"Well, no, sir, that calls for pretty tricky machinery. Still, the way we're growing all the time--" "Interior finish?" "No, sir, that's mostly factory. Of course, in a pinch--" Edith heard Hunter begin snarling: "What possible bearing--" "None, sir. I just wanted to make sure Mr. Clipp hadn't left out anything. No further questions." During the short courtroom roar, checked by the gavel, Edith thought she could read exasperated forgiveness in the face of Judge Terence Mann. But foreman Peter Anson, she saw, was not amused, nor Hoag, nor Francis Fielding. Business is serious: to make fun of a man when he's advertising is something like interrupting him in the men's room. State Trooper Carlo San Giorgio, solemn, deceptively fresh-faced and young, followed Mr. Clipp. He had stopped a blue and white Pontiac, license JD1081, on Walton Road two miles beyond the city line, at 8:34 P.M., Sunday, August 16th. The driver was a young woman who gave her name as Mrs. James Doherty, which agreed with her driver's license. Her driving had been unsteady, with some wavering over the white line. "Was she driving fast, exceeding the limit?" "No, sir, rather slow. Just unsteady." "Did she seem in good command of herself when you spoke to her?" "Yes, but I did ask if she'd been drinking a little." "Was her response satisfactory to you as a police officer?" "Well--yes, sir, it was." "Did you notice any smell of alcohol on her breath?" "A trifle." San Giorgio fidgeted. "Just barely noticeable." "But according to your observation, she wasn't what you'd call drunk, is that right?" "No, sir, she certainly wasn't. Spoke coherently, understood what I said--real polite and--and nice." "Did anything in her appearance suggest she might be ill?" "She was slightly hoarse. I'd stopped her car where there was a pretty good light from a house across the road, and I thought her eyes looked very slightly inflamed. Enough to suggest she might be--oh, perhaps coming down with a cold. You understand, sir, these were very slight things, otherwise I couldn't have let her drive on." Back of all that, Edith knew--back of the hedging, the slowly chosen words, back of Hunter's questions blunted by the hearsay rule--was the thing that San Giorgio knew and keenly remembered and could not say. Warner's dark eyes had narrowed to cold watchfulness, and Judge Mann's pencil was still. There wasn't any hearsay rule in Mr. Lamson's office. But here in the arena, Carlo San Giorgio couldn't say: "_She said she'd had one little shot of brandy. And I said: 'Oh well, Miss, I guess we won't throw the book at you for that.'_"