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.