I
"The chips are down now, aren't they, Callista?"
_She'll understand that the best answer for that one is no answer. But I
might_--Cecil Warner remained on his feet by the defense table until he
could reassure himself that Callista did understand. She was watching
the prosecutor with outward calm, her hands folded--white hands,
actually strong, now seeming small and frail.
"Mr. District Attorney, I have one or two old-fashioned quirks. It was
natural for Mr. Warner to use my first name because he is a friend as
well as my attorney. From you I would prefer a reasonable formality, do
you mind?"
_Yes--good--perhaps. Too highbrow for the jury, but it may upset his
pace a little._ Warner sat down, forcing upon himself once more the
resolution that he would not intervene except as strategy required it.
She was, within obvious limits, on her own, and must fight in her own
way. He must protect her to the full extent of his position and powers,
but the jury must not feel that she was being overprotected. His own
words must have the force of economy, and not be wasted merely to
relieve his own anguish.
T. J. Hunter was brooding over it. The hour was 4:15, the sky beyond the
high windows altogether dark. The day would end with whatever Callista
was able to say now, and perhaps in some short redirect examination
after Hunter had finished. Closing arguments tomorrow, and probably
Terence's summing up: T.J. was not likely to call rebuttal witnesses,
and his method did not call for long-winded oratory at the end. The case
was likely to go to the jury tomorrow afternoon or evening. _I am not
ready._
"Very well, Miss Blake. I'm a plain man myself with only a commonplace
education, and I'm afraid I'm a little bit given to plain speech. Did
you kill Ann Doherty?"
"No."
"Why--she died of aconite poisoning, didn't she? And drowning? We've all
heard that testimony."
"Yes."
"Are you saying someone else gave her the poison?"
"She found the poisoned brandy in my apartment without my knowledge, she
drank it without my knowledge. When she drowned in that pond, I was not
there. I found her too late."
"That is still your story, Miss Blake?"
"Objection!"
"Sustained." Except for silence, his graceful body stooped slightly
forward as though setting itself for a predatory leap, Hunter gave no
sign of noticing the interruption. "Do you wish to take an exception,
Mr. Hunter?"
"No, your Honor. Miss Blake, in your direct testimony I recall that you
chose to qualify one of the remarks made by your friend Edith Nolan, a
remark concerning your artistic ability. I believe you said she
overrated you. Does that mean that in your estimation, your own
estimation, you are really not much of an artist?"
"No, that isn't what I said."
"Then you do consider yourself an artist?"
"Yes, but with less ability than Miss Nolan gives me credit for."
"I see. In how many lines, Miss Blake?"
"Drawing and painting. Nothing else worth mentioning."
"Not in fiction?"
"Objection! The question is wholly improper."
"Sustained."
"Exception. I was using the word in the purely literary
sense--literature, fiction-writing, is surely one of the arts."
"Mr. Hunter, since the question of Miss Blake's literary ability has
never been introduced at any time in this trial until you mentioned it
just now, the Court does not find your explanation altogether
acceptable. You may have your exception of course. As you continue, you
will avoid sarcasm and innuendo. Miss Blake is entitled to the same
respect as any other witness."
"I regret it very much, your Honor, if anything I said had the sound of
sarcasm. It was not so intended. Miss Blake, as an artist, in your own
estimation, do you share the attitude which I understand is fairly
common in some quarters, that an artist is--well, a sort of privileged
character? Not to be judged by the standards we apply to ordinary
mortals?"
"I do not, and I never knew any artist who held that attitude."
"Have you met a great many of them?"
"No. A few."
"But never met one who felt that he was, let's say, a special sort of
being? Someone apart?"
"Special perhaps, or apart, but not specially privileged."
"Not even the beatniks?"
"I don't know anything about the beatniks."
A swift small worm of pain ran down Cecil Warner's left arm, puzzling
him. He said with care for the sound of his voice: "Is all this leading
anywhere? Does it have any possible relevancy?"
"If the Court please," said T. J. Hunter melodiously, "there has been a
great deal said about Miss Blake's state of mind at various times. I
have not objected to it. This is in many ways an uncommon case. I am
inclined to agree with a remark made by my very honored adversary a
little while ago in his opening, when he pointed out how much depends on
whether we can or cannot believe Miss Blake's word. He is naturally
convinced that she is telling the truth. I am not. She is now on the
stand, having affirmed that she will speak truthfully. It is my
necessary task to test her credibility in any proper manner that is open
to me, and my present line of inquiry is directed to that end."
"The point is well taken," said Judge Mann. Warner heard or imagined a
note of weariness or doubt. "Are you making a formal objection, Mr.
Warner?"
"No, your Honor. I only wish the prosecutor would get to the point, if
there is one."
_A mistake; he'll catch me up on it too._ "There is one," said Hunter
mildly. "Perhaps I can make it clearer to counsel later on. Miss Blake,
you must have believed--did you not?--that something--maybe not your
position as an artist if you say it wasn't that--but something excused
you, made it appear all right to you to enter blithely on an adulterous
relation with James Doherty."
"I did not enter on it blithely, nor make excuses for myself. I was
aware that such a relation is contrary to the principles we give
lip-service to in this part of the world."
_She can't--she mustn't_--
"And also contrary to law?"
"Mr. Hunter, I'm afraid I never stopped to find out whether this is one
of the states where adultery is listed as a crime."
With deepening terror Warner understood that she was already becoming
raw and recklessly angry, though Hunter had scarcely begun. _I must be
heard._
"I take that to mean that you hold yourself above the law?"
"I object, your Honor. I submit that in his opening Mr. Hunter laid
considerable polite stress on the fact that the indictment charges
murder and nothing else. If now he has elected himself some kind of
guardian of public morals, if Callista Blake is to be tried after all
for a violation of sex conventions--"
"Sir, that's uncalled-for and unjust. My question was phrased in general
terms. I think nothing could bear more directly on the credibility of
the witness than her respect for law, or lack of it."
"You were asking," said Judge Mann, "in general terms, whether or not
the witness considers herself above the law? That was the meaning of
your question and the extent of it?"
"It was, your Honor."
"I must overrule your objection, Mr. Warner."
"Exception."
"Yes, certainly. Answer the question, Miss Blake."
"I do not consider myself above the law." _At least she's quieter; her
hands not shaking._ "Like everyone, I've probably broken a number of
minor laws without even knowing it. As for the matter the prosecutor
specifically mentioned, adultery, I don't know, as I said, how the state
of New Essex technically regards that action. If it's a crime, then I'm
a criminal--on that charge." _No more, Callista! LOOK AT ME!_ "I'm quite
aware you can't have a human society without laws. I try to respect them
so far as I'm able--I--"
"Miss Blake," said Judge Mann, "there is no need to go beyond the
question. For your own sake I must instruct you not to do so. Limit your
answers to what Mr. Hunter asks, so far as you can."
_He may have saved her--I don't know--I don't know._
"You respect the laws so far as you are able--now what does that mean,
Miss Blake? At what point, please, does it become impossible for you to
respect the laws?"
"No one could answer that exactly. As a lawyer, you certainly know that
many laws are obsolete or foolish. Dead-letter laws--Sunday blue
laws--that sort of thing. I would never willingly break any law that the
majority considers important."
"I see. You have decided then that the majority doesn't consider the law
against adultery important?"
"I don't know--I've already said I don't even know what laws New Essex
has about that. If people are ever prosecuted for it--I suppose they
are--I never heard of it."
"Your answer isn't quite responsive. Do you mean you believe that in
breaking the seventh commandment you were merely doing what everyone
does more or less?"
"I didn't say that. I--"
Warner let his voice go: "I will inquire again whether the District
Attorney believes he is trying a case of adultery."
"I will reply again that I wish to discover Miss Blake's attitude toward
law itself, as it bears on the reliability of her statements."
Judge Mann spoke with acid: "Gentlemen ... Mr. Hunter, your point may be
still defensible, but I think you're going too far afield. I suggest you
bring your inquiry back to factual evidence and the material of direct
testimony."
"Very well, your Honor. Miss Blake, do you have a clear recollection of
those letters of yours which were read in court this morning?"
"Very clear."
Warner saw him take them up from among the exhibits; fought back his
surge of resentment that those hands, clean, excellently shaped, well
manicured, should be handling them at all. "I recall, Miss Blake, that
before these letters were read, quite a point was made about seeing to
it that the jury heard a correct interpretation. This seems like a good
opportunity to clear up one or two points and give the jury your own
views on what they mean--that is, I take it you have no objection?"
"You needn't make such a production of stage politeness." _Callista,
don't!_ "I'm prepared to answer any legitimate questions as well as I
can."
Hunter's eyebrows rose and fell. He read to himself, slipped the first
page under and read on. "Well--'my love (you know it) is nothing like
what could happen for you with anyone but me. And there's my cure for
jealousy--if I could apply it, if I could make my head rule a little
more, my crazy heart a little less.' That appears, Miss Blake, to be
among other things an admission that you did experience what's usually
called jealousy. 'Something that could not happen with Ann. Or anywhere
in her world.' That's jealousy, isn't it?"
"I did experience it. I haven't denied it."
"No? Now I thought that in direct testimony you said something to the
effect that you had nothing against her. I think that--in direct
testimony under oath--you called her a 'sweet and harmless
girl'--something like that."
"I think I said--apart from Jimmy--meaning--apart from the fact that she
was his wife--oh, it's perfectly clear what I meant."
"That is, you had nothing against her except that she was in the way?"
"I never said that--never put it that way, even to myself."
"I'm sorry, Miss Blake, I think you did." He turned pages slowly. "Not
in those exact words perhaps. 'Granted also that Ann is good and sweet
and conventionally right. Does that give her the right--' and then the
crossed-out words that I think you remember, and then--'to keep you and
me apart and prevent my child from having a father?' Miss Blake, how
much nearer could you come to saying that she was in the way without
actually using the words?"
"The marriage--the fact of their marriage was in the way. I never
thought of her as a--a person to be removed--oh, I'm not saying it
clearly--I never wanted to--do away with her. My letter says--my letter
simply asks him to do something about a separation. And that's the
letter I never even mailed."
"All right--it sounds a little involved--the letter doesn't sound to me
as if you were writing about the 'fact of their marriage,' but let that
go for the present. This is from the first one, a letter you did mail:
'I fit no pattern. No one can own me, no one can make me over. I was
born a heretic and so live. No one can catch me except if I will.' This
time I am frankly puzzled, Miss Blake. It is by chance a quotation from
something?"
"No."
"You had been writing affectionately--and poetically, I must say--and
then all of a sudden you throw this at him: 'No one can own me--born a
heretic and so live.' I'm simply puzzled, Miss Blake. Why in the world
were you moved to say to James Doherty: 'No one can catch me except if I
will'--why?"
Warner saw the violent tension and forced relaxation of her folded
hands. She said: "It must be--it must be it never occurred to me the
letter would be examined by a district attorney."
"What?--you mean it's a form of doubletalk? Hidden significance,
something that might be damaging if it came to the eyes of that lowest
form of life, a district attorney?"
"No--no--no hidden significance." She was turning her head from side to
side as if in search of physical escape. "I don't know how you dissect a
love-letter. Do it yourself--do it yourself--"
"'No one can catch me except if I will.' And then you were caught,
weren't you?"
"Objection!"
"Sustained--sustained. You know better than that, Mr. Hunter. And step
back from the stand a little. I will not have the witness abused."
"My regrets, your Honor. I had no such intention." _Throws it like a
bone to a dog--Terry's no dog--but_--"Miss Blake, I will read to you
from the second letter. You had been asking about Doherty's religious
views, and then you wrote: 'I wasn't asking about _Ann's_ views, blast
you--I know she'd condemn the whole thing without a moment's pause for
thought.' Miss Blake, by what reasoning it is possible to reconcile that
remark with your alleged intention of asking Mrs. Doherty to agree to a
separation? How could you write that about her, and then in the very
same letter talk about her meekly agreeing to a separation?"
"I suppose--I suppose the remark about her condemning us--I suppose I
wrote that in a moment of exasperation, and was calmer later on. I don't
know--must a love-letter be consistent like a dictionary?"
"All right, I see what you mean, but on that point the inconsistency is
really glaring, isn't it? You knew--elsewhere in the letters you even
grudgingly admit--that Mrs. Doherty loved her husband. You knew, and you
specifically said, that she would regard your adulterous relation with
him as sinful--of course, how could you doubt it, what wife in her right
mind wouldn't regard it so? Yet in almost the same breath you're talking
about a separation, as if you expected Ann Doherty to throw away her
marriage, violate her deepest religious convictions, humbly agree to
letting her husband go live in sin with his ... with you. Consistent?"
"I suppose it's inconsistent, if you make no allowance for the other
things I said."
"Oh--there is something else in the letter that makes it consistent?"
"I don't know--I don't know."
"Miss Blake, on the basis of these letters, and your testimony, I will
ask you: weren't you, in all this talk of a separation, simply
proposing an impossibility, knowing it was one, to--well, what? See what
Jimmy would do? To feel him out maybe, find out if he'd go along with
you on some much more direct method of--eliminating the woman who was in
the way?"
"That's idiotic."
"Well, if I'm an idiot you should have no trouble defending yourself."
"Witness and counsel will both confine themselves to the issues. No more
of that sort of thing."
"My apologies, your Honor. All right, Miss Blake, we'll let that stand.
But in my--simple way, I keep trying to understand. Now for example in
the rest of this second letter, where you attack Doherty's religious
faith--"
"I never attacked it! In that letter I was _asking_ about his beliefs,
and stating some of my own ideas, nothing more."
"Oh? I must have misunderstood. Let's see--you wrote here, speaking of
his religion: 'Isn't it mostly a matter of being brought up in a certain
way that automatically shuts out other views without seriously examining
them? I'm trying to suggest that unlike Ann, you're really not embedded
in religion like a fly in amber.' That's not an attack?"
"No, it is not."
"I see--the fault's with my understanding. And further on you wrote:
'just where is the mercy, the rationale, the loving-kindness in an
ethical-religious system that makes me a whore bound for hell because I
love you and welcome intercourse with you and want to live with you?'
But you're telling me seriously now that this isn't to be called an
attack on the man's most vital and deeply cherished religious
convictions?"