"Dear—I'll be saying that of course. But it assumes that twelve minds can respect logic."
Hunter and Sergeant Peterson were being immensely fair. Finished now with the portraits of death, they were showing a photograph of a blunt-toed shoe superimposed on another mark. Peterson was even wordy and boring, explaining unnecessarily how you could tell that the footprint was made later. Then came photographs of the disturbed areas at other parts of the bank, and of the flat rock by the water's edge that would take no sign.
The rock. Cecil ought not to be looking so distressed for her. Behind her hand she whispered: "Peterson must have held his camera right where I stood. If the moon hadn't come out of a cloud—I wonder, Cecil—would I have refused to understand she was there? It was a small cloud but deep, suddenly come, suddenly gone. The rock—I used to sit there for hours when I was a little girl, and dabble my feet. It was the first thing I saw, and suddenly, you understand?—because of the moon."
"The moon—"
"Yes, 'the moon, the inconstant moon'—don't you remember I told you? The way the light strengthened in that gap of the hemlocks, and there was my rock, and then the whiteness in the water. Her arm, or that blouse—no, her jacket hid the blouse, she was face down. It must have been her arm, that whiteness, don't you think?"
"I suppose. Cal, this isn't the time—"
"I know. Hunter will ask: 'Why didn't you go into the pond, if your story is true? Why, Callista? She might have been alive.'"
"We'll deal with that in direct examination."
"He'll come back to it, though. 'How could you know, Callista? How could you know she was dead?' And then I say: 'Sir, dead or not, she was so quiet I couldn't disturb her rest.'"