The Trial of Callista Blake

by Edgar Pangborn

I

"The chips are down now, aren't they, Callista?"

She'll understand that the best answer for that one is no answer. But I might—Cecil Warner remained on his feet by the defense table until he could reassure himself that Callista did understand. She was watching the prosecutor with outward calm, her hands folded—white hands, actually strong, now seeming small and frail.

"Mr. District Attorney, I have one or two old-fashioned quirks. It was natural for Mr. Warner to use my first name because he is a friend as well as my attorney. From you I would prefer a reasonable formality, do you mind?"

Yes—good—perhaps. Too highbrow for the jury, but it may upset his pace a little. Warner sat down, forcing upon himself once more the resolution that he would not intervene except as strategy required it. She was, within obvious limits, on her own, and must fight in her own way. He must protect her to the full extent of his position and powers, but the jury must not feel that she was being overprotected. His own words must have the force of economy, and not be wasted merely to relieve his own anguish.

T. J. Hunter was brooding over it. The hour was 4:15, the sky beyond the high windows altogether dark. The day would end with whatever Callista was able to say now, and perhaps in some short redirect examination after Hunter had finished. Closing arguments tomorrow, and probably Terence's summing up: T.J. was not likely to call rebuttal witnesses, and his method did not call for long-winded oratory at the end. The case was likely to go to the jury tomorrow afternoon or evening. I am not ready.

"Very well, Miss Blake. I'm a plain man myself with only a commonplace education, and I'm afraid I'm a little bit given to plain speech. Did you kill Ann Doherty?"

"No."

"Why—she died of aconite poisoning, didn't she? And drowning? We've all heard that testimony."

"Yes."

"Are you saying someone else gave her the poison?"

"She found the poisoned brandy in my apartment without my knowledge, she drank it without my knowledge. When she drowned in that pond, I was not there. I found her too late."

"That is still your story, Miss Blake?"

"Objection!"

"Sustained." Except for silence, his graceful body stooped slightly forward as though setting itself for a predatory leap, Hunter gave no sign of noticing the interruption. "Do you wish to take an exception, Mr. Hunter?"

"No, your Honor. Miss Blake, in your direct testimony I recall that you chose to qualify one of the remarks made by your friend Edith Nolan, a remark concerning your artistic ability. I believe you said she overrated you. Does that mean that in your estimation, your own estimation, you are really not much of an artist?"

"No, that isn't what I said."

"Then you do consider yourself an artist?"

"Yes, but with less ability than Miss Nolan gives me credit for."

"I see. In how many lines, Miss Blake?"

"Drawing and painting. Nothing else worth mentioning."

"Not in fiction?"

"Objection! The question is wholly improper."

"Sustained."

"Exception. I was using the word in the purely literary sense—literature, fiction-writing, is surely one of the arts."

"Mr. Hunter, since the question of Miss Blake's literary ability has never been introduced at any time in this trial until you mentioned it just now, the Court does not find your explanation altogether acceptable. You may have your exception of course. As you continue, you will avoid sarcasm and innuendo. Miss Blake is entitled to the same respect as any other witness."

"I regret it very much, your Honor, if anything I said had the sound of sarcasm. It was not so intended. Miss Blake, as an artist, in your own estimation, do you share the attitude which I understand is fairly common in some quarters, that an artist is—well, a sort of privileged character? Not to be judged by the standards we apply to ordinary mortals?"

"I do not, and I never knew any artist who held that attitude."

"Have you met a great many of them?"

"No. A few."

"But never met one who felt that he was, let's say, a special sort of being? Someone apart?"

"Special perhaps, or apart, but not specially privileged."

"Not even the beatniks?"

"I don't know anything about the beatniks."

A swift small worm of pain ran down Cecil Warner's left arm, puzzling him. He said with care for the sound of his voice: "Is all this leading anywhere? Does it have any possible relevancy?"

"If the Court please," said T. J. Hunter melodiously, "there has been a great deal said about Miss Blake's state of mind at various times. I have not objected to it. This is in many ways an uncommon case. I am inclined to agree with a remark made by my very honored adversary a little while ago in his opening, when he pointed out how much depends on whether we can or cannot believe Miss Blake's word. He is naturally convinced that she is telling the truth. I am not. She is now on the stand, having affirmed that she will speak truthfully. It is my necessary task to test her credibility in any proper manner that is open to me, and my present line of inquiry is directed to that end."

"The point is well taken," said Judge Mann. Warner heard or imagined a note of weariness or doubt. "Are you making a formal objection, Mr. Warner?"

"No, your Honor. I only wish the prosecutor would get to the point, if there is one."

A mistake; he'll catch me up on it too. "There is one," said Hunter mildly. "Perhaps I can make it clearer to counsel later on. Miss Blake, you must have believed—did you not?—that something—maybe not your position as an artist if you say it wasn't that—but something excused you, made it appear all right to you to enter blithely on an adulterous relation with James Doherty."

"I did not enter on it blithely, nor make excuses for myself. I was aware that such a relation is contrary to the principles we give lip-service to in this part of the world."

She can't—she mustn't—

"And also contrary to law?"

"Mr. Hunter, I'm afraid I never stopped to find out whether this is one of the states where adultery is listed as a crime."

With deepening terror Warner understood that she was already becoming raw and recklessly angry, though Hunter had scarcely begun. I must be heard.

"I take that to mean that you hold yourself above the law?"

"I object, your Honor. I submit that in his opening Mr. Hunter laid considerable polite stress on the fact that the indictment charges murder and nothing else. If now he has elected himself some kind of guardian of public morals, if Callista Blake is to be tried after all for a violation of sex conventions—"

"Sir, that's uncalled-for and unjust. My question was phrased in general terms. I think nothing could bear more directly on the credibility of the witness than her respect for law, or lack of it."

"You were asking," said Judge Mann, "in general terms, whether or not the witness considers herself above the law? That was the meaning of your question and the extent of it?"

"It was, your Honor."

"I must overrule your objection, Mr. Warner."

"Exception."

"Yes, certainly. Answer the question, Miss Blake."

"I do not consider myself above the law." At least she's quieter; her hands not shaking. "Like everyone, I've probably broken a number of minor laws without even knowing it. As for the matter the prosecutor specifically mentioned, adultery, I don't know, as I said, how the state of New Essex technically regards that action. If it's a crime, then I'm a criminal—on that charge." No more, Callista! LOOK AT ME! "I'm quite aware you can't have a human society without laws. I try to respect them so far as I'm able—I—"

"Miss Blake," said Judge Mann, "there is no need to go beyond the question. For your own sake I must instruct you not to do so. Limit your answers to what Mr. Hunter asks, so far as you can."

He may have saved her—I don't know—I don't know.

"You respect the laws so far as you are able—now what does that mean, Miss Blake? At what point, please, does it become impossible for you to respect the laws?"

"No one could answer that exactly. As a lawyer, you certainly know that many laws are obsolete or foolish. Dead-letter laws—Sunday blue laws—that sort of thing. I would never willingly break any law that the majority considers important."

"I see. You have decided then that the majority doesn't consider the law against adultery important?"

"I don't know—I've already said I don't even know what laws New Essex has about that. If people are ever prosecuted for it—I suppose they are—I never heard of it."

"Your answer isn't quite responsive. Do you mean you believe that in breaking the seventh commandment you were merely doing what everyone does more or less?"

"I didn't say that. I—"

Warner let his voice go: "I will inquire again whether the District Attorney believes he is trying a case of adultery."

"I will reply again that I wish to discover Miss Blake's attitude toward law itself, as it bears on the reliability of her statements."

Judge Mann spoke with acid: "Gentlemen ... Mr. Hunter, your point may be still defensible, but I think you're going too far afield. I suggest you bring your inquiry back to factual evidence and the material of direct testimony."

"Very well, your Honor. Miss Blake, do you have a clear recollection of those letters of yours which were read in court this morning?"

"Very clear."

Warner saw him take them up from among the exhibits; fought back his surge of resentment that those hands, clean, excellently shaped, well manicured, should be handling them at all. "I recall, Miss Blake, that before these letters were read, quite a point was made about seeing to it that the jury heard a correct interpretation. This seems like a good opportunity to clear up one or two points and give the jury your own views on what they mean—that is, I take it you have no objection?"

"You needn't make such a production of stage politeness." Callista, don't! "I'm prepared to answer any legitimate questions as well as I can."

Hunter's eyebrows rose and fell. He read to himself, slipped the first page under and read on. "Well—'my love (you know it) is nothing like what could happen for you with anyone but me. And there's my cure for jealousy—if I could apply it, if I could make my head rule a little more, my crazy heart a little less.' That appears, Miss Blake, to be among other things an admission that you did experience what's usually called jealousy. 'Something that could not happen with Ann. Or anywhere in her world.' That's jealousy, isn't it?"

"I did experience it. I haven't denied it."

"No? Now I thought that in direct testimony you said something to the effect that you had nothing against her. I think that—in direct testimony under oath—you called her a 'sweet and harmless girl'—something like that."

"I think I said—apart from Jimmy—meaning—apart from the fact that she was his wife—oh, it's perfectly clear what I meant."

"That is, you had nothing against her except that she was in the way?"

"I never said that—never put it that way, even to myself."

"I'm sorry, Miss Blake, I think you did." He turned pages slowly. "Not in those exact words perhaps. 'Granted also that Ann is good and sweet and conventionally right. Does that give her the right—' and then the crossed-out words that I think you remember, and then—'to keep you and me apart and prevent my child from having a father?' Miss Blake, how much nearer could you come to saying that she was in the way without actually using the words?"

"The marriage—the fact of their marriage was in the way. I never thought of her as a—a person to be removed—oh, I'm not saying it clearly—I never wanted to—do away with her. My letter says—my letter simply asks him to do something about a separation. And that's the letter I never even mailed."

"All right—it sounds a little involved—the letter doesn't sound to me as if you were writing about the 'fact of their marriage,' but let that go for the present. This is from the first one, a letter you did mail: 'I fit no pattern. No one can own me, no one can make me over. I was born a heretic and so live. No one can catch me except if I will.' This time I am frankly puzzled, Miss Blake. It is by chance a quotation from something?"

"No."

"You had been writing affectionately—and poetically, I must say—and then all of a sudden you throw this at him: 'No one can own me—born a heretic and so live.' I'm simply puzzled, Miss Blake. Why in the world were you moved to say to James Doherty: 'No one can catch me except if I will'—why?"

Warner saw the violent tension and forced relaxation of her folded hands. She said: "It must be—it must be it never occurred to me the letter would be examined by a district attorney."

"What?—you mean it's a form of doubletalk? Hidden significance, something that might be damaging if it came to the eyes of that lowest form of life, a district attorney?"

"No—no—no hidden significance." She was turning her head from side to side as if in search of physical escape. "I don't know how you dissect a love-letter. Do it yourself—do it yourself—"

"'No one can catch me except if I will.' And then you were caught, weren't you?"

"Objection!"

"Sustained—sustained. You know better than that, Mr. Hunter. And step back from the stand a little. I will not have the witness abused."

"My regrets, your Honor. I had no such intention." Throws it like a bone to a dog—Terry's no dog—but—"Miss Blake, I will read to you from the second letter. You had been asking about Doherty's religious views, and then you wrote: 'I wasn't asking about Ann's views, blast you—I know she'd condemn the whole thing without a moment's pause for thought.' Miss Blake, by what reasoning it is possible to reconcile that remark with your alleged intention of asking Mrs. Doherty to agree to a separation? How could you write that about her, and then in the very same letter talk about her meekly agreeing to a separation?"

"I suppose—I suppose the remark about her condemning us—I suppose I wrote that in a moment of exasperation, and was calmer later on. I don't know—must a love-letter be consistent like a dictionary?"

"All right, I see what you mean, but on that point the inconsistency is really glaring, isn't it? You knew—elsewhere in the letters you even grudgingly admit—that Mrs. Doherty loved her husband. You knew, and you specifically said, that she would regard your adulterous relation with him as sinful—of course, how could you doubt it, what wife in her right mind wouldn't regard it so? Yet in almost the same breath you're talking about a separation, as if you expected Ann Doherty to throw away her marriage, violate her deepest religious convictions, humbly agree to letting her husband go live in sin with his ... with you. Consistent?"

"I suppose it's inconsistent, if you make no allowance for the other things I said."

"Oh—there is something else in the letter that makes it consistent?"

"I don't know—I don't know."

"Miss Blake, on the basis of these letters, and your testimony, I will ask you: weren't you, in all this talk of a separation, simply proposing an impossibility, knowing it was one, to—well, what? See what Jimmy would do? To feel him out maybe, find out if he'd go along with you on some much more direct method of—eliminating the woman who was in the way?"

"That's idiotic."

"Well, if I'm an idiot you should have no trouble defending yourself."

"Witness and counsel will both confine themselves to the issues. No more of that sort of thing."

"My apologies, your Honor. All right, Miss Blake, we'll let that stand. But in my—simple way, I keep trying to understand. Now for example in the rest of this second letter, where you attack Doherty's religious faith—"

"I never attacked it! In that letter I was asking about his beliefs, and stating some of my own ideas, nothing more."

"Oh? I must have misunderstood. Let's see—you wrote here, speaking of his religion: 'Isn't it mostly a matter of being brought up in a certain way that automatically shuts out other views without seriously examining them? I'm trying to suggest that unlike Ann, you're really not embedded in religion like a fly in amber.' That's not an attack?"

"No, it is not."

"I see—the fault's with my understanding. And further on you wrote: 'just where is the mercy, the rationale, the loving-kindness in an ethical-religious system that makes me a whore bound for hell because I love you and welcome intercourse with you and want to live with you?' But you're telling me seriously now that this isn't to be called an attack on the man's most vital and deeply cherished religious convictions?"

Callista said: "Mr. Hunter, I think your A is a little bit flat."

One giggle sounded, in the back row, probably the same adenoidal snigger that had punctuated the trial from the start. There was no other laughter. Only a hush. The same kind of hush, Warner thought, that might have held the crowd in shock and incredulity, hundreds of years ago, if some candidate for an Inquisition bonfire had ventured to poke a little fun at the officiating priest. And T.J. was in fact performing certain priestly functions. So what am I then? Advocatus diaboli? He saw Terence Mann's hand clench spasmodically and fall in a droop.

Hunter said somberly, when the moment was right: "I have no objection to your odd sense of humor, Miss Blake, if you are enjoying it. But I would like a responsive answer."

"Mr. Hunter, I did not think of James Doherty as a child. At any rate I tried not to. Apparently I rated his intelligence more highly than you do. I did not think that his religious beliefs had to be coddled and protected, or avoided the way you might avoid too much comment on a child's make-believe. Therefore in that letter to him I asked him about his beliefs, as one might ask any adult, and I wrote a little about my own ideas. It can't be called an attack unless you feel that the mere mention of an unreligious idea is an attack on religion. I'm aware that a lot of people do feel that way. They take all dissent as if it were an unkind criticism of themselves. Maybe Doherty did too, but I didn't think so at the time."

Could she have won that round, or partly won it? It seemed to Cecil Warner that her voice had recovered some steadiness and coolness. Fielding looked somewhat impressed, as well as Helen Butler, LaSalle, and maybe Miss Wainwright. But the others were annoyed, or puzzled, or not listening. And about Fielding it was never possible to be sure.

"He's 'Doherty' to you now? Not 'Jimmy' any more, just 'Doherty'?"

She turned her face to the Judge with a look of blindness. "Must I answer that?"

"You need not," said Judge Mann. "I think you might withdraw the question, Mr. Hunter."

But even at that moment—the Judge manifestly friendly, Hunter showing up badly as his antagonism became too obviously personal and overdramatized—even at that more or less favorable moment Warner felt a change in Callista, a retreat or a weakening, as though before his eyes she had slipped further away from him, almost out of sight and hearing. He might, he supposed, be exaggerating her look of increased exhaustion, a fault in his own powers of observation. The pain slid down his arm again, compelling some part of his mind to mumble: Heart?—and irrelevant? Callista was not necessarily in flight, not necessarily losing her desire to live. A better part of his mind recalled a better voice, speaking with a nearly incomprehensible sweetness: "Living is journeying, and love's a region we can enter for a while."

"I withdraw my question. Miss Blake, as the author of these letters, I take it you are the one person best qualified to explain this sentence: 'You are already a prisoner, and I wish I might set you free.'"

"Oh—oh—explain it by what follows, can't you? I think when I wrote that I wasn't referring to Ann."

"Well, not exactly, Miss Blake. The words I see on this page are: 'No, I don't hate Ann, I was not thinking only of Ann when I wrote that.' Only, Miss Blake—that seems to say pretty plainly that you're at least including Ann Doherty in what you wrote about your Jimmy being a prisoner. Doesn't it?"

"All right—if you wish."

"It's no question of what I wish, Miss Blake."

"I think it is—I think you—no, never mind, I don't mean that. Go ahead and ask your question—what do you want to know?"

"I am asking for your interpretation of that sentence: 'You are already a prisoner, and I wish I might set you free'—insofar as it does refer to Ann Doherty."

Her voice had gone dull and flat, hard to hear from Warner's place: "No interpretation except the obvious one. His marriage trapped him, confined him." Warner's ears had begun a faint ringing; he undid the top button of his shirt—a little better. "I suppose marriage does that for anyone, man or woman, and usually the restrictions are voluntarily accepted, welcomed, or so people like to think. I suppose that's all I meant."

"But the rest of the sentence, Miss Blake—'I wish I might set you free'—what did you mean by that?"

"Why, the—the separation—what I've said repeatedly—I think I wrote about that in the very next paragraph, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," said Hunter in a dull and abstracted voice that curiously echoed her own. "So you did. 'You are already a prisoner, and I wish I might set you free.'" He came out of his abstraction briskly. "Well—no more about that? Nothing you wish to add?"

"Nothing."

"I see. 'Are we savages to be held in line by magic words mumbled in the mouth of a priest?'—do you want to comment on that sentence from your letter, Miss Blake? Explain, perhaps, why it's not to be taken as an attack on James Doherty's religion?"

"Genuine faith can't be attacked, Mr. Hunter, because it hasn't anything to do with reason. Religious people sometimes admit that themselves, if they've done any thinking about it. I remember hoping rather foolishly that he would be able to see my side of the question. As for what I wrote there, it's a—a comment on superstition. If you heard it in ordinary conversation it wouldn't trouble you much. It's important now only because you've decided to try me for irreligion as well as murder."

"No, Miss Blake, I am still concerned with your attitude toward law, as it bears on your credibility and on the issues of this trial. Now I hear that the marriage sacrament to you is a superstition proper to savages—that's what you meant, isn't it?"

"Marriage is a legal status. A marriage certificate is a legal document. When you talk about the sacrament of marriage you're expressing a religious view that has no legal meaning."

"Oh, well—"

"Ask any lawyer."

"Why, as an amateur lawyer, Miss Blake, you happen to be perfectly right. But that isn't quite the point, is it? It seems to me that in tossing off a comment like that to James Doherty on the subject of his marriage to Ann Doherty you were placing yourself pretty far above the law as well as above religion. Heard now, under these circumstances, doesn't it sound pretty arrogant even to you?"

"Not nearly as arrogant as the first premises of a true believer or a prosecuting attorney—"

The break in her voice had been unmistakable. Warner knew that if he stood up then and spoke, he would only be compounding disaster by drawing more attention to it. When did I lose her? When did she go away? A little while ago she still desired to live. He tried to recast the outline of his closing speech—more emphasis here, less there. And perhaps in redirect some of the damage could be repaired. The defense never rests.

"I suppose I must leave it at that," Hunter said. "But maybe I ought to remind you, Miss Blake, that I could have no interest in making any personal attack against you, as you seem to feel I'm doing. I am simply a servant of the State, with a duty to perform."

"No," she said emptily, "that's not quite true. Impartiality isn't any part of the system. You hate and fear me because—"

"Miss Blake," said Judge Mann sharply, "for your own sake there must be no such expressions of personal feeling. It's perfectly true that impartiality is hard to achieve, because we're all human. But in a law court we do try to achieve it. This procedure, this sometimes clumsy mechanism of a trial—it's an attempt at fairness, objectivity, the best we can do under the present conditions of society. Now I must warn you, and very urgently: simply answer the prosecutor's questions as plainly as you can, unless the Court rules you need not answer, and don't try to go beyond those questions. That rule—in fact the whole procedure—is for your own protection."

Directly to the Judge, and quietly, but also as though she had not really taken in his words at all, Callista said: "I never wanted her to die."

Warner saw Judge Mann turn to him, distress momentarily plain to read, as though the Judge and not the defense were most in need of help. "Mr. Warner, if you wish a recess—"

"No!" said Callista, and that was a cry. "I want this to be finished. I'm perfectly able to answer the questions, but I can't go away and come back to it, I can't do that. No recess now, please!"

"Your Honor, I think—so long as my client feels able to continue and wishes to—but—reserving the privilege of asking for a recess later if—"

"Yes, certainly, Mr. Warner. Whenever you want to request it."

Hunter said, gently and mildly, no longer half-crouched like a man readying himself to rape, but standing some distance from the witness stand, almost careless in his quiet—"You never wanted her to die, Callista?"

"No, I—yes, when—nobody ever answered Pilate."

"Yes some of the time, no some of the time—that would be natural, perfectly human, wouldn't it, Callista?"

"I suppose...."

"Does it mean, Callista, that you've remembered what happened in that lapse of memory—the thing you couldn't tell Mr. Lamson?"

"Yes."

Warner understood he had risen. But there were no words. She must know that he would come to her if he could; but she would not look at him now—only at Hunter, and without hostility, but with somber recognition, as if suddenly after much bewilderment she understood why he was there and what purposes he might serve.

"What happened, Callista?"

"I heard her take the bottle from the shelf, and the sound of a glass. I heard her come to my door, and knock, and say that she'd poured a drink for me. I lay still. I deceived myself a little, I think—I tried to imagine it was not the poison, then I tried to tell myself she would not drink it. But for a few seconds or minutes the strongest part of me was the part that held me there, willing that she should drink it. When she was gone, and I knew what had happened, that self, that part of me, was no longer in command. Then I became—whatever else I am, and have been since then. Now I'll answer no more questions, even from those I love."