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."