He met the flat patient stare of Sergeant Lloyd Rankin, which indicated a readiness like that of a dog who will not attack unless provoked. Say a Boxer: Rankin was built like that, and would fight in a Boxer's style, with single-minded courage closely akin to stupidity.
He saw T. J. Hunter seated at the prosecution's table and turned partly away from the witness chair, making a show of rereading that transcript of Callista's ordeal. T.J. would be listening to the cross-examination, and sharply; but Cecil Warner had to admit that the show of bored indifference was quite as expert as anything he could have managed himself. This silence had lasted long enough, or too long; he heard fidgeting in the back rows; he could not spend any more time gloomily viewing Rankin's Boxer jaws.
"Sergeant Rankin, when Miss Blake realized she would be under suspicion, you asked her—I think these were your words—you asked her who she thought would believe a story like hers. Correct?—that's your recollection of what you said?"
"Yes, sir, I think I put it that way."
"Meaning, I suppose, that you didn't believe her story yourself?"
"No, sir—I mean no, I didn't believe it."
"Did you suggest that she ought to change her story?"
"Oh, I told her—more than once, I guess—that she ought to tell the truth about it, that she'd get a better break if she did."
"A better break. Those were your words, 'a better break'?"
He noticed a dim flush on Rankin's heavy cheeks, some flicker of doubt or uneasiness in chilly gray eyes. Rankin could have no way of knowing how much Callista might have told. "Yes, I think that was how I put it, Mr. Warner. She seemed to be expecting me to believe it, and—"