John Friar said, "Julius is taking on your def-your case, Cyprian. And you know what that means!"
"I most definitely do!" Cyprian hoped they wouldn't hear the trembling in his throat. "Is there anyone in America who doesn't?"
Magnussen grunted. He turned away and folded his length in the middle and sat on the edge of the gray bed. He looked at Cyprian and said, "Better tell me about it," then moved a little and added, "Sit down here."
Cyprian found himself obeying. But he couldn't keep on meeting the dark eyes, and gave up trying to. He looked up at John Friar and essayed a smile. He said, "Of course," in Magnussen's direction- and then, faintly, all the fear and horror of memory breaking loose in his head again, "Where-where-d'you want me to start?"
"At the beginning, Mr. Morse," Magnussen said, and Cyprian drew a deep breath to still the quaking inside him.
But it wouldn't be stilled. It spread from his body to his mind. He was being thrust into nightmare again-
***
-I can't… I can't…
-Would it be easier if I asked you questions?
Questions. The pattern returning. Fear-questions-fear fear- fatigue. But worse now. Hiding from friends not enemies.
-I have to ask you this: did you kill this woman Astrid Halmar?
-No-no-no!… There was a man… he went through the window…
-You know of no enemies Miss Halmar might have had?
-No. How should I? I-
-So you think the murderer was a stranger, a prowler?
-How-how do I know what he was! Or who! I don't know anything…
Questions. Questions. Fear. Thinking furiously before each answer without letting the pause be evident. Trying to screen the vortex of his mind with caution. Time standing still again. He had always been here. He would always be here.
-So you were in the bathroom for more than an hour?
-Yes-yes. I went there just after dinner. Just as-just after the maid left the apartment.
-Were you feeling unwell? Is that why you stayed so long? Had something you ate upset your stomach?
A straw. A solid straw. Snatch it!
-Yes. That's right. I was sick… It was the oysters…
More questions. More fear. Feeling the dark eyes always on his face. Not meeting them.
-And you were just about to come out of the bathroom when you heard a cry. Am I right?
Another straw. Snatch it!
-Yes. Yes. Astrid screamed…
-And you ran out, and along the passage to the living room?
-Yes.
-While you were running along the passage, did you happen to notice Miss Halmar's robe, lying on the floor?
-Robe? What-no, I don't think-
-Her robe was found by the door to the living room. The killer -however he gained entry to the apartment-must have struggled with her, snatched at her, in the passageway there, pulling off the robe as she fled into the living room. I am wondering-did you notice it?
A straw?
-I think I did. There was something-soft on the floor. It caught my shoe…
-Now, Mr. Morse, as you entered the living room, you saw the figure of a man just disappearing out of the window?
-Yes. Yes.
-And you saw Miss Halmar's body on the floor and ran to it?
-Yes. Of course I did. I-I had to try and help her…
-Naturally. Now, as your fingerprints are on the logpick, Mr. Morse, you must have handled it? Maybe you touched it-picked it up-when you went to her? It was in your way, was it?
A sudden lightening. As if some frightful pressure were easing. Fear actually receding. Knowing now that these were no accidental straws, but material for a raft. A life raft.
-Yes. That was it. I remember now. It-it was lying across her body. I-I picked it up and-threw it down, away from her.
-And in your shock and horror, when you found she was dead, you forgot the telephone and ran blindly out to seek help, and then collapsed?
-Yes. Yes. That's it-exactly.
***
Questions. Questions. But not minding them now. Being eager for them. And being able to meet the dark eyes, keeping his own eyes on them.
The pattern had changed. Fear was there, as a permanent lowering background, but in front of it was hope…
The hope persisted, even when he was alone once more. It seemed to widen the cell, and raise its roof. It set the blood flowing through his head again, so that his brain worked fast and clear and he started to elaborate on the structure Julius Magnussen had begun to build for him.
This work-and work it was-carried him through the dragging days and weeks with a surprising minimum of anguish. It even fortified him to some extent against the shock of the answering cablegram from Charles, which didn't arrive until several days after he had expected it.
The cable ran: Hospitalized bad kickup malaria Flying back immediately released maybe two weeks Hang on Charles.
And that was bad news. Bad from two angles-that he would have to wait before Charles could get to him, that poor Charles was sick.
But whereas, before the first meeting with Julius Magnussen, Cyprian would have been crushed almost to extinction by these twin misfortunes, now they seemed merely to serve as a spur to his fortitude and his hope and his labor. So that he clenched his teeth and redoubled his efforts to produce appropriate "memories"-until he reached the point of being sure that at least Friar and Magnussen believed him, that he almost believed himself.
***
But it was as well for him that he wasn't present at any of the several meetings between Julius Magnussen and John Friar alone, or he would have heard talk which would have turned his hope-lightened purgatory into hopeless hell.
-A bad case, John. Don't hide it from yourself. We'll need a miracle.
-Good God, Julius, d'you mean you yourself don't believe-
-Stop. That's not a question I want to be asked. Or answer. Leave it at what I said. A bad case. No case at all.
-But the evidence against him's all circumstantial!
-And therefore the best, in spite of what they say in novels.
-But surely it's all open to two interpretations! Like-like his fingerprints on that poker.
-And the splashes of blood on him and his clothing? Have you thought of that, John? Splashes. Not smears, which are what should be there from raising her, examining her, trying to help her…
-But the boy's gentle, Julius! There's no violence in him. He couldn't even kill a fly that was pestering him.
-Maybe not. And don't think that's not going to be used. For more than all it's worth. For God's sake, it's practically all we have! You know the young man, John: tell me, how would he react to the suggestion of an alternative plea?
-You mean "not guilty, or guilty by reason of insanity"!-that gag! Good God, Julius-he wouldn't go for that if you tortured him.
-H'mm. I was afraid that would be the answer.
-Look now, what is all this? What are you trying to do-tell me you won't take the case after all? Is that it?
-Cool off, John. I'm trying to save your prodigy's life, that's all.
-I don't get this! Julius Magnussen, of all people, scared of a setup like this!… Remember that police photograph you showed me? Well, think of it. Not the head wounds, the others. Think of 'em! Cyprian could not have been responsible for that frightful sort of brutality. Think of what was done to that girl, man!… Can't you see- can't you?
-Oh, yes, John, I can see. A great many things…
***
But Cyprian knew nothing of such conversations, and it seemed to him, every time he saw his counsel, that more and more confidence radiated from that towering, loose-limbed figure; that the penetrating dark eyes looked always more cheerful.
So he rode out the rest of the dragging days and nights and came in good enough order to the morning when the trial was to open. It was a Thursday, and he liked that because he had had a fancy, since an episode in his boyhood, that Thor's was his lucky day. Further, a bright autumnal sun was glittering over New York and even-a rare occurrence in the weeks he had been there-pushing rays through the bars of the small window high up in the wall of the cell.
He dressed with great, almost finicking care. He drank a whole pot of coffee and then sent for more. He even ate a little of his breakfast.
He was ready and waiting a full half-hour before they came for him. He spent it pacing the cell, smoking too much and too fast, glancing occasionally toward the pile of letters which he hadn't read and had no more intention of ever reading than he had of looking in court at any of the reporters' faces. He didn't think of what was before him today. He daren't think of that, in the same way-only infinitely multiplied-that he never thought about what was coming on a first night.
So he considered, with furious intensity, anything and everything except what was coming. The sure hope at the back of his mind must be kept inviolate.
He came naturally to thoughts of Charles. Every day he had been sure this must be the day when he would hear again-and every day he had been disappointed. He had wired again, and he had written-just a note which John Friar had air-mailed for him. But still no answer. Charles must be very ill indeed. Or-a wonderful idea which he dare not dwell upon for more than one delicious instant- Charles was well again and had arrived in New York, and was on his way here.
The third alternative he shuddered away from. The thought of Charles dead was so black, so bleak, so dreadful, that it would have driven him back in escape to thoughts of the immediate future if he hadn't been saved by the arrival of his guard.
For once he was glad to see the fellow. He said, "Do we start now?" and moved toward the door.
But the man shook his head. "They ain't here yet," he said. "Take it easy." He drew a folded yellow envelope from a pocket and held it out to Cyprian. "Sent over from Friar's," he said. "He reckoned you might like to have it right away."
Cyprian almost snatched it from the outstretched hand. His heart was pounding, and sudden color had tinged his pallid face. With fingers which he didn't know were shaking, he fumbled at the flimsy envelope, ripped it open at last, and unfolded the sheet it contained.
And read:
Better Out next Wednesday will fly arriving Thursday Charles
.
The new color deepened in Cyprian's face. He read the cable again-and again. Here was the best of all possible omens. Almost as good as his wild daydream of a few moments before-that perhaps Charles would arrive in person. On second thought, perhaps better. Because now he was supremely confident, and he would so far prefer to have all this ugliness behind him when Charles returned; out of sight and wrapped up and put away, to be disinterred and examined, if ever, at a safe distance in time and then only for personal historic interest.
He moved his shoulders unconsciously, as if in reflex to the removal of a heavy weight. He folded the strip of paper carefully, and stowed it away in his breast pocket. And then looked at the guard and smiled, and said softly, "Thank you. Thank you very much…"
There was a tramping of feet in the corridor-and two uniformed men he had never seen before. One of them pushed the cell door wide and looked at him with no expression and said, "All set?"
Cyprian smiled at this man too, and walked out into the corridor quickly, lightly, almost jauntily…
But there was no lightness in him when he came back eight hours later, and no square of sunshine from the barred window. There was only night outside and here the hard cold light of the single bulb overhead.
His face was lined and wax-white. His shoulders sagged and his body seemed not to fill his clothes. He lurched on his feet while they opened the door of the cell, and one of the men gripped his arm and said, "Take it easy."
They put him inside and he dropped on the edge of his cot and sat there limp and head-hanging, his eyes wide and staring at the floor and not seeing it.
The escort went away and his own guard came, and sometime later the doctor. He couldn't get food down, and they put him to bed and gave him a sedative. He slept almost at once, and they left him.
He lay like a log for three hours, until the deadly numbness of fatigue had gone and the drug had eased its grip. And then he began to murmur and thrash around on the cot-and in a moment gave a harsh choked cry and sat upright, awake.
He remembered. He tried not to, he fought, but he couldn't stop memory from working. He remembered everything-at first in jumbled pictures, then in echoing phrases; at last, concentrated upon the gray-haired, gray-eyed figure of the District Attorney, he recalled the whole of the clear and ruthlessly dispassionate Opening for the Prosecution. The speech which, period by period, point by careful point, had not only stripped Cyprian Morse of all cover but had shattered all remnant of hope in him.
What had happened after the speech didn't matter. The irreparable damage to Cyprian Morse, the conviction of Cyprian Morse, had been brought about; those witnesses, the silly endless procession of them who answered silly endless questions, they were just so many more nails in his coffin. After the speech, which showed such complete, such eerie knowledge and understanding, as if the speaker had not only seen everything that had happened but had seen it with Cyprian's mind and Cyprian's eyes-after that, all else seemed time-prolonging and sadistic anticlimactic…