"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?"