"Miss Welsh, a hypothetical question. If, when the defense opens, you learn that Miss Blake's Volkswagen had a garage check-up on Friday, August 14th, and that the license-plate holder was repaired at that time, would you, if recalled under oath, still claim you heard that plate rattling on Sunday evening, August 16th?" The passion of resentment simmering behind the woman's blinking eyes was a kind of sickness. Once or twice she opened her lips without sound; then: "All I got to say, it wasn't natural how men went crazy for her--not even pretty--any man, garage man, anything in pants--" Mann thought sharply: _Okay, that's torn it._ He saw Warner turn slowly, facing the bench. "Your Honor, I respectfully request that this witness be held in contempt of court." Mann flipped the doodle-pad face down. He said: "There will be a ten-minute recess. Counsel in chambers, please. The jury will remain." Entering the dingy retreat off the courtroom, he was aware of T. J. Hunter standing aside to let Warner precede him. "You don't want to toil up to the sixth floor, do you? I suppose I could locate a nip of something." Warner said: "No, Judge, I'm too fat to ride that thing you call an elevator. It busts, I'm liable for have-his-carcass." "All right--shouldn't anyway. We'll settle for a smoke." Warner sat down, an old man and weary, impersonally accepting the impersonal courtesy when Hunter snapped a lighter for his cigarette. His fat hand waved aside the curling fantasy of smoke between him and his enemy. "Okay, T. J., I think you asked for it. Why couldn't you establish _corpus delecti_ with Herb Chalmers? Could've, no sweat." "Grab off a natural defense witness when I don't have to?" "What makes you think I want Herb?" Hunter chuckled and strolled to the window. "Just fishing." Mann asked: "What's your view, T. J.?" The back of Hunter's neck was calm. "Just among us girls, Welsh certainly goofed. Honest, I sweated blood trying to give her the rudiments of courtroom behavior. Seems it was mostly hooting down a rain-barrel." Warner said: "They goofed the same way over Joan of Arc." Hunter swung around and exclaimed: "After all, Cecil!" "No comparison between the principals," Warner said, "except age and sex. You admire Joan? I don't, much. But there's an obvious parallel between twentieth- and fifteenth-century attitudes toward the accused maverick. Takes more than five hundred years for the human race to learn anything important." His slow voice was acquiring a snarl. "You know, T. J.--you know what the newspapers have been doing. Far as Welsh is concerned, I don't care a fractionated brass-bound tinker's fart whether she's held in contempt or not. I do care about keeping this thing from turning into a witchcraft trial. I'm not sitting peaceful on my fat ass, understand, while they turn my girl into a succubus."