system was too distressingly close in nature as well as origin to the
absurdities of medieval justice, in which truth could be determined by
the beef of a hired champion. Were prosecutor and defender today any
more concerned with truth than those bumbling muscle-men? Were juries?
And judges?

"Counsel to the bench, please." They approached, Hunter light on his
feet, Warner slow and carrying too much weight in the middle. "When we
get started, gentlemen, I intend to bear down on the formalities, some.
I think it's that kind of case. Anything more we should discuss now?"

Warner's hand rested on the bench. Mann noticed the pale freckles, the
frailty of deep-crinkled flesh, blurred rims of the irises of Warner's
melancholy brown eyes. Cecil Warner was sixty-eight. "Don't think so,
Judge, unless T. J.'s got some load on his mind."

Hunter murmured: "Can't imagine a plea--poison and drowning."

"My God, do you imagine us taking one?" Mann frowned; Warner's anger was
rumbling too loudly. "We're here for acquittal. My girl didn't do it.
It's that simple, and that's where we stand."

Hunter nodded gravely, courteously, unmoved.

In the night, Terence Mann had felt he was not asking himself the right
questions. If as prosecutor he could frame them, allowing rational
objections from himself as defender, perhaps as witness (or accused?)
he might find answers acceptable to himself as judge, jury, and
appellate court. But under torment of insomnia the many selves of the
mind may abandon the congress of reason and start a rat-race. And
now--well, this was full tide; he could not let counsel stand there
wondering what ailed him. "That's it, then. Let the defendant be brought
in."

As they returned to their places he sketched on the doodle-pad two
egg-shaped boxers: tangled eyebrows for Cecil Warner, for Hunter too
much forehead and shovel chin.

A police matron appeared, and a court officer. A hush, then a murmur,
each voice swelling but slightly, the crescendo joining others in one

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