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.