The Edgar Pangborn Megapack

by Edgar Pangborn

  Certainly no other. Technique of course; that much, after long effort of years, Edith could take for granted. But this—wasn’t it beyond technique?

  For the first time that evening—it had been nowhere near her while she was deep in work—Edith recalled Daumier’s “The Jury.” She took down the volume of his work, not trusting memory. After the comparison she could say No: a round, unworried, satisfying No. This curious thing of her own, this hating-fearing-loving-pitying distillation of the jury in People vs. Blake, owed no more to Daumier (or to Callista) than any work should honestly owe to whatever the artist has encountered in the past. Conception, development, fulfillment—unmistakably a Nolan original. Perhaps the first.

  The drawing frightened her then in a different way, grown temporarily larger than her mind’s resistance. These people were all looking at her, as the twelve faces of flesh and blood had seemed to for a moment in the afternoon, when someone in the row behind her had a loud coughing spell. They looked at her now, bloated Hoag and ancient Emerson Lake and cloth-brained Emma Beales and kindly Helen Butler, and by a trick of her exhausted mind they made her no longer Edith Nolan but a woman at the defense table, whose life would end or begin afresh somehow according to the will of those twelve imperfect beings. Who meant well; who wanted to “do the right thing,” whatever that was; who (except maybe Hoag) wouldn’t dream of turpentining a dog or pulling the wings off flies or starving a child.

  She forced herself out of that illusion. Well, the illusion was at least fair evidence of power in the work. She warned herself: Discount everything: tired; the illusion is strong because of personal involvement in People vs. Blake; by morning the pen-and-ink may be ashes. But leaving it, turning out the light, Edith almost knew that it would not.

  And she marveled, with something like the wonder of a child to whom all discovery is fresh and nothing worn down to the stale and bromidic, at the stubborn power of life to draw out of mold and decay an oak tree or a flower; out of confusion or sorrow a work of enduring good.

  CHAPTER 5

  It is indeed some Excuse to be mad with the greater Part of Mankind.

  ERASMUS,

  Colloquies

  I

  Answering T. J. Hunter’s inquiry about her occupation, Mrs. Phelps Jason of Shanesville replied in her own time and manner: “I am a widow with a limited private income, not employed in the usual sense, certainly not unemployed in the sense of idle. I manage my Shanesville property as a wild life sanctuary, and am Secretary of the Winchester County Anti-Vivisection League.”

  Judge Mann exhaled. One of those; human, however. In the minute-book, belatedly, he entered the date, December 9, and the witness’s name. On the pad he sketched a dour bluejay cuddling field glasses.

  “Mrs. Jason, how did you spend the afternoon of Friday, August 7th?”

  She made no fussy business of verifying the date. “On that day I attended a picnic given by my neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Chalmers.”

  “Who were the others present, if you recall?”

  “Besides Dr. and Mrs. Chalmers, there were Mr. and Mrs. James Doherty, Mr. Nathaniel Judd, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wayne of Shanesville with their two children. Also Miss Maud Welsh and Callista Blake.”

  “Are you well acquainted with the defendant, Callista Blake?”

  “Reasonably well. I met her first in 1951, when she was eleven. That is eight years.” Mann sighed and relaxed. Eight years ago, law practice at Mann and Wheatley already routine: 1951 was the Forman will case; and spare-time reading in constitutional law with old Joe Wheatley, Uncle Norden a dusty memory; and creeping up on forty.

  “You’ve been continuously acquainted with Miss Blake all that time?”

  “Yes. Of course I saw less of her after she moved to Winchester.”

  “At that picnic, August 7th, did you have any talk with her?”

  “No. We waved or nodded I suppose, when I arrived. Those picnics are quite informal. The fact that I had no talk with her was accidental; I was engaged with the other guests, and she was spending her time with the Wayne children.”

  “All her time?”

  “Why, yes, until about 3:30 anyhow.”

  “Did anything noteworthy happen then?”

  “I don’t know if I can judge what’s noteworthy, Mr. Hunter.”

  Mann’s attention sharpened at the hint of hostility. Was this State’s witness by any chance intending to pull the rug out from under Hunter?

  “I’ll rephrase my question. At 3:30, did anything happen important enough so that you now remember it and wish to tell it under oath?”

  “It’s not a question of my wishing to tell it, Mr. Hunter. I do not. If I may use an old-fashioned and unpopular word, it’s a matter of duty. At 3:30 Callista went alone into a wild garden back of the lawn.”

  “Are you yourself familiar with that wild garden?”

  “Yes.”

  “I ask you to show the jury, on this map, the location and extent of the wild garden. And describe it in your own words, if you will.”

  Tense but self-contained, Mrs. Jason stood by the map, her hands moving intelligently, her voice firm and rather pleasant. Mann recalled that she had given her age as forty-seven; his own age; more weathered than himself in the face, but an outdoor type, possibly better preserved, her figure attractive and graceful. “The wild garden area is roughly square, about a hundred feet on a side. It’s closed away from the lawn by a mixed hedge of forsythia and lilac. There’s only one break in that hedge, an angled passage about two feet wide. It’s marked here—”

  “Angled—you mean the opening is on a slant?”

  “Double slant, zigzag. The hedge is ten or twelve feet thick—that forsythia will take over everything. I understand the little passage has to be pruned out fresh every year.”

  “If it’s a zigzag, then you can’t look through from the lawn area into the wild garden—is that correct?”

  “Correct. From the lawn it looks like an unbroken hedge. Well, the wild garden itself is just a patch where everything’s been left more or less natural. There’s an old paper birch. Hardy perennials.”

  “In earlier testimony, the plant monkshood was mentioned in connection with that wild garden. Have you seen it growing there?”

  “Yes.” She spoke reluctantly, returning to the witness chair.

  “After 3:30, when did you next see Callista Blake?”

  “About quarter past four, getting into her Volkswagen.”

  “You didn’t see her come out of that wild garden?”

  “No, I didn’t happen to. I think I’d gone indoors for a while.”

  “You’re quite certain she went into the wild garden alone? The children couldn’t have gone with her, or perhaps ahead of her?”

  “No, they didn’t. Shortly before 3:30 Doris Wayne—she’s ten—started an argument with her younger brother Billy. Mrs. Wayne reproved them, told them to sit by the picnic table and restrain their voices. They did.” Mrs. Jason glacially smiled. “The origin of the argument—”

  “Well, that might lead us too far afield. Just—”

  “If the Court please—” Cecil Warner cleared his throat with sudden but stately sonority—“I submit that, to appease the curiosity of all present including myself, the casus belli between Doris and William Wayne, though doubtless not part of the res gestae, should be made known.” Cecil was even standing, making a production of it, announcing with eyebrows and twinkle that all he wanted was to have a bit of ponderous fun and relieve the tension: what could be more innocent?

  Risky, but Mann wanted to play along. He said: “Mm, yes. The rules of evidence should not debar us from ascertaining the gravamen of this ancillary conflict.” How’m I doing, Cecil? Gravamen, ancillary, each five dollars, please. Hunter looked uneasy, not prepared with an
y elephantine humor of his own.

  “Well, your Honor, Callista had been showing Doris Wayne how to make a squeak by blowing across a grass-blade held between the thumbs. The effect on neighboring eardrums is impressive. The argument I mentioned arose when Billy wished to perfect himself in the same peculiar art and was informed by his sister that he was not old enough.”

  Mann let the courtroom rumble while Cecil Warner sat down poker-faced. Now the jury could never quite forget that this was a girl who could play with children; that the children must have liked her; that children are often “judges of character” and so—maybe—

  Callista this morning was looking different. Since she first appeared Judge Mann’s gaze had been repeatedly drawn to her as he tried to discover the nature of the change. No make-up, dressed the same, the white blouse more wilted. But her cheeks showed faint color; her mouth was not set in such a bitter line. Once or twice when Warner whispered to her she smiled, a flash of light almost shocking in its unexpected sweetness. And when her thin face was relaxed, perhaps the only word for it this morning was—peacefulness. With no change in the circumstances, with the troubled honest woman on the stand obviously about to do a little more toward destroying her from a sense of duty, what had Callista Blake to do with peacefulness? He noticed also that redheaded Edith Nolan had managed to get a seat one row nearer the arena, and her candid blue eyes seldom left the face of her friend.

  “Mrs. Jason, did you notice Callista Blake talking with anyone but the children that afternoon?”

  “When she was leaving, I saw Dr. Chalmers standing by her car talking with her, and the children ran over to say good-bye.”

  “No one else?”

  Mrs. Jason shrugged. “Everything informal—acquaintances of long standing, no occasion for formal gestures.”

  “How was Miss Blake dressed that day?”

  “Brown skirt, green blouse, very nice with her color.”

  “Did you notice a shoulder-strap bag?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you aware of any constraint, or hostility, between Callista Blake and any of the guests at that picnic?”

  “Conclusions of the witness.”

  Mann said: “I’ll rule it admissible. But limit yourself to the single question, Mrs. Jason.”

  “The answer is no, I wasn’t aware of any such thing.”

  “Early this year, before the first of May, did you learn—by direct observation—of anything unusual about the relation existing between Callista Blake and James Doherty?”

  “Objection! Leading the witness. No relevance established.”

  “The relevance is direct, to the question of motive.”

  “Objection overruled.”

  “Exception.”

  “Shall I repeat my question, Mrs. Jason?”

  “You needn’t. The answer is no.”

  “What about after the first of May?”

  “I learned on the 12th of May that there was a love affair between Callista Blake and Jim Doherty.” Her brusque answer, shoving aside legal caution, came on a note of regret that Mann thought could not be false. Her mind precise, somewhat fanatic, Mrs. Jason would be a truth-teller at any cost. Never knowingly unjust according to her own standards, she might wish to temper duty with kindness, but her habits of self-rule would not allow much of that. “Shall I tell of this in my own words?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Very early on the morning of May 12th, about two o’clock, I was walking up Summer Avenue toward the junction with Walton Road. I take walks at night sometimes, to observe the activities of wild things, also because I sleep poorly. A short walk is sometimes helpful. I knew Mrs. Doherty was away for a visit of a few days with her parents in Philadelphia, by the way. As I walked down the road toward the Doherty house there were no lights in it. I was wearing tennis shoes, walking quietly. Near the Dohertys’ driveway I heard the voices of Jim Doherty and Callista, both very individual voices and of course familiar to me. They were standing together in the drive. Jim’s car was there, pointed toward the road. Moonlight—I was partly hidden by roadside bushes—I’m sure they didn’t see or hear me. As I was about to retreat, they sat down on the grass near the car and were then turned more toward me, would almost certainly have seen me if I had moved. The—the situation was such that I could not let them know I was there—too painful for all three of us.”

  “But I must now ask what if anything you saw or overheard.”

  “Oh—Jim said: ‘What are we going to do?’ And Callista said: ‘There aren’t so many solutions, Jimmy. Find a little strength anyway, it isn’t the end of the world.’ And he—I did not hear his answer.”

  “What else was said?”

  “Callista said: ‘The only real solution is one I’m not ready to face, Jimmy.’ I heard nothing else that she said.”

  “They were just sitting there on the grass?”

  She frowned. Judge Mann saw her lips move.

  “I’m afraid the jury didn’t hear you, Mrs. Jason.”

  “I said, she was holding his head to her breast.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Warner.”

  Warner stood by the defense table, one hand maintaining contact with it. “In that overheard conversation, Mrs. Jason, the name of Ann—Mrs. Doherty—was not mentioned by either of them?”

  “No, sir. I’ve repeated everything I heard.”

  “Did they learn of your presence there?”

  “No. I slipped away. I saw the car—well, if it matters—”

  “Go ahead.”

  “When I was nearly to my house, I saw the car come out of the drive and go toward the Walton Road junction.”

  “All you learned, actually, was that some sort of love relation had evidently developed between these two?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s all I learned.”

  “Mrs. Jason, I take you to be a literate person and a lover of truth. As such, I ask you to consider the thing you’ve quoted Callista as saying: ‘The only real solution is one I’m not ready to face.’ Would you agree that such a remark, made under the conditions you have described, could be interpreted in many different ways?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “For example, whatever it was she referred to may have seemed, at the time, to a nineteen-year-old girl, like ‘the only real solution,’ and yet the words don’t give another person any actual clue as to what she meant?”

  “That’s true.”

  “As a lover of truth, would you also agree that you do not know, at first hand, one single fact, or group of facts, which would justify an inference that the love relation between these two people was responsible for the death two months later of Ann Doherty?”

  T. J. Hunter was examining his fingernails with labored disgust. Mrs. Jason said at last: “That is true. I know they were in love with each other for a while; I know Ann died. So far as genuine knowledge is concerned, that’s all I do know, Mr. Warner.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  If he had been defense counsel, Mann was thinking, he would probably have gone too far with the woman, perhaps losing everything in the hope of winning a little more. For a lawyer I’m not the damn type. And Mann reminded himself that there is no type. You recognize a few general patterns, but the simplest human individual is not to be duplicated in a billion centuries.

  A ruddy gray-haired man was being sworn in. Paunchy, scant of breath, his prominent eyes had the directionless belligerency of a man in some habitual dread of being laughed at. “Nathaniel Judd, sir, senior partner in the firm of Judd and Doherty.”

  “The junior partner is Mr. James Doherty, correct?”

  “Yes, sir. Since 1955.”

  “Your business is real estate and general insurance?”

  “Yes, sir.�
� Judd spoke breathily on a while about that. Overweight, poor and changeable color, slow motions when his body’s natural habit should have been a jerky aggressiveness—maybe what he feared was not only laughter. Jack, with his comprehensive doctor’s glance, might have seen Nathaniel Judd as a candidate for a coronary, if the man hadn’t already suffered one. Judd was telling how his only son, killed in action in Korea, had been a close friend of James Doherty’s overseas. Doherty had written when the boy died, and had looked up Judd after his discharge. “Much as anyone could,” said short-breathed Judd, “he’s been like another son to me. Took him into the firm, 1955. Fine head for business. Good boy. Sixty-one myself, not too active nowadays.”

  “Did you meet Mrs. Doherty also that year—1955?”

  “Yes, sir, soon after they settled in Shanesville, they invited my wife and me to dinner. Very nice. Met her then. Played bridge.”

  “Did you meet the Chalmers family then too? And Miss Blake?”

  “That summer anyhow. Miss Blake was fifteen.” For a lumpily modeled face, Judd’s was expressive. When he mentioned her, the blobby features sagged.

  “You went to a picnic at the Chalmerses’, 7th of August, this year?”

  “Yes. Can’t add anything to what Ella Jason testified.”

  But Hunter fussed at it a while. Mann’s attention wandered. No individual like another, no one replaceable, not vague soft Judd for instance or any other. A commonplace: why go on worrying at it, insisting that no one is expendable? Expendable—the stink of that word lingered from a war already part forgotten, obscured by a more vast and quiet terror. Under the new terror the politics of 1959 had been squirming in a fantastic display of the passions of a disturbed ant hill. Expendable: well, the first to express this obscenity must have been some thick-browed operator of prehistory, who found his fellows could be manipulated by appropriate grunts and chest-thumpings into doing a concerted job of skull-busting and rape on those Bad People with a better campsite and interesting females. As the origi nal inventor of advertising was the one (man or woman?) who first got the idea of tying a rag on the genitals.