"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?"