then I was taken to Mr. Lamson's office."
"And questioned there--do you happen to remember how long?"
"I think, from about two o'clock until seven in the evening, when I
signed that transcript."
"Callista, I will ask you: was there ever any genuine hostility between
you and Ann Doherty?"
"When two women want the same man, there's bound to be, Mr. Warner. As a
person--if it were possible for me to think of her apart from Jimmy--I
had nothing against her. It's true to say I hardly knew her. We had
nothing in common. She was a sweet, harmless girl who never did the
slightest thing to rouse any hostility in me."
"And I'll ask you, Callista: did you ever, at any time at all, entertain
any sort of intention of doing away with her, or in fact of doing her
any kind of harm?"
"No. No, Mr. Warner. The worst I ever wished against her was that she
would--let Jimmy go."
"Callista, after signing that transcript in Mr. Lamson's office, did you
receive medical attention?"
"Oh--yes, I did. I sort of blacked out, after signing it. Came to in
some kind of infirmary room--in this building, I guess it is. The police
doctor was--all right."
"Do you recall seeing me that evening?"
"Yes, you were there at the infirmary, soon after I came to myself."
"You remember my explanation of why I couldn't be there sooner?"
"Yes, you told me you'd been out of town, and Edith couldn't get word to
you until after six o'clock."
"Did you see your mother or your stepfather that day?"
"No. They came, I understand, but weren't allowed to see me."
"So it adds up this way--correct me if I'm wrong: you had a miscarriage
about nine o'clock Sunday evening, were in a state of partial or total
collapse the greater part of the night. Then official questioning,
briefly interrupted by attempted rape, from noon Monday until seven in
the evening. Then medical attention. Do you think of anything you want
to add at this time, Callista?"
"No, I--" _There must be something. I am not ready_--"No, I don't think
so, Mr. Warner."
"You may cross-examine, Mr. District Attorney."
_The Hunter is coming forward_--
8
Whosoever now, Ananda, or after my departure, shall be to himself
his own light, his own refuge, and seek no other refuge, will
henceforth be my true disciple and walk in the right path.
Reputed saying of GAUTAMA BUDDHA
I
"The chips are down now, aren't they, Callista?"
_She'll understand that the best answer for that one is no answer. But I
might_--Cecil Warner remained on his feet by the defense table until he
could reassure himself that Callista did understand. She was watching
the prosecutor with outward calm, her hands folded--white hands,
actually strong, now seeming small and frail.
"Mr. District Attorney, I have one or two old-fashioned quirks. It was
natural for Mr. Warner to use my first name because he is a friend as
well as my attorney. From you I would prefer a reasonable formality, do
you mind?"
_Yes--good--perhaps. Too highbrow for the jury, but it may upset his
pace a little._ Warner sat down, forcing upon himself once more the
resolution that he would not intervene except as strategy required it.
She was, within obvious limits, on her own, and must fight in her own
way. He must protect her to the full extent of his position and powers,
but the jury must not feel that she was being overprotected. His own
words must have the force of economy, and not be wasted merely to
relieve his own anguish.
T. J. Hunter was brooding over it. The hour was 4:15, the sky beyond the
high windows altogether dark. The day would end with whatever Callista
was able to say now, and perhaps in some short redirect examination
after Hunter had finished. Closing arguments tomorrow, and probably
Terence's summing up: T.J. was not likely to call rebuttal witnesses,
and his method did not call for long-winded oratory at the end. The case
was likely to go to the jury tomorrow afternoon or evening. _I am not
ready._
"Very well, Miss Blake. I'm a plain man myself with only a commonplace
education, and I'm afraid I'm a little bit given to plain speech. Did
you kill Ann Doherty?"
"No."
"Why--she died of aconite poisoning, didn't she? And drowning? We've all
heard that testimony."
"Yes."
"Are you saying someone else gave her the poison?"
"She found the poisoned brandy in my apartment without my knowledge, she
drank it without my knowledge. When she drowned in that pond, I was not
there. I found her too late."
"That is still your story, Miss Blake?"
"Objection!"
"Sustained." Except for silence, his graceful body stooped slightly
forward as though setting itself for a predatory leap, Hunter gave no
sign of noticing the interruption. "Do you wish to take an exception,
Mr. Hunter?"
"No, your Honor. Miss Blake, in your direct testimony I recall that you
chose to qualify one of the remarks made by your friend Edith Nolan, a
remark concerning your artistic ability. I believe you said she
overrated you. Does that mean that in your estimation, your own
estimation, you are really not much of an artist?"
"No, that isn't what I said."
"Then you do consider yourself an artist?"
"Yes, but with less ability than Miss Nolan gives me credit for."
"I see. In how many lines, Miss Blake?"
"Drawing and painting. Nothing else worth mentioning."
"Not in fiction?"
"Objection! The question is wholly improper."
"Sustained."
"Exception. I was using the word in the purely literary
sense--literature, fiction-writing, is surely one of the arts."
"Mr. Hunter, since the question of Miss Blake's literary ability has
never been introduced at any time in this trial until you mentioned it
just now, the Court does not find your explanation altogether
acceptable. You may have your exception of course. As you continue, you
will avoid sarcasm and innuendo. Miss Blake is entitled to the same
respect as any other witness."
"I regret it very much, your Honor, if anything I said had the sound of
sarcasm. It was not so intended. Miss Blake, as an artist, in your own
estimation, do you share the attitude which I understand is fairly
common in some quarters, that an artist is--well, a sort of privileged
character? Not to be judged by the standards we apply to ordinary
mortals?"
"I do not, and I never knew any artist who held that attitude."
"Have you met a great many of them?"
"No. A few."
"But never met one who felt that he was, let's say, a special sort of
being? Someone apart?"
"Special perhaps, or apart, but not specially privileged."
"Not even the beatniks?"
"I don't know anything about the beatniks."
A swift small worm of pain ran down Cecil Warner's left arm, puzzling
him. He said with care for the sound of his voice: "Is all this leading
anywhere? Does it have any possible relevancy?"
"If the Court please," said T. J. Hunter melodiously, "there has been a
great deal said about Miss Blake's state of mind at various times. I
have not objected to it. This is in many ways an uncommon case. I am
inclined to agree with a remark made by my very honored adversary a
little while ago in his opening, when he pointed out how much depends on
whether we can or cannot believe Miss Blake's word. He is naturally
convinced that she is telling the truth. I am not. She is now on the
stand, having affirmed that she will speak truthfully. It is my
necessary task to test her credibility in any proper manner that is open
to me, and my present line of inquiry is directed to that end."
"The point is well taken," said Judge Mann. Warner heard or imagined a
note of weariness or doubt. "Are you making a formal objection, Mr.
Warner?"
"No, your Honor. I only wish the prosecutor would get to the point, if
there is one."
_A mistake; he'll catch me up on it too._ "There is one," said Hunter
mildly. "Perhaps I can make it clearer to counsel later on. Miss Blake,
you must have believed--did you not?--that something--maybe not your
position as an artist if you say it wasn't that--but something excused
you, made it appear all right to you to enter blithely on an adulterous
relation with James Doherty."
"I did not enter on it blithely, nor make excuses for myself. I was
aware that such a relation is contrary to the principles we give
lip-service to in this part of the world."
_She can't--she mustn't_--
"And also contrary to law?"
"Mr. Hunter, I'm afraid I never stopped to find out whether this is one
of the states where adultery is listed as a crime."
With deepening terror Warner understood that she was already becoming
raw and recklessly angry, though Hunter had scarcely begun. _I must be
heard._
"I take that to mean that you hold yourself above the law?"
"I object, your Honor. I submit that in his opening Mr. Hunter laid
considerable polite stress on the fact that the indictment charges
murder and nothing else. If now he has elected himself some kind of
guardian of public morals, if Callista Blake is to be tried after all
for a violation of sex conventions--"
"Sir, that's uncalled-for and unjust. My question was phrased in general
terms. I think nothing could bear more directly on the credibility of
the witness than her respect for law, or lack of it."
"You were asking," said Judge Mann, "in general terms, whether or not
the witness considers herself above the law? That was the meaning of
your question and the extent of it?"
"It was, your Honor."
"I must overrule your objection, Mr. Warner."
"Exception."
"Yes, certainly. Answer the question, Miss Blake."
"I do not consider myself above the law." _At least she's quieter; her
hands not shaking._ "Like everyone, I've probably broken a number of
minor laws without even knowing it. As for the matter the prosecutor
specifically mentioned, adultery, I don't know, as I said, how the state
of New Essex technically regards that action. If it's a crime, then I'm
a criminal--on that charge." _No more, Callista! LOOK AT ME!_ "I'm quite
aware you can't have a human society without laws. I try to respect them
so far as I'm able--I--"
"Miss Blake," said Judge Mann, "there is no need to go beyond the
question. For your own sake I must instruct you not to do so. Limit your
answers to what Mr. Hunter asks, so far as you can."
_He may have saved her--I don't know--I don't know._
"You respect the laws so far as you are able--now what does that mean,
Miss Blake? At what point, please, does it become impossible for you to
respect the laws?"
"No one could answer that exactly. As a lawyer, you certainly know that
many laws are obsolete or foolish. Dead-letter laws--Sunday blue
laws--that sort of thing. I would never willingly break any law that the
majority considers important."
"I see. You have decided then that the majority doesn't consider the law
against adultery important?"
"I don't know--I've already said I don't even know what laws New Essex
has about that. If people are ever prosecuted for it--I suppose they
are--I never heard of it."
"Your answer isn't quite responsive. Do you mean you believe that in
breaking the seventh commandment you were merely doing what everyone
does more or less?"
"I didn't say that. I--"
Warner let his voice go: "I will inquire again whether the District
Attorney believes he is trying a case of adultery."
"I will reply again that I wish to discover Miss Blake's attitude toward
law itself, as it bears on the reliability of her statements."
Judge Mann spoke with acid: "Gentlemen ... Mr. Hunter, your point may be
still defensible, but I think you're going too far afield. I suggest you
bring your inquiry back to factual evidence and the material of direct
testimony."
"Very well, your Honor. Miss Blake, do you have a clear recollection of
those letters of yours which were read in court this morning?"
"Very clear."
Warner saw him take them up from among the exhibits; fought back his
surge of resentment that those hands, clean, excellently shaped, well
manicured, should be handling them at all. "I recall, Miss Blake, that
before these letters were read, quite a point was made about seeing to
it that the jury heard a correct interpretation. This seems like a good
opportunity to clear up one or two points and give the jury your own
views on what they mean--that is, I take it you have no objection?"
"You needn't make such a production of stage politeness." _Callista,
don't!_ "I'm prepared to answer any legitimate questions as well as I
can."
Hunter's eyebrows rose and fell. He read to himself, slipped the first
page under and read on. "Well--'my love (you know it) is nothing like
what could happen for you with anyone but me. And there's my cure for
jealousy--if I could apply it, if I could make my head rule a little
more, my crazy heart a little less.' That appears, Miss Blake, to be
among other things an admission that you did experience what's usually
called jealousy. 'Something that could not happen with Ann. Or anywhere
in her world.' That's jealousy, isn't it?"
"I did experience it. I haven't denied it."
"No? Now I thought that in direct testimony you said something to the
effect that you had nothing against her. I think that--in direct
testimony under oath--you called her a 'sweet and harmless
girl'--something like that."
"I think I said--apart from Jimmy--meaning--apart from the fact that she
was his wife--oh, it's perfectly clear what I meant."
"That is, you had nothing against her except that she was in the way?"
"I never said that--never put it that way, even to myself."
"I'm sorry, Miss Blake, I think you did." He turned pages slowly. "Not
in those exact words perhaps. 'Granted also that Ann is good and sweet
and conventionally right. Does that give her the right--' and then the
crossed-out words that I think you remember, and then--'to keep you and
me apart and prevent my child from having a father?' Miss Blake, how
much nearer could you come to saying that she was in the way without
actually using the words?"
"The marriage--the fact of their marriage was in the way. I never
thought of her as a--a person to be removed--oh, I'm not saying it
clearly--I never wanted to--do away with her. My letter says--my letter
simply asks him to do something about a separation. And that's the
letter I never even mailed."
"All right--it sounds a little involved--the letter doesn't sound to me
as if you were writing about the 'fact of their marriage,' but let that
go for the present. This is from the first one, a letter you did mail:
'I fit no pattern. No one can own me, no one can make me over. I was
born a heretic and so live. No one can catch me except if I will.' This
time I am frankly puzzled, Miss Blake. It is by chance a quotation from
something?"
"No."
"You had been writing affectionately--and poetically, I must say--and
then all of a sudden you throw this at him: 'No one can own me--born a
heretic and so live.' I'm simply puzzled, Miss Blake. Why in the world
were you moved to say to James Doherty: 'No one can catch me except if I
will'--why?"
Warner saw the violent tension and forced relaxation of her folded
hands. She said: "It must be--it must be it never occurred to me the
letter would be examined by a district attorney."
"What?--you mean it's a form of doubletalk? Hidden significance,
something that might be damaging if it came to the eyes of that lowest
form of life, a district attorney?"
"No--no--no hidden significance." She was turning her head from side to
side as if in search of physical escape. "I don't know how you dissect a
love-letter. Do it yourself--do it yourself--"
"'No one can catch me except if I will.' And then you were caught,
weren't you?"
"Objection!"
"Sustained--sustained. You know better than that, Mr. Hunter. And step
back from the stand a little. I will not have the witness abused."
"My regrets, your Honor. I had no such intention." _Throws it like a
bone to a dog--Terry's no dog--but_--"Miss Blake, I will read to you
from the second letter. You had been asking about Doherty's religious
views, and then you wrote: 'I wasn't asking about _Ann's_ views, blast
you--I know she'd condemn the whole thing without a moment's pause for
thought.' Miss Blake, by what reasoning it is possible to reconcile that
remark with your alleged intention of asking Mrs. Doherty to agree to a
separation? How could you write that about her, and then in the very
same letter talk about her meekly agreeing to a separation?"
"I suppose--I suppose the remark about her condemning us--I suppose I
wrote that in a moment of exasperation, and was calmer later on. I don't
know--must a love-letter be consistent like a dictionary?"
"All right, I see what you mean, but on that point the inconsistency is
really glaring, isn't it? You knew--elsewhere in the letters you even
grudgingly admit--that Mrs. Doherty loved her husband. You knew, and you
specifically said, that she would regard your adulterous relation with
him as sinful--of course, how could you doubt it, what wife in her right
mind wouldn't regard it so? Yet in almost the same breath you're talking
about a separation, as if you expected Ann Doherty to throw away her
marriage, violate her deepest religious convictions, humbly agree to
letting her husband go live in sin with his ... with you. Consistent?"
"I suppose it's inconsistent, if you make no allowance for the other
things I said."
"Oh--there is something else in the letter that makes it consistent?"
"I don't know--I don't know."
"Miss Blake, on the basis of these letters, and your testimony, I will
ask you: weren't you, in all this talk of a separation, simply
proposing an impossibility, knowing it was one, to--well, what? See what
Jimmy would do? To feel him out maybe, find out if he'd go along with
you on some much more direct method of--eliminating the woman who was in
the way?"
"That's idiotic."
"Well, if I'm an idiot you should have no trouble defending yourself."
"Witness and counsel will both confine themselves to the issues. No more
of that sort of thing."
"My apologies, your Honor. All right, Miss Blake, we'll let that stand.
But in my--simple way, I keep trying to understand. Now for example in
the rest of this second letter, where you attack Doherty's religious
faith--"
"I never attacked it! In that letter I was _asking_ about his beliefs,
and stating some of my own ideas, nothing more."
"Oh? I must have misunderstood. Let's see--you wrote here, speaking of
his religion: 'Isn't it mostly a matter of being brought up in a certain
way that automatically shuts out other views without seriously examining
them? I'm trying to suggest that unlike Ann, you're really not embedded
in religion like a fly in amber.' That's not an attack?"
"No, it is not."
"I see--the fault's with my understanding. And further on you wrote:
'just where is the mercy, the rationale, the loving-kindness in an
ethical-religious system that makes me a whore bound for hell because I
love you and welcome intercourse with you and want to live with you?'
But you're telling me seriously now that this isn't to be called an
attack on the man's most vital and deeply cherished religious
convictions?"
Callista said: "Mr. Hunter, I think your A is a little bit flat."
One giggle sounded, in the back row, probably the same adenoidal snigger
that had punctuated the trial from the start. There was no other
laughter. Only a hush. The same kind of hush, Warner thought, that
might have held the crowd in shock and incredulity, hundreds of years
ago, if some candidate for an Inquisition bonfire had ventured to poke a
little fun at the officiating priest. And T.J. was in fact performing
certain priestly functions. _So what am I then? Advocatus diaboli?_ He
saw Terence Mann's hand clench spasmodically and fall in a droop.
Hunter said somberly, when the moment was right: "I have no objection to
your odd sense of humor, Miss Blake, if you are enjoying it. But I would
like a responsive answer."
"Mr. Hunter, I did not think of James Doherty as a child. At any rate I
tried not to. Apparently I rated his intelligence more highly than you
do. I did not think that his religious beliefs had to be coddled and
protected, or avoided the way you might avoid too much comment on a
child's make-believe. Therefore in that letter to him I asked him about
his beliefs, as one might ask any adult, and I wrote a little about my
own ideas. It can't be called an attack unless you feel that the mere
mention of an unreligious idea is an attack on religion. I'm aware that
a lot of people do feel that way. They take all dissent as if it were an
unkind criticism of themselves. Maybe Doherty did too, but I didn't
think so at the time."
Could she have won that round, or partly won it? It seemed to Cecil
Warner that her voice had recovered some steadiness and coolness.
Fielding looked somewhat impressed, as well as Helen Butler, LaSalle,
and maybe Miss Wainwright. But the others were annoyed, or puzzled, or
not listening. And about Fielding it was never possible to be sure.
"He's 'Doherty' to you now? Not 'Jimmy' any more, just 'Doherty'?"
She turned her face to the Judge with a look of blindness. "Must I
answer that?"
"You need not," said Judge Mann. "I think you might withdraw the
question, Mr. Hunter."
But even at that moment--the Judge manifestly friendly, Hunter showing
up badly as his antagonism became too obviously personal and
overdramatized--even at that more or less favorable moment Warner felt a
change in Callista, a retreat or a weakening, as though before his eyes
she had slipped further away from him, almost out of sight and hearing.
He might, he supposed, be exaggerating her look of increased exhaustion,
a fault in his own powers of observation. The pain slid down his arm
again, compelling some part of his mind to mumble: _Heart?--and
irrelevant?_ Callista was not necessarily in flight, not necessarily
losing her desire to live. A better part of his mind recalled a better
voice, speaking with a nearly incomprehensible sweetness: "_Living is
journeying, and love's a region we can enter for a while._"
"I withdraw my question. Miss Blake, as the author of these letters, I
take it you are the one person best qualified to explain this sentence:
'You are already a prisoner, and I wish I might set you free.'"
"Oh--oh--explain it by what follows, can't you? I think when I wrote
that I wasn't referring to Ann."
"Well, not exactly, Miss Blake. The words I see on this page are: 'No, I
don't hate Ann, I was not thinking only of Ann when I wrote that.'
_Only_, Miss Blake--that seems to say pretty plainly that you're at
least including Ann Doherty in what you wrote about your Jimmy being a
prisoner. Doesn't it?"
"All right--if you wish."
"It's no question of what I wish, Miss Blake."
"I think it is--I think you--no, never mind, I don't mean that. Go ahead
and ask your question--what do you want to know?"
"I am asking for your interpretation of that sentence: 'You are already
a prisoner, and I wish I might set you free'--insofar as it does refer
to Ann Doherty."
Her voice had gone dull and flat, hard to hear from Warner's place: "No
interpretation except the obvious one. His marriage trapped him,
confined him." Warner's ears had begun a faint ringing; he undid the top
button of his shirt--a little better. "I suppose marriage does that for
anyone, man or woman, and usually the restrictions are voluntarily
accepted, welcomed, or so people like to think. I suppose that's all I
meant."
"But the rest of the sentence, Miss Blake--'I wish I might set you
free'--what did you mean by that?"
"Why, the--the separation--what I've said repeatedly--I think I wrote
about that in the very next paragraph, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did," said Hunter in a dull and abstracted voice that
curiously echoed her own. "So you did. 'You are already a prisoner, and
I wish I might set you free.'" He came out of his abstraction briskly.
"Well--no more about that? Nothing you wish to add?"
"Nothing."
"I see. 'Are we savages to be held in line by magic words mumbled in the
mouth of a priest?'--do you want to comment on that sentence from your
letter, Miss Blake? Explain, perhaps, why it's not to be taken as an
attack on James Doherty's religion?"
"Genuine faith can't be attacked, Mr. Hunter, because it hasn't anything
to do with reason. Religious people sometimes admit that themselves, if
they've done any thinking about it. I remember hoping rather foolishly
that he would be able to see my side of the question. As for what I
wrote there, it's a--a comment on superstition. If you heard it in
ordinary conversation it wouldn't trouble you much. It's important now
only because you've decided to try me for irreligion as well as murder."
"No, Miss Blake, I am still concerned with your attitude toward law, as
it bears on your credibility and on the issues of this trial. Now I
hear that the marriage sacrament to you is a superstition proper to
savages--that's what you meant, isn't it?"
"Marriage is a legal status. A marriage certificate is a legal document.
When you talk about the sacrament of marriage you're expressing a
religious view that has no legal meaning."
"Oh, well--"
"Ask any lawyer."
"Why, as an amateur lawyer, Miss Blake, you happen to be perfectly
right. But that isn't quite the point, is it? It seems to me that in
tossing off a comment like that to James Doherty on the subject of his
marriage to Ann Doherty you were placing yourself pretty far above the
law as well as above religion. Heard now, under these circumstances,
doesn't it sound pretty arrogant even to you?"
"Not nearly as arrogant as the first premises of a true believer or a
prosecuting attorney--"
The break in her voice had been unmistakable. Warner knew that if he
stood up then and spoke, he would only be compounding disaster by
drawing more attention to it. _When did I lose her? When did she go
away? A little while ago she still desired to live._ He tried to recast
the outline of his closing speech--more emphasis here, less there. And
perhaps in redirect some of the damage could be repaired. _The defense
never rests._
"I suppose I must leave it at that," Hunter said. "But maybe I ought to
remind you, Miss Blake, that I could have no interest in making any
personal attack against you, as you seem to feel I'm doing. I am simply
a servant of the State, with a duty to perform."
"No," she said emptily, "that's not quite true. Impartiality isn't any
part of the system. You hate and fear me because--"
"Miss Blake," said Judge Mann sharply, "for your own sake there must be
no such expressions of personal feeling. It's perfectly true that
impartiality is hard to achieve, because we're all human. But in a law
court we do try to achieve it. This procedure, this sometimes clumsy
mechanism of a trial--it's an attempt at fairness, objectivity, the best
we can do under the present conditions of society. Now I must warn you,
and very urgently: simply answer the prosecutor's questions as plainly
as you can, unless the Court rules you need not answer, and don't try to
go beyond those questions. That rule--in fact the whole procedure--is
for your own protection."
Directly to the Judge, and quietly, but also as though she had not
really taken in his words at all, Callista said: "I never wanted her to
die."
Warner saw Judge Mann turn to him, distress momentarily plain to read,
as though the Judge and not the defense were most in need of help. "Mr.
Warner, if you wish a recess--"
"No!" said Callista, and that was a cry. "I want this to be finished.
I'm perfectly able to answer the questions, but I can't go away and come
back to it, I can't do that. No recess now, please!"
"Your Honor, I think--so long as my client feels able to continue and
wishes to--but--reserving the privilege of asking for a recess later
if--"
"Yes, certainly, Mr. Warner. Whenever you want to request it."
Hunter said, gently and mildly, no longer half-crouched like a man
readying himself to rape, but standing some distance from the witness
stand, almost careless in his quiet--"You never wanted her to die,
Callista?"
"No, I--yes, when--nobody ever answered Pilate."
"Yes some of the time, no some of the time--that would be natural,
perfectly human, wouldn't it, Callista?"
"I suppose...."
"Does it mean, Callista, that you've remembered what happened in that
lapse of memory--the thing you couldn't tell Mr. Lamson?"
"Yes."
Warner understood he had risen. But there were no words. She must know
that he would come to her if he could; but she would not look at him
now--only at Hunter, and without hostility, but with somber recognition,
as if suddenly after much bewilderment she understood why he was there
and what purposes he might serve.
"What happened, Callista?"
"I heard her take the bottle from the shelf, and the sound of a glass. I
heard her come to my door, and knock, and say that she'd poured a drink
for me. I lay still. I deceived myself a little, I think--I tried to
imagine it was not the poison, then I tried to tell myself she would not
drink it. But for a few seconds or minutes the strongest part of me was
the part that held me there, willing that she should drink it. When she
was gone, and I knew what had happened, that self, that part of me, was
no longer in command. Then I became--whatever else I am, and have been
since then. Now I'll answer no more questions, even from those I love."
II
The courtroom had gone into a silence where voices were remembered with
uncertainty, like the dead. The judge's chair was empty. Three reporters
talked in small murmurs at the press table, waiting it out, and a few
spectators remained. Edith watched Mr. Delehanty appear from the small
side door at her left, take up with quiet importance a manila folder
from his idle desk, mutter inaudibly to one of the bailiffs, glance
first at an old-fashioned gold watch from his pocket and then toward the
door on the right through which the jury had disappeared three hours
ago; then he tiptoed in dignity away. It was nine o'clock in the evening
of Friday, December 11th. Closing speeches, the judge's summing up and
charge to the jury--done, and anticlimactic all of them, for it seemed
to Edith that it was Callista herself who had closed the trial,
yesterday. "_I'll answer no more questions_--" standing up then, even
before she was dismissed, but waiting with the politeness of a tired
guest until Hunter murmured something that Edith did not hear; and she
stepped down, took hold of Cecil Warner's hand, and walked with him
drowsily to the defense table, and sat leaning her head back against his
arm, eyes closed, until the Judge announced adjournment for the day. No
part of the courtroom ritual now remained--except one. The long finger
of the electric wall clock jerked, and was still a while.
After today's ordeal of listening--anticlimactic, yes, the Judge's voice
roughened at the end of his summing-up, at moments not plainly audible,
running down like a mechanism with a used-up spring--after the jury had
retired, Edith had seen Victoria Chalmers press her hand to her broad
pale forehead, rise, accept with sad patience the Associate Professor's
fumbling courtesy with her coat, and move away. She would be having one
of her headaches. No nod for Edith--Herb Chalmers gave her one--and no
backward look at the arena; but as Victoria turned her head the light
washed coldly across her face, and Edith saw plainly that even Victoria
was a little changed. A sag of the mouth, a droop of shoulders and
sturdy frame, a slowness and uncertainty in the hands adjusting her coat
that suggested old age, although she was still in the early forties. She
seemed doubtful of her steps, an unsteady hand undecided whether to
grasp her handbag or tuck it under her arm. At the exit she did look
backward once, with vagueness, as though there might be something she
wished to say; or even someone she wished to find. Then like an old lady
she rested her arm on Herb's clumsy hand, and was gone.
Edith found it was now natural, inevitable, to pity Victoria
Chalmers--whatever pity might be worth. Earlier, until the jury went out
through that doorway, there had somehow not been time. There was time
now for every sort of thought, regret and fear and wonder, time for a
swarm of thoughts crowding for attention, pity the least of them--time
for anything the mind could do except for the discoveries of happiness
and peace. Pity, maybe, was no more than a private vice, with varied
by-products, some good, some bad.
Herb Chalmers had come back an hour later, alone. He made as though to
sit down by himself, but seeing her look his way, he shambled to her,
side-stepping along a row of vacant seats, and let himself down by her
in a long-legged sprawl. "I suppose nothing's happened yet?"
"Nothing. Is Mrs. Chalmers all right?"
"I don't know," he said, his weariness lending the force of truth to the
absent reply. He yawned convulsively, apologizing for it in a mumble.
"She's pretty used up of course. Felt she couldn't stay, and I thought
that was sensible. I took her home, and maybe she can sleep. It's not as
if we could do anything now. For a while. You see, I feel sure that
they--" he rubbed large hands over his face and shook his head--"no, God
knows I don't feel sure of anything any more. Anything at all."
Herb also had aged. More deeply sunken lines, more gray in the thinning
hair. He had evidently cut himself shaving that morning; the scab at the
edge of his gaunt jawbone was overlaid by the day's growth of silvery
bristle, making a sort of Skid Row shadow across his wan, weak,
intelligent face.
"They can't find first degree," Edith said. "It's not possible." Yet she
might be only trying to convince herself; she heard no strength in her
own voice. "The Judge's summing-up--oh, he had to define all the
possible verdicts, but the way he did it, the stress he laid on
reasonable doubt--and then even the very fact that she said what she
did, at the end--they can't do that."
He mumbled what might have been agreement, then turned to her suddenly,
large-eyed, wounded, ineffectual. "They could though, Miss Nolan.
Juries ... we have to face the fact, anything's possible from acquittal
to--first degree. Law tries to go by logic, but never quite succeeds."
More than one way, she thought inconsequently, of facing facts: walk up
to a fact and spit in its eye, Callista's way; or, like Herb Chalmers,
just stand there. And you could make out a pretty good case for Herb's
way, sometimes. _My way--my way..._ "Why didn't he call me, Miss Nolan?"
"Well, he--I think he felt that character witnesses--and that's all I
amounted to--couldn't help much. Any more of that would have pointed up
the lack of any other kind of evidence. I suppose juries discount the
word of friends and relatives; it's natural."
He wasn't listening much. "I would have done anything. I failed her
somehow, somewhere along the line. From the start, I guess." He sighed
and fidgeted. "But maybe she'd have resented anyone situated in her
father's place. I remember when I first met her, a kid of eleven, I
said: 'Look, Callie, I'm not your father and couldn't try to be anything
like him. I'm just me, a person, and I'd like us to be friends.'
Eleven--it never got across, you know? Infantile glowering, and then a
kind of frozen politeness that I never could break through." He sat
quiet, perhaps aware of her as a listener, gazing aimlessly at the broad
knuckles of his bony hands. He said with curious humility and no
resentment: "She's always had a good deal of contempt for me, I think.
Children grow up so fast, and we grow old so fast. You know, Miss Nolan,
a while ago I started something, a piece of writing--nothing very much,
but it might prove interesting. A study of the Cavalier and Courtier
Lyrists. I want to relate them to certain trends in modern poetry. You
know, it's never been done. Oh, I suppose it'll turn out to be just
another trifle of academic stuff. But the curious thing--look, I'm
afraid I'm boring you or getting on your nerves at a bad time--"
"No, you're not, not in the least." Her impulse toward callous and
hopeless laughter ceased of itself, no need to fight it down. Abruptly,
there was nothing funny at all about stringy Herb Chalmers having an
affair with the saucy music and tenderness of the Lyrists. He was a
scholar; he knew his subject; he might even have something to say.
"Well, the curious thing--" he blushed briefly like a schoolboy, and
blew his nose, and sighed--"curious thing, when I was getting together
some of my notes for it the other day, I kept thinking--imagining
Callista reading it. Escape psychology, I suppose."
"Why call it that? 'Escape' is just another one of those
two-for-a-nickel derogatory noises that people use in place of thinking.
Why not escape from ugliness toward something better? Escaping doesn't
mean you've forgotten the ugliness is there."
"Something in that. Is Warner with her, do you know?"
"I think so. He wouldn't leave her unless she asked to be alone."
"He surprised me this morning, that closing speech. Two and a half
hours. I never thought he'd take all morning, and repeat himself so
much. It was--effective, maybe, but it scared me too. I couldn't help
thinking it was effective only for people who already _know_ Callista. I
tried to think myself into the position of a juryman, a mind totally
alien to Callista's. Everything he said was good, but he said too much.
Trying to ram it through a stone wall.... I suppose you saw how once or
twice he lost the thread of what he was saying and just stood there.
Looking lost."
"Yes. He's not just a defense lawyer in this thing. He loves her."
"I've felt that, yes. And so did the jury, I'm afraid--more than he
should have let them feel it. It even gave Hunter his cue, I think.
After all that thunder and pleading, he could afford to be quiet and
cold, and make the mere contrast seem like a virtue. Taking it off now
and then to abstract principles the way Warner did--that was good, for
us. I can't believe more than two or three of the jury went along with
it. 'The defense never rests'--yes, but what can that plumber foreman
make out of it? Ah, I don't know...." The intelligent professor faded,
leaving a collapsed and tired old man. He shrugged, looked at his watch,
gathered his legs under him. "I'm going out for a smoke. Want to?"
"No, I'd better stay, Dr. Chalmers. She'll be coming back when the jury
returns, if it does return tonight. She's always looked for me when she
first comes in. I've got to be here."
"Yes, I--of course." He blundered away a few steps and turned back to
her. "Miss Nolan, I thought you were quite wonderful on the stand--said
a number of things I would have liked to say."
Edith winced inwardly, wishing he would go. "In the jury's view I wasn't
good. Another maverick."
"Oh, I don't know." He rubbed his sagging face. "Shouldn't underestimate
their intelligence, I suppose. It's--democracy in action, you might
say--something like that."
"Democracy be God-damned," Edith said. "It's a human life."
"Well, I--see what you mean of course." He stood tall and drooping near
her, so that she must bend her neck awkwardly to see his face as he went
on, driven by some compulsion to talk when perhaps he had no real wish
to do so: "Strange thing--had a dream a while ago, possibly an echo of
my reading--Huck Finn likely. Lost in a fog, on a raft, watching the
river stream past me--sometimes the water'd slop up between chinks in
the logs. All under a milky fog, no landmarks, but I could see the river
all the time, the dark flow of it, now and then trash and broken things
sliding past. It went on, you know, years, a hundred years, who could
say? And I thought I was motionless, nothing more than a pair of eyes,
brain somewhere back of them. Well, but--here was the nightmare, you
see--I suddenly understood that I was drifting too, had been all the
time. Doesn't sound like anything in the telling, but it was horrible--I
can't tell you. Drifting all the time when I thought only the river was
in motion. The sleeping brain's comment on myself, you see?--myself as
summing up all human stupidity. Or blindness--much kinder word, isn't
it? 'So may you, when the music's done, awake and see the rising
sun'--that's from Thomas Carew, I think, died 1639 or around there. My
head is an attic, you know, full of little facts with dust on them. They
were so concerned, those poets, with treating love itself as a work of
art, you'd think to read them superficially they had nothing else on
their minds. But there was a depth, Miss Nolan, something you don't
discover right away. All that polish, glitter, gracefulness, word-play,
that was something they produced _after_ accepting the squalor and
danger and confusion of seventeenth-century living. They knew what they
were doing. Reading the avant-garde stuff of nowadays, usually the
contrast is merely grotesque, still I keep finding parallels. Here and
there. It keeps an old man interested. Well, I'm babbling like second
childhood. Telling dreams, at my age! Look, can I get you anything? I
think I'll take a walk around the block, can't sit still. Coke?
Sandwich?"
"I guess not, thanks all the same. Jumpy stomach."
"Mm, I know." Her neck ached. _Please go!_ He was leaning down, a
remote, remotely friendly ghost, a friend of Thomas Carew, also a
human being in distress. "A thing like this--you know, Miss Nolan,
I believe the very worst of it is that we _forget_. Because we
have to, maybe. We're beaten down somehow, used up, licked in the
end by the daily littleness--head colds, weakening eyesight, the
brush-your-teeth-and-put-out-the-milk-bottles sort of thing, and there's
no defense." At any other time, Edith thought, she would have enjoyed
listening to this particular Herb Chalmers. "My God, littleness steals
everything, including the last breath. And before then, you see, no
matter what we resolve, what we hope for--we forget."
"I sha'n't forget."
"I'm fifty, Miss Nolan. You're still very young. Thirty years from now,
d'you think you'll know just as clearly what's been happening here, what
will happen when those people come back through that door? Ah, I don't
know, I'm talking like a fool--who's going to see thirty years ahead?
Jim Doherty's already forgetting. In a bar."
"What? Did you see him?"
"Last night he was anyway, and it looked as if he was laying the
foundation for a long one. After I took Vic home last night I came back
to town, to the college--had to make some kind of pass at the week's
work that's piled up on me--they've been very nice, leave of absence and
so on, but I notice things pile up anyway, letters, term papers, what
not. On the way home I stopped at Judson's--that's uptown, bar where I
used to go sometimes with Jim and--Ann, before all this. He was there,
tight as a tick, must have been working on it all afternoon. Not here
today, I notice. Last night I tried to get him to go home with me, but
he'd made friends with some character who looked respectable, capable of
putting him to bed right side up."
Edith said absently: "Someone will always be around to put him to bed."
"Know what you mean. Democracy in action." _I can't smile, Herb._
"Well--go for a walk, I guess. Can't sit still. 'Bye." He stumbled off,
a weary progress with a slow grab at every chair-back along the awkward
route...
Cecil Warner came through the doorway at the left, alone, his broad face
sallow, all ruddiness washed away. He passed the press table with a
shake of the head and no other answer to some tactless and poorly timed
question. He came up the aisle, and sank with slow motion into the seat
beside Edith, relaxing his bulk all at once with the suddenness of an
old man's muscles letting go. "Tell me," she said.
"A message. She wanted me to come to you with a message. 'Tell my friend
Edith I'll sleep well tonight, and ask her whether she'd like me to try
Doris Wayne in oil or watercolor.'" He would not quite look at her. "She
was smiling, Edith. It seemed to be a little flash of happiness, like a
breeze on a still day."
"It's good if she can think ahead. I've been trying to, but I can't.
Herb Chalmers was here, wandered off--good Lord, half an hour ago! I've
just been sitting like a vegetable." She saw his eyes were held by the
clock, against his will. "Cecil, does it necessarily mean anything at
all, when they stay out this long?"
He looked at her then, studying her face as if from a distance, deeply
aware of her and certainly no less aware of the girl in the detention
cell. He said: "It's not good."
"It's what would happen if there was a disagreement, isn't it?"
"Yes. A disagreement would not be good. A new trial very likely wouldn't
come before Terence Mann. And I wouldn't be competent, physically
competent, to go through it again. I'm getting pains down the left arm,
other things--" he waved his hand quickly and irritably to dismiss the
concern in her face. "Couldn't risk conking out in the middle of a
trial. That would make a mistrial, then another wait, a third trial with
some other attorney, quite likely some other judge--Hangman Cleever for
instance. No good, no good. Oh, I shouldn't have taken it on this time.
Or I should have got someone younger to work in court with me. That's
only one mistake I made. I've made hundreds. Vanity, vanity, thinking
myself better able to defend her than anyone else, and blundering all
the time--"
"No."
"Don't waste your breath comforting me now. I can see it, Edith, I can
see it. My last mistake was talking too long this morning. I couldn't
let go, even when I knew I wasn't getting through to them. Some kind of
idiot compulsion to hold off the moment when T.J. would start--as if
that could make any difference. A cub fresh out of law school wouldn't
make such an error--I've been at it forty years."
"Cecil, stop whipping yourself. You did everything possible."
"Everything I could, yes. But everything I could do wasn't enough, and a
lot of it was done wrong. A stronger man could have done more, done it
better. Why, there's the big evil of the adversary system, Edith, right
under our noses. Should the life or freedom of a human being depend on
the perfectly irrelevant strength or weakness of opposing counsel? What
in hell do my skill and brains, or T.J.'s, have to do with Callista's
innocence or any of the other facts? What could be more medieval? But we
accept it, have accepted it for hundreds of years, meekly, stupidly, as
if no other method were possible or worth a thought. I've spent my life
inside the propositions of a vicious fallacy, and discovered it at
sixty-eight."
"One man couldn't do away with the fallacy. It's too heavily
established, and maybe there isn't enough wisdom in the world yet to
develop a better way. You had to work inside of what you found, and it's
not wasted effort. Within the system, you've saved a good many lives
from public vengeance--and never mind whether they've been good lives
like Callista's, or the lives of crooks and psychopaths, that's not the
point. Each time you've set your face against public vengeance, you've
brought some minds that much nearer to learning that the whole notion of
vengeance and punishment is wrong. You've done your share. You've been
on the side of mercy. How many can say that?"
"Well, my dear, you're good for me. Maybe I should have been a doctor. I
remember thinking of it for a while, when I was in college--but I felt
that the wish wasn't enough, that I didn't have the other qualities it
needs."
"I think a defense lawyer--your kind of defense lawyer, Cecil--is in
something like a doctor's position, but without any adequate sciences to
support him. A doctor can draw on chemistry, physiology, pharmacology, a
dozen other disciplines, and rely pretty solidly on what he gets from
them. A lawyer trying to be useful according to rational ethics--what is
there to help him? An infant science of human behavior, full of errors
and contradictions and blank spots, hardly more advanced than physiology
was in the eighteenth century; and haunted by the crackpots and
manipulators too, so that it's sometimes hell's own job to separate the
science from the special pleading. So I think, Cecil, that anyone who
defends a life against the crowd's desire for a victim, who shows up the
flaws in the system by bucking it--he's pioneering, he's taking a part
in bringing law nearer to reality. I'll set Clarence Darrow in the same
company with Semmelweiss and Pasteur, any time, no strain. And you."
He covered his face quickly with his hands; said after a while: "I wish
I were a younger man, to hear that."
Edith looked away at the clock. Her mind was caught in a brief paralysis
of waiting for the next twitch of the minute hand. "I drew something the
other night, Cecil, a memory sketch of that jury. It's curiously good."
She heard his breathing slow and become quiet. "My own style, but the
kind of thing I was never able to do before. I want you to see it. Come
over soon anyway--I need my friends too, you know. We try, Cecil,
oddballs like you and Callista and me, others here and there. Herb
Chalmers told me he's having a thing with the Cavalier and Courtier
Lyrists. I started laughing inside--just started because it seemed so
damn far away from everything--and then stopped laughing. It's Herb's
way of trying, using his brains in his own style on what's nearest to
his reach."
"Callista and I put the human race on trial the other night. We came to
no conclusion, no verdict."
"Well, I think there's an obvious verdict in that case, and maybe only
one possible at the present stage."
"So? You tell me."
"Not proven."
"I should have thought of that. Cal would like it. I'll remember to tell
her." Beyond the melancholy and desolation of his face she saw Herb
Chalmers returning along the row of empty seats. Warner nodded to him
morosely. "Herb. All by yourself?"
"I took Vic home." Herb Chalmers showed the dubious tension of a
news-bringer. "Cecil, what way does the jury-room face?"
"What way?" The Old Man's eyebrows bunched aggressively in perplexity.
"The Court Street side. Why, Herb?"
"They're yawping a _Courier_ extra on the street. Judd died in the
hospital a couple of hours ago." He pulled a smeary paper from his
overcoat and handed it to Warner, who stared at the splash of black ink
and let the thing slither to the floor. "A brass-lunged newsboy, Cecil:
'Blake Case Witness Dies ree aw abowit!'"
"Some fool," Warner said--"some fool in the jury-room is bound to open a
window, to let the smoke out."
"He was shouting pretty plain. I could make out the words a block away.
Any legal significance, you think?"
"I doubt it, Herb." Warner looked up hopelessly. "Anyway she gains
nothing from a mistrial. Likely it wouldn't even go before the same
judge, a second time. Everything that could happen," he said. "Malice,
chance, blind circumstance, human frailty. Even the malice nobody's
fault really--not even T.J.'s. He's something worked by strings."
"They can't find first degree," Edith said, and hated the querulous
shake in her voice, its jaded insistence on what she could not know.
"Twenty to life," said Warner.
"She's young," Edith said. "She's very young."
Herb asked: "Wouldn't actually be twenty, would it? Don't they--"
"She's young," said Warner, his voice all bitterness, "and it wouldn't
actually be twenty years."
The door on the right opened for a court officer, who spoke to someone
over his shoulder. Warner stood up, breathing carefully. Edith caught
his arm; he looked down almost angrily. "Cecil, tell her I'd like her to
try it in watercolor."
"Oh. Yes. I'll go with her now." He was hurrying down the aisle.
Herb said: "What--he meant to say he'd go to her, I suppose."
"He knew what he was saying. Sit here. Stay with me, please."
She watched the courtroom coming alive. Knowledge of the jury's
returning had spread as if by a spark of telepathy. A group of the
last-ditch curious straggled back from the corridors, and newsmen who
must have been waiting at some point of vantage outside, and Mr.
Delehanty--gravely ready at his desk before the Twelve filed in.
Judge Terence Mann came in and took his place without delay, moving for
once not easily but with a suggestion of middle age. He did not reach as
usual for his note-pad and pencil; he dropped his thin rugged hands on
the desk and stared at the space between them until his eyes must turn,
like all the others, to the door on the left.
She was with Cecil Warner. She looked at once for Edith, and seeing her
stepfather also she smiled once, quickly and warmly--a new thing to
remember. She held closely to Warner's arm until they reached the
defense section; then she stood alone, not troubling to seat herself. No
doubt someone, the Judge or Mr. Delehanty, should have told her to sit
down; but she remained standing until the jury, at Judge Mann's word,
self-consciously rose.
Mr. Francis Fielding looked tired and for the first time regretful.
"Members of the jury, have you reached a verdict in the case now before
you?"
Peter Anson said: "We have."
Callista looked on the jury as Edith had never seen her look on others
before. It was a look of patience resembling friendliness, a look that
one might naturally give to strangers who were confronted by a painful
difficulty and not quite able to understand its nature.
"What is your verdict?"
"We find the defendant, Callista Blake, guilty of murder in the first
degree, without recommendation of mercy."
III
_From a letter written by Terence Mann, formerly Justice of the Court of
General Sessions of Winchester County, New Essex, July 17, 1960, to Dr.
John Sever Mann, of Boston_:
... For that matter, I can hardly understand that more than a week
has passed since Callista died. My sense of time seems to be still
slightly distorted. For many days and months, too much to endure
and understand, hope for and relinquish; then quiet, aftermath.
Finished. The new things that begin, some of them surely good, are
not yet clear in my mind, nor in Edith's--we're tired, Jack.
Last night I finished and mailed that letter I told you about, to
the president of the New Essex Bar Association, setting out in
writing my reasons for resigning from the bench. Mr. Paulus,
president of the B.A., is a very pleasant character, a successful
gentleman but also mellow and moderately philosophical, capable of
filling that position with no sense of strain, and yet able to see
quite a distance into a stone wall. In him, I'd say that
intellectual compromise rises to the level of a fine art, a
hedonistic achievement which I respect, though I can't imitate
it--my own hedonism requires its ethical frame of reference to be
in plain sight, accessible, subject to change if reason demands.
You might understand Paulus better than I do, since in your work
compromise (though a very different kind) has to be the order of
the day. You try to help your patients live in the jungle, which
must mean plenty of yielding here to gain a little there. Well,
what I started to say--Paulus is a good joe. It was Paulus who
kindly suggested, away back at the time of my resignation, that I
should write such a letter, and he gave me advance permission to
send copies to newspapers if I cared to--which I've done. Perhaps
some of them will allow my cerebral verbiage to rub for a moment
against Miss Americas and Russian face-making.
I wasn't able to start that letter at the time of my resignation. I
kept putting it off. For a while--April and most of May--Edith and
I were in a suspended mental state, waiting out the appellate
decision. I couldn't say it to Edith--(especially since we knew by
that time that she was pregnant, your first nephew apparently
aiming for next February)--I couldn't say it to her, but after the
appeal was denied I never had any hope of the Governor. I know him,
a cultured nothing, mentally gelded by the modern political rule,
never stick your neck out. Even his fishing trip last week was
perfectly predictable.
I began my letter to Paulus after the appeal was denied, and it may
be worth something, for the record, but not very much. The memory
of newspaper readers is remarkably short, I think. Last week there
was the inevitable frenzy over the execution here in Winchester,
and I guess elsewhere--I haven't looked at the out-of-town papers.
Mostly pointless--all of it, so far as saving Callista's life was
concerned--the few reasonable voices drowned out by the crackpots
petting their emotions in public. This week--oh, in the houses and
bars and restaurants this week I doubt if there's very much talk
about Callista Blake. And if a few newspapers publish my letter, or
as much of it as will fit comfortably in half a column, most
readers will be honestly puzzled: Terence Mann, who the devil's he?
It's natural, you needn't tell me, Jack. We aren't geared to endure
sustained high tension very long--though didn't I hear you say once
that some patients have surprised you in that respect? The week of
the trial was enough to kill Cecil Warner--understandable of
course, he must have been ill before it began. I wish you could
have met him. I saw him only once after his collapse the night of
the verdict. He got home--I think I never told you this--by
himself, walked home I believe. His housekeeper called me in the
morning because he was asking to see me. His doctor wouldn't let me
stay very long--he grew too distressed by the effort to tell me
something when words wouldn't come. It was mostly about Callista's
letters, something he wanted me to understand, as if I were capable
of sitting in judgment--but I was not then, Jack, and never have
been. Edith was there too--the first time I'd met her outside the
courtroom. Warner said, so far as I can bring back the words: "I
couldn't believe the letters wouldn't get through to them. I
thought they _had_ to hear the truth in them, the reason and the
sweetness--but I was only sending a child into a snake pit." He
said: "The guilt's mine, Judge--I've killed her, by trusting human
nature." That's when his doctor told me I had to go, but he let
Edith stay, easy to see why. She has that ability--I think you've
felt it yourself--of sharing her own steadiness. It's a personal
magic--I'll never know how she does it. I have, myself, achieved
enough tranquillity, mental security, to see me through, especially
since our marriage and my resignation from the bench. But I seldom
seem able to give others the benefit of it; they are most likely to
be irritated because I don't share their excitements of the moment.
You have a good deal of her kind of magic yourself.
Well, there at Warner's house she came out to me later, told me how
he'd talked more quietly a while, forgetting much of the present,
and taking pleasure in the sound of ocean, which no one else would
hear in this inland town, but he could hear it out of childhood. He
died that night.
My letter to Paulus was, as I said, too cerebral, and that's why it
has left me discontented, aware of much that still ought to be
said.
In that letter I marshalled all the familiar arguments against
capital punishment, for the sake of logic and completeness. Paulus
has heard them all, and so have most citizens above the moron
level. Capital punishment does not deter, nor have any effect on
the crime rate one way or another--repeatedly demonstrated by
statistical study long before the time of Warden Lawes; vengeance
does not restore life, but only adds another evil, namely murder by
the state; there can never be complete assurance that the innocent
will not be punished and the guilty go free; punishment itself
serves no purpose except to excite the self-deceptive emotions of
the punisher; and so on, Jack. While I listed and discussed these
and lesser arguments in my letter, I grew increasingly
discouraged, mostly by realization that it has all been said
before, more persuasively than I know how to say it, that the
arguments on the other side seem (at least to my best
understanding) monstrously shabby, unrealistic, archaic, some of
them plain sadism with its nakedness barely hidden by doubletalk,
and yet the laws remain on the books.
You're a headshrinker, Jack--why do so many minds cling to unreason
with such a sullen fury? I am thinking of people like Judge
Cleever, or people who can read the entire transcript of the
Sacco-Vanzetti trial and still declare briskly and earnestly that
the innocent are never punished. How do they do it? What's the
faculty of the mind that makes it possible for an intelligent being
to look directly on a glaring fact and somehow will it out of
sight? For my part I _cannot_, from sheer physical inability,
believe a lie when the demonstration is before me.
And so finally, when I had done all I could with the clear,
sensible, familiar arguments that have beaten on Paulus' head for
forty-odd years without ever moving him to act on them, I found
that I was closing my discourse with nothing more nor less than a
plea for humility.
This was perhaps a little different, a little new--or would have
been if I had not felt obliged to write my letter in academic and
parliamentary language. I think no one ever said to Mr. Paulus:
"You, sir, although an exceptionally decent and clever sample of
_Homo quasi-sapiens_, are much too stupid and ignorant to decide
whether another human being shall live or die; and so am I, and so
are all your colleagues, and all policemen, all Governors, and all
juries." I did say, in terms not obscure, that my reason for
resigning the judgeship was that I felt my own self incompetent to
decide a question of that magnitude. Since he knows I am not a
fool, not badly educated as such things go, not grossly inferior to
others in my profession, and not given to false modesty, maybe the
implications were clear enough to exert some force.
Then having gone so far, it was necessary for the sake of honesty
as well as politeness to say what I could for the law on the credit
side. You can't (as Callista Blake said) have a human society
without laws. The civil law, and with many reservations the
criminal law, stumbles and bumbles through a vast amount of
necessary work, and not too badly. Concepts broaden, eventually.
The law in these years begins to listen more intelligently to your
(very young and new) profession, Jack; I predict that quite soon
the dear old McNaughton Rule will find its proper place--in
historical textbooks. And so long as there are laws, why, the
function of a judge is probably required at certain times, and if
the judge has intelligence it is a potential means of serving order
and human approximations of justice. On the personal level, I
admitted to Mr. Paulus that if I had remained in office I could
have done much useful work for many years, doing at the same time
no more harm than most judges do, and less than some.
But I did not retreat into the formula of declaring that my
decision was purely a matter of private conscience. Mr. Paulus may
so describe and pigeonhole it, but I did not say that. What is so
private about a conscience if it directs the life and actions of a
man? I could not soften the implication that any judge who opposes
capital punishment and yet remains in office in a state which keeps
that on the books is obliged to justify such compromise before the
bar of his own reason. He can do that: he can say that his
compromise enables him in the long run to do more good than harm.
That is honest; that I can respect. But I say, let him remember
that it is still a compromise with evil. And I say also that it
cannot be my way.
I think that in the end all honest reasoning does arrive at the
necessity of humility. In effect you say to all your patients: "I
don't know much about you, you don't know much about yourself;
let's try to find out more, and make what use of it we can, and
remember then that we still don't know very much." Or as my own
dearest teacher used to say to me: "Bring out the inner voices." No
one ever knew all he was capable of learning, or all he needed to
learn. The individual self is the heart of everything we
understand, the world's endless complexity being the product of all
individual selves living and dead. About the self of another we
know one thing for certain and only one: it exists. Therefore, not
as a supernatural dictum but as the command of a human being to
himself: Thou shalt not kill. Therefore, more light! Therefore,
humility.
I am one of the fortunate of course. I think, Jack, that by next
September I can decently start teaching music--with humility, at
least something of the strength and humility that I felt in my
teacher Michael Brooks but was too much of a child to understand. I
shall write books and articles--I told Callista that; or rather I
agreed, for it was the first thing she thought of when she learned
of my resignation from the bench, and all I had to say was yes. I
have a redheaded wife who doesn't allow dull moments, though we
have many peaceful ones, and we shall have children who will
undoubtedly teach me a good deal about humility, if only through
the slow and touchy business of learning it themselves. But Edith
and I will not turn smug and insulated with our good fortune, I
think--we know and remember too much for that.
I was able to see Callista several times in the death house. I
remember I wrote you a little about some of those visits, probably
not too well. The first time was right after my resignation. I felt
I had to see her and talk to her, if only for my own sake. It was
no crawling search for "forgiveness"--she would have thought that
absurd and contemptible; she knew (I think) as well as I know, that
during the trial I was partly a mechanism on the bench, partly a
bewildered and rather inexperienced man who liked her and did not
want her to die. But I was undeniably in search of understanding.
She was someone who had gone into regions I had never known--not
all of them dark and fearful either, for surely her brilliance,
insight, humor, daydreams, were quite as meaningful as her
suffering. She was also someone who was articulate, observant,
wise, and could therefore tell me something of those regions, if
she was willing. In meeting Callista you somehow by-passed
"forgiveness" and other vanities. I think it was because, when she
was not too unhappy, she was often able to speak from mind and
heart at the same time. She had no acidulous interest in puncturing
sham for the sake of puncturing it. It was simply that, once
friendship and communication were established, she was so
straightforward and clear-minded that one's own shams and
self-deceptions showed themselves up as abominations, and one could
only wish to be rid of them, and to exist for a while on her level.
She would never have thought of asking a friend to be honest; she
merely took it for granted that he would be, took it for granted
with an innocence and uncalculated kindness that even Edith says
she can't understand.
Never suppose that Callista wanted to die. She wanted life, and all
it might have brought her. She followed closely and hopefully
everything that we were trying to do, the appeal, the later
efforts. She was happy and intensely _interested_ when she learned
that Edith and I had become close friends and then lovers; it was
Callista who urged us to marry without too much waiting. She wanted
to know everything about this Emmetville house we've bought--yes, I
listen for The Express, though it's always a Diesel now and doesn't
sound quite right to you and me--and she seemed to get a wholly
relaxed, natural fun out of telling us how to fix the guest room
where she would sometimes be staying. When I told her of Edith's
pregnancy (not even sure that I ought to) she was happy--I swear
there was not one moment in the little time I had with her that day
when I could see any shadow on her face, any hint that she was
comparing Edith's lot with her own. Later of course, after I was
gone--but no one will ever know about that.
And in spite of all this, her manifest interest in living, I think
she sensed all the time that the appeal would probably fail, and
the appeal for executive clemency. Once or twice--only once or
twice--she was bitter and miserable. I will not make a saint of
her, and so lose what she really was. She was greater in many ways
than most of us; she was also a nineteen-year-old girl,
unfortunate, frequently sharp-tongued and hasty; loving beyond
measure to her friends but incapable of suffering a fool with
patience. Once, only once, I saw her truly angry. Well, she had
said to Warden Sharpe himself that she wanted no visits from the
chaplain, and then after respecting her wish for quite a long time
he had come in anyhow, poor earnest man, and prayed at her--just
unable, in his good intentions, to understand that there really are
those who prefer to employ their minds in other ways, especially
when the time is short. But I found out on talking with her, after
her anger had given way to amusement, that what had chiefly
exasperated her was her inability to recall chapter and verse
numbers for the quotation from Exodus she wanted to cite to him:
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (It's XXII, 18, if you're
curious.) She said: "I did want to give him just the numbers so
he'd have the fun of looking it up himself."
Later, unsmiling, she asked me: "Will it accomplish something, do
you think, if I'm able to demonstrate with what peace a freethinker
can die?"
She was like that. She could say that, and saying it, compel me to
answer straightforwardly instead of with a mere desperate
insistence that I didn't think she would die. I said: "Yes." Then
of course I was driven to say the other thing too, because, like
Edith and Cecil, I loved her and I could not look at the thought of
her death. But the yes was what she wanted and what she remembered.
She would not permit me to be present at the execution. She said I
must stay with Edith at that hour, and that was right, and I did
so. We lived through the time--I don't care to remember any of it
except that Edith took hold of my hand and held it above the life
growing in her body, until the minute hand had gone past that mark.
Warden Sharpe has told me there was "no confusion." Callista walked
alone--of course. Sharpe says she smiled suddenly at the chaplain,
patted his arm, said: "It's all right. Come with us if you want
to." When they strapped her in the chair she said only: "You people
here are not responsible for any of this. I'd like you to know I
understand that." Then the hood was over her face, and an employee
of the sovereign state moved the switch to perform on her body the
ultimate indecency.
She was one of the lonely and strange. Though we destroy them, they
give us a light that can become our own.
THE TRIAL OF CALLISTA BLAKE
EDGAR PANGBORN
In 1959, in the state of New Essex, a witch was on trial. Or
so she seemed to many of the jurors who would ultimately
decide her fate, and to the people who thronged the crowded
courtroom, many of them friends of the murdered woman. On
trial for poisoning her former lover's wife, she would--if
found guilty--be executed.
Callista Blake is nineteen years old at the time of her trial.
She has a very slight physical deformity, and the much greater
mental ones of apparent aloofness, fierce independence of
mind, a laconic and sometimes sarcastic wit, marked but
unconventional artistic talent, avowed atheism, and a complete
inability to compromise. Added to all this, although she is
not beautiful by any of the usual criteria, men find her
overwhelmingly attractive. No wonder the good people of
Winchester and Shanesville dislike her, fear her, and,
subconsciously, at least, think she is a witch. No wonder they
do not believe Callista's story that she had mixed the deadly
potion of Monkshood and brandy for herself at a moment of
suicidal depression, and had been prevented by a miscarriage
from saving Nancy Doherty, who had drunk the stuff
accidentally. The circumstantial evidence against Callista
could not be more damning, yet there are one or two people
unshakeably convinced of her innocence.
This is the story of their struggle in the courtroom to save
her. On her side are one witness--Edith Nolan, her friend and
former employer--her defending counsel--Cecil Warner, a sick,
aging man who loves her--and Terence Mann, who in his role as
judge is obliged to attempt impartiality but, trying his first
case carrying the death penalty, is appalled that the fate of
a human being can be at the mercy of anything so haphazard as
the adversary system and the whim of a jury. We see Callista's
ordeal and the events that brought her to it from the
viewpoints of all these people, as well as that of Callista
herself. We see T. J. Hunter, the formidable District Attorney
(they call him hunter Hunter), Jim Doherty, only too willing
to accept his confessor's view that he was an innocent
ensnared by a temptress of whom he is now happily free,
Callista's well-meaning stepfather, hopelessly dominated by
her overbearing, histrionic mother, the perfect Gertrude to
Callista's Hamlet, and many others who indirectly hold
Callista's life in their hands. We gradually learn the history
of Callista's passionate affair with Jim, told with a
compassion and insight which contrast poignantly with the
chilling ritual of the courtroom.
Edgar Pangborn knows and understands the people he writes
about. And with irresistible force he shows that no one is
good enough or wise enough to hold the power of life and
death.
Mr. Pangborn, who lives at Vorheesville, New York, attended
Harvard and the New England Conservatory of Music. He is the
author of three previous novels: _West of the Sun_, (1952), _A
Mirror for Observers_ (1953), and _Wilderness of Spring_
(1958). He has also contributed short stories to various
magazines.
_Jacket design by Paul Bacon_
_ST MARTIN'S PRESS_
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note, continued:
In general every effort has been made to replicate the original text
as faithfully as possible, including some instances of non-standard
spelling and punctuation (for example, ellipses spacing and size).
Hyphenation has been standardized. The transcriber notes that one of
the main characters, "Ann Doherty," is anomalously referred to as
"Nancy" once on p. 43, and again in the jacket flap notes; this has
not been altered. Another main character is often referred to by his
initials, "T. J."; on p. 79 and beyond this becomes "T.J."; this has
also not been altered.
The following changes were made to repair apparently typographical
errors:
copyright statement below title page "for permisison to use a"
permisison changed to permission
p. 28 "eatingly loudly and cheerfully" eatingly changed to eating
p. 68 "There she goes snifflling" snifflling changed to sniffling
p. 94 "Walton Road betwen 9:10" betwen changed to between
p. 111 "my own langugage far simpler" langugage changed to language
p. 121 "solitary as as any other" as as changed to as
p. 121 "instance: What do do?" first do changed to to
p. 122 "Adante does not mean Adagio" Adante changed to Andante
p. 206 "I'll be such an actesss" actesss changed to actress
p. 228 "doddle-pad rather angrily crossed" doddle changed to doodle
p. 246 "a fairly advanced science notice" notice changed to noticed
p. 275 "and then--"to keep you and me" --"to changed to --'to
jacket flap text "her defending council" council changed to counsel
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