MRS. CARTWRIGHT

a story by Keith Barton

"Will you take the stand, Mrs. Cartwright?" he asked, and watched her with frank appreciation as she rose and made her way to the witness box. He was a dapper little man, Levantine in appearance, and he spoke with a shadow of a lisp. His clothes were expensive and well-cut and he toyed with a hand-painted cravat as he watched his client cross to the witness chair, raise a languid, exquisitely manicured hand as she was sworn in, and then sit and cross her legs with a feline grace and wait indifferently for the drama to begin.

What an actress she is! he thought, overcome with admiration. Or what an actress she might have been! he amended hastily. He looked at the jurors to see what effect Mrs. Cartwright had had upon them and found it difficult to restrain a smile. An all male jury. And then he turned back to Mrs. Cartwright, a reassuring look in his eyes.

His gaze drank her in for a moment, the black hat and veil, the smart black dress, the black silk stockings-There was something about black on a woman, he thought, something provocative, something-well, sexually provocative, if you really wanted to be honest with yourself, and he was momentarily shocked by his sensuality. But not this sort of black, he reminded himself guiltily, not this mourning black. There was something sexless about widows, something sexless in the way you thought about them, or in the way you should think about them.

He had had great difficulty in bringing his mind to bear on the case, for it had held no thrill of anticipation for him. The conclusion was foregone. It had presented no challenge, and now he felt an odd reluctance to proceed. But proceed he must, for Mrs. Cartwright was gazing at him with her calm, dark eyes and he suddenly remembered the retaining fee and he thought he should make some attempt to show he had earned it.

"Mrs. Cartwright," he began, in his warmest tones. "I have no wish to inflict this ordeal upon you, especially at a time like this, when you are so sorely bereaved, but the State has charged you with murder. More explicitly, the State has charged you with the murder of Cecil Kelsey, to which charge you have pleaded "Not Guilty." To you and to me, the questions I shall ask will seem stupid and superfluous, since what you did should win the approval of every redblooded man and woman in this country. Yet the State has charged you with murder, Mrs. Cartwright."

He paused, made a deprecating gesture, and smiled at Mrs. Cartwright. "However," he continued, "I intend to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that you were merely protecting your life and your honor, which is the God-given privilege of every human being, and that in shooting Cecil Kelsey in self-defense,

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