She gave up also another effort to interpret the almost destroyed black-pencil picture below the heart, probably someone else's contribution. A thick phallus not quite erect, a baby with the facial features gone, perhaps just a round-petaled flower or geometric design? No use. Call it a Rorschach blot--but even for that, the months of seeing it had made it impossible to see it at all. Callista turned away, glancing with an amusement that held the warmth of gratitude at the third and last writing--off in the corner, tiny and squeezed, it had almost escaped the washrag's faint assault, and still transmitted a cocky, not too cryptic message: WE DID IT IN A SNOBANK ON LINCAN'S BIRTHDAY 1957. In the death house too they would feed her well and treat her very kindly, within the meaning of the statute. Callista examined this, perplexed, trying to recall what form of the auxiliary verb her thought had used. _Did the gray cells say WILL or WOULD?_ She journeyed again, to the window that for all its cramped ugliness was a friend, because of its messages of night and day, cloud, sunlight, and the wheeling of doves. And returning, she made a discovery, with the suddenness of sunshine. She could read the red writing up there on the wall, the other name. Amazing that it could have eluded her so long: DAVY & ME. Bewildering too the quick starting of tears to her eyes. _Why, I never cry. Well--once, when Edith helped me talk._ DAVY & ME. "This helps too, dear." She must have said that aloud, for the cell was alive with the memory of a private sound. _They couldn't take away the Me, could they? Shoplifter, whore, drunk, another murderer maybe? Doesn't matter. Went out of here to die, get drunk, go back to work in a cathouse or pushing dope--I don't care. They couldn't quite do it to you._ Down the corridor, keys rattled. _They couldn't take away the Me. Ever._ 3 Once a trial judge or jury has determined, on conflicting evidence, a question of fact, that determination is final. It is binding upon the appellate courts. If there has been an error of law the defendant has a remedy by appeal. If there has been an erroneous finding of fact the defendant has no remedy. He is forever bound by the finding of the trial judge or of the jury. Now it should be obvious that trial judges and juries aren't that good. ERLE STANLEY GARDNER, _The Court of Last Resort_ I Cecil Warner remembered the night, a corridor of hours, a windy darkness of winter streets, a homecoming to solitude and too much thought and the uncertain consolation of sleep.